Herschel interrupts me while I’m staring at The Initials in the downstairs hallway. She’s bending over and taking books out of her cabinet. That’s what they call lockers in my school. As if changing the word could change the fact that it’s still a door with a lock on it.
I try to look away from her, but I can’t. Or maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I like to suffer.
“Did you hear me?” Herschel says.
I manage to shift my eyes from The Initials to Herschel. It’s not a great trade-off. His head is covered with his favorite oversized black felt yarmulke, a billboard for the devout.
“We all have our loves,” I say. “I have girls. You have the Holy Land.”
“That’s apples and oranges,” Herschel says.
“Or grapefruits in her case,” I say.
Herschel scowls. He used to like talking about girls’ breasts. Now a little fruit metaphor sends him over the edge.
“The way you look at them. It’s not right.”
“How do I look at them?”
“Like you’re seeing HaShem.”
“They’re as close to HaShem as I get,” I say.
Herschel is accusing me of elevating girls to the level of God. This would be the ultimate in sacrilege, like worshipping golden idols or slaughtering the fatted calf.
“They’re people like us,” Herschel says. “They make mistakes, they struggle.”
“How would you know?” I say.
Herschel hasn’t had a single girlfriend in high school, and since getting back from Israel, he hasn’t wanted one.
“I’m reminding you that Judi is just a girl,” Herschel says.
“Please don’t use her name,” I say, interrupting him.
Because I don’t want to hear it. I don’t even want to hear the syllables come together. Syllables form sounds, sounds create meaning, meaning coalesces into a name—
And this name has the power to destroy me.
A name should not have so much power. Herschel is right about that.
There are other girls in school, cute girls. I get mini crushes from time to time—an Israeli exchange student passes through or one of the hot girls suddenly gets rebellious and hikes her skirt up an extra inch—but the crushes never last.
Nobody is like The Initials.
That’s why I protect myself from the name. I don’t want to hear it, and I never say it.
Maybe then I won’t think of her so much.
Maybe then I can forget.