David Grossman - The Book of Intimate Grammar

The next day Edna asked Mr. Lombroso’s permission to leave work for an hour. She walked into a grocery store in the old Nachlaot quarter, searched through the crowded shelves, and bought a jar of peppery Yemenite skhug. Later that evening Papa devoured the salami with skhug on both sides, and smiled at Edna with an appreciation that gave her butterflies. A few days later, instead of munching a sandwich during her ten o’clock break, she went out to the Machaneh Yehuda market, tremulously treading a sunbeam that illumined her path from behind the gloomy clouds, and arrived at the shish kebab grill. How beautifully unspoiled the market is, she mused, till a voice within her observed derisively, Really, Edna, have you forgotten that course on naive art at the civic center? And she joined the voice in ridiculing herself. She stammered her order to the waiter, one Jerusalem mixed grill, and watched with trepidation as the swarthy young cook spread chunks of raw meat on the sizzling griddle, chopped an onion very small, and sprinkled out a handful of seasonings. Then she laced her fingers, shut her eyes, and waited.

A heaping plate of savory meat appeared under her nose. She took a breath, raised her shoulders, and set to. Zealously she ate up the spicy meat, drawing the attention of passersby with her big straw hat and the conspicuous gesturing of a benevolent tourist — oh yes, she noticed; suddenly she could see herself from the outside, devoid of self-hatred. Take your hat off, Edna, there, that’s better, now ruffle your hair and smile at the boy who’s watching you. Her shoulders dropped. Her buttocks relaxed into a pear shape on the seat of her chair. The waiter came over and asked if Madame wished for anything more. There was a suspicion of irony in his voice, but she managed to overcome a haughty twinge and see that he was young and smiling and awake, reminding her, to her surprise, of someone she might have met on her trips to Spain and Italy and Greece, or even the man in Portugal; why had it never occurred to her before that there were exciting men so close to home. She began to joke with the waiter, and flushed with pride at his approval of her homely wit and fluency in market slang, why, he might have thought she’d roamed the Machaneh Yehuda alleys all her life.She asked for a side order of fries and hummus, and the waiter, grasping her by the wrist, gave a demonstration of the proper way to roll the pita while you wipe your plate, like a fisherman, she noted, casting a net around her flanks. A squeal of triumph filled her throat: It’s me, Edna! Perkily she dressed him up in her mind’s eye, her waiter, shall we say, in baggy pantaloons with a golden sash, and perhaps a fez with a long black tassel and bandoliers crisscrossing his chest; sometimes a demon would possess her on her travels; she always made sure to visit a city that had a palace with a sentinel standing at the entrance, tall and proud, his eyes smoldering or furious, in a frenzy to prove to her he was a man of flesh, forced to stand immobile five or six hours a day — in Stockholm it was four — and the thought of this dark curly-haired young waiter guarding the gates of the palace, her palace, yes, she would be queen, was so thrilling that she threw back her head and let the pleasure slide down her spine. The waiter smiled at her, but quizzically. She called him over, joined heads with him, and sweetly entreated: Would he be willing to sell her, ya habibi , the meat for that dish, and would he tell her the secret, ya habibi, of the right way to season it? She winked at him mischievously and felt her cheek muscles contract; the waiter returned a tentative wink and hurried back to the grill, with a comment to his helper. Edna felt happy. Outside, the rain was pouring down, and she thought of the half-demolished wall awaiting her at home. Waves of cold befogged the restaurant window, and Edna unbuttoned her sweater, exposing her slender pink throat as she brushed back her yellow hair and saw herself briefly reflected in a mirror strapped to the roof of a passing car; oh, the wonderful surprises life can bring, perhaps she needed a new hairdo, something youthful, she would dye her hair red; she dipped her pita in the saucer of skhug, and her tongue caught fire. She fanned it with her hand like a Parisian saying Oo-la-la.

At home she roasted the hearts and livers and gizzards, and served them to Papa on a steaming platter. “You need your strength, Mr. Kleinfeld,” she murmured, red-faced, her shyness seeming natural now, because finally, she reflected, after a twenty-five-year delay, she was becoming an adolescent.

What? Oh no! Not again! How could she, a woman with two years of university education, a world traveler who attended the theater and surrounded herself with paintings and sculpture and books — how couldshe have missed it. Oh, Edna, she giggled, let it happen this once, what harm would it do to lose your head like a heroine in a novel and fall in love, for a while, at least, with a donkey? But it couldn’t be, she knew that. So what was this? What was happening to her all of a sudden? Edna laughed; she emitted another of those new squeals, releasing a knot in the top of her head. What a ridiculous idea, Edna! A person like you with a person like him … Why, I could toss him out of my life with a flick of my little finger, like this: but she stopped herself: Oh no you don’t, you wicked little finger!

To her office mates she described at length the upheaval caused by renovating an apartment and the nuisance of having workmen about; they had never heard her talk so much before, some even complained to the boss, who called her in and asked solicitously if he could be of any help, and Edna with a little giggle said, Oi, Mr. Lombroso, dear, dear Mr. Lombroso, if only you could help me get rid of those workmen … But when she tried, for the fun of it, to replace him in her imagination with someone else, any other man waving a sledgehammer and grunting with exertion, she suddenly realized that the thrill was Moshe. And she was amazed. She tried to deny it. What’s happening, Edna, where’s our little finger, and the following day she made him a cheese and cucumber sandwich which he ate with indignation, even the boy stayed awake to watch, staring at her wide-eyed, in utter bafflement, as the man redoubled his blows that day, giving her to understand that at this rate he would finish the wall in no time.

Therefore, the following day she prepared him a whole roast chicken on a bed of olives she had purchased from the one-armed vendor at the market. They were getting to know and like her there; everywhere she turned they winked at her. Welcome, Madame, they greeted her in English. If you like eat very spicy, come to me, they called after her, slapping their thighs ecstatically when they saw her winking back; Papa devoured the chicken and sucked the bones in awe and gratitude, and Edna sank down in her armchair, abandoning herself to the delightful dance of man and wall. Now and then, after a particularly stunning blow, he would turn to Edna heroically, as though dedicating a modest feat to her, which she acknowledged with a nod. His stately Roman muscles would swell and throb for her. And sometimes, in the middle of a whirl, he would throw her a special look, shy but lusty, that seemed to pinch her spine out through the nape of her neck like a fishbone, tillall she had left inside was mushy organs, sliding around in a ravenous cosmic mouth.

Outside, a storm was brewing, and the street, though it was early still, grew dark. For a while the only sound in the apartment was the pounding of the sledgehammer against the wall. On the six-thirty newscast there was a report about flash floods in the Negev again, two soldiers swept away in the overflowing Shikma River. Papa glowered out the window. When he struck a blow, erupting with fury, the heavens trembled and the lights blinked off.