The Ibbur and the Ibis

THE IBBUR AND THE IBIS

by Amanda Hollander

Content warnings: climate crisis, brief threat with gun, reference to drowning (non-graphic)

By mid-morning, the temperature had already climbed into the upper nineties, and pythons had curled themselves around the suspension cables of the Brooklyn Bridge. I eyed the snakes as I waited on the pier. The recent heatwave had been extreme. Wistful thoughts of when January meant snow and ice briefly flurried through my mind before melting away. A few teenagers had decided to try cooling off in the river, splashing around and occasionally diving underwater to swim above the submerged cobbled streets of what once had been Dumbo. I took out a bag of tangerines and started peeling them. Hadassah was running late, as usual. Though I’d probably run late if I had five kids, too. 

A woman I didn’t recognize looked over the river, her eyes briefly lighting on me. I tightened my grip on the tangerine. When she turned to walk away, I relaxed. Not our passenger, then. Belatedly, I realized that I had crushed the fruit in my hand. Sticky juice ran over my fingertips. Grabbing the dock hose, I rinsed off my hands and plucked out a new tangerine from the bag. 

Footsteps I recognized raced up behind me. I felt a tap on the shoulder. 

Hadassah was sweating bullets from sheitel to sneakers. I returned to peeling the fruit. “Glad you could make it.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Viola. Is she here yet?”

“No.” I didn’t look at her, just handed her the fruit and shoved the peel into my pocket. I unzipped the cooler sitting next to me. “Beer?”

“It’s ten a.m.”

“The ice caps melted, you have five kids, and you live with your mother-in-law.” She was still hesitating. I lifted the bottle so she could see the label. “It’s kosher.”

“Ah, screw it.” Hadassah grabbed a bottle and twisted off the top. Sitting down next to me, she arranged her skirt again to cover her knees. She murmured a prayer in Hebrew and took a deep swig from the frosted bottle, her eyes closing in enjoyment. Some things had changed since she’d become religious, but she still loved cursing and a cold beer. And it was easier if we drank. Then we didn’t need to talk.

She lowered the bottle to her lap and looked over at the bridge. One of the pythons suddenly fell in a long spiraling heap down into the river. Hadassah shuddered. “Man, I hate those snakes.” She looked warily into the water below our swinging legs, but nothing slithered through the gentle wake. 

Splinters from the dock dug into the backs of my thighs. When we were little, our dad used to work in the boat and, at low tide, he would suddenly reach up and grab our ankles. We would scream and yank our legs back onto the dock.

Shit. I took a long drink from my beer. 

The alcohol was weak but went straight to my head in the heat. I jammed a hat over my hair and opened an umbrella over our heads to get some extra shade. Two docks down, Mrs. Jung gave me an approving wave before she went back to untangling her fishing net. She was the one who had given me the hat. Sweat slicked down my back. At least unlike Hadassah I didn’t have to wear a bra. We drank our beers and watched the rafts and boats go by.

Hadassah looked at her watch, but didn’t seem bothered. Picking the tangerine out of her lap, she carefully tucked the rind into her pocket. “Where is she?” She popped a segment of the fruit into her mouth.

“How would I know? You arranged it.” Usually, an ibbur was referred to us through Dr. Kaplan’s network, but I had been dodging calls, so she had worked around me by going to Hadassah instead.

“I’m sorry.” 

“Sure.”

Hadassah tapped her fingernail on the bottle. “Look, I know how you feel about it. But you know the waterways and have the boat…” She stared at her beer. “Anyway, I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. The beer was cold and bitter on my tongue. “How are my nieces?”

“Fine. You didn’t RSVP for Rivka’s bat mitzvah.”

“You already know I’m coming.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Not afraid I’ll fuck up and embarrass you in front of your husband?”

“Things were shit, then. Dov gets it. We both want you to come.”

