And poor Wlibgis. With no voice, with no words.
But Shlomith, Polina, Nina, and Maimuna began to play murderer for their own enjoyment and to entertain the rest. Someone (or something) had rubbed them out, had knocked them off; someone (or something) had wanted to get rid of them so suddenly that they hadn’t even noticed where their enemy was, who (or what) was hounding them, or who had a motive.
SMALL CINNAMON-BUN-SHAPED STORIES
Shlomith said:
As you know, I am an artist. I do performances, and my work takes me to extremes that are unpleasant and even dangerous. But I never hurt anyone other than myself at most. The world is full of violence, but that wouldn’t diminish even if I blew up shopping centers full of trash produced in immoral working conditions. I shake people up, but I never violate anyone’s person or free will. If someone is hurt, that’s a matter of interpretation, that I’ve hit a tender spot, metaphorically speaking. Is everything clear so far?
My final memory relates to a performance I did in my home city of New York, in the Scheuer Auditorium at the Jewish Museum. I’ve just given a presentation on the connections between anorexia and Jewishness—I use my religion and my culture as material for my performances. I’ve finished, and I’m standing in my underwear behind the microphone, waiting for the audience reaction. Even though I’ve only been telling the truth, conveying simple, cold facts, and even though I’ve stated that I take full responsibility for myself and my work, in some people I awaken a primitive rage. I’m prepared for rotten fruit, eggs, water bottles, even small pebbles. Nothing truly dangerous could come flying from the audience because the security screening has been even more strict than usual. Everyone walked through metal detectors, all bags were opened, and no large backpacks were allowed in the auditorium at all. Just to be safe, my assistant, the indispensable Katie McKeen, is ready in the wings just behind the red curtain. We have agreed that if anything starts raining on the stage, she’ll come and get me. She’ll open a large black umbrella, and we’ll walk together under cover to a back room where no outsiders are allowed.
Two armed guards stand at the door. In the restricted courtyard behind the museum a car waits for me, an ambulance. I can see that this astonishes a few of you. The deliberateness, ribaldry even, that unavoidably attends this performance. But let’s not talk about that now. All I did was go on an expedition into my culture, which in a roundabout way is the culture every one of us self-righteous bastards shares. I harnessed my body completely, as I always do in my art, for use in my research. I made it into an instrument, which I cared for with great love. Vitamins, trace minerals, fatty acids, all carefully calculated and controlled; nutrition therapy was instrumental. My goal was not to starve myself to death, but of course I dropped my energy intake relative to consumption very low. I shot for a body mass index of twelve, met it, and even went a bit below. I knew the risks. I’m not stupid.
My motives? When I start something, I go all in. Nothing less is possible. I’ve been sick for years, assuming you want to call voluntarily abstaining from food a sickness in this world. Ultimately I wanted to gaze into the soul of my sickness—and not just for selfish personal reasons but for cultural research. Because in the final analysis, this is a sickness we all share. This sickness and its different variations have a soul, and it is the Jewish soul, the landscape of the Semitic spirit. This is my argument, and this is the soul I believe I succeeded in revealing.
And I received enormous applause for this service. No rotten fruit or stinking eggs. Those would have been thrown by neo-Nazis, Haredi Jews, or Christian extremists who had infiltrated the crowd, because they all have one common enemy, and I am it. Polina, there’s no use staring at me that way. I’m not boasting. This is simply a fact! During my career, I’ve received death threats, I’ve been stalked, and once someone tried to run me down with a car. But I’ve never retreated: the call of art has been stronger than fear. I have an obsession with honesty, and I don’t give up, even if my honesty might drive some with weak nerves to insanity.
But now they succeeded after all. Let’s just agree on that if we really are dead. They killed me, let’s just say, and pretend that you’re right, Polina. Let’s assume that it happened in the following way. The performance is done, the applause has been given, and people are lining up to greet me. They thank me, and everyone wants to exchange a few words. Believe it or not, many people cried! They cried because my example gave them permission to cry. Wait, Polina, let me continue! You’re thinking that I suffer from megalomania. But that isn’t so. To put it simply: people want to be led. When that happens in a safe place, like in a museum or in a gallery, and they all receive the same conduit, which in this case is me, at the same time, they surrender. I call it intermental metabolism. It
