"madam x" by mother dwarf

BACK

A Portrait         Eran Tahor & Aryan Kaganof

The resemblance to C. Manson is startling.
Mind you I know nothing about C. Manson
except for when I was a child and they took us
from school to the wax museum
in the big city of Tel Aviv.
Up on the 25th floor of the Shalom Tower
were famous people and historical events
that a person in charge thought should be frozen
in wax for our collective memory.
In one room was laying the disemboweled
body of Sharon Tate on bed and
the floor was red with wax-blood.
Around the bed were "hippies"
in various stages of what seemed 
like hypnotic rituals, one of them was holding
an embryo in her hands.  
The sign read: "The murder of actress
Sharon Tate by Charles Manson's gang". 
Mr. C. Manson's waxed figure
was nowhere to be found
on the floor and I, at the time,
had little respect for
those flower people. I remember
thinking of a passage
in the gmara which ends with the insight
that "the work of the righteous is done by others”.
I also remember feeling then that
"the scariest man is the one you cannot see"
- and that really stuck with me because
standing there ensconced in a frozen moment of bloody wax-violence,
I felt deep fear
- so deep that it can only come
from the unconscious. 
To help overcome the shocking experience
of the weird gentiles they placed, 
on the adjacent floor, a display of our
national hero Moshe Dayan
laying on an army field bed and being
operated on during combat while he
continues to command the troops on
the radio. There was more blood on the floor,
maybe coming from Sharon Tate
or perhaps it was Mr. Dayan's own blood
- if it were possible for him to bleed at all.
Sounds of explosions, gun fire and screaming Arabs 
tore my ear drums while I was trying to recover,
I must have been 7 years old at the time,
from the sight of Sharon Tate's cut body
and the despicable hippies around her bed.
It was easier then to see Mr. Dayan's
intestines in wax and hear him
command the troops in adrenalin frenzy,
because the Arabs were the enemy
and if it weren't for that victory
then I would not be able to stand there
and scrutinize the bloody scene
because Tel-Aviv would have been
occupied by Arabs - in which case I could have
not been me. Part of the deal of winning is that you
have to show your children how it was that you won.
The work of the righteous is done by others. 
What if Moshe Dayan on the field bed
was actually commanding a troop
of hippies next door 
as they cut S. Tate's body?
and if so, again, who was
Charles Manson?
and if they were doing his job for him
then was he righteous? 
 
I still don't know much about Mr. Manson.
There are many things that I connect with you,
or the memory of you. For some years after I saw you last
it was mostly fear, by now that has dissolved.
My image of you is still of the mysterious,
dark and fascinating - and very threatening - man.
Your words exciting.
One of your films impressed me very much
(the upside down woman), I remember it well.
For two years before I worked at the Graal
I had seen you around a few times, but I always escaped.
I still don't know exactly what I was facing by facing you.
I suspect I was not facing much,
since my mind was constantly clouded.
How could a blurred vision face anything?
The strangest and most unsettling memory
is one of you, when you came to my house on Utrechtsestraat.
I was not afraid to invite you there at first,
but when I closed the door behind me,
I was overwhelmed with fear.
I was sure you wanted to kill me.
Then you said: "I have the feeling, you want to kill me."
This scene confused me beyond belief,
and in fact for years I could not figure out
whether you were an ingenious killer
or also a sensitive and confused person,
or whatever else. I lost confidence in my intuition.
I know now at least, that I don't know you,
and that I was fascinated by what I saw in you,
because I was afraid of you.
But that could simply be me,
I want to know and be in control of everything.
However, I like the memory of you.
Your words, your poem, are the clearest image
and emotion and still make me shiver.