David Grossman - The Book of Intimate Grammar

He let out a whimper of grief: His own dear grandma — how … but … it can’t be … and then quickly restrained himself; yes, when it comes it comes, the will of heaven, here today, gone tomorrow, he mumbled as if in prayer, but deep inside he felt a disagreeable chill.And you, what did you ever do for Grandma? Me? I spent loads of time with her. Oh sure, in the beginning, when it was all new and exciting. And I took her clothes and her shoes and her braid out of the trash bin and hid them in the furnace room. Traitor, deserter, did you once ask Yochi to take you there? Well no, but I thought of going, I even had a little present for her: a little red mirror. Right, presents you’re good at, and writing sentimental cards to go with them, but when it comes to action, you’re as bad as the others, you traitor, you lousy traitor. Some such muttering went on inside him, though both the plaintiff and the defendant were hollow, false, and what he was really thinking about was the beard Papa would have to grow during the seven days of mourning.

Sudden blasts resounded. Papa stopped what he was doing and listened to the clouds, ready to answer them, to send them back to the four winds. But the blasts came not from the sky but from the door. He veered around in amazement and wiped the sweat from his brow. His eyes were filled with bloody froth. Then he noticed Aron and wasn’t even startled.

“Aron!” boomed Mama outside the door. “Tell him to come out here right away!” Aron gazed questioningly up at Papa.

“I know you’re in there, Aron! Tell him to come home immediately! Because I wouldn’t go in there if my life depended on itl”

Papa looked at Edna Bloom, but she seemed to have lost all touch with her surroundings, and was rocking back and forth with her eyes shut tight, to the rhythm of an imaginary hammer. He crossed to Aron. What did she want now? Aron shrugged. Papa grumbled again. At Edna Bloom’s, his voice sounded gravelly, as though he hadn’t used it for a long time. Impatiently he glanced at the pyramid of bricks awaiting him at the far end of the shattered wall. Then he instructed Aron to put his hammer in the bathtub and turned to go. Aron grasped the heavy tool. Something stirred inside him, inside his head. A barely audible hissing sound. How could Papa lift a thing this heavy? Edna Bloom woke out of her stupor and watched him, waiting to see what he would do. Aron cast a bewildered glance around the room and noticed the dismantled doors, stacked against each other like a giant deck of cards; he tore himself away and headed for the bathroom. He trudged down the hallway looking out for mounds of rubble, carefully stepping over the torn remains of a picture showing a kindly outstretched arm. Ednastood up to watch him. Slowly she shook her crimson head from left to right. One blow, just one, thought Aron, struggling with the heavy hammer, with the piercing hiss of mockery. Papa will be glad I finished the job for him, he said, trying to swing the hammer over his head. Tsss tsss tsss. But Mama, he thought. He dropped it heavily in the broken tub. Edna went on shaking her head like a metronome as he passed her with downcast eyes on his way out the door. At home he heard the news from Mama.

When Mama heard that Papa was going back to tear out the tiles at Edna Bloom’s, she announced her intention of supervising the job. Once more the gloomy procession wound its way from Entrance B to Entrance A, with Mama in the lead, lofty and imposing in a turquoise sheath; she had wisely ruled out the brown cassock of the first visit on the grounds that it was too austere; she tried on and eventually decided against the checkered jersey, which, though respectable enough, created an ill-advised impression of severity; the bottle green was out because under the circumstances it might appear too frivolous, too gay; in the end she opted for the turquoise sheath, because it was sufficiently respectable but had softer lines that emphasized her bosom and rippled over her ample thighs, calling to mind the children tugging at it long ago; thus dressed, she marched up the stairs, clutching her knitting bag under her arm, jutting her chin out like Ben-Gurion.

Edna opened the door for her and slinked off like an ailing cat. When Mama set eyes on the islands of debris, all the color drained from her face. Only now did she grasp the extent of the damage. Such wreckage, such excess, called for retribution, demanded a victim. In a flash she understood that this was no longer the concern of three individuals but that a mighty struggle was in progress here between the forces of chaos and order civilization and insanity. Dauntless, copper-faced, she stamped over the ruins, enthroned herself on one of the torn leather armchairs, and crossed her arms over her bosom.

“Begin,” she said to Papa.

Edna Bloom, wearing a hollow expression, did not interrupt the ceremony. She walked in from the kitchen bearing a goodly tray with Papa’s second lunch. Papa looked from her to Mama. An hour and forty minutes ago at home he had polished off a plate of pupiklach drowning in gravy, vegetable soup Moroccan-style, a thick slice of turkey in curry sauce garnished with tawny onion rings, and a generous helping of rice; only Mama knew the rice should have been served with piñones, but that stinking one-armed vendor from the spice shop in the arket charged such a price, to hell with him; and for dessert, homemade applesauce with the peels removed. Now she inspected the regal feast that Edna Bloom was serving him. Papa pulled up his usual chair aNd, fixing his eyes on Mama with a little gasp, proceeded to tuck in.

He devoured the first course of eggplant in tomato sauce glistening with pearly garlic cloves; he lapped up the creamy onion soup with the crispy croutons on top; he feasted on succulent tongue of veal, seasoned Hngarian-style and flanked by heaping mounds of rice studded with piñones.

e dined in silence, his great jaws occupied with course after course. Mama watched him with a new look of empathy and wonder. She had never believed there was love between him and What’s-her-name; in fact, she didn’t really believe in love at all. What’s love anyway, she once said to Yochi, a moment or two in a lifetime of putting up with another person’s craziness. Now she was beginning to appreciate the earthier dimensions of Papa’s victim. Edna brought in the dessert: stewed fruit, a glass of orange juice, and a square of Splendid chocolate, and Papa ate, and wiped his lips on a lily-white napkin with a wooden ring around it, and cleaned his teeth with a fine little toothpick, concealing his mouth behind his hand — he forgets where I found him, you’d think at his mother’s they ate off Rosenthal — and, finally, belched, quickly excused himself, and returned to the job.

Wielding a small-sized hammer and chisel, he set about removing the floor in what used to be the hallway at Edna Bloom’s; he cracked the tiles like so many eggshells, working slowly with an air of doom: while he was tearing down the walls it was a comfort to imagine something growing here, gestating in the stone; but as he pulled out the tiles, formerly overlaid with brightly colored carpets — which Edna sold to the rag man for money to pay Mama and to buy the food she sacrificedto Papa — the nubbly concrete exposed underneath, the rusty rods, and especially the stratum of sand below them, gave off a gloomy chill. Papa tapped and uprooted and slowly excavated the floor as Edna sat gaping at him, nodding her head and humming in a monotone.

Solemnly Mama picked up her needles and plied them uninterruptedly throughout the ensuing days of Papa’s labors, knitting her surroundings into the fabric that soon became a woolly gray sweater; even when clouds of dust blew up she restrained herself from coughing. At last she realized how badly her rival was beating her, how cunningly she had laid bare that which Mama tried so hard to cover up over nineteen years of marriage.