Matterial

He didn't leave the house until he'd finished drawing himself a face.

It took a while.
Everything always took him a while.

First a base layer, too dark, so there'd be something to draw on at all.
Then eyebrows, thicker than the ones he used to have, so a gaze would have somewhere to sit.
The nose he gave up on today.
Last of all, he drew himself lips.

The lips he usually drew slowly, with the concentration of a Torah scribe, because without lips people get scared.
It's even scarier than having no eyes.

When he was done he stood in front of the mirror a second and checked whether he passed as a person.

Not a full person, God forbid.
Not opaque.
Not one of those who walk into a room ahead of their own voice, with shoulders, knees, sweat, presence.
Just a person you could identify.
A person with some kind of front.
A person the woman at the register could say "you're next" to without looking through him at the protein bar shelf.

He went out into the street.
It was five thirty, the worst hour for the transparent.
All the opaques got off work and the street turned emotionally difficult.

Cut-off tank tops, tiny shorts, crop tops.
Served to the city like a tasting menu.

The truth? Fair enough.
A guy who never gives himself a pass deserves to be known and appreciated.

He, on the other hand, wore layers.
Always layers.
Wide fabric, soft, draping.
Trying to manufacture an edge where the body no longer does the work.
A sleeve with a little volume, so the arm would have an end.
A thick collar, so the head wouldn't look like it was floating.
The fashion of the transparent put on display what character had made disappear.

Gadi still remembered how in your teens you could blow things off, put things off, stay in bed, and lose only a little color at the fingertips.
At forty-seven the body had already accumulated a lot of postponements.
Now every "tomorrow" came straight off the material.
And it's hard to get by like that on the street.
You need clothes that say you.

On the way to the supermarket he passed a new display window.
Matterial.

A clothing store for the transparent only.

On the glass, in white letters: You gave up on everything.
Don't give up on style.

In the window stood a male mannequin, and above it a small sign: Supplemental Body Line.

He stopped in front of the window a second, looked at himself half reflected, and then at the mannequin.
"It looks more alive than me," he thought, kneading his sagging, transparent gut.

The supermarket was cold.
He liked the cold of the supermarket.
Cold always gave the transparent a little more substance.
Something in the chilled air got a better grip on them.

The lighting there was flattering too, if you stood right.
Not directly under the fluorescents, which erased his nose, but a little off to the side, by the cheese fridge.

He took a pack of cigarettes and one small bottle of water, nothing else.

He always bought water, even though he had water at home.
He liked that moment at the register where there's one essential product and one suicidal product.
It gave a sense of personality.
As if he still had a shot at stopping the transparency before it went all the way.

Behind him in line stood one of the opaques.

Not just any opaque.
The muscular kind, the buffed kind, quietly smug.
Arms that get short sleeves as a moral entitlement.
Bare thighs.
A black mesh shirt, because there was nothing to hide.
Skin tanned to a degree that screams regime.

He stood at a slight angle, a precise profile, and unloaded from the belt organic tomatoes, kale, celery, irritating little cucumbers, and one goat yogurt with a glass stopper.
Each of his items had been cast.

Gadi looked at him and thought, here is a man who never once gave himself a pass.
Not on a workout, not on sleep, not on gluten, not on love if it wasn't precise enough for him.
Nothing but the right decisions, on time, the fucker.

Outside, the evening had already started to fall.
Soon it would be night, the favorite hour of the transparent.
The dark tempers transparency, levels everybody out.
Even completely opaque people are sometimes hard to see in the dark.

A very transparent woman passed him, almost empty, dressed in layers of dirty peach.
She wore glasses with a frame that was too thick, so her face would have some kind of exclamation point.

Behind her walked two opaque teenagers, laughing, one of them in a crop top that said: No giving in, no going transparent.

"There's something almost religious about it," Gadi thought.
"Maybe it really is a religion.
The cult of sharp lines."

Gadi watched them disappear around the corner, precisely loud.
"These opaques and their self-discipline.
They don't need redemption from outside.
They've got themselves, the whores."

