An Intervaclass="underline" The Time-Stop Stops
Eventually, it happens. A child sees a flower — maybe a lilac, or a rose — and insists that it has grown since he saw it last. He is young enough to notice.
The following day, a dog gives birth in some bathtub, to the amazement of her owners, who didn’t realize she was pregnant. In a different place altogether, numbers appear on someone’s pay stub: the date. Rumors start, and people grow optimistic, and with their optimism comes sundown, followed by sunrise the next morning. The last stubborn Time Counters faint on side roads, relieved of their duty, useless. For long days, beds are squeaking with hope, and a new generation is conceived.
As can be expected, regaining a state of normalcy is not a thing that happens overnight. A good example: when time resumes, women who’ve been trapped in inactive pregnancies give birth within forty-eight hours, regardless of how far along they were when time stopped. The babies almost always survive, but life is never easy for them, with their transparent skin and unfinished features; people call them the half-baked, and generally consider them to be not completely human.
And yet somehow, in spite of the half-baked walking among us, in spite of mad, ersatz Time Counters who walk the streets of our cities mumbling numbers, convinced that time has not resumed, in spite of the various inedible, temporally corrupted fruits and vegetables that the earth, after its long stagnation, produces for at least a year — people forget. People forget because they choose to do so, because remembering allows for the possibility of recurrence. People forget, and make cardamom tea, and fall in love, and buy ties. On Valentine’s Day, they pay for overpriced dinners. Salmon in their mouth, they talk about their planned vacation for the summer. At weddings, they try to guess who the next person to get married will be, and they smile at the thought of the entire family together in one place again, the joy it will bring. Every moment, they wait for the next. Every day, they think about the future. They forget.
I can say this: I never forgot. I found it curious that people around me did. I remembered, and I knew that time would stop again, only to resume again, only to stop again. It seemed obvious, like gravity, or death.
2001: Phil
We met during the next time-stop, in 2001. By then I was a soaper; Phil came to see me in the Public Cafeteria, where I always held preliminary sessions with potential clients. These sessions were necessary because often people had different ideas about the kind of service I was providing. After the first misunderstanding, I realized I needed to take the time to go over the basics in advance: you will be cleaner than you’ve ever been, but there will be no sexual activity of any kind, that sort of thing. Given my past, I couldn’t risk any confusions about illegal matters. Nowadays I charge for preliminary sessions, too, even though there’s no actual soaping involved, but back then I had about ten regular clients and maybe six or seven here-and-theres, and I thought if I played too strict I wouldn’t get new business. I was young. I didn’t know yet that life usually worked the other way around.
At the Cafeteria, Phil looked at me, and right away I knew where things were going. It seemed pointless to waste time, so I said, You remind me of someone: a man I had an affair with. I do? he asked. Yeah, I said, only his eyes were different and he was Israeli and my officer in the army. He smiled. Was the sex good? he asked. Phenomenal, I said. He liked this answer, which was a lie: the officer’s philosophy was, anything over four minutes is a waste of time. But men want to hear that sex can be phenomenal; it opens possibilities.
I figured, it’s a time-stop; people do all kinds of crazy things. Once the clocks start ticking again, he’ll remember that forbidden fruits aren’t often worth eating and go back to his wife.
But it was my profession, not his wife, that brought up problems between us. Phil thought I shouldn’t charge him anymore. I said, Then I can’t soap you; it’s against union rules. He said, That’s just an excuse, you’re not someone who’d let unions control her. Eventually, I agreed — though I really needed the money — but our problems didn’t stop. Clients were just showing up at my door whenever they needed a soaping, since setting up appointments during a time-stop is practically impossible. Phil would get incredibly jealous every time I left him to tend to someone else. “Your hands all over his body” and all that bullshit. I said, If you want to be jealous, at least be original about it. He said, Bambi, believe me, I’m as original as it gets.
And he was. He was a strong man with a child’s heart. Sometimes he would try to look tough, or even say something mean, but I would look at him and see he was only asking for love.
* * *
Clocks were still at a halt when I came home one day to find him collecting his things, stuffing socks and shirts into brown paper bags. I felt every muscle in my body stiffen, and not only because I didn’t want him to leave; I’d told him my real name, which was something I very rarely did in those days — the law people weren’t after me anymore, but you can never be too careful. I stood there and looked at him. Finally, I said, Look, I’m a professional soaper. That’s what I do. What did you expect? This isn’t about that, he said. You miss your wife? I asked. I’m not going back to my wife, he said. I don’t understand, I said. I thought you were the one, you know that? he said; but lately I’m not sure. I have to be sure, Bambi. You have to be sure? I asked; I hoped that if I repeated it he’d realize how ridiculous he sounded. He looked right at me. This isn’t working, he said.
For a while, I stayed in bed, ignored the bell when clients rang it. Soon after, time resumed.
2011, Part 1: Phil’s Return
All of a sudden, he came back.
Dolly P. offered to have a colleague run a soaping piece centered on me. We’ll use stock pictures, she said, to be safe. You won’t use my real name, I said, but I think real pictures are fine. After so many years with no one after me, I felt it was a small risk. And perhaps the truth is, we all forget the things we most need to forget; after living a careful life for so long, I was ready to believe I could be free. And I wasn’t wrong — no law people showed up. The photo featured me with gloves on, scrubbing a woman’s arm with a toothbrush. I enjoyed looking at it. And, apparently, so did Phil.
At the door he said, You haven’t changed a bit. Time-stops will do that to you, I told him; I’m younger than I am. Actually, that’s not accurate, Phil said; studies show that after time-stops, cells grow quickly, and the body makes up for lost time. Already we were arguing. And yet all I wanted to do was hug him; he was new and familiar and I realized how much I’d missed him.
I wanted to ask where he’d gone when he’d left ten years ago, where he’d been since, but predictable questions only lead to predictable answers. Instead, I offered watermelon. We could never share one when we were together, since fruits don’t grow during time-stops; it was one of the few things I’d missed, in those days. It’s my favorite fruit.
Phil and I sat on the floor and he popped the melon open. Red oozed all over the rug, and for a second I wanted to suck it all in, like a vacuum cleaner, like a madwoman. But I didn’t, because by then I was old enough to know that most people can’t tell passion from weakness.