David Grossman - The Book of Intimate Grammar

The evil Cyclopean eye. Fixed half-open on the pale child, the silent child burrowing frantically in the lifeless earth. He digs with his fingers, throwing anxious glances over his shoulder at the immovable eye. Is it watching him? Far in the distance the wind is wailing, ululating, and the child, white as a leper, cracks his nails on the stony clods. He is a misty child, the child in the formaldehyde, who for three or four years has been banging his head against the glass, blinking at his fellow in the neighboring jar, or is it his own reflection, nebulous, like absence, like a cloudy human fetus slowly disintegrating; but not Aron, oh no, Aron will fight, he will find new life, a land of the living, he will flee the solitary and deserted land inside his brain; but the eyes of his fellow fetus start to flutter, the filmy lids on his polliwog eyes conceal a wan, ironic smile. Aron to Aron, hurry, hurry, over; and in the room next door Mama is blowing her nose with all her might, fearful of him, afraid to come out. Even now you don’t hear crying out of her. And he remembers, he’s been neglecting his tear experiments, the effects of a single grain of salt in the corner of his eye, precisely at what distance from the olive tree in the valley does it start to tear. Aron to Aron, I’ve found something, over; because the coral island puckers around his broken nails: leave it! The bubble ember inside him burns. Jars of formaldehyde float in space with a somber reddish glow. Stillborn fetuses heave a deathly sigh. Faded umbilical cords swing limply, searching for something to fasten on, to suck. Aron to Aron, what did you find,report at once, over; the leprous child runs through the cracks of the canals, the sorely puckered mounds, pursued by electrical chirring, and in his hands, the slowly flashing beacon light of a diamond, a waking memory, how he used to get lost when he was little, never missed a chance to, at the market, at the seashore, even in the street sometimes he would let go of her warm hand for a moment to look at something, and suddenly he could no longer see her through the curtain of strangers that intervened, she was carried away from him, but then he would hear her, desperately calling his name, and he would stand there listening to the motherliness that issued forth as if through a secret conch inside her. Never had his name sounded so clear as then, and he wasn’t frightened, wasn’t alarmed, even that time in Tel Aviv when she actually did disappear and someone led him to a policeman, who ruffled his hair and bought him a bottle of orange soda and took him down to the station, where everyone fussed and joked with him, and at just the right moment Mama and Papa walked in together and ran toward him, calling his name in a very special voice, with an animal whimper, and they hugged him with all their might, and he laughed and cried with them, and in his heart he knew he would get lost again at the earliest opportunity, but after that they watched him like a hawk and neither lost nor found him, and today if he went missing the radio announcer would probably say, “And here is his description.” And then he’d know what he looked like to them, because “And here is his description” is uncompromisingly scientific, it tells about you like an automatic glass door. Aron to Aron, load the boat and return to search again, over; Aron to Aron, must I take everything with me? the bad with the good, over; he reflects a moment. Hesitates. I don’t need it all, why should I spoil the new place too? It’s bad enough as it is. But Aron to Aron, you have to take it all. Leave nothing behind. A wholesale exodus. Over and out.

He hurries to the back yard. It’ll be dark soon, getting chilly. Did she pack a sweater for camp, I wonder. What if she says, Gideon, I’m cold. He lurks in the shadows so no one will notice him. Avigdor Kaminer is going to empty the garbage with a little transistor radio pressed to his ear, can’t miss a minute of his program, even for the garbage. Hi, Aron, says Avigdor, so what do you say about the latest developments? Which latest developments? asks Aron reticently, he doesn’t feel like getting into a conversation now. You know, all the brouhaha in the news, with the Straits of Tiran-Shmiran. Aron cocksan eye and smiles at him cautiously. Hey, maybe Kaminer knows something, thanks to his dead wife. Slowly he answers him, in code, like a spy talking to an allied agent in enemy territory: Tiran-Shmiran Firan-Liran? But Kaminer didn’t hear him, he walked away, wagging his head in consternation. You have to be very careful now. That was a grave mistake. They could find you out. He skulks along the fence, half whispering, “Gideon, Gideon.” But why aren’t they back yet? Lucky for them they aren’t missing any classes, most of the classes have been canceled, the men teachers are away in the army. The seventh-graders volunteered to deliver mail. The sixth-graders are helping fill sandbags. Everyone is occupied. Everyone looks busy and worried. His own class has scattered and disappeared. Sometimes he opens the classroom door in the morning and sees the chairs overturned on the tables and the remnants of a grammar exercise on the blackboard, a lesson on exceptions to the rule. He tries out various seats. To see how other children view the classroom. Tries this seat and that. Experimenting: Gideon’s naturally, but also Michael Carny’s, Zacky Smitanka’s, and Eli Ben-Zikri’s. Even David Lipschitz’s. A creased map of the Middle East hangs on the wall, and you can barely find Israel on it, it’s so small. Maybe it’s shrunk even more, because of the recession, or because Egypt and Syria and Jordan and Lebanon are swelling up around it. Just looking at that map was enough to suffocate you. He ran a reluctant hand over it, fingering the cracks and wrinkles: like skin. Then he hurried out so no one would catch him there and ask questions. On the school bulletin board was a notice from last week. Grade 8-C, his class, would meet in front of the supermarket tomorrow, and be sent to dig trenches. Dig trenches? he was aghast: trenches for what?

He heard a scream and ran to the front of the building, his entrance, where a group of neighbors had gathered by the open shelter. Papa stood among them, shouting at the top of his lungs: he had gone down to check the shelter and make sure it was ready, and what did he find? Everything had been stolen! See for yourselves! Half our belongings were down there! Chairs and mattresses and the old buffet! And the neighbors crowded around and gaped in dismay, they too had been using the shelter for storage all these years. Malka Smitanka began to cry, she kept a folding cot in there. Peretz Atias discovered that his son’s bike was gone, and Mrs. Pinkus, the divorcee, screamed, Where’s the box with my feather quilt, it was an heirloom from my mother.Papa turned red and said it had to be someone from the building project, someone who had a key, and he started looking at everyone’s face. If I ever catch the traitor, I’ll chop his arms and legs off. Sha, sha, said Mama when she came down to see what all the commotion was about, she’d changed out of the dress with the spilled milk, and Aron saw that her eyes had sunk in their sockets and her face was ashen white. Silently he hid behind Felix Botenero. Botenero was standing there with a transistor at his ear; what could they be saying on the radio now? It’s no use screaming and getting all worked up, she said in a numb and weary voice. The dirty thief, said Papa, he’s left us bald as a baby’s tuchis. Mama noticed Aron and pretended not to. Mira Strashnov, Gideon’s mother, rushed over to find out what the shouting was about with Eddy, the lodger, watching her like a puppy. Where’s Gideon, why doesn’t he come back? Maybe she received a letter from him, everything would be different if Gideon were here. Mira looked around at the frenzied neighbors, but she was obviously preoccupied, and a moment later she walked away with Eddy at her heels. Mama and Zlateh Botenero exchanged looks. Malka Smitanka called after her softly: Mira! and hut ried to catch up.