He stopped under an old building to light a cigarette.

No reason to hurry.
Simcha was probably home by now.

The left hand shook a little as it felt around for the lighter.
The shake used to be from stress.
Now he wasn't sure anymore.
Maybe the shake of a weak sadness, maybe the shake of material that hadn't set.
He inhaled deeply and felt better.

Smoke was always good to the transparent.
Not because it gave them a body back.
No right decision brings back opacity once it's gone.
But at least the smoke gave their shape something to fill itself with.

"Put on tefillin?" said a voice next to him.

Two Chabad boys were standing there, young, good-hearted, the energetic kind that doesn't fully understand how tired other people are.
One had already opened a little bag, the other smiled at him like he'd won the lottery.

"No thanks," he said.
"One second, brother.
Get yourself a mitzvah."

He almost kept walking.
Almost said leave me alone.
But there was something in him that had gone half automatic by now, some wish not to offend, not to make it difficult, not to make a thing of it.
A small giving in.
Last one today, he thought, and immediately hated himself for the phrasing.

"Fine," he said.

The boy came up to him with the straps.
"Left arm."

He held out the arm.

The boy stopped.
His hand searched for the arm, for the place where flesh is supposed to resist a touch a little, and didn't find enough.
He tried again, more gently, as if he didn't want to offend the absence.

"Sorry," he said.

"It's fine," Gadi said, and looked down, at the place where he used to have an ordinary arm.
"You have to tie it tighter."

The boy nodded.
The other one had stopped smiling like a cat that got the cream.

They tried twice.
The strap slid, lost its grip, found nothing to wind around.

There was an arm there, obviously there was, but it didn't hand itself over to the world the way it used to.
Not the way it has to be for a mitzvah.

But the first boy didn't give up.
In the end he managed to tie it somehow.
Mumbled the blessings fast out of embarrassment.

"He managed not to give himself a pass," Gadi thought.
"At least I didn't make the guy a little more transparent."

He looked at the Chabadnik.
Something small fell into place inside him.

"I wonder if that counts as a mitzvah too."

"With God's help, you'll get stronger," said the first one.

He almost laughed at the cruel precision.
That was exactly what he needed.
To get stronger.
Not in spirit.
In material.

"Yes," he said.
"With God's help."

He kept walking home, and the makeup started to itch under his eyes.

At home there was one room waiting for him, yellow light, a mirror that flatters nobody.

Simcha was sitting in the kitchen.

You could tell by the smoke hanging over the table like an indictment.
And a little by the smell.

He put the water on the counter, the cigarettes by the window, and stood in front of himself again.

"Another day without leaving her," he thought.
"Another day of giving in.
And in exchange for what?
A feeling of home?
Stability?"

He sighed and went to the bedroom.

Between their pillows lay one of her hair ties.
They were always scattered all over the house, tired faded little coils, her hair wound into them, unable to part.

Gadi pushed it over to her side of the bed.

"Funny," he thought, "how of all things it's what falls off us that suddenly manages to hold a shape."

He put his hand out in front of him and tried to make out his fingernails.
They were completely transparent.
Only thin lines of dirt that had collected underneath them showed in the yellow light.

"It's all an illusion," he thought.
"She'll be the one to leave me before she disappears completely.
It's a race between disappearances."

"One more cigarette?"

"Yeah, all right."

He stood at the window and coughed.

In the morning, he decided, he'd go to Matterial.
He'd buy the coat with the raised seams.

Not that fabric can save a man from all the giving in that brought him here.

But if you're going to disappear anyway, then at least in a good line.

In the morning he'd go.
No putting it off.
No cutting corners.
No saying "tomorrow."
No letting another day pass through him.

In the bedroom he saw Simcha sprawled on her back, wearing his shirt.
Underneath it, a strip of underwear that had once been pink was showing.

He turned off the light and lay down next to her.

"You smoked," she mumbled in her sleep.

Gadi took a deep breath.

At least something still sticks.