Sabine's Smile

© 2000 Rayo Casanegro
All rights reserved.

There was an odd sense of viciousness in her lips, a curling, almost lupine quality, which made them look like they were caught in a perpetual snarl. Though her lips were always deep red, as if filled with an unnaturally deeper hue, her skin was quite pale. Lifeless, that's the phrase that came to mind as Samantha mulled over Sabine's lips. Lifeless, it sounded crass. But it fit, simply. Samantha stared at those lips, the cigarette smoke curling through their sinuous edges, and thought that Sabine would bark, would let loose with a howl. That made Samantha giggle, and Sabine immediately grimaced.
"What's so funny?" Sabine asked quietly, her stare intent on Samantha's blushing cheeks.
" Nothing," Samantha chocked back a laugh, "It's just... your face, you kinda look like a dog in this light ... That sounds terrible, forgive me, it's a cute thing, a sexy look...."
"Are you into dogs?"
" Of course not, but you've got a dog's mouth ... that kind of cute perkiness in your lips...I'm sorry it sounds terrible, but really it's sexy...." Samantha said her blush fading quickly.
" Great, an hour or preparation for tonight and I look like a fucking dog." Sabine spat.
Samantha knew there was no way to recover the conversation, it was dead and she was simply digging herself deeper into an embarrassing pit. She had known Sabine for months, three in fact, and had never thought of telling her something like that. She knew Sabine was fragile, she was thin skinned and could take criticism as well as she could survive a car wreck.
"I'm sorry...."Samantha said, curling her mouth in a sympathetic smile.
The bar was emptying; the last call was to be shouted in a matter of minutes. The chicken wings on their table were grotesque in the neon light, looking like an uncovered graveyard. Samantha folded her napkin over the fowl remains. She tugged the last cigarette from her already abused and crumbling pack and lit it using the small candle on the table. Sabine was watching the crowd, looking at the people slowly filing out of the bar, back into the wet night. A cold breeze rushed into the room with each successive patron, the oak door slamming shut when released.
Sabine was swirling the remnants of her drink when she spoke softly, "I've been told that before."
"What?" Samantha said, self consciously, though she knew what Sabine was talking about.
" The dog lips thing, it was an old boyfriend ... I never told you about him. He was older than I was, maybe by ten years, a mistake ... But he often told me I looked like a dog ... had dog lips...." Sabine said gently, almost in a whisper.
" How long were you a couple?" Samantha said trying to avoid the 'dog lip' subject again.
" Two years. Two really long years."
" What was his name?"
" Jonathan. He went by Jonathan ... not John, he was very specific about that. He was a librarian, worked at the NYU library ... in the back, he restored old manuscripts, stuff like that...."
" Sounds like a geek," Samantha cajoled.
" He was very intelligent, a fucking genius," Sabine said annoyed, " He spoke at least three languages, I heard German, French and Russian ... oh, and Hebrew ... Muttered a lot of stuff about older languages, Aramaic. I don't know if he spoke those though. He was a genius."
" What happened? How'd you guys break up?" Samantha asked already feeling a bit stupid. She noticed that the lights in the bar had come on in the main room, and people, annoyed, were leaving in droves.
" He took my heart." Sabine said as the lights illuminated the rest of the bar. She stopped speaking and began to stand up gathering her purse and coat. " Let's go. I'll tell you on the way to the subway."
Samantha waited in the doorway as Sabine paid the bar tab. She was anxious to leave the bar and get home; the night was cold and unusually windy. They had to walk several blocks to the nearest station, through some pretty sketchy neighborhoods; the meat-packing district. After midnight it lived up to its namesake as hookers and johns wandered the streets. Tonight was quiet though; with the wind and bitter cold, those street denizens that would usually be out looking for prey were inside storing up fat for the quickly arriving winter.
Sabine and Samantha started down the street in silence, a few bar patrons walked ahead of them, gabbing loudly. Samantha thanked Sabine for paying the tab.
" I'll get it next time, OK?" she added.
" That's alright. I make more than you." Sabine had inherited a large sum of money in the past year, and though she seemed a bit embarrassed by her newfound wealth, she always made sure to speak as if she'd earned it.
" Tell me more about Jonathan," Samantha said, pulling a new pack of cigarettes from her jacket and packing them loudly. The street was empty now, only the wind walked beside them.
" Like I said he took my heart. It was a messy break up. He was a great guy at first, he really made me who I am today, but he got greedy when I became successful. He was eager to show me off at parties ... show me off in front of his friends, make them think that he was some hotshot cause he'd earned me. You know, a hot blonde in black on his arm. He became too demanding; he wanted me all the time ... always with him. He was also never satisfied. He was an angry man. Downright vicious if he wanted. I never took him too seriously, that pissed him off. He assumed because he made me that he had complete control over me...."
