Everything Is Illuminated (11 page)

"A question," I said. "Do you think the women in Ukraine are first rate?" "I haven't seen many since I've been here." "Do you have women like this in America?" "There's at least one of everything in America." "I have heard this. Do you have many motorcycles in America?" "Of course." "And fax machines?" "Everywhere." "You have a fax machine?" "No. They're very passé." "What does it mean passé?" "They're out-of-date. Paper is so tedious." "Tedious?" "Tiresome." "I understand what you are telling me, and I harmonize. I would not ever use paper. It makes me a sleeping person." "It's so messy." "Yes, it is true, it makes a mess, and you are asleep." "Another question. Do most young people have impressive cars in America? Lotus Esprit V8 Twin Turbos?" "Not really. I don't. I have a real piece-of-shit Toyota." "It is brown?" "No, it's an expression." "How can your car be an expression?" "I have a car that is like a piece of shit. You know, it stinks like shit and looks shitty like shit." "And if you are a good accountant, you could buy an impressive car?" "Absolutely. You could probably buy most anything you want." "What kind of wife would a good accountant have?" "Who knows." "Would she have rigid tits?" "I couldn't say for sure." "Probably, although?" "I guess." "I dig this. I dig rigid tits." "But there are also accountants, even very good ones, who have ugly wives. That's just the way it works." "If John Holmes was a first-rate accountant, he could have any woman he would like for his wife, yes?" "Probably." "My penis is very big." "OK."

After dinner at the restaurant, we drove back to the hotel. As I knew, it was an unimpressive hotel. There was no area for swimming and no famous discotheque. When we unclosed the door to the hero's room, I could perceive that he was distressed. "It's nice," he said, because he could perceive that I could perceive that he was distressed. "Really, it's just for sleeping." "You do not have hotels like this in America!" I made a funny. "No," he said, and he was laughing. We were like friends. For the first time that I could remember, I felt entirely good. "Make sure you secure the door after we go to our room," I told him. "I do not want to make you a petrified person, but there are many dangerous people who want to take things without asking from Americans, and also kidnap them. Good night." The hero laughed again, but he laughed because he did not know that I was not making a funny. "Come on, Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior," Grandfather called to the bitch, but she would not leave the door. "Come on." Nothing. "Come on!" he bellowed, but she would not dislodge. I tried to sing to her, which she relishes, especially when I sing "Billie Jean," by Michael Jackson. "She's just a girl who claims that I am the one." But nothing. She only pushed her head against the door to the hero's room. Grandfather attempted to remove her with force, but she commenced to cry. I knocked on the door, and the hero had a teeth-brush in his mouth. "Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior will manufacture Z's with you this evening," I told him, although I knew that would not be successful. "No," he said, and that was all. "She will not depart from your door," I told him. "Then let her sleep in the hall." "It would be benevolent of you." "Not interested." "Only for one night." "One too many. She'll kill me." "It is so unlikely." "She's crazy." "Yes, I cannot dispute that she is crazy. But she is also compassionate." I knew that I would not prevail. "Listen," the hero said, "if she wants to sleep in the room, I'd be happy to sleep in the hall. But if I'm in the room, I'm alone in the room." "Perhaps you could both sleep in the hall," I suggested.

After we left the hero and the bitch to repose—hero in room, bitch in hall—Grandfather and I went downstairs to the hotel bar for drinks of vodka. It was Grandfather's notion. In truth, I was a petite amount terrified of being alone with him. "He is a good boy," Grandfather said. I could not perceive if he was inquiring me or tutoring me. "He seems good," I said. Grandfather moved his hand over his face, which had become covered with hairs during the day. It was only then that I noticed that his hands were still shaking, that they had been shaking all day. "We should try very inflexibly to help him." "We should," I said. "I would like very much to find Augustine," he said. "So would I."

That was all the talking for the night. We had three vodkas each and watched the weather report that was on the television behind the bar. It said that the weather for the next day would be normal. I was appeased that the weather would be normal. It would make our search cinchier. After the vodka, we went up to our room, which flanked the room of the hero. "I will repose on the bed, and you will repose on the floor," Grandfather said. "Of course," I said. "I will make my alarm for six in the morning." "Six?" I inquired. If you want to know why I inquired, it is because six is not very early in the morning for me, it is tardy in the night. "Six," he said, and I knew that it was the end of the conversation.

While Grandfather washed his teeth, I went to make certain that everything was acceptable with the hero's room. I listened at the door to detect if he was able to manufacture Z's, and I could not hear anything abnormal, only the wind penetrating the windows and the sound of insects. Good, I said to my brain, he reposes well. He will not be fatigued in the morning. I tried to unclose the door, to make sure it was secured. It opened a percentage, and Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, who was still conscious, walked in. I watched her lay herself next to the bed, where the hero reposed in peace. This is acceptable, I thought, and closed the door with silence. I walked back to the room of Grandfather and I. The lights were already off, but I could perceive that he was not yet reposing. His body rotated over and over. The bed sheets moved, and the pillow made noises as he rotated over and over, over and then again over. I heard his large breathing. I heard his body move. It was like this all night. I knew why he could not repose. It was the same reason that I would not be able to repose. We were both regarding the same question: what did he do during the war?

T
RACHIMBROD
was somehow different from the nameless shtetl that used to exist in the same place. Business went on as usual. The Uprighters still hollered, hung, and limped, and still looked down on the Slouchers, who still twiddled the fringes at the ends of their shirtsleeves, and still ate cookies and knishes after, but more often during, services. Grieving Shanda still grieved for her deceased philosopher husband, Pinchas, who still played an active role in shtetl politics. Yankel still tried to do right, still told himself again and again that he wasn't sad, and still always ended up sad. The synagogue still rolled, still trying to land itself on the shtetl's wandering Jewish/Human fault line. Sofiowka was as mad as ever, still masturbating a handful, still binding himself in string, using his body to remember his body, and still remembering only the string. But with the name came a new self-consciousness, which often revealed itself in shameful ways.