I didn’t answer, but I knew it was true. Dov was a mensch through and through. He’d been the one to bail me out at the police station and arrange for my lawyer. He had never said another word about it, either. I wished he’d at least had the decency to be a jerk about it. 

Hadassah gasped and pointed upriver toward the bank. “Is that an ibis?”

Her hand dropped. She sensed her mistake as soon as she said it.

The glossy ibis had been our dad’s favourite bird. They were a lot more common on the debris-ridden shallows of the upper East River these days, especially around the smaller islands. Mentioning ibises was the closest we ever got to talking about him. Most of them nested further upriver or in Jamaica Bay. A lot of people had let their pets loose after the Melting, transforming parts of the city into nightmarish menagerie. Roosevelt Island had overgrown with kudzu and become so infested with vipers and shrieking parrots that it had warped into a wasteland. The island was also our dad’s favourite place once glossy ibises had started to populate the area. He’d take us up in the boat and point them out, carefully navigating around all the morass of wires and plastic hidden just beneath the water’s surface.

I shook off the memory and focused on the bird, which, sensing eyes on it, took flight. The wings looked similar, but… “Beak shape is wrong,” I said.

Hadassah’s eyes dropped and she looked warily toward Manhattan. She hadn’t been back since Dad’s death. 

We sat there, awkwardly kicking our legs out of sync. My skin started to itch. I wanted to get this over with. Where the hell was this woman?

“Excuse me,” a voice said from behind. 

I spun around so fast the umbrella spokes caught in Hadassah’s sheitel and nearly yanked it off her head. I offered a sheepish grimace of apology as she adjusted the wig and turned to see an older woman standing behind us. She was probably seventy, with a neat bob. I immediately sensed the ibbur whose soul had lodged in her body. 

The first time I saw an ibbur, I was seven years old. We had been at our grandparents’ house for Seder. When Hadassah and I went to open the door for Elijah, a man stood on the step and I thought this year the prophet had actually shown up. My skin prickled as though an electrical current ran through it. Then the man’s dark eyes looked into me while through the same eyes, someone else looked past me. Hadassah, who was standing right behind me, screamed. We both ran to hide under the table amid the tangle of my family members’ legs. My grandfather took the stranger to his study while my grandmother coaxed us out from the dining room into the kitchen. She placed an orange peel in my hand and one in Hadassah’s and kissed the tops of our heads, telling us to smell the citrus until the prickling sensation on our skin stopped.

He has two people in his eyes, I had whispered to her. 

Twiceness of seeing, Grandma had called it. A sign of a spirit possessing the living, she explained. But, she reassured us, seeing Hadassah eyeing the refuge of the tablecloth again, a kind possession, one agreed to by the host, that only lasts long enough to complete a task. 

When does it end?

When the ibbur’s good work is done.

I had known many ibburim since that day. One too many. 

Hadassah tilted her head at the ibbur in front of her. “Am I speaking to Miriam or Rosemary?” 

A smile crinkled the laugh lines around the green eyes. “Miriam.” 

“Miriam, I’m Hadassah, and this is my sister, Viola.”

Miriam’s sight moved to me, though Rosemary’s eyes stayed on the river. “It’s a mitzvah. I appreciate you girls helping me out.” 

“You should thank Rosemary for letting you possess her body,” I said. Hadassah hit me on the shoulder. “Ouch!” I glowered at her and rubbed the spot she’d smacked. 

The ibbur smiled through her host’s face. “I thanked her when she allowed me in.” She twisted Rosemary’s head to look over the docks, stretching her host’s hands over her head. “I’ve never been tall. I like it.” The ibbur’s attention moved to the canoe. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure that Rosemary would be alright with the paddling. She has arthritis.”

I didn’t say the obvious: one less pair of hands meant more danger if one of us couldn’t row. I wished I had my dog with me, but Miriam’s host was allergic.

Hadassah put her beer bottle down and clasped the woman’s hand. “We’re glad to do it. Viola is, too, even if she doesn’t act like it.” 

