David Grossman - The Book of Intimate Grammar

And the morning after Aron used two stones to twist open the tap on the little pipe behind the building, and made it drip with the hollow whistling sound you could hear from far away, and at four o’clock he went down to the rock again, and again he traipsed around, all the way to the junkyard this time, but no one came, maybe a neighbor had heard the dripping and closed the tap before Gideon came home from school; second try.

And on the third day Aron took sand from the Wizo Nursery School and blocked up the holes in all three sewer covers behind the building and poured in water to make it goopy and wiped his hands and was satisfied. But he kept smelling something, he checked his shoes, no, he hadn’t stepped in anything, and still he smelled it, maybe it was coming from the sewer. He stepped on the round cement cover and laughed for real; oh, the hours they had spent here playing aju, the thousands of apricot pits they had traded, he and Gideon and Zacky; I wonder if Gideon noticed this time, maybe I should have thought of bigger, more obvious signs back then; when you’re a kid you notice these things right away, and when you grow up you have other things on your mind and you don’t walk around with your head down, searching; so in fact, if Gideon hadn’t noticed the signs, that in itself was the answer, there was nothing more to say. And at four sharp Aron went down to the valley and dozed on the rock shelf, as the warm sunshine quickened the Yaeli and Gideon inside him, faceless but both there, setting off a kind of vibration like two strings which he tried to play on so they would blend inside him, and he felt the strings twang so that when he opened his mouth he made their sound. By the time he woke up it was five-thirty, he’d certainly developed a flair for naps, at least that, and he walked down to the junkyard and checked around and did his calculations, and opened and closed the door at least ten times, and decided the problem was that the tongue of the lock stuck too far into the socket, which made it pretty hard to pull the pin away from the inside, not to mention the problem of lighting, because what if he dropped a nail or hinge with his perspiring fingers, how would he find them on the floor in the dark, he wouldn’t even be able to light a match in there because there wouldn’t be enough oxygen, maybe he could tape a little flashlightunder the freezer compartment, and by now it was seven o’clock, so Aron went home; he wasn’t totally discouraged yet, not at all, though there was a kind of sadness gnawing at him, the sadness of parting, but what if Gideon never went out behind the building and didn’t notice the wet sand in the holes.

The next morning he picked up a piece of chalk and followed the arrows on the sidewalk, at first he thought he would have to draw the arrows himself, he’d forgotten that every generation draws arrows and all he had to do was add two slanty lines to each of the existing arrows; he was enjoying this as though he were part of the game, and for a moment he even thought of following the arrows past the building project, but he ran out of curiosity, what did he care where their treasure was. In the afternoon he went down to the junkyard and climbed inside the little refrigerator, and discovered that the freezer compartment forced him to work with his chin on his chest, this was an unexpected problem. He crawled out and closed the door, and tried to stick his hand in through the rubber insulation strips, but they didn’t stretch enough and snapped behind his fingers with a moist, wormy swish, and Aron thought maybe he’d have to grease it with something, but suddenly he had a better idea, he would bring a big can opener from home, the kind with ball bearings, and he’d wind it up the rubber insulation strips of the refrigerator, the way you open a can, only from the inside out. And he patted himself on the shoulder and said, Dynamite idea, Kleinfeld, but there remained the problem of the tongue in the socket: he tried to poke in the skinny little Yemenite, the runt of Papa’s screwdrivers, but couldn’t even fit that in. What to do? He sat and thought a minute, his feet dangling out, not touching the ground; on the bus he liked to practice finding the seats over the wheels at a single glance, they were higher, and suddenly a loud siren pierced the air, maybe the war had started already, and it stopped right away, they must be testing them, but the shrill wailing sound had annoyed him, he jumped out and slammed the door; the squatty refrigerator wobbled as though absorbing the shock.

At supper that evening everyone ate in silence, concentrating on their plates. Papa’s army knapsack was packed and ready by the door, and Aron wondered what would become of him if Papa left too and he stayed home alone with Mama. Grandma coughed and spat a little mashed chicken on the table, and Mama slapped her shoulder, hard,too hard. For a moment they all stopped chewing, Grandma gasped, and Aron thought it was all over. But she recovered. It wasn’t her time yet. Who wants some more mashed potatoes? asked Mama wearily. Papa did; she got up to serve him and Aron saw she was walking peculiarly, sort of dragging herself a little bowleggedly. Oh please, give me a break, she’s walking the way she always does, and Aron quickly asked for seconds too: More mashed potatoes, thanks, lots of mashed potatoes, he said too loudly. She made a face, who cares, and she wouldn’t look at him directly; that is, she looked at him, but from the side. He devoured the starch of perseverance and asked for thirds. Yochi’s chair stood empty, and everyone kept glancing at it, even Grandma. A couple of days ago, at such a time as this, right in the middle of supper, Yochi opened her mouth and announced that her continued efforts over the past few months had finally paid off, the town major had agreed to give her an early call-up date, and with a smile of triumph, of sweet revenge, she described how she had sat outside his office every day, morning till night, for three solid weeks, till he finally gave in and signed her up six months ahead of schedule, and Aron, the food in his mouth a tasteless mush, retorted inwardly what Mama said aloud: What, you’re so miserable here you have to run away to the army, and Yochi said nothing in reply, she was silent, and everyone kept silent with her, they ate their soup and swallowed, ate and swallowed, and Mama sighed, she was on the verge of tears sitting next to Yochi, but she controlled herself, maybe she regretted the deferral she’d wanted so badly for her, and he peeked up and saw Yochi surveying the scene, as though pressing down on a seal to engrave it in her memory: the little kitchen with the narrow Formica table and the tiles with the flower decals where Mama stuck the wax paper and the nylon bags to dry, and Mama herself, and Papa and Grandma and him; everything was converted to the past tense by the sheer force of her gaze, and the next few days were so insufferably oppressive Aron couldn’t wait for Yochi to leave, and on the morning of the third day Papa took her down to the recruiting center and she disappeared as if she’d cut herself out of the house with a knife, and then late last night she finally called; they woke him up and sent him running to the phone in his pajamas to talk to her, he was sleepy, he heard the exultant voice on the other end of the line and didn’t know who it was. She said that due to the situation she’d been transferred to a field unit. She spokefast, didn’t call him by name, didn’t say li’l brother, and when she asked how he was, it sounded as though she didn’t want to know.

Now he lay in bed planning tomorrow, trying to guess what Gideon was thinking; suppose he hadn’t seen the signs, could be, maybe he was busy concentrating on the preparations, but why hadn’t he come over to see Aron after camp, what was he afraid of, what did he have to hide, all he had to do for God’s sake was to say one word; was he loyal, yes or no, and it wasn’t as if Aron would do anything to him, all he needed was his answer, and after that, Gideon would be free of him forever, because if the answer was yes, if Gideon had remained loyal and waited, then Aron would be instantly redeemed. He was absolutely sure of it. Like Sleeping Beauty waiting for a kiss; like the Independence Day parade that doesn’t begin until the Prime Minister gives the signal. Aron was ready. One word and everything would zoom ahead.