Глен Хиршберг - Dancing Men

“Ruach,” he said. It was what he always called me, when he called me anything.

In spite of the heat, I felt goosebumps spring from my skin, all along my legs and arms. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t answer. I should say hello, I thought. Say something.

I waited instead. A few seconds later, the oxygen mask fogged again. “Trees”, said the whisper-voice. “Screaming. In the trees.” One of my grandfather’s hands raised an inch or so off the arm of the chair and fell back into place.

“Patience,” Lucy said from the doorway. “Come on, Seth.” This time, my grandfather said nothing as I slipped past him into the house.

Lucy slid a bologna sandwich, a bag of Fritos and a plastic glass of apple juice in front of me. I lifted the sandwich, found that I couldn’t imagine putting it in my mouth, and dropped it on the plate.

“Better eat,” Lucy said. “We have a long day yet.”

I ate a little. Eventually, Lucy sat down across from me, but she didn’t say anything else. She just gnawed a celery stick and watched the sand outside change color as the sun edged west. The house was silent, the countertops and walls bare.

“Can I ask you something?” I finally asked.

Lucy was washing my plate in the sink. She didn’t turn around, but she didn’t say no.

“What are we doing? Out there, I mean.”

No answer. Through the kitchen doorway, I could see my grandfather’s living room, the stained wood floor and the single brown armchair lodged against a wall, across from the TV. My grandfather had spent every waking minute of his life in this place for fifteen years or more, and there was no trace of him in it.

“It’s a Way, isn’t it?” I said, and Lucy shut the water off.

When she turned, her expression was the same as it had been all day: a little mocking, a little angry. She took a step toward the table.

“We learned about them at school,” I said.

“Did you,” she said.

“We’re studying lots of Indian things.”

The smile that spread over Lucy’s face was ugly, cruel. Or maybe just tired. “Good for you,” she said. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

“Is this to make my grandfather better?”

“Nothing’s going to make your grandfather better.” Without waiting for me, she pushed through the screen door into the heat.

This time, I made myself stop beside my grandfather’s chair. I could just hear the hiss of the oxygen tank, like steam escaping from the boiling ground. When no fog appeared in the blue mask and no words emerged from the hiss, I followed Lucy into the hogan and let the hide curtain fall shut.

All afternoon and into the evening, I played the water drum while Lucy sang. By the time the air began to cool outside, the whole hogan was vibrating, and the ground, too. Whatever we were doing, I could feel the power in it. I was the beating heart of a living thing, and Lucy was its voice. Once, I found myself wondering just what we were setting loose or summoning, and I stopped for a single beat. But the silence was worse. The silence was like being dead. And I thought I could hear the Dancing Man behind me. If I inclined my head, stopped drumming, I almost believed that I’d hear him whispering.

When Lucy finally rocked to her feet and walked out again without speaking to me, it was evening, and the desert was alive. I sat shaking as the rhythm spilled out of me and the sand soaked it up. Then I stood, and that unsteady feeling came over me again, stronger this time, and the air was too thin, as though some of the atmosphere had evaporated. When I emerged from the hogan, I saw black beetles on the wall of my grandfather’s house, and I heard wind and rabbits and the first coyotes yipping somewhere to the west. My grandfather sat slumped in the same position he had been in hours and hours ago, which meant he had been baking out here all afternoon. Lucy was on the patio, watching the sun melt into the horizon’s open mouth. Her skin was slick, and her hair was wet where it touched her ear and neck.

“Your grandfather’s going to tell you a story,” she said, sounding exhausted. “And you’re going to listen.”

My grandfather’s head rolled upright, and I wished we were back in the hogan, doing whatever it was we’d been doing. At least there I was moving, pounding hard enough to drown out Mounds. Sounds that weren’t us, and weren’t supposed to be there. The screen door slapped shut, and my grandfather looked at me. Mis eyes were deep, deep brown, almost black, and horribly familiar. Did my eyes look like that?

“Ruach,” he whispered, and I wasn’t sure, but his whisper seemed stronger than it had before. The oxygen mask fogged and stayed fogged. The whisper kept coming, as though Lucy had spun a spigot and left it open. “You will know. Now. Then the world. won’t be yours. anymore.” My grandfather shifted like some sort of giant, bloated sand-spider in the center of its web, and I heard his ruined skin rustle. Overhead, the whole sky went red.

“At war’s end. .” my grandfather hissed. “Do you. understand?” I nodded, transfixed. I could hear his breathing now, the ribs rising, parting, collapsing. The tank machinery had gone strangely silent. Was he breathing on his own, I wondered? Could he, still?

“A few days. Do you understand? Before the Red Army came, . ” He coughed. Even his cough sounded stronger. “The Nazis look. me. And the Gypsies. From. our camp. To Chelmno.”

I’d never heard the word before. I’ve almost never heard it since. But as my grandfather said it, another cough roared out of his throat, and when it was gone, the tank was hissing again. Still, my grandfather continued to whisper.

“To die. Do you understand}” Gasp. Hiss. Silence. “To die. But not yet. Not. right away.” Gasp. “We came. by train, but open train. Not cattle car. “Wasteland. Farmland. Nothing. And then trees.” Under the mask, the lips twitched, and above it, the eyes closed completely. “That first time. Ruach. All those. giant. green. trees. Unimaginable. To think anything. on the Earth we knew . could live that long.”

His voice continued to fade, faster than the daylight. A few minutes more, I thought, and he’d be silent again, just machine and breath, and I could sit here in the yard and let the evening wind roll over me.

“When they took. us off the train” my grandfather said, “for one moment … J swear I smelled. leaves. Fat, green leaves. the new green. in them. Then the old smell. The only smell. Blood in dirt. The stink. of us. Piss. Shit. Open. sores. Skin on fire. Hnnn.”

His voice trailed away, hardly-there air over barely moving mouth, and still he kept talking. “Prayed for. some people. to die. They smelled. better. Dead. That was one prayer . always answered.

“They took us. into the woods. Not to barracks. So few of them. Ten. Maybe twenty. Faces like. possums. Stupid. Blank. No thoughts. We came to. ditches. Deep. Like wells. Half full already. They told us ‘Stand still’. ‘Breathe in’.”

At first, I thought the ensuing silence was for effect. He was letting me smell it. And I did, the earth and the dead people, and there were German soldiers all around, floating up out of the sand with black uniforms and white, blank faces. Then my grandfather crumpled forward, and I screamed for Lucy.

She came fast but not running and put a hand on my grandfather’s back and another on his neck. After a few seconds, she straightened. “He’s asleep,” she told me. “Stay here.” She wheeled my grandfather into the house. She was gone a long time.

Sliding to a sitting position, I closed my eyes and tried not to hear my grandfather’s voice. After a while I thought I could hear bugs and snakes and something larger padding out beyond the cacti. I could feel the moonlight, too, white and cool on my skin. The screen door banged, and I opened my eyes to find Lucy moving toward me, past me, carrying a picnic basket into the hogan.