 “Oh yeah. Happy to help. Beer?”

Miriam shook the head of her host. “I would love to, but Rosemary is sober.”

I nodded and felt a bit better about the whole thing. “That’s good. Not all souls think about the bodies who agree to let them ride along until they finish their task.” Some of them didn’t think much at all. Hadassah looked guiltily back at me. Screw her. I stooped to coil the rope some jackass had left carelessly dumped across the dock. “Well, there’s water if you want it. But we should get going. I hear Rosemary has an appointment tonight and we need to be out of Manhattan before dark.”

The ibbur nodded. 

The waterways in the old financial district got dangerous fast after nightfall. We were taking a lot of risks as it was. 

Swigging down the last of my beer, I put the empty bottle back into the cooler. I held the canoe steady so Hadassah could climb in and then help Miriam down. Once they were both in, I leapt into the back and untied us from the dock. Hadassah already had her paddle out. Nabbing mine, I dipped it into the water and pushed us off a piling. 

The trip across the river was a slow one. We paddled carefully to avoid the other boats and kayaks. A larger craft with a quinceañera party floated past. Several of the teens onboard laughed and waved amid the blaring music. Hadassah happily waved back, probably thinking about the bat mitzvah. Rosemary’s face, lit with Miriam’s soul, looked hungrily out across the water. Only so much time before Miriam went wherever they all went. I wondered how she felt, but I didn’t ask. Instead, I focused on ferrying her across the river. Hadassah kept a steady tempo with her paddle. Sweat soaked through my tank top.

Soon, the buildings of lower Manhattan drew close. Their shadows loomed over the streets that had flooded over time into canals between the partially submerged buildings. I steered the canoe toward Wall Street Canal, which would take us up to Pearl. The waterways here were shaded by the buildings climbing out of them. Graffiti artists had covered most of the lower portions. In one mural, a child cowered beneath the curl of a wave. In another, two loves embraced amid flames of red and emerald green. The ibbur shifted her host’s head to admire the bold sweep of colours, though they were hard to see clearly, the water having worn away some of the lower portions.

At night, the canals became the main district for black market traders. Though I didn’t suppose they ever did much worse than what the buildings’ original inhabitants had done to shift us into our brave new world. I hoped we’d be able to avoid the now aptly named Water Street; the drowned financial district had its own rules. No security here when the rich were drier and central.

When the buildings first were abandoned, some people had established hidden communities on the upper floors of the drowned office buildings. At night, multi-coloured strands of lights would glow in some of the windows as music pulsed across the water. That was before a series of electrocutions. Only the most desperate lived in them now.

A ribbon fluttered from one of the sills above. I didn’t know what it meant, but I sure wasn’t going to wait around to find out. A lot of the boats around us carried guns. I usually found that with trouble, a friendly wave and a drink moved most of it along. Not like I had jack to steal—well, except the canoe itself. I didn’t want to find out how hard it would be to swim across the East River. I scanned the buildings. The sooner we left, the better.

“I’m not sure exactly where it is,” the ibbur said.

Hadassah started humming, an old nervous habit. 

A shot rang out and with it, the sound of glass shattering. We froze and waited. I rested my paddle across the sides of the canoe. No way to tell where the noise had come from, but nothing followed. Two boats ahead had also paused. A can of spray paint floated alongside us, and I swept up the garbage into the canoe. Most of the muralists were pretty responsible, but sometimes they had to leave quickly. I’d toss the can when we got back to Brooklyn. 

Miriam shifted her host’s body nervously. She twisted her hands over and over each other. Was the habit hers or Rosemary’s? We continued to wait. Finally, when no other sounds came, I dipped my paddle back into the water. The ibbur relaxed Rosemary’s shoulders. She looked back to me, that uncanny double sight sliding from me to Hadassah. “How do you two know each other?”

