David Grossman - The Book of Intimate Grammar

Grandma’s eyes grew misty: her thin brown hand reached up to caress her shingled hair. “And that’s how it started,” she told them quietly in a voice so changed that Aron was astounded. “Yes, that’s how I met your darling mother.” Again she grimaced as though about to cry. “And she made me feel as small as a pencil stub that could fit behind your ear.” Yochi’s arm turned rigid at his side. “But she was even smaller, she was maybe twenty-six, it’s hard to guess her age, but she told Mauritzy she was twenty-one, she had him eating out of her hand, and I was forty-two at most, but she had the Hebrew and the brains, and education — all right, a kindergarten teacher’s diploma, but they call it education, and what did I have, Yochileh? My figure, my pearly teeth, and my kavalieren, and she had to go and cut off my zop!” She said this as though realizing it for the first time. Yochi jumped up on the bed with Grandma and hugged her around the waist. “She took her scissors and zip-zip-zip! And then she—” Grandma choked on her sobs. “She laughed at my kavalieren, the ones I had in Tel Aviv when we were living there! Casanovas, she called them! Criminals! Hochsta-plerin! Go home to your wives and children! And they were so goodto me … so kind … we laughed together, they wrote me poetry, poems for Lilly … and drank champagne from Lilly’s slipper … get out, go home, she said, Casanovas! Tramps! Klezmers! Artistes!” Grandma clutched at Yochi, who was only ten. “And I’ll tell you something else …” She wiped her tears and runny nose on the back of her hand like a child. “Maybe one in a thousand klezmers he’s a … Mozart someday … maybe one in a thousand poets he’s a Mickiewicz, but if Hinda ever came across a Yehudi Menuhin, you can be sure she would call him a klezmer artiste …” Aron didn’t know why she said that, nor did he care, he just wanted this irksome performance over with so he could run out and play with Gideon and Zacky.

“And there are other things, Yochileh, things I shouldn’t tell you—” “Enough, Grandma, enough crying, no more now.” Who knows what secrets Grandma whispered when Yochi crept into her bed at night and the two of them giggled till Mama put a stop to it. “Hinda always gets her way … you have to behave yourself around her and make yourself small, good morning, Hindaleh, good night, Hindaleh, because if you don’t watch out she’ll dig into your kishkes like you were a chicken not a person …” Yochi signaled to him sharply behind Grandma’s back to leave the room. He heard the gloom in Grandma’s voice, like a bitter secret behind her youthful brow, calling him to stay, but Yochi’s hand swept him resolutely away, and he stood at the door still holding the handle. “She led me like this, and threw me into a tub of boiling water, and said, Now, Lilly-Mamchu, we’re going to wash off the slime of your wonderful Casanovas …” She choked on the words and shivered like a leaf. Aron ran out.

The door opened and slammed. Aron froze: Yochi was home. She took a few steps forward. And stopped. He imagined her sniffing the air. Suddenly she turned around and walked into Grandma’s alcove. How did she know? Dead silence. The door to Hussein, the little cupboard in the alcove, swung open and slowly shut. Mama stopped pacing. Yochi hurried into the room.

“Aron.”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

“What?”

“No. Raise your head.”

“All right, satisfied?”

“Did they send her away?”

“Leave me alone, I don’t know anything.”

“Her pajamas and bathrobe are missing. Did they throw her out? Did you see?”

“No. I was at the super. They sent me shopping.”

“You’d better be telling the truth.”

She didn’t go to Mama. Or say anything about anything. She didn’t even ask where Grandma was. At seven o’clock Papa came home, silent and sweaty. There was a fresh scratch on his cheek, but he wouldn’t let Mama put a bandage on it. His mouth was tightly shut. Mama set the table, looking flustered, but her eyes were dry. Yochi sat in silence, and Aron averted his face. How stupid of me, said Mama quietly, I set five places. And suddenly she blurted, What do you want from me, Yochi, why are you staring at me like that! Aron was aghast, Mama wasn’t allowed to scream at Yochi anymore, she was forbidden to because of the squeaking in Yochi’s ears. And all this time I let her stay in my home! Show me another woman in my place who would agree to take her schweiger in and treat her with so much respect and consideration! Who else would have given her the time of day if they knew the kind of woman she was! Her voice was choked, and she hid her tearful face behind the apron with the kangaroo. You can’t even cry, Yochi’s eyes accused her silently, you can’t allow yourself to shed a tear for her. No one is going to have that pleasure, especially not you, Yocheved; last year, when she started going meshuggeh in the head, who took care of her? You will not look at me like that! Yochi had been sitting silently, cupping her ear. Tell me, who washed her dirty underwear? Who rubbed her feet five times a day? And what did you do for her? Well, what? What did you do besides reading the paper and telling her the news of the day, as if she knew the difference between Gamal Abdel Nasser and Levi Eshkol! I don’t want to hear a word out of you! Understand? Not a word!

Yochi said nothing. She didn’t touch her fork. The steam from the mashed potatoes fogged her eyes. Papa bowed over his plate and looked away. Aron took a bite, but the food stuck in his throat. He wouldn’t swallow a single crumb for her. Mama must have known what he was thinking. She slapped a drumstick on his plate. It’s a chicken’s leg! If he had any guts he would stop eating meat. Starting tomorrow he would become a vegetarian. How can you chew something that used to bealive. He chewed a little mouthful and stored it in his cheeks. Where was Grandma now, who was taking care of her? And what was she thinking? Did she understand? He glanced at Mama out of the corner of his eye. She was toying with her fork, not eating, moving her lips, mumbling explanations. He tried to control himself, but again and again his eyes darted to Grandma’s empty chair. In front of strangers you were not allowed to call her Grandma, she was Lilly. This she had taught him from earliest childhood. Yochi told him Lilly wasn’t her real name either, it was the name she made up for the cabaret. Funny how Papa insisted she live with them. You’d think they kept her around just so Mama would have somebody to take care of and civilize. And now she was gone. But he felt her presence even more, his strange little grandmother, a granny-child like a half-baked roll, except when she was embroidering, then she became another person; it was kind of scary to watch her muttering over the pillowslips, wearing a thousand different expressions: hate, fear, revenge; it was murder, not a jungle scene she was embroidering, with the parrots and monkeys and fish, shimmering pink and gold, and Mama would beg her, Please, Mamchu, slow down, there’s no one left to sell your kishelech to, no more orders from the dry-goods store, and Grandma looked away, and Mama humbly clutched her hand. Do you have to make them so gaudy, Mamchu, she pleaded. Can’t you try using softer colors, does it have to be purple and turquoise and gold like the Arabers; our customers are respectable people who want something decorative for their salon, fershteist, Mamchu, we’re not selling dreck to Zigeuners here, but Grandma only sucked her breath in, snorting away any trace of respectability, and Aron remembered her look of contempt whenever the relatives got together, how she would sit apart watching them out of the corner of her eye, scowling at the matronly shrieks of laughter when Rivche’s Dov told one of his dirty jokes. Let’s be reasonable, Mama cajoled, keeping her distance from Grandma’s embroidery, try shmearing a little less red! The house was suddenly silent. Mama’s hand trembled at her mouth, and she stared at Grandma remorsefully. Grandma sat perfectly still. The crimson thread hovered briefly in the air. Slowly Grandma raised her eyes. She glared at Mama like a wounded animal and let out a mighty howl, and Mama shrank back as though faced with the proof of a forgotten crime.