David Grossman - The Book of Intimate Grammar

Ten minutes.

Last year in English class they learned the present continuous. Aron was thrilled: I em go — eeng, I em sleep — eeng. You don’t have that eeng tense in Hebrew. Gideon didn’t understand why he was so excited. Well, Gideon was like that, dead set against anything non-Israeli, non-Zionist, especially anything English, because the British loused up our country under the Mandate, and if we had one drop of pride we wouldn’t be learning their stupid language. Aron wanted to point out that the Hebrew language has just as many exceptions to the rule, but he held his tongue and reveled in “I em jum — peeng …” Jumping far, far out in space, halfway to infinity, and soon he was utterly absorbed and utterly alone; jum — peeng; it was like being in a glass bubble, and someone watching from the outside might think Aron ees only jum — peeng, but inside the bubble, there was so much happening, every secondlasted an hour, and the secrets of time were revealed to him and the others who experienced time the way he did, under a magnifying glass, and inside you feel private, intimate, and the people watching you, pressing their faces against the bubble, wonder what’s going on; they stand on the outside looking in, puzzled and sweaty and filthy, and again he asks himself what it will be like when his bar mitzvah comes around in a year and a half, will he start growing those stiff black hairs all over, his might be blond, though; what happens, does some mysterious force squeeze the hairs out through the epidermis, and does it hurt, and he vows that even when he’s big and hairy someday, with coarse skin like Papa and other men have, he will always remember the boy he used to be, and engrave him deep in his memory, because otherwise certain things might vanish in the course of growing up, it’s hard to say what, there’s a quality that makes all adults seem similar, not in looks so much, or even in personality, it’s this thing they have in common that makes them belong, that makes them law-abiding citizens, and when Aron grows up to be like them, he will still whisper, at least once a day, I em go — eeng; I em play — eeng; I em Aron — eeng; and that way he will always remember the individual Aron beneath the generalities. Eight minutes to go. Whew! He got so wrapped up he skipped two minutes.

There are kids in this class he’s been with since kindergarten, yet he hardly knows them. Some of them are clods, some are probably smarter than he is. Take Shalom Sharabani, for instance. Now, there’s one kid who knows how to avoid calling attention to himself. He’s a real pro at that. He never ever gets called on in class. But when you talk to him in the yard you find out he’s not a bit stupid: he has everything planned out. He will not go to high school. His father runs a stonecutter’s shop near the cemetery, and in a few years Shalom will start working there too and make good money. Compared to his type, Aron feels silly, like he’s wasting his time. And whenever Aron does his hilarious impersonations or his fabulous Houdini act at school parties, and the kids go wild, there in the audience sits Shalom Sharabani, scorning Aron for playing up to them, for craving their cheap, fickle love, in his ignorance about real life.

Aron looks up and down the aisles. So this is what will be left someday to turn into memories. Eli Ben-Zikri, for instance. Not twelve years old and already a hardened criminal. He has squinting eyes and wrinkleson his forehead, and his mouth never stops: he’s always licking his lips, biting the gold chain he wears around his neck, or puffing on his pen like a cigarette; squirming around like a caged tomcat. What do I know about him, though? Nothing. The only time he ever talked to me was when he sold me the passkey and said those dirty words. Even the teachers leave him alone. One day I might be proud of going to school with such a famous burglar.

But who will I be? What will I be? Maybe somewhere in this world a baby girl has just been born who will be my wife in twenty years. Maybe she’s in school already and she has no idea that I’m opening a savings account for us, she has a boyfriend and doesn’t realize it’s only a phase, that someday fate will bring us together. He smiles and shivers with anticipation, with secret joy, could it be that he’s already living his fate? Mama didn’t know anything about Papa either, she was busy raising her brothers and sisters in Jerusalem while he was slaving away in the taiga, in the ice, and little by little their paths converged, until suddenly, boom, like colliding stars, they knew they were made for each other.