“Oh, Hadassah and I go way back,” I said.

“We’re sisters,” Hadassah said.

“You’re sisters?”

“Yup,” I said.

“But you’re not—” She gestured to my very different wardrobe. Tank top, no bra, cargo shorts. Not exactly frum fabulous. 

“Hadassah got religious after the Melting.”

“My family wasn’t thrilled,” Hadassah chimed in from the front. Undeniably true. Mom would likely have several observations to that effect at the bat mitzvah.

Miriam seemed surprised. “So, have you worked with many like me?”

There was the sore spot. “Some. Though Hadassah has a little more experience than I do.” I watched as Hadassah stopped paddling, her knuckles turning white.

Her back stiffened. “Not now.” 

The ibbur twisted in the seat, slightly rocking the canoe. She shifted Rosemary’s eyes between us. “I’m sorry, have I offended you?”

“Not at all. So, Miriam, this is your last chance.” It was cruel phrasing, but I didn’t care. “Why are you here? Why is this mural we’re looking for so important?”

She watched me thoughtfully. “My daughter. She died before she had a chance to show me. I couldn’t bear to come and see it then, but now I regret it.”

“You sound like a great parent. She must have been pretty lucky.” 

“Viola,” Hadassah warned. We were getting too close to a boat in front of us. Keeping distance unless you were starting a trade or confrontation was the rule.

I barreled ahead. “You have any other kids?”

“One, but she died as a baby,” Miriam said softly. 

“Stop!” Hadassah stopped, dragging her paddle, which caused us to turn on a diagonal. The canoe slowed. She glared back at me. “We can do this later.”

I shoved my paddle back in the water and started putting much more strength into it, alternating sides to make up for the fact that Hadassah had stopped paddling. I should have been conserving energy to get back across the river. Rage moved through me like a current. “Well, that’s nice that you’re spending your final time doing something meaningful for your kid. Our dad did that, too. Only when he showed up as an ibbur, he used me as the host to spend time with Hadassah and talk about a fucking bird. Didn’t even bother to leave a message for the prodigal bitch. I was just a ride.”

“Shit.” Hadassah didn’t turn back, but the word traveled to me anyway.

Rosemary’s body stiffened and I could sense the ibbur shiver and shift inside her. That was attracting more snakes to the boat. One tried to wind itself around my paddle and I pushed it away. Damn it. With one hand, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the tangerine peel and inhaled deeply. The scent cleared my head. I took a shaky breath and tightened my grip on the paddle. “I’m sorry Miriam. Let’s find the mural. Are you sure it’s on Pearl?”

Hadassah dipped her paddle back in the water. Her shoulders were hunched. Miriam looked up at a painting of several people embracing each other while riding a shell. Beneath, the artist had drawn the ghostly hands of the drowned, reaching up to keep the shell afloat. I looked away. Higher up, a seagull was perched in the frame of a shattered window. Its white head bobbed as we glided below. Silently, we paddled on. A woman kayaking went past us. She shifted her eyes to us only briefly. I wondered how much contraband she had stored in there. 

We passed Maiden Lane and as we neared the dark stretch above Platt, Miriam waved Rosemary’s hand. “Stop! There, stop!”

I dragged my paddle and brought us to the side of the building. A small piece of art deco iron work protruded. I grabbed onto it to hold us in place against the wall. Miriam’s gaze was fixed on the wall, tears filling Rosemary’s eyes as they swept across the mural. Massive flowers tumbled out of a rainbow rising from the half-drowned shores of Brooklyn. The water was a swirl of blue orchids and irises. A middle-aged woman reached down into the floral river to pull a young man into a boat. I studied the features of the woman at the center. She had bright brown eyes, set among freckles that covered her from nose to fingertip.

“Is that you, Miriam?” Hadassah’s voice came from the front of the canoe.

