David Grossman - The Book of Intimate Grammar

The Captain Hook was launched with a small bottle of cognac at exactly four-thirty that afternoon. And went down in a whirlpool five minutes later. The children bailed out and scrambled ashore, looking stunned and devastated. There was one scary moment, when Aron and Giora were sucked into an eddy together, and Aron was almost sure Giora had pushed him down to save himself. The wind blew cold, and the children shivered. No one actually blamed him outright, but Aron felt as though a big hand had just snuffed out the candle in his darkened cell.

No, Mama, it’ll be too small on me, he whined, staring helplessly at the shirt she thrust at his chest, at his face. Why’s she so grumpy, he wondered, hoping to be back in time for the last few minutes of the game, you could always rely on him to score, and just then Papa walked in, and then Yochi, she wanted to ask Mama where the depilatory wax was, and suddenly Aron remembered that time last summer when he was trying on the boot. Perspiration trickled down his collar. Quickly, he thought, before my fingers start shaking, and he pulled off his sweaty shirt and changed into the other one, and suddenly, with his arms caughtin the striped sleeves as he desperately searched for the neckhole, he started gasping and wheezing as though someone were pressing down on his chest, trying to strangle him, and a strangely familiar-looking boy appeared out of a haze, looking pale and pure, and a fine cool ripple filled his soul, and the little white boy, so white he was almost blue, sailed out into a craggy moonscape.

Frantically Aron tried to push through the neck hole, stop flapping around or Mama and Papa will see how smooth and skinny your arms are, and the fetus from science lab floated in formaldehyde, slowly decomposing and blinking its tadpole eyes, and suddenly it opened its mouth and grinned at him. And Aron groaned and finally poked his head through the hole. Papa and Yochi disappeared. Giora’s shirttails hung all the way down his shorts, where his legs stuck out like matchsticks.

Aunt Gucha had enclosed a note saying that her Giora, kineahora, was outgrowing his clothes faster than dough rises; why, next to him, even Efraim is beginning to look like a raisin. These, I’m sure you’ll find, Hindaleh, are just like new, he hardly wore them, and it’s a shame to throw them out, he is the youngest cousin, may all five live to be strong and healthy, so why not take the clothes to Rabbi Carasso’s wife, to give to the poor, even today my heart bleeds for them, wrote Gucha, who grew up in dire poverty with Mama, the family nearly starved to death in the days of the siege and the food rations in Jerusalem, and she closed with regards to everyone, hoping to have Aronchik back with them next summer.

Mama stood before him, looking grim. All of a sudden he needed a hug. Right this minute. Desperately. He needed her to hug him the way she used to. But she recoiled from him and knocked something over. Maybe the shirt had a curse on it. He racked his brains. What broke, was it the vase with the yellow apples Rivche and Dov brought to the housewarming, but no, he had seen the vase later on, right where it belonged. Was it the blue bowl with the stag and the doe chasing each other’s tails that Shimmik and Itka brought from the trip to Holland? No, that too was in place, with no signs of gluing. For an instant he saw the image of his yearning face in her pupils, while her puffy cheeks stretched back to reveal the cusps of her molars. So now can I go out to play? he asked, retreating gingerly, careful not to look at the broken pieces, like a mountain climber afraid of looking down. So now can Igo out again to play? he repeated weakly. Mama stood rigid, her lips turning pale. He could hear them singing in the valley, his team; they’d finished the game without him and struck up a song with the rival team. Whoever heard of singing after a game, with the rival team yet, I don’t get it, they sound like a choir, what, did they rehearse or something, and he gazed imploringly at Mama, who split down the middle before his eyes till he could see the kernel of white hatred inside her. You know, she said, I’m beginning to think you’re doing this to us deliberately.

And some weeks later, just before dusk, Aron, Gideon, and Zacky were together in the valley, sprawling on the big brown rock. It was blistered and rusty, tufted with shrubs, and Aron pressed his cheek against it to welcome the warmth of spring.

Languidly the three boys floated through the twilight hour, prattling about Mordechai Luk, the spy found in a suitcase last year at Rome airport wearing a gold ring with a lion seal and a secret slot for poison or microfilm, and Aron leaned forward on his elbows and said, Hey, wouldn’t it be a blast to do the Houdini number out of a suitcase for this year’s class party? He could picture it now: Zacky and Gideon would lock him in Uncle Shimmik’s old black suitcase, tie a rope around it, hold up a Bukharan bedspread to conceal it from the audience, making drumrolls with their tongues, and then, as the audience waited breathlessly, Aron would dig two fingers into the heel of his shoe and pull out Papa’s razor blade and reach into the lining of his sleeve for Mama’s missing nail file and, as the seconds ticked away, because his fingers were slippery and what if he dropped the saw, how would he find it in the dark, the girls would shriek, Quick, somebody, get him out! and the boys would jump up, and presto, Aron would stand before them shouting, Hey, I’m free! Zacky snickered quietly. He had this new way of laughing, and Aron felt the ember in his bowels glow red. So what do you say, Aron asked Gideon, lying facedown so as not to blur the imprint on the rock, do we start rehearsing for the party? We’ll callthis number “The Man in the Suitcase.” How about it? Gideon said he wasn’t sure he had time this year. What do you mean? Aron was dismayed. I have to plan my campers’ activities for the Carmel mountains trip this summer, said Gideon. But that’s still a month and a half away, gasped Aron; we always do something special together for the class party. Gideon didn’t reply and Zacky said, Who cares about a dumb show, I want to win the soccer championship next year. What does that have to do with anything, screamed Aron; you know we’ll cinch it, our team’s the best, now let’s get back to the Houdini number, and Gideon said, Okay, we’ll see, calm down, what’s with you anyway?

Aron seethed in silence. It really irked him the way Zacky was gloating over the sudden flare-up between him and Gideon. All right, let’s think. Don’t provoke them. Don’t tell them anything, but he did; he swallowed his spit and announced with a nervous squeak that this summer they were definitely going to catch a spy, he was sure of it. Zacky snickered again. Aron did his best to ignore him and said, This country is crawling with foreign agents, every week somebody else is caught photographing military bases, while we sit here twiddling our thumbs, and I’ll tell you who the next spy will turn out to be, that student guy at Gideon’s, he has a whole network of enemy contacts, remember the time we found an Arabic newspaper in his wastebasket, with certain words underlined in red, and what did we do about it? Nothing. Come off it, said Gideon impatiently, he’s no spy, he’s just studying Arabic. Gideon hated their stupid lodger, who acted like he owned the place, with his booming laughter, and his singing in the shower, and the way he was always sucking up to Gideon’s mother, doing chores for her and bringing her flowers every Friday. Well, what about the empty apartment on the third floor, then? ventured Aron, forcing himself to continue. The owner might come back this summer and we’ll find out he’s a Soviet agent. Aron waited. Surprisingly enough, Zacky said nothing, but his silence was worse than his sneer. Aron ignored him and announced, as though everything had been settled, Okay, we’ll take turns watching the apartment. I know he’s coming this year. I can feel it in my bones. Zacky sat up. There’s no spy in that apartment, he drawled. Nobody’s set foot in there for years. The blinds are always down, and we’ve never once seen a letter in the mailbox. Why waste half the vacation on a pointless stakeout? Aron pouted and said he had a hunch, this was going to be their lucky year. Yeah, sure, said Zacky, you and your hunches.