" Yeah, I've dated a few of those," Samantha grinned, taking the pause in conversation as an opportunity to light her cigarette. She inhaled and then leisurely exhaled saying, "Men...."
" He was never important, though through me Jonathan always expected to be. After he made me, he just kind of lost himself."
" When you say he made you.... " Samantha asked looking over at Sabine. She was staring into the sky, her hair blown back by the fierce winds.
" I mean he made me. Have a look." Sabine glanced at Samantha and smiled. Sabine walked over towards a nearing alley and stepped inside. "In here."
Samantha followed Sabine into the alleyway, a bit uncomfortable at the thought of entering a New York alley. She'd done it once before, earlier that year, to vomit after a hard night of drinking. Now, with the cold and the wind, it seemed all the more dangerous, all the more risky. Samantha followed anyway, intrigued by Sabine's strange proclamation. Samantha wondered what Sabine would show her.
Sabine stood beside a wall, her face masked by shadows. " Come here, and look at these." Samantha approached, and in the murky light she saw Sabine remove her shirt. Standing in a red bra, she slowly turned around. Her back was covered with strange inscriptions, almost runes. Samantha was stunned.
" Are those tattoos?" Samantha asked, breathing heavily as she touched Sabine's cold skin.
" Sort of. They were etched in ... by Jonathan," Sabine said quietly.
" Jesus Christ, that must of hurt, you've got ... a whole book back here. What language is it? Is it Arabic?"
" Hebrew."
" It's beautiful. What does it say?"
" It says I'm alive, in a roundabout way. It's Kabalah."
Sabine turned back around, and looked into Samantha's eyes. "Kabalah is Jewish mysticism. It's spiritual stuff, similar to magical arts and it's very, very complicated. The old rabbis who wrote Kabbalistic texts said that only a man in his forties with a wife and child could read kabalah without going insane...."
Samantha was uncomfortable. "Please, Sabine, put your shirt back on."
" I've got something else to show you." Sabine said as she began to wipe her forehead with her shirt. "Look closely at this."
Samantha squinted in the darkness and could barely make out some letters on Sabine's forehead. There were small and, like the rest, in Hebrew. Samantha's face registered disgust, though she tried to hide it placing her hand over her mouth. "What is that?"
" It says Emet, it means 'Truth.' That first symbol, a letter, is aleph. I had it etched in even deeper cause without the aleph the word is 'met,' which means death ... and I'm not ready to die."
Samantha was very uncomfortable and began backing away, as Sabine slowly undid her bra. She was getting scared; she simply didn't feel right talking to Sabine in this alley, in this wind, with Sabine half-nude. Something was changing in Sabine's eyes. Her face began to look elasticized and her skin grew gray as her lips grew brighter and brighter red.
" Look at my chest, Samantha. See this?" Sabine pointed out a scar that ran down the length of her rib cage. She began to tug at the flesh there and, as Samantha's eyes widened in disgust and horror, Sabine opened her chest. Dust sputtered from the darkness where Sabine's breasts used to lie. Inside that darkness was a thudding, dislocated heart. A deadened and blackened heart that beat ferociously and fiercely like a caged animal. Samantha could not run, she could not move; she was grounded to the spot in that alleyway, staring like a child at a corpse she had called for drinks earlier that evening.
" A golem. That's the technical term, the Kabbalistic term. Jonathan made me, out of clay, and I came alive. His readymade friend, his Pygmalion lover. I hated it!" Sabine's voice grew louder and shriller.
" He was eager to get rid of me after I became so popular, so happy. You said tonight that I looked like a dog, that I had a dog face ... Jonathan used to tell me that. You know dogs aren't kosher; Orthodox Jews won't keep dogs cause they think they're dirty. I guess I'm dirty ... it's my lips, that's what Jonathan said, 'dirty dog' ... I couldn't take it any longer and so I took his heart. A real heart, a human heart. To make me more real. It lasted a good, good long time. It was delicious. But now, as you can see, it's old and tired. I need yours now, dear Samantha. I want to live and I like your heart. You're warm, you're observant; you've got a real love of life. A zest. I can hear your heart pumping now. Fast, it's healthy and I'm sure very sweet ... don't worry, I still like you. In fact, I like you now more than ever...."
Samantha couldn't swallow. Her tongue was as dry as stone and her hands felt as distant as the moon in the icy sky. She wanted to go home, go back to her apartment. She eagerly wished it wasn't three a.m. She wished she wasn't in New York City, she wished she was far, far away ... back home in Illinois, asleep in bed. She wished all these things as she felt Sabine's icy hands grasp her skin and heard the crackling sounds as her rib cage broke open.

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