David Grossman - The Book of Intimate Grammar

“It’s none of your business what I write.”

“Just tell me that much.”

“Who says I write the same thing to each of them?”

“I hear that in America they invented this robot thing that can copy a thousand pages a second.”

“Aron!”

“Okay, okay, just kidding. Go on and write your boring letters. Just don’t forget to change the names each time.”

He sank down on his bed, tossed this way and that, folded his armsunder his head, pulled a coiling thread out of the hole in his mattress, tickled his nose with it; he’d been thinking of changing his sneeze for a while, because Gideon does this loud hutchoo thing as opposed to his own hutchee, but he can’t even come through with a sneeze today. What now? What time is it? It’s pitch-black outside. I wonder if Edna Bloom keeps going to check the broken wall.

“Yochi is a nice name. Kind of like yokel. Or yucky. Or yak yak yak.”

“Watch it.”

“Okay okay. What are you getting so mad about. All I did was say your name. I can say anything I want.”

She turned to him: “What do you want? Why are you being such a brat?”

“Aww, why don’t you write me a letter too. That way at least you’ll ask how I am.”

Again he sprawled out on his bed. He was pretty tired already. Watching Papa break down a wall had proven exhausting. He could fall asleep like nothing now and wake up fresh tomorrow.

“Aron.”

“Yes?” He quickly turned to face her.

“Why are you so jumpy? I was just wondering something.”

“About me?”

“About us. How is it that we never have real fights. I don’t remember the two of us ever having a real fight. Do you?”

“You mean, being mad at each other for a long time? And hitting? No, you’re right. Is that considered good or bad?”

“I don’t know. Brothers and sisters usually fight. And you and I are always together, we even share a bedroom, but whenever I get even the teensiest bit angry with you, right away I feel guilty. Don’t you think that’s a little strange?”

“I don’t know. Never mind. Hey, tell me, if What’s-her-name, Edna Bloom, got married, could she still have kids?”

“Until the age of thirty-five. Or maybe it’s thirty-nine. Once I read about an Egyptian woman who gave birth at the age of forty-seven.”

“Forty-seven?!”

“Yes, but that’s Egypt.”

“And how old do you suppose What’s-her-name is?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. But before, while you were talking, I was thinking something.”

“I know, you’ll match her up with one of your pen pals?”

“No, stupid, I was thinking about why we never fight.”

“Or hey, we could find her somebody in the personal column.”

“See, you made me forget. That’s what happens when you start to blabber.”

Silence. How stiff her shoulders were. He tried to imagine her walking into class that morning. Taking her seat. And suddenly he saw the scene, someone shot a rubber band at her and she ignored it. His heart melted with compassion for her. Couldn’t the other kids see that she was special? No one ever sees a person’s home self. If they did see, thought Aron, there wouldn’t be cruelty in the world. He needed to give her something, a present.

“Did you see the picture she has in the bathroom with the half-man, half-bull?”

“Shush, Aron, you’re being a pest.”

“And there’s this woman stroking his back. Yochi, tell me—”

“Okay, one question, and I don’t want to hear another word out of you!”

“What’s going to happen to Grandma?” How did that pop out of his mouth.

She turned to him in surprise. “It’s about time. So you finally remembered to ask.”

“Why don’t we visit her anymore?”

Yochi thought awhile. “I go.”

“You? Liar. When?”

“Twice a week, at least. I go to visit her straight from school.”

“Does Mama know?”

“No one knows. And if you dare—”

“So — how is she?”

“Same as she was. Poor thing.”

“Does she still sleep all the time?”

“No.”

“You mean she woke up? She’s awake?”

“She doesn’t take the sleeping pills anymore.”

“Then … then how … she has to!”

“The fact is, she doesn’t. She’s awake. She lies in bed looking at the sky. There’s a tree outside her window. She stares at it.” Yochi spoke gently: “The leaves are falling. I tell her things.”

“You mean she …” Oh God. “You mean she recognizes you?”

“No. But I think she feels it’s me. She holds my hand.”

“Hey, could I come with you sometime?”

“Sure. It’s a free country.”

“I really want to come.”

“You don’t scare me. Come if you want to.”

“I mean it, I will.”

“Uh-huh, sure.”

Silence. Yochi returned to her letter. Aron mulled over this fantastic bit of news. Yochi did, but Mama and Papa didn’t? From now on, he too would go. Starting tomorrow. Or maybe the day after, when Papa finished the work at Edna’s. Enough. The age of betrayal is over. How could he have behaved that way. He stood up determinedly. Rummaged through his school bag. It was pretty interesting that he and Yochi never fought. Who had the strength to fight. The little red mirror. That’s what he’d bring her as a present. Maybe she did understand something after all. Maybe she still had feelings. It would make her happy. A memento from Aron. For his little grandma, swaddled in blankets, staring through the window at the night. Maybe she was like an animal now and could see things in the darkness. He lifted the mirror to his face and held his breath. And the mirror stayed clear. There. Caught you, spy! With all his might he blew on it, fogging his reflection.

For three days Papa battered the wall at Edna Bloom’s. He smashed it till the iron rods and the rusty grating and the slender water pipe showed through the gaping holes and the silky bedroom was revealed to the audience in the salon. Once in a while Papa rested, luxuriously kneading his arm and shoulder on his way to the window to smoke a cigarette, whereupon the onlookers realized how long they’d been holding their breath and began to unfreeze, to clear their throats and stretch. And Papa inhaled the smoke as he looked out at the sagging gray clouds, so pregnant they almost touched the ground. Then he nodded wordlessly at the naked plane tree outside, stubbed the cigarette on his work boot, and returned to pound the wall.

Mama went to Edna’s every day, with her big brown knitting bag, set down a bulky ball of yarn at her feet, and crisscrossed the air with her needles. Not a word passed between her and Edna Bloom, who sat sequestered in her armchair from four to seven every day, staring through her, lost in reverie. Papa applied himself with zeal — how had he kept his talents buried so long — and little by little his body began to manifest itself in all its glory: brawny, rugged, full of beef. Yes, he was still fat and clumsy, but to Edna’s eye, the eye of the artist from her sculpture class at the civic center, that “still” was pure delight.

Papa continued excavating in silence, save for the grunts accompanying his hammer blows, which grew deeper and throatier the more he let himself be carried away by the rhythm. With Edna’s money he’dpurchased some black rubber bushel baskets into which he would rake the scraps of plaster and chunks of wall every half hour, and then load them on his shoulders and empty them through the window onto the growing mound behind the building.

Three days. The guts spilled out of the wall, and Edna hardly budged where she sat or reclined, snuggling into the vague, elemental horror that touched her with a thrill too fierce to endure, like a child hiding under the covers at the approaching footsteps of a mother about to extricate her from the void. A cloud of white dust hovered over the house long after working hours, and there was a permanent trace in her nostrils now of Papa’s pungent-smelling sweat: to remember him she only had to breathe. After the second day of work, when she was left alone to fix her supper — an orange, a slice of whole-wheat bread, and cottage cheese — she suddenly stopped and raised her head with a cunning smile. She dropped the bread, blushed pink, and, with a giggle and an Edna-are-you-mad, danced into the empty salon, daintily holding out an imaginary dress, and sank luxuriously into her armchair: soon the white cloud would disperse and she would see the burly arm again, the magnificent paunch.