“My wife,” came the choked response. “She died rescuing survivors.” We sat silently as Miriam sobbed and gently touched Rosemary’s hand to the image. The ibbur’s eyes moved to the upper corner, where fainter brushstrokes depicted clouds of feathers, some of which were airily falling into the river of flowers below, then to the right edge, where a small child was clutching several paintbrushes, then back to the woman at the center. Miriam silently moved her host’s lips, though whether in prayer, apology, or reciting a memory, I couldn’t tell. In front of her, Hadassah stared straight ahead. We rocked back and forth on the water, which lapped against the side of the canoe.

I wondered what drowning felt like. How our dad’s lungs had burned as he tried, in pain and disoriented, to free himself from the submerged wires he’d gotten caught in. He had been trying to disentangle one of his beloved ibises from debris. The ibis that on that early morning was the only witness of his final minutes. I knew Hadassah would be thinking of him, too. And for the first time, I suddenly wondered what it was like for her, being in that boat untangling fishing line and wire from the ibis, while our dad’s body floated next to it, as he issued instructions with my voice. A freak accident, the coroner had said. Slipping and hitting his head, drowning in barely two feet of water. I looked to the front of the canoe and realized that Hadassah had covered her face, shoulders shaking almost imperceptibly. Whispered words of the kaddish carried back to me along the water. 

The shadows stretched further. Miriam, oblivious to the sinking sun, kept touching Rosemary’s fingers to the painting’s face. I struggled to keep the canoe balanced so we didn’t tip over. With a sigh, Miriam shakily took a pencil from Rosemary’s pocket and wrote “this too” in small script on one of the river flowers. Pointlessly, I wondered if the handwriting was hers or her host’s.

I started nervously eyeing the boats going past. We shouldn’t have stayed so late. One came too close, the hull knocking the side of the canoe. I watched as the man motored slowly past. He kept his eyes on me. Checking to see how I reacted. I foolishly stared him down. I realized just how foolish when I glimpsed the stock of a gun. I hoped I didn’t look worth screwing with. He disappeared around a corner. Carefully, I listened until the buzz of the motor faded away.

Miriam wiped Rosemary’s eyes. “Girls, thank you. And…” She seemed to be struggling. She was already starting to separate from Rosemary’s body. She didn’t finish her thought. With a final shudder, the ibbur departed and Rosemary jerked. I grabbed the sides of the canoe to steady it, nearly dropping my paddle into the murky water. As I did, another snake slithered past. I watched it slide by and take a turn to swim down Platt. 

“You ok, Rosemary?” Hadassah asked, half turned in her seat. Her voice was tight.

“I believe so.” She straightened her back. “Strange. I feel like I’ve been dreaming.” Her voice leaned into a gentle lilt that surprised me. 

“That’s what they all say.” I didn’t look toward the front of the boat.

“Did she find it?” 

“Yes,” came Hadassah’s soft voice from the front.

 “Let’s take Fulton back to the river,” I said.

Rosemary took deep breaths as her soul settled, and Hadassah and I pushed off the wall. We made it two blocks. We were in sight of the river when the man who’d bumped us reappeared around the corner, boat blocking our way and gun raised. Hadassah yelped and I froze. Shit, shit, shit. 

“Toss everything you have over here,” he said. He held the gun properly, which meant he knew how to use it. 

Carefully, I balanced my paddle on the thwart and raised my hands. “Hey,” I said, “we don’t have anything good. This woman just paid us to bring her over to see the murals. Look, have a beer and let’s go our own ways.”

“Everything, now. Including the paddles.” 

He had a gun, we were screwed. Nodding, I reached for the cooler when Rosemary gave a bloodcurdling scream and pointed to the hull just in front of him. “Snake! In the boat!”

The man’s face contorted with horror and he jolted forward. There was a sharp bang as he blew a hole in his own hull. 

