So what did she want to communicate with her conspicuous thinness, someone might have asked, although people talked about such things significantly less then than now. Presumably Sheila would have said that at least she wasn’t looking for sympathy. She wanted to do art “on the edge”. (This was also an idea that was dear to Shlomith-Shkhina later.) She wanted to show her strength, not by lifting weights but by dropping weight. It was precision work, which the more or less fat people behind the gazes would at least respect. If something irreversible happened, that would also be her own choice: a creative leap over the line.
And besides, in addition to everything else, this was her back door. When an evening ended in dizziness, when the bed seemed to spin, when she felt that familiar chill, she knew that everything was alright, that her weight in the morning would be about the same, that her input and output were both under control. One teensy-weensy shift and she would be permanently on the other side of the line. Where no one could touch her. At least it was good for her mother to know this. To wit, her mouth was no hole in the back of a chest of drawers, one more hatch in an endless row of hatches, a hatch which her mother could open whenever she wanted, into which her mother could shove as much pie and porridge as she wished. Her mother had to be very careful with her. Because she had the power, all the power over everything.
Hunger narrows perspectives: on that point Andrea Dworkin was exactly right. Taken to a certain point, hunger refreshes, sharpens, electrifies, and clears the mind, as anyone who has fasted knows, but as the fast continues, the lack of nutrients clouds and slows the thoughts. So it may be that in this enervating process of flagellation, “the universe” shrivels from the vast expanse of space to take on the size, appearance, and feel of the withering person herself—from the perspective of space to an insignificant grotesqueness.
Sheila, Shlomith, and Shlomith-Shkhina disagreed with this at nearly every point of their life (in order to save time, we’ll overlook a few moments of crushing doubt). And because talking sense didn’t help then and doesn’t help now, let the bed spin and Sheila along with it. Let life continue until life ends. But Sheila couldn’t understand this idea any more. To live or to die? This was the question. She constantly had to choose. This is why Sheila lived in an intermediate space. She saw herself choosing during each bite of food, each kilometer she ran, each push-up she did, to be or not to be.
“Deep inside, every anorexic wants to rebuild the Oedipal theater of her childhood,” Sheila’s mother’s psychoanalyst friend said, “but now the arc of the drama is slightly different. The child refusing to eat—let’s ignore that in this case she’s already on the verge of adulthood—sets up her mother to be guilty for her starvation. Even though the acute battles are mostly fought between mother and daughter, the anorexic’s fundamental message is directed at the father: ‘Save me from that harpy.’ The less flesh there is on the child, the less the evil mother can enjoy her. You know the story of Hansel and Gretel, right? So you’ll do well to give your daughter more space. Let her become more independent. When no one is metaphorically threatening her any more, eating up her living space, she’ll find her own body and gradually learn to enjoy it. Believe me, Miriam, Sheila will get better if you just give her a looser leash.”
Who would have guessed that in the end, right at the last moment, Dovid would find Sheila’s abandoned body. Sheila’s family viewed Dovid’s motives with suspicion, to put it mildly, but this attitude only bound the lovers closer together. “YouR motheR is cRazy,” Dovid whispered to his future wife on the evening after his third visit, in a cute accent that bounced on the R’s and finally convinced Sheila: her mother was crazy, not Sheila, so she had to get away. Far away. To a place where she could be a little (not a lot but a little) plumper. Because in New York Sheila had no intention of giving in. That would be the act of a traitor. Was she going to fatten up and admit that her parents had been right and now she was going to fall back in line? Never.
Dovid’s idea sounded more than promising. It sounded like life after death, with the difference that now Sheila didn’t need to die. Moving to Kibbutz Methuselah sufficed. Honest work close to the earth. A healthy society. Everything shared, everyone honest. Submission to the land, the dirt, the sun, manual toil, and a purposeful walk. If this wasn’t paradise, then what was?
Sheila fought and fought and finally decided: Let’s do it. The two of us are going on the run like Bonnie and Clyde, exiting the stage with flare. Goodbye, worm-eaten Apple! And besides, another’s embrace felt better with more flesh, spooning at night; ten more kilos and her bony knees would stop leaving bruises on her bowed thighs. “They aren’t very beautiful, dear,” Dovid said gently, as he placed his hand on the bruises. The xylophone of ribs, the clavicle crossbones, and the shoulder-blade platters that protruded from her skin also weren’t beautiful. “But you are beautiful,” Dovid said, “and we’ll find you again in there once you fill out a little.” Then Dovid baked Sheila a honey cake. “You have to build your strength so you