The women of the shtetl raised their impressive noses to my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. They called her
dirty river girl
and
waterbaby
under their breath. While they were too superstitious ever to reveal to her the truth of her history, they saw to it that she had no friends her own age (telling their children that she was not as much fun as the fun she had, or as kind as her kind deeds), and that she associated only with Yankel and any man of the shtetl who was brave enough to risk being seen by his wife. Of which there were quite a few. Even the surest gentleman stumbled over himself in her presence. After only ten years of life, she was already the most desired creature in the shtetl, and her reputation had spread like rivulets into the neighboring villages.

I've imagined her many times. She's a bit short, even for her age—not short in the endearing, childish way, but as a malnourished child might be short. The same is true for how skinny she is. Every night before putting her to sleep, Yankel counts her ribs, as if one might have disappeared in the course of the day and become the seed and soil for some new companion to steal her away from him. She eats well enough and is healthy, insofar as she's never sick, but her body looks like that of a chronically sick girl, a girl squeezed in some biological vise, or a starving girl, a skin-and-bones girl, a girl who is not entirely free. Her hair is thick and black, her lips are thin and bright and white. How else could it be?

Much to Yankel's dismay, Brod insisted on cutting that thick black hair herself.

It's not ladylike,
he said.
You look like a little boy when it's so short.

Don't be a fool,
she told him.

But doesn't it bother you?

Of course it bothers me when you're a fool.

Your hair,
he said.

I think it's very pretty.

Can it be pretty if no one thinks it's pretty?

I think it's pretty.

If you're the only one?

That's pretty pretty.

And what about the boys? Don't you want them to think you're pretty?

I wouldn't want a boy to think I was pretty unless he was the kind of boy who thought I was pretty.

I think it's pretty,
he said.
I think it's very beautiful.

Say it again and I'll grow it long.

I know,
he laughed, kissing her forehead as he pinched her ears between his fingers.

Her learning to sew (from a book Yankel brought back from Lvov) coincided with her refusal to wear any clothes that she did not make for herself, and when he bought her a book about animal physiology, she held the pictures to his face and said,
Don't you think it's strange, Yankel, how we eat them?

I've never eaten a picture.

The animals. Don't you find that strange? I can't believe I never found it strange before. It's like your name, how you don't notice it for so long, but when you finally do, you can't help but say it over and over, and wonder why you never thought it was strange that you should have that name, and that everyone has been calling you that name for your whole life.

Yankel. Yankel. Yankel. Nothing so strange for me.

I won't eat them, at least not until it doesn't seem strange to me.

Brod resisted everything, gave in to no one, would not be challenged or not challenged.

I don't think you're stubborn,
Yankel told her one afternoon when she refused to eat dinner before dessert.

Well I am!

And she was loved for it. Loved by everyone, even those who hated her. The curious circumstances of her creation lit the men's intrigue, but it was her clever manipulations, her coy gestures and pivots of phrase, her refusal to acknowledge or ignore their existence that made them follow her through the streets, gaze at her from their windows, dream of her—not their wives, not even themselves—at night.

Yes, Yoske. The men in the flour mill are so strong and brave.
Yes, Feivel. Yes, I am a good girl.
Yes, Saul. Yes, yes, I love sweets.
Yes, oh yes, Itzik. Oh yes.

Yankel didn't have the heart to tell her that he was not her father, that she was the Float Queen of Trachimday not only because she was, without question, the most loved young girl in the shtetl, but because it was her real father at the bottom of the river with her name, her papa the hardy men dove for. So he created more stories—wild stories, with undomesticated imagery and flamboyant characters. He invented stories so fantastic that she had to believe. Of course, she was only a child, still removing the dust from her first death. What else could she do? And he was already accumulating the dust of his second death. What else could
he
do?

With the help of the shtetl's desirous men and hateful women, my very-great-grandmother grew into herself, cultivating private interests: weaving, gardening, reading anything she could get her hands on—which was just about anything in Yankel's prodigious library, a room filled from floor to ceiling with books, which would one day serve as Trachimbrod's first public library. Not only was she the smartest citizen in Trachimbrod, called upon to solve difficult problems of mathematics or logic—
THE HOLY WORD,
the Well-Regarded Rabbi once asked her in the dark,
WHICH IS IT, BROD?
—she was also the most lonely and sad. She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.

Are you sad, Yankel?
she asked one morning over breakfast.

Of course,
he said, feeding melon slices into her mouth with a shaking spoon.

Why?

Because you are talking instead of eating your breakfast.

Were you sad before that?

Of course.

Why?

Because you were eating then, instead of talking, and I become sad when I don't hear your voice.

When you watch people dance, does that make you sad?

Of course.

It also makes me sad. Why do you think it does that?

He kissed her on the forehead, put his hand under her chin.
You really must eat,
he said.
It's getting late.

Do you think Bitzl Bitzl is a particularly sad person?

I don't know.

What about grieving Shanda?

Oh yes, she's particularly sad.

That's an obvious one, isn't it? Is Shloim sad?

Who knows?

The twins?

Maybe. It's none of our business.

Is God sad?

He would have to exist to be sad, wouldn't He?

I know,
she said, giving his shoulder a little slap.
That's why I was asking, so I might finally know if you believed!

Well, let me leave it at this: if God does exist, He would have a great deal to be sad about. And if He doesn't exist, then that too would make Him quite sad, I imagine. So to answer your question, God must be sad.