David Grossman - The Book of Intimate Grammar

Aron sifted dust between his fingers. He was afraid he might starttrembling if he opened his mouth. At school the kids had taken to calling each other by their last names. The Tel Aviv crowd started last summer, and now it was catching on here too. Strashnov and Smitanka and Blutreich and Schweiky — the well-blended ingredients of a delicious cake were slowly disintegrating into dry components: Ricklin, Sharabi, Kolodny. Names that belong on official envelopes, on checkbooks and draft notices. On the rough, shroudlike covering of skin.

“So why didn’t you go to the movies with him?”

“I didn’t feel like it today.”

In other words, tomorrow he might. But Aron would take it in his stride. He’d plan the day wisely, to avoid being stranded all afternoon. He would practice escaping out of something with a lock. He had been neglecting his Houdini act lately. The trouble was, he needed another person there to lock him in.

“So why don’t you come along,” Gideon suggested limply.

“I hate James Bond.” Silence. Shut up, stupid. “What’s so great about going to see an English movie with a lot of girls in makeup and all that spy baloney?”

“For your information, even the”—he lowered his voice, peering cautiously around—“Mossad uses James Bond movies as part of their training for spies. Manny told me. Seriously, to help develop their intelligence and instincts.”

What do you know about spies, thought Aron wearily, about secrecy and being on your guard all the time, acting as if you belong, when you’re only playing a part, abandoned forever in enemy territory.

“Why don’t you come with us sometime and see for yourself?”

Then too: there’s the risk of being misclassified with a hasty glance: by movie ushers, for instance; or the new nurse at school; nearsighted old ladies who think you’re a little child; the substitute teacher who, without any warning, moves you from the third row to the front; first-graders staring at you open-mouthed as you walk by with your friends, though maybe that was his imagination; or muddleheaded gym teachers on field day; or the crow that raids the trash bins who isn’t quite sure whether Aron has reached the age when they stop throwing stones; or Grandma Lilly, who wanted to buy him a fire engine for his bar mitzvah, well, she is a bit daffy.

Keep quiet. Bite your cheeks. “And anyway,” he blurted, “how do you know they’ll let you in? What if they check your ID’s at the door?”“We’ll see,” said Gideon, gratuitously and in the wrong tone of voice. But now there were dusky shadows in the sky and around the two of them, and Aron wondered, Why is there such a lovely word for something as disgusting as peach fuzz, and he peered around to dry his tears, observing the little valley through an evening mist, his eyes resting on the blistered rock, on the stream of sewage that flowed into the valley from the building project, on the junk heap with the rusty Tupolino and the stinky old refrigerator … What was it about him that made Sophie Atias so nervous, what harm was she afraid he would do her, and he felt something so bitter and heavy inside him, he had to blurt out that tomorrow he was going to break into that apartment upstairs and see if anyone was hiding there. And he swallowed his spit and asked Gideon if he would stand guard outside the door.

He’d noticed that look on Gideon’s face before: not far from where they were sitting, in fact, three years ago at their Scout initiation. The “freshies” had built a glorious campfire, crowned with torches and flaming pinecone letters you could see for miles. Parents gathered on the edge of the valley to watch as the initiates lined up in their neatly ironed khaki uniforms. When the speeches and cheering were over, the “freshies” quickly crossed hands around the campfire, and the troop leader announced that all initiates would now break into the circle to prove they were worthy of becoming Scouts. Aron’s group tittered anxiously, because the story went that each year there was somebody who didn’t make it through and had to join another youth movement.

Aron, in the first wave of invaders, scuffled with a scrawny-looking “freshie,” kicked him in the shins as hard as he could, broke through the circle, and sat down by the fire. Panting with relief, he suddenly noticed that deep tickle inside that often made him show off or do crazy things, though it also gave rise to some of his best ideas, like adding a final flourish to an already fantastic drawing, or taking one last spectacularly risky spin before kicking the ball into the goal cage. Gideon had broken through the circle too and was sitting beside him, all aglow. Aron examined Gideon’s red little ears. They were pointy like his brother Manny’s, and their mother’s. The family ears. Kids were always teasing Gideon about his ears, but looking at them in the firelight now, as though for the first time, Aron couldn’t help admiring their delicate form, the proud sense of lineage they conferred upon him, like a family crest in cartilage, duly preserved, faithfully imparted. Gideon’s childrenwould probably inherit those ears, how could they help it, and suddenly Aron felt a vague irritation; maybe it was the smoke blowing in his face, making him choke and fidget, as yet unconscious of himself amid the tumult of runners and blockers and the crackling of the fire, and he rose to his feet, aware of nothing but the spasm of dread that beckoned to him, forcing him to wake and listen: because there is a narrow path through the visible realm which Aron alone could tread; and he could spell mysterious new words out of old familiar letters; he was churning, feverish. For a moment he stood bewildered, and the children who were already sitting in the circle began to stare at him. Maybe they thought he didn’t feel well, but he felt great. This was a declaration, of what, he didn’t know yet; and it was also an outcry, against what, he didn’t understand, though he reveled in the possibilities that glittered between the wires, flitting in and out, to and fro; and in the process something would melt, and unfold to him in all its glory, yes, oh yes, that’s what he wanted, free passage through the fortified wall.

And he remembered that his mother and father were up there now with the other parents, Mama and Papa dressed up and solemn, and someday he too would stand on the rim of such a valley, a serious adult, watching his own child breaking through the circle, doing his family proud, from father to son, in a long succession without shirkers or traitors. And all at once he took off. This was freedom, this joy welling up as he burst through the circle a moment later, waving his arms like a little airplane; yes, he was free, but now he was an outcast, too. Crushed by the ceremony and its cruel attendants. Maybe that’s when it started, in the days before cousin Giora outgrew the striped shirt, and Mama and Papa were still planning to hire an expensive photographer from Photo Gwirtz for his bar mitzvah instead of Uncle Shimmik with his trembling hands and old box camera, and they would sit in the kitchen every night going over menus; that was when Aron broke through the wall of “freshies” and ran into the furry cassia bushes, then stopped, turned around, and astounded them all by charging in again.

He hurled himself at the wall, only to be repulsed by the antagonized “freshies,” who banded against him, driving him back with a rhythmic chant. Initiates who had failed before now broke easily into the circle. Again and again he charged at them, till he was too exhausted to plan his next onslaught. The beating he took no longer hurt, it merely annoyedhim, like a persistent tapping on the shoulder. When at last he came up for air, doubled over in the darkness, he could see the others around the campfire. There in the circle sat Gideon and Zacky, talking together; what were they talking about at a time like this, why didn’t they do something, why didn’t they rush to his side? Already he regretted his folly, but mostly he felt their vengeance trickling into him like poison; how swiftly they had joined the rank and file. They were ruthless in their zeal. In their cliquishness. He charged and was confronted by a cast-iron body. Panting, dripping sweat, he charged again: Touch me, I’m burning. “Hey-hop,” they clamored, and it was their most effective weapon, his hidden weakness; again he fell and rose and charged at them, bellowing blindly, while they, unwitting, with the instinct of the herd, exploited his Joseph-like transcendence and offered him up in sacrifice, the victim of their unity.