And when did it ever really come up, anyway? When was the fact that he wasn’t an Israelite ever a practical consideration? Only with Ulpan. Only in that one instance. And he could so easily make of that the opposite of what he’d made of it in Nurse Clyde’s office. It was the easiest thing in the world to flip: Nakamook could just as easily decide to believe that my giving him a doctored copy of Ulpan—a copy I’d made specifically for him — signified my loyalty to him, my friendship, my trust. And it did. And, in so many words, I’d explained that. I had taught him to build a weapon intended for Israelites. I had trusted him enough to share with him the means of protection I’d given my first brothers. I had, in all but name, made of him a brother. Could the name really be that important to him?
He’d either been afraid, or he was no longer my friend. Both options were suck, but I definitely preferred the former. If he had been too afraid to fight Bam, I would have a sad and ashamed best friend who wasn’t as brave as he or I had imagined. If he had quit being my friend, though, I would have no best friend at all.
I looked over my shoulder and saw, by the way Benji was bent, that he was writing.
Good, I thought.
For a while I wrote potential responses to the forthcoming letter to see which one might be the most comforting:
I probably would have been too frozen with fear to help you, too, Benji.
Because I’ve never seen you helpless, I bet I wouldn’t think it possible that you ever could be, even if your feet were alternately kicking at and dangling in the air while some giant’s arms were wrapped crushingly around your chest right before my eyes, so don’t sweat it; I understand.
Bam’s too big for any one kid, and although the Side of Damage would have surely helped you take him down if only you’d led them in his direction, if I was you I probably wouldn’t have realized I had an army either, so stunned would I be at the sight of my best friend’s humiliation.
Botha’s voice suddenly gloated from the opposite side of the Cage. “Something to share with the cless, Miss Rotstain?” he said.
I revolved. So did everyone else.
Jelly threw a folded note into Mangey’s lap and Mangey tried to swallow the note, but Botha snapped it from between her teeth with his claw before she could get it all the way in her mouth.
“Let’s see,” Botha said to the class, once he’d wiped the note’s saliva on the wall of Mangey’s carrel and read it through to himself. He said, “Says here, in the handwriting of Mister Nackamake, ‘Bibey, will you be my bibey?’ And then, beneath it, in the handwriting of Miss Rotstain, ‘Mate with me after school boy the bus circle? Yours, Jaily.’ Seems there’s a badding rowmentz happening in this clessroom of ours. Well, whuddya think Nackamake? You gonna mate with Jaily boy the bus circle?”
“Wherever she wants,” Nakamook said to Botha. “I’m in love with her. Anyone in here have a problem with that?” he said to the Cage. He was standing. “Anyone in here wanna make a pun about it?”
“Stap two,” said Botha.
No one made a pun.
I was thinking: I get humiliated, and Nakamook courts a girl? Courts — wait — courts Jelly?
“C’mon,” Benji said to us, “pun’s right there for the taking. Right before your very ears. Jelly asks to meet me and the Monitor tells you about it in order to embarrass me, only he can’t pronounce the word ‘meet,’ so he says ‘mate,’ which is a verb as well as a noun.”
“Enough, Nackamake. You’re at stap three as of now.”
Benji said, “I asked you all a question. If someone who knows how to speak English says to you ‘Benji went to the bus circle to mate with Jelly,’ what would that person be saying? What’s ‘mate’ mean when it’s a verb?”
“You’ve got a detantion now. Anyone answers him’s gonna get a detantion, too.”
“If anyone answers my question,” Benji said to us, “I promise I won’t punish you for it.”
There was silence. No one was going to say anything. Least of all me, thinking: Benji wasn’t scared. Benji was done with you. Benji’s been done with you. Out in the field, he was already done with you, there’s no other explanation; if he’d not been done with you, then here in the Cage he’d be feeling ashamed, apologetic and ashamed, not in the mood to court Jelly Rothstein, flirt with Jelly Rothstein, whatever they’ve been doing. Nakamook was done with you. And now you’re done with him.
Then Jelly said, “Sex.”
And Botha said, “Detantion for the star-crest lovers, both.”
And that’s when I thought: Jelly’s an Israelite.
And I knew Nakamook knew I was thinking it. And I knew Nakamook had thought I was thinking it before I’d actually thought it.
