David Grossman - The Book of Intimate Grammar

None of the men noticed. Only Aron saw it, as though watching from the wings. The women. The men. Papa cooled off and started a conversation with Atias. You’ll see, just wait, we’re going to clobber them till they learn how fishes piss. Maybe so, answered Atias, I sure wish I could believe you. What do you mean, you don’t believe me? Papa steamed up again. You listen to Moshe Kleinfeld, Atias, you listen good, I hope that midget of a King Hussein joins in the war so we can let him have it, and show him who’s a man. Sure, right, mumbled Atias under his mustache, which suddenly looked shriveled and gray. But you know, Mr. Moshe, once these things get started, you never know where they’ll end. And now they’ve closed the straits, said Botenero quietly, and Atias and Mrs. Pinkus nodded in silence, and Aron could see how scared they were, and felt a catch in his throat as though someone were trying to choke him; only Sophie Atias, her little one in her arms, seemed full of fighting spirit, and the whole time Papa spoke she kept nodding and looking at him with shiny eyes. Don’t worry — Papa patted Atias on his shoulder — this is why we have an army and Moshe Dayan, you’ll see, we’ll clobber them like in that song they play on the radio. “Aiaiai, aiaiai, Nasser’s waiting for a war,” Papa sang hoarsely. “Rabin’s goingto beat him sore,” Atias chimed in with drooping lips, and Aron saw that Atias junior, who had been crying over his stolen bike, and his feet didn’t even reach the pedals yet, was mouthing the words along with them; how does everyone know this song, Nasser’s waiting for the war, Rabin’s going to deat him gore, meat him bore. He went back home and lay down on his bed, troubled, clearing his throat in anguish, it’s hard to breathe in this country, looking at Yochi’s empty bed, she’s been away for five days already. Aron to Aron, what do you see, over; Aron to Aron, I’ve picked up the first days with Yaeli, but maybe you aren’t up to it now, over; Aron to Aron, let me have it. Let me have everything. The bad with the good. Her eyes and her lips, and her smile, and the way she danced for me that first ballet class and the way she smelled when we were running through the valley and she waved her arms, and the space between her toes, and the way when the weather turned summery she wore a miniskirt, I thought it was too short, you could see everything, but it was nice that she was dressing in the latest style like the other girls, her time has come, and Aron doubles over, practicing sumo, to stop the pain washing through his body like a river. Retrieve everything, smuggle it out of there, the bad with the good, like a breath of fresh air, anything you can save, we’ll establish a new place, you’ll see, fresh and pure and natural and friendly, where we’ll know what has to be done and how to do it, there, it’s over, the wave.

He lay in bed till nightfall. He didn’t even go in for supper. He had what he needed hidden in his room. A small jar of royal jelly, a bar of chocolate, chunks of Sabbath challah, a bottle of kiddush wine, a perfect, unblemished peach. Tomorrow he would steal a couple of potatoes from the pantry and make starch. He relaxed. He could hear Mama putting Grandma to bed in the alcove, covering her up with the Scottish plaid. Then there was silence. Where was Yochi now? Go know. The evening before she left she kissed him goodbye and whispered in his ear that his hair was almost brown now. What do you mean, brown, I’m blond, aren’t I? he asked weakly, and she brought the mirror over so he could see. He didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about it: brown. Maybe that was a good sign, though. Maybe he would stop being so special. Cigarette smoke drifted in from the balcony. Papa’s smoking like a chimney again. Mama screams at him not to stink up the house. She can’t stand him smoking around her these days. She’s being careful suddenly. What’s there to be careful about? It’s all in yourmind. Control yourself. And after the cigarette he’ll take a shower and then she’ll tell him what happened in the kitchen today with the milk. No, she won’t. She’ll be afraid to say those things out loud. He lies down and chokes his wrists and ankles one after the other, counting inwardly, reciting the results. Then he puts the pillow on his face and tries to choke the jugular vein with his hands. At the last minute he’s saved. He takes a gulp of air. Checks the clock. Here too the results are in accord with what he already knows. So constant and predictable. You’d think by now he’d be able to control the thing from outside. The whole idiotic machine. But in the end it’s still baffling. The fact is, he never succeeds. And what if the answer isn’t in the body. What if it’s in something else. Like, well, the soul. But what is the soul? Maybe it’s what the Torah says: God blew the breath of life into the dust He fashioned; all right, but what if God ran out of air at a certain moment? Aron lets out a real laugh: oh, he can think of several people who must have been created just then. Again he laughs. A bad laugh. He orders his fingers to squeeze the laugh glands under his armpit. Laugh, you rats. Yes, but suppose God had accidents of the opposite type as well, maybe sometimes He blew too hard and the flesh and bones and everything flew up in the air and could never be glued back together again, except for some of it, leaving a big naked soul to flutter around in desperation like a pink turtle without its shell. Then he remembers the big picture on the wall in Edna’s bedroom: all the broken, misshapen bodies, and out of them, a big mysterious soul bursting forth. Aron rolls over and sighs. But the soul is him. It is him. It’s that place inside him, it’s his essence. Now he can feel it distinctly: through the pangs inside you feel a small flame burning, spreading light and warmth, and his stomach and feet fill with heat and life, and there, down deep, is his Yaeli, and his little Gideon, and Aron, yes, his soul is what he used to be, in his childhood, and in the early dawn when he woke up frozen and torn with everything leaking out of him, he would simply take out a couple of friendship-sugar cubes and courage proteins from the hiding place under his mattress, and at the last minute he would be saved. But does anyone really understand this body-and-soul thing? he asks himself in anguish, rhythmically pricking his naked tummy with a pin, watching the little red dots spreading over his skin till they slowly tear open and begin to bleed; but it isn’t fair, the sides are unevenly matched, in his case the soul is thoroughly subservient to the body, it has to throw itselfat it all the time and beg for attention, and the body just ignores it. But maybe the body is right. Maybe there is no soul, thinks Aron, and something inside him suddenly dims: what if he’s been wrong all along? Has anyone ever actually seen a soul? Maybe people like Winston Churchill and Albert Schweitzer and Ben-Gurion have souls. Okay, they’re spiritual giants, but what about the others? Does Papa have one? Does Mama? And what about Grandma, who’s more dead than alive? If they opened up their bodies and searched through their hearts and brains and everywhere, what would they find? Anything? Maybe nothing? Not even a few desperate scratches on the inside? But it must exist. There’s got to be a soul. Oh yeah? Says who? Says no one, I just hope so, I have to. Then please explain, great genius of our century, how the soul is connected to the body. How is it separated from it when you die? And how does it enter life eternal, and how is it redeemed from human suffering? Huh? Whuh? Y’alla, Kleinfeld, you and your philosophy, go to sleep now, go to sleep.

Grownups’ mouths are ugly, thinks Aron, stealthily approaching to watch: they’re asleep. A warty, humpbacked sleep, a grumpy grownup sleep, a sleep as rough as labor. They lie far apart, and Mama’s swollen foot is tangled in the blanket. Her lips move sometimes as though she’s talking to someone. Arguing. What is she dreaming about? Maybe she has different children in her dreams. Maybe she has someone else in there already. There’s quite a space between her and Papa. Aron draws closer, stands directly before her face. With all his might and fear he plants himself in front of her. So she’ll see him in her sleep. So he’ll infiltrate her dreams. Her blood. Like a curse.