David Grossman - The Book of Intimate Grammar

“Want a massage?”

“A massage?” he squealed. “How come?”

“No special reason. To thaw you out. You look frozen.”

“Uh-uh … A massage, are you joking?” He shrank even more. With a little giggle. Staring fervently at the ceiling.

“You wait here. Take off all those layers of clothes, meanwhile.” She jumped up a little overzealously and hurried to the bathroom, pursing her lips. He feared these militant moods of hers. It was exactly how she looked the time she took him into the living room to embarrass Mama in front of her card friends. He lay still. A little frightened. Unconsciously clasping the binding of his sweater. Drawers flew open in the kitchen. Plates clattered. Mama’s angry. Don’t move. Squinch yourself up and wait. It will all be over soon. How long can it take to wreck a house?

Yochi came back with a towel. And some cotton. And a bottle of 70percent alcohol. “Hey, come on. Start stripping.” What did she want from him? Where’d she get all that vigor and vitality? “Come on, Aron. I know, you feel a little neglected, don’t you? Everyone’s busy with their own problems, huh? Say, how many layers of clothes are you wearing? How do you expect your body to breathe under all that armor?” She yanked off his sweater, his Leibeleh pullover, his undershirt. He shivered. Covered himself. Afraid she’d notice his swollen belly. “I can’t believe you’re shy in front of your own sister.” She giggled irritably, tickling him under the arm. “Gitchy-gitchy-goo!” Her eyes were shining, but not with happiness. She was relentlessly playful. Rigorously jocular. Maybe she was going through something, the thought occurred to him, maybe someone had hurt her, insulted her. “Lie down straight. Nu, will you please lie down already!” He did. He rolled over, facedown. His stomach was distended. It looked weird. How long before he simply exploded. Yochi leaned over his half-naked body. A fresh, lemony fragrance bloomed in his nostrils. He knew with his eyes closed that she was rubbing in the cream Uncle Shimmik brought her from Paris. Lemon can be used for invisible writing. Now he cringed in anticipation of her touch. His impetuous body. “What are you — Hey, quit it, Yochi, I don’t need—” “Shhhh! The whole world can hear you.” Her palm was on his back. Near his spine. A cool, smooth hand, rubbing in the cream. Slowly warming. Drawing little whirls of softness on his skin to take away the chill. He squashed his face against the pillow. “Your back is in knots,” she muttered. His finger drilled into the side of the mattress, found the hole there, poked at the crisp, curly fronds of Algerian seaweed, that’s what it said on the label; what strength she has in her hands, her fingers press down on him, they crack him and knead him, she probably misses giving Papa massages, it’s almost a month since he got one after the “thorough” but Papa has the kind of back you can really go wild on. “You’re purring like a happy kitten,” she whispered in his ear, giggling. “I hadn’t noticed.” Why was he whispering? Why were they both whispering? Under his helplessly goofy face, there was a sudden rustling of invisible seaweed as his finger bored deeper into the widening gap, into the tangled mass of kinky roots. All he could hear now was the sound of her grunts, who would have believed she was so strong. She was bursting with all that strength inside her. Why didn’t she go out and tear down a couple of walls? He managed to open an eye in his pancake face, saw her pudgy little foot beside thebed, pink and swollen, and breathed in the wondrous strangeness of it, that foot, God, you could sink your teeth into it and eat it up. Now Yochi settled on his tailbone, but it didn’t weigh down or hurt too much, though the residue of his brains squirted out with a final groan, and the mattress creaked rhythmically beneath him, and Yochi’s breathing in his ear, muffled, powerful, like his own, and her fingers and palms moving over his back and shoulders and down to his waist, unloosing, dissolving, flattening his flesh like a rolling pin, dividing him lengthwise, widthwise, propelling him onward, till a knife dropped suddenly, somewhere far away; but she didn’t stop, she galloped ahead, instilling in him a rhythm of open spaces, onward, onward, to the new frontier, rubbing him with her lemon cream, squeezing out an admission he denied before he even heard it: Stop, Yochi, enough. What is this — a few minutes ago he was lying here Aroning, and now, this; all right, he would make in his bed, like a baby, if only he could, at last, even in bed, but suddenly he felt a mysterious honey trickling down his spine, his neck and shoulders were imbued with strength and straightened out, awash in pungent perspiration; smooth and bold he rose from the mattress like the darkly glistening belly of a monster of the netherworld, spangled with a thousand papillary eyes. It’s coming, it’s coming, but where is it coming from, it’s great, it’s marvelous, only don’t make a mess, and suddenly, before his dazed and blurry eyes, a figure approaches — watch out, it’s all over — the figure of his mother, Mama, a sidelong gleam in her eye, an electric flash that fizzles out in the well of her pupil, and her mouth bolts shut, and with the kitchen towel in her hand she reaches out and swats at Yochi, at his burning back. What’s the matter with you, have you both gone crazy, I’ve got my own tribulations, I don’t need you two fighting like a couple of five-year-olds, and Yochi held her hands up to protect her face, yowling and spitting at her like a cat: Just you wait, I’ll enlist in the army right away. Too late, dearie, you’ve already signed up for a deferment and they’ll never let you out of it. Oh yeah? Watch me, I’ll declare myself a soldier without family and I’ll never set foot in this house again. Who needs you home, you dirty cow, let your precious army pay your way; and Yochi covered her right ear with her hand, as Mama screeched to a desperate halt: We’ll see how long they keep you in the army when they see the way you eat. Isn’t the whistling supposed to be in her left ear, Aron suddenly wonders. Watch me, I’ll marry a Kurd, you waitand see who I bring home to you. Who’d have you? Seen any amorous Kurds around here lately? And Aron buried his face in the pillow, which also retained the heat of his childhood, and the whisper, the trembling that seized him a moment ago and was severed halfway down his spine, where it retreated with a cool hiss, so what was that big thing that gripped the creatures of his back in one tyrannical fist and almost succeeded in squeezing something out of him, in bursting the bounds, before it melted, faded away.

