David Grossman: Falling out of time

spikes.

TOWN CHRONICLER: The next evening, in a hut in a slum on the outskirts of town, a young woman — trained as a midwife — gets up abruptly from her kneeling position by a tub of water and stands with her hands dripping. As far as I can see, there is no laboring woman in the room, nor a baby. Only a man’s trousers and shirt float in the tub. The woman freezes. Her neck is a stalk, her face long and gentle. Somewhat rigidly, she turns and walks to the window. Outside it is cold and stormy, and since the chimney emits no smoke — allowing me to peer through it — I assume it is very cold inside, too.

Her gaze probes the faraway hilltops on the horizon. She is silent, but her fingers rend her mouth apart as if in a scream, until I hold my breath as well. When she finally sighs, her shoulders collapse, as though her strength has suddenly left her.

Her husband — barrel-chested, with a reddish shaved skull and three thick folds on the back of his neck — who all this time has sat in the corner cobbling a pair of riding boots, punctuating and vowelizing her silence with the rapid blows of his hammer, hisses through the nails in his mouth:

COBBLER: Poisoning your soul again?

MIDWIFE: Y-y-yesterday she w-w-would have been f-f-five.

COBBLER: I’ve told you a hundred times not to think about these things! Enough, it’s over!

MIDWIFE: I lit a candle by her p-p-picture and you said n-n-nothing. Don’t you ever think about her?

COBBLER: What is there to think? How much of a life did she even have? A year?

MIDWIFE: And a h-h-half.

TOWN CHRONICLER: The cobbler slams the boot heel with his hammer as hard as he can, curses, and with peculiar lust sucks the blood that spurts from his finger.

Heavy with thought, I leave. The town is asleep; its streets are empty. At the edge of the old wharf I stop and wait. The leaden clouds almost touch the water. Daybreak will soon come.

As she did last night, the mute net-mender thrusts her head out of the skein. She looks around, searching, as if a voice had called her. I hide behind a lamppost. She suddenly leaps and runs down the pier with unbelievable speed, past skeletons of boats and rusty anchors, her long nets dragging behind her, floating.

On the wooden bridge she stops. I can hear her breath whistling. Who knows what is plaguing this miserable creature’s mind? She grabs the railing and rocks it wildly. How much force and fury that little frame contains! I carefully move closer and crouch behind an overturned boat. The lake is turbulent tonight, and it sprays my glasses with droplets. In such moments, Your Highness, I practically curse my blind obedience to your orders. It is hard to see from here, but it seems as though someone is trying to force the mute to turn back and look at the hills, and she fights him and grunts and spits, squirming as her tiny, supple body is tossed from side to side. I write quickly in the dark my hand is trembling I apologize for the handwriting Your Highness perhaps she is about to throw herself into the lake and then what will I do it’s been so many years since I’ve touched anyone and her head at once pulls sharply back maybe there really is someone in the dark breaking her neck—

Her mouth gapes, teeth exposed, and suddenly all is quiet. How such silence and the lake as if the waves do not

MUTE WOMAN IN NET:

Two human specks,

a mother and her child,

we glided through the world

for six whole years.

TOWN CHRONICLER: Astonished, she plunges once again into the mess of nets. I am exceedingly cold, Your Highness. Such phenomena disquiet me. The lake coming back to life so suddenly, and the boats once again knocking into one another and creaking in mockery. You will ridicule me, too, my lord, but I am willing to swear that I saw a slim band of light coming out of her mouth. Perhaps just a moonlight apparition. But there is no moon tonight. And the fact that for one moment, when she sang, she was almost beautiful … I am merely reporting. Her voice was clear. I might even venture to say: heavenly. But what do I know? I am tired. This is all so confusing. Perhaps I should take a nap in one of the boats

Wait—

Like a quick little animal she burrows into her nets and is gone. According to the records in my possession she has not uttered a single word for upward of nine years.

And now, Your Highness, it is finally dawn.

DUKE:

Dawn!

From within the loathsome night,

from the theater

of its nightmares, I once again

extract and

collect myself piece

by piece, a monarch-mosaic:

here is my hand

outstretched for bread,

and its fresh smell

and warm body,

but first, first

my eye

goes to the window,

drawn to two birds in a puddle,

to a dawn rising

sanguine. Look,

my lord, you are blessed:

here on a platter

is a newborn day,

its teeth not yet emerged—

But for a week now, far away

on the hilltops, a man

like an open razor blade walks

and cuts, his head

in the sky.

WALKING MAN:

And yet

I shall move you,

my rootless child,

my cold,

fruitless child.

Every day it gets

harder, every day you grow

more hardened, more

and more taxing.

TOWN CHRONICLER: Every time the midwife leaves the room, the cobbler jumps up to the window. His eyes dart over the hills, his lips seem to chew up insults and curses. Hammer in hand.

He notices me in his yard now, behind an empty chicken coop. He does not come out or banish me; he doesn’t even threaten me with his hammer. I carefully show him my notebook and pen. I believe I see him nod.

MIDWIFE:

Opposite my bed

on the w-w-wall

is an ancient round

c-c-clock.

It is old and weak,

with hands s-s-stuck

on the same hour

and the same m-m-minute

for more than a y-y-year—

TOWN CHRONICLER: Her voice, soft and flat, comes from the next room. The cobbler moves away from the window. He walks backward. Backward? Strange: as if sleepwalking, he probes around until his back touches the wall. Both arms slowly rise on either side. His shaved red head slams against the wall to the beat of the words from the other room.

MIDWIFE:

And only

the thin s-s-second

hand keeps fluttering

p-p-pouncing all the time

all the time that’s

left, all the time

that was given,

p-p-pounces and lurches

back

unw-w-wavering,

storming

fighting

to pass

to cross

or just

t-t- to be,

to be one sheer full simple second no more no less

just that, God,

just be.

DUKE:

And here, in the palace,

in the private chamber,

a whistling kettle and steaming

coffee. I am serene and slow

and limp, undoubtedly:

an exemplary duke—

no.

No.

A man not-himself

has awoken from this night—

all hollow bones,

hah, the gravity

of tragedy. (You thought

you were safe, m’lord, you thought you were

immune. Your troops

cover the land, a thousand hussars

on a thousand horses, and you in

shattered shards.) But he rises,

he rises to his day,

silently puts on the slough

of his name, inwardly

fans the dim embers, does his best

to convince himself that he still remembers

what it was like to

just

be;

how to stare, for example,

how to stare ? How

does a person just stare

innocently, how does he

for one instant forget

what is seared inside him

by affliction?

In short—

an impostor of sorts, a sham,

pretending to be an everyman

whose eye

is drawn to the open window, whose hand