And I saw that was the practical consideration that mattered to him — not the doctored copy of Ulpan. What mattered was that I didn’t think Israelites should — or really even could — marry Gentiles. What mattered to him was that I wouldn’t believe in their marriage if they ever got married. I’d basically told him as much during Tuesday’s detention in the library, when he kept trying to talk to me about June converting. He’d been thinking about Jelly. About him and Jelly. I could see that now. But what? How long had they been together, anyway? They flirted, I remembered, on Tuesday at lunch—“Say that for instance I was in love with you, Jelly,” he’d said, “and Mangey started saying I shouldn’t be because you bite people…” he’d said. “Are you in love with me?” she’d said — but both of them were flirts, and I’d thought it was just banter, but nothing was just banter, nothing was ever just banter, and no, it wasn’t true that both of them were flirts, Jelly wasn’t a flirt, and yet the two of them were flirting on Tuesday at Lunch, and I’d somehow missed it, or maybe not so much missed it (I couldn’t have missed it if I was now recalling it) as failed to consider what their flirting might mean — and I remembered Jelly’s email from Wednesday night, where after giving me her news about the Shovers and their scarves, she kept going on about what now essentially seemed like a proposal that we all double-date after school at the lake—“it should probably just be me and June and you and Benji”—which made it seem, by the tone, at least now it seemed this way, if I was remembering right… made it seem by the tone that they hadn’t hooked up yet; it seemed like Jelly was trying to get into a situation where the two of them could hang out with June and I, who she probably figured would go off to make out, leaving her alone with Nakamook, so…unless maybe I was wrong about the tone. Maybe they’d been hooked up for a while in secret and Jelly’s tone was toney in that email because she and Benji had been keeping their couplehood hidden and wanted to… what? To premiere it to me and June? But why would they keep that kind of secret? If they were in love with each other, why would they care what anyone else thought? Why hide it? Had they thought I’d disapprove or… If they’d disapproved of me and June, I wouldn’t care, or rather I’d care, I guess I would care, but I wouldn’t hide that I loved her; I’d tell them to get over it… But if they did keep that kind of secret from me, for whatever reason, then why would they choose to premiere it when… unless maybe they thought all along, before I’d ever said anything about it, that I didn’t think Israelites and Gentiles should be together, and then, once I told everyone I was in love with June, they thought that maybe they’d been wrong about me, or that I’d changed my mind about Israelites and Gentiles, because they knew—thought they knew — that June was a Gentile, and so now they could tell me that they were together… But… And Benji’d called her Tuesday night, after that conversation in detention. June. He’d called June. Had he called her to tell her she — had he told her I thought she was an Israelite? Had he told her I needed her to be an Israelite? What if he had?…Because she hadn’t hesitated, there on the stage; she hadn’t hesitated for a second to say to me, “I’ll convert”—she’d said, “You don’t have to be so dark. I’ll convert” and — and that lack of hesitation, it had meant a lot to me but — if Benji’d explained to her… no… It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter anyway: I’d said she was an Israelite and Adonai had failed to object, He’d sent no No! through my bones, through my muscles, my skin, no No! He hadn’t. Why June hadn’t hesitated was totally beside the point, and even considering it — questioning her motives, the authenticity of her Israeliteness… It was like my dad had explained the night before in my bedroom, about being scared about me; how finding out he hadn’t known that I’d been getting in fights made him scared that there were other things he didn’t know that he was supposed to know, and so now he was scared about things which I knew for a fact that he shouldn’t be scared about. But no, no way, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all. It was less called for than that, even. I’d found out nothing. This was all hypothetical. Why was I getting so hypothetical? I was getting worked up about one thing in order to avoid facing another. Yes. That’s what I was doing. I was thinking about June instead of thinking about Benji, who I should have been thinking about. About him and Jelly. Either they’d been together for a while in secret, or they’d only recently hooked up — or maybe they hadn’t even hooked up yet; maybe they’d only been talking, flirting; maybe they’d only liked each other, loved each other—“Wherever she wants,” he’d said, “I’m in love with her”—loved each other for the past couple days, which, how serious could that really be? Well but actually, well, so… Yes so maybe very serious, but that wasn’t the point… It wasn’t what mattered. It didn’t matter. What mattered was Benji’d gotten pissed off and silent in detention on Tuesday when I cut off our conversation about conversion — He’d said, “I’m just asking,” and I’d answered him, Why? You wanna marry me? — and then, when I gave him the stolen Coke and the passes, he’d gotten unpissed, which meant he must have decided, at that time, to believe I didn’t mean it; he must have decided to believe that I didn’t mean it when I’d told him that I didn’t believe Gentiles could or should marry Israelites, plus all that implied, and all that seemed to imply — to imply to him; seemed to imply to him—and whether he’d been with Jelly for a while, or just a couple days, or even just a couple hours — however long it had been — he, ever since I’d given him the Coke and the passes, must have been telling himself that I didn’t really mean it, that when push came to shove or worse came to worse (worse came to worst?) or whatever stock phrase he’d imagined best suited the occasion, I would change my beliefs—overcome my beliefs, is how he’d think of it — he’d thought that I would change my beliefs for practical reasons — because it isn’t practical to believe that Israelites and Gentiles shouldn’t be together if your best friend was a Gentile and his girlfriend an Israelite — or that I’d change my beliefs for reasons of loyalty — because it’s disloyal to believe that Israelites and Gentiles shouldn’t be together when your best friend’s a Gentile and his girlfriend an Israelite. He’d thought. He’d thought that once I learned that he and Jelly were together, I’d be okay with it, that I’d “come around” or “see the light” or realize that what “really mattered” to me wasn’t what I’d thought “really mattered” to me but what he’d thought I should think “really mattered” to me = Until he found out I’d doctored Ulpan, Benji’d thought I was just talking, all along just talking.