I snatched up my paddle. “Hadassah! Back! Go, go, go!” I screamed. We backpaddled like hell until we reached Fletcher, I dragged my paddle against the current to spin us forward, and we shot out onto the river, boats everywhere, with the shadowed dregs of the city behind us. 

The whoop of relief left me before I realized I had need to cry out. We had made it. I couldn’t steady my breath.

Hadassah turned around to look between Rosemary and me, her face flushed. She stopped as she shifted her gaze upriver. “You weren’t just a ride,” she blurted out through shallow breaths.

My brain was still coming down from the adrenalin. “What?”

“You weren’t just a ride. Dad didn’t choose you as a host to spend time with me. It was mostly about the bird, but he didn’t want you to be the one who found his body.” Her eyes flickered to mine and away. “It was bad, Vi. He didn’t want it to be you.” Small waves lapped against the side of the canoe. Hadassah’s reflection blurred on the water.

Rosemary, who maintained shockingly perfect posture, smiled. “Sounds as though you girls have a great deal to discuss. Maybe we can head back to shore? I’m afraid I don’t have Miriam’s sea legs, or whatever they are.”

“Oh!” Hadassah blinked. “Of course.” She dipped her paddle back into the river. I did the same.

“Man,” I said to Rosemary, “you saved us. How did you see that snake?” 

Rosemary tilted her head. “Oh, there wasn’t a snake.”

My brain didn’t seem to be working. “What?”

She lifted her arm as though professing on a stage, face tilted up toward the sky.“‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under ’t’ as the Bard said in the Scottish play.” She craned back to look at me. “I’m an actress. Miriam didn’t tell you?”

“What? But…” I struggled to follow…  “How did you know he was afraid of snakes?”

“Aren’t most people?”

 “He shot his own boat.” Hadassah’s eyes stared in shock back toward the canals. Her wig sat askew. “There wasn’t a snake.” 

Rosemary nodded. “You might say it was a case of asp and ye shall receive.”

Hadassah’s eyes went wide. I snorted, and something like a choked gargle caught in my own throat. I gave an almost hysterical giggle, paused, and then Hadassah abruptly collapsed into knockdown, drag-out laughter. I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. “We almost died,” I gasped.

“I know.” Hadassah laughed even harder. Tears rolled down my face. Hadassah and I both started to calm down, but as soon as we made eye contact, we burst out laughing again. Ahead, one of the ferries blared its horn as it made its way past us, its wake rocking the canoe. I tried to take a couple deep breaths. My abdomen ached. It felt wonderful. Rosemary, who remained sitting upright with perfect posture, waved benevolently to the ferry.

Slowly, I came to my senses and started to paddle again, with occasional giddy bursts of giggles. The traffic on the river had slowed a bit as we made our way across. When we reached the slip, I secured the canoe while Hadassah said goodbye to Rosemary. I hauled out the cooler and plopped down to wait on the edge of the dock.

Hadassah came and sat down beside me. “Got any beer left?”

I pulled one out and handed it to her. Hadassah clinked her bottle against mine. “To Miriam. L’chaim.” We swung our legs in sync over the water. Bright reds and oranges stretched across the horizon past Ellis Island.

Hadassah picked at the label, slowly peeling off a strip. “I’m sorry. About Dad.” 

“Yeah.” 

She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “The funeral was unforgettable.” The corners of her mouth turned up a bit. “I still can’t believe you punched the rabbi.” She started to say something, stopped, then looked straight at me. “I love you, you know.”

I snorted.

Hadassah rolled her eyes. “Seriously?”

“No it’s just… there wasn’t a snake,” I said.

Hadassah laughed and choked on her beer. I slapped her on the back and she lost her grip, the bottle dropping into the river. A loud splash sounded upriver. We both looked up to the bridge and watched as the waking pythons began to twist and wind along the suspension cables, the setting sun making their scales shine an uncanny gold. A breeze moved past, as though invisible hands reached to grab our ankles, and we jerked our feet back up onto the dock and shivered.