Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

“Thank you,” Julia said.

“Anyway, it’s all pretty clearly spelled out in a document that I put on your bedside table — in a sealed envelope, in case one of the kids came upon it.”

“You’re not going to die.”

“Of course not.”

“You’re not even going to go.”

“I am.”

She turned on the disposal, and Jacob had the thought that if he were a Foley artist tasked with creating the sound of Satan screaming out from hell, he might just hold a mic to what he was now hearing.

“Another thing,” he said.

“What?”

“I’ll wait till it’s done.”

She switched it off.

“Remember I mentioned that I’ve been working on a show for a long time?”

“Your secret masterpiece.”

“I never described it like that.”

“About us.”

“Very loosely.”

“Yes, I know what you’re referring to.”

“There’s a copy of it in the bottom-right drawer of my desk.”

“The whole thing?”

“Yes. And on top is the bible.”

“The Bible?”

“For the show. It’s a kind of guide for how to read it. For future actors, a future director.”

“Shouldn’t the work speak for itself?”

“Nothing speaks for itself.”

“Sam sure does.”

“If the show were Sam, it wouldn’t need a bible.”

“And if you were Sam, you wouldn’t need a show.”

“Correct.”

“OK. So your show and its bible are in the bottom-right drawer of your desk. And in the event that you actually go to Israel and, what, perish in battle? I’m supposed to send it to your agent?”

“No. Please, Julia.”

“Burn it?”

“I’m not Kafka .”

“What?”

“I was hoping you’d read it.”

“If you die.”

“And only if.”

“I don’t know if I’m touched by how open you’re being, or hurt by how closed off you are.”

“You heard Sam: ‘To be and not to be.’”

Julia wiped the suds from the counter and hung the dish towel over the faucet. “Now what?”

“Well,” Jacob said, taking his phone from his pocket to check the time. “It’s three o’clock, which is too early to go to sleep.”

“Are you tired?”

“No,” he said. “I’m just used to being tired.”

“I don’t know what that means, but OK.”

“Aqua seafoam shame.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t assume it has to mean anything.” Jacob put his palm on the counter and said, “It’s you, of course. What Sam said.”

“What he said about what?”

“You know. About whom he’d pick.”

“Yes,” she said with a kind smile, “of course it’s me. The real question is, who was the dissenter?”

“That might very well have been a little weapon of psychological warfare.”

“You’re probably right.”

They laughed again.

“Why haven’t you asked me not to go to Israel?”

“Because after sixteen years, it goes without saying.”

“Look! A crying Hebrew baby.”

“Look! A pharaoh’s deaf daughter.”

Jacob slid his hands into his pockets and said, “I know sign language.”

Julia laughed. “What?”

“I’m completely serious.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“I’ve known it for as long as you’ve known me.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“I’m not.”

“Sign, I’m full of shit .”

Jacob pointed to himself, then moved his open right hand over the top of his left fist, then he held out his right hand with the thumb sticking up, grabbed the thumb in the fist of his left hand, and pulled his left hand up and off the thumb.

“How am I supposed to know if that’s real?”

“It is.”

“Sign, Life is long. ”

Jacob made his hands into the shape that kids use for guns, aimed his forefingers at his belly, then traced them up his torso toward his neck. Then he extended his left arm, pointed at the fist with his right forefinger, and moved the finger along his arm up to his shoulder.

“Wait, are you crying?” Jacob asked.

“No.”

“Are you about to?”

“No,” she said. “Are you?”

“I’m always about to.”

“Sign, Look! A crying Hebrew baby. ”

Jacob held his right hand by his face, about eye level, raised his index and middle fingers, and pushed his arm forward — two eyes moving forward in space. Then he ran the forefinger of each hand down his cheeks, one at a time and alternating, as if painting tears onto himself. Then, with his right hand, he stroked an imaginary beard. Then he created a cradle of his arms, palms up and overlapped at belly level, and rocked it back and forth.

“That beard-stroking? That’s the sign for Hebrew ?”

“For Hebrew , for Jew . Yes.”

“That manages to be at once anti-Semitic and misogynistic.”

“I’m sure you know that most Nazis were deaf.”

“Yes, I did know that.”

“And French people, and English, and Spaniards, and Italians, and Scandinavians. Pretty much everyone who isn’t us.”

“Which is why your father is always shouting.”

“That’s right,” Jacob laughed. “And by the way, the sign for stingy is the same as the sign for Jew , just with a clenched fist at the end.”

“Jesus.”

Jacob held his straightened arms out to his sides and tilted his head toward his right shoulder. Julia laughed and squeezed the sponge until her knuckles went white.

“I really don’t know what to say, Jacob. I can’t believe that you’ve kept an entire language secret.”

“I wasn’t keeping it secret. I just didn’t tell anyone.”

“Why?”

“When I write my memoir, I’m going to call it ‘The Big Book of Whys.’”

“People hearing that title might think it’s w-i-s-e .”

“Let them think.”

“And I thought you were calling it ‘The Bible.’”

Julia turned off the radio, which had been broadcasting at no volume for who knows how long. “Different countries have different sign languages, right?”

“Yes.”

“So what’s the Jewish sign for Jew ?”

“I have no idea,” Jacob said. He picked up his phone and googled “Hebrew Sign Language for Jew.” He turned his phone toward Julia and said, “It’s the same.”

“That’s sad.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“On a few levels.”

“What would you make it?” Jacob asked.

“A Star of David would require some serious double-jointedness.”

“Maybe a palm on the top of the head?”

“Not bad,” Julia said, “but it doesn’t account for women. Or the great majority of Jewish men, like you, who don’t wear yarmulkes. Maybe palms open like a book?”

“Very nice,” Jacob said, “but are illiterate Jews not Jews? Are babies?”

“I wasn’t thinking that it was reading a book, but the book itself. The Torah, maybe. Or the Book of Life. How do you sign life ?”

“Remember from Life is long ?” he said, once again making his hands into guns, and then moving the forefingers up his torso.

“So like this,” Julia said, putting her hands in front of her, unpeeling them like a book, and then moving those upturned palms up her torso, as if pushing a book through her lungs.

“I’ll run it up the flagpole next time the Elders of Zion convene.”

“What’s the sign for gentile ?”

“ Gentile? Who fucking cares?”

Julia laughed, and Jacob laughed.

“I can’t believe you knew a language all alone.”

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda single-handedly revived Hebrew. Unlike most Zionists, he wasn’t passionate about the creation of the State of Israel so that his people would have a home. He wanted his language to have a home. He knew that without a state — without a place for Jews to haggle, and curse, and create secular laws, and make love — the language wouldn’t survive. And without a language, there wouldn’t ultimately be a people.