Mama thrust the window open. You stunk up the whole room with your roughhousing, she grumbled, feigning anger, wide-eyed with a concern, with an astonishment that Aron could only sense. Are you a couple of little tots, raising such a rumpus and hitting each other, and she steered Yochi out of the room to set the table and, leaning over Aron, whispered, Who started it, tell me the truth now, who started it? And Aron, bewildered, gave the answer she demanded like one possessed: She started it. And even sobbed: Yochi did. She started it. Mama stood over him. Look what she’s done to your back, the murderess, feh, why didn’t you call me right away, it’s a good thing I heard you. Lie down a minute. I see a big one with a yellow head. Lie still.

He buried his face in the pillow. No longer there. He didn’t have the strength for this. Quietly he sobbed out the grief Yochi had caused him, he couldn’t quite remember how, and nevertheless, his phony sadness choked his throat, a lozenge of misery melting down to relieve the bitterness of heartbreak.

Mama pinched the skin around the pimple. The hem of her bathrobe brushed against his puffy flesh. He waited for the prickle of pain, for the quick spurt. He arched his back: let it come already, let it out, let it hurt and be done with, but she suddenly winced. Pulled angrily away from his protruding rib cage, from his puny, disappointing body. Nu, get dressed already. I don’t have time for you right now. Why are you looking at me like that? Take a look at yourself instead, why don’t you ever wash? I can smell you clear over to here. And what have you done to your mattress! Look! With upraised fingers she charged at the mattress and tried to stuff the seaweed back in, You throw dancing parties on your mattress at night? You think we have the money to buy you a new mattress every other day? She gripped the frayed edges of the fabric and stuffed in more of the crimpy tangles, which managed to slip out between her fingers. Choleria take it, with you and your sister, willyou look at this room, feh, how you stink, I pity the woman who marries you, and what are you doing lounging around here in the middle of the afternoon, you think this is a hotel or something?