Read The Book of Intimate Grammar Online
Authors: David Grossman
The Book of Intimate Grammar (32 page)
Papa groans with pleasure and asks them to scratch a little higher, nu, by the whatzit.
The spine, the spine, Aron corrects him in a whisper.
You’d think he’d know a simple word like that.
Mama and Yochi start from opposite sides and work toward the middle, till he’s positively bursting with bliss.
Imagine Papa trying to pronounce something long and complicated, like hippopotamus, or that word in the health book —hypothalamus, or even an easy word, like firefly: could a big fat tongue like his pronounce it without flubbing, and wouldn’t it be awful if it tied itself in a knot forever trying to say flierflifflfflff!
Aron wants to jump out the kitchen window right now, run to the Wizo Nursery School, and squat in the dark, but the windowsill is full of jars, jars of pickled cucumbers and pickled