Aron peeks around. Who can she be, he wonders. Pudgy Naomi Feingold stares straight at him. He blushes and quickly looks away. Sometimes he has the feeling that Naomi has a crush on him. Not that they ever talk in class, but once a year, on the school trip, she works up the courage to push her way into his crowd, the crowd with the good kids. He doesn’t like her, though: she hangs around them and yaks all day till everyone stops listening, that’s how she unwinds enough to show them who she really is — a girl who’s frightened of being hurt. And she never stops eating and making fun of herself for being fat, for being a party pooper and a real flat tire; she reminds him of Yochi in certain ways, they have the same kartofel nose, the same red creases in their thighs from wearing shorts. Maybe Naomi is in love with him. Who cares. It’s her sense of humor that annoys him, knowing as he does from Yochi that making fun of herself the way everybody liked — ha ha, Naomi Feingold, she’s a card — is her first and last line of retreat, and what does she get out of it: a broken heart, humiliation, hate. Again he peeks around and sees her gazing dreamily at Gil Kaplan; who cares, good riddance, but just the same he feels a little pang.

Or take Anat Fish. Anat-fish. If you dare call her Anat without the Fish, she glares at you as if you invaded her privacy. Anat Fish goessteady with a “freshie” named Mickey Zik, who invited her camping in Eilat during school vacation, everybody’s whispering about it, but she hasn’t made up her mind yet. Aron peers around at her. She’s stacked. They say she needs a bra with three hooks in the back, and she wears “fuck me” stretch pants to high-school parties. She’s shameless, really. There she sits, nonchalantly, ignoring the notes that nitwit Avi Sasson keeps throwing her. Even Rivka Bar-Ilan gets flustered when she looks into those Egyptian eyes. Aron has noticed the way Rivka starts fiddling with her hair whenever Anat Fish is watching her, and then you can see that she was a little girl once too, sitting in a classroom just like this, and Aron rests his chin on his palm to contemplate Rivka Bar-Ilan, a homely girl with a big nose, she must have gotten teased about it, and there was probably some beautiful, coldhearted girl like Anat Fish in her class too; see how carefully she avoids Anat Fish’s eyes, it’s the same in every generation, but were any of the adults he knew like him, he wonders, and thinks of his father; but no.

Now their bottoms are wriggling on the hard seats, as they cross and uncross their legs. All eyes are fixed on Gil Kaplan’s pompadour, over which he signals the five, four, three. Varda Koppler and Koby Kimchi jostle elbows on the halfway line of the desk, trespass it and you die. Zacky Smitanka, Meirky Blutreich, and Hanan Schweiky wave their hands exuberantly to rectify any bad impressions. Dorit Alush chews her gum and writes around the face with the bangs: Dorit Alush, grade 6C, Beit Hakerem Elementary School, Jerusalem, Israel, Asia, earth, universe … and then she stares out the window: what else was there? Michael Carny and Rina Fichman exchange notes and giggle behind their hands. Naomi Feingold munches pretzels under her desk. Anat Fish turns slowly with a sharklike stare at Avi Sasson, who shot a rubber band at her, and David Lipschitz’s face lights up, he looks so woebegone when he smiles like that, but she looks right through him, he isn’t there, can’t she at least give a sign that he exists; Aron vows revenge, he’ll steal something valuable from her and give it to David Lipschitz, how he loathes her, yet he can’t help admiring her a little too, for her beauty, for her coldness, for making a crazy boy fall so helplessly in love with her; and then Rabbi Yohanan Ben-Zakai slipped into the coffin, and his devoted pupils carried him out through the gates of the besieged city, and that is how he made his escape and founded his new center of learning. After the destruction, after the destruction — the words grateon his nerves. Two minutes left. Redheaded Aliza Lieber stretches her mouth for all to see. Miri Tamari has a hairy mole on the side of her hand that she tries to hide. A backward glance. The albino head is still jerking, almost as if it has a gizmo inside it, a spring or something that makes it bob around like that. “After the destruction of the Temple, children, Rabbi Yohanan Ben-Zakai founded the spiritual center of Yavneh.” The bell rings. Hurray. A monster with eighty arms and legs scrambles out through the narrow doorway past Rivka Bar-Ilan, who turns away with a vague look of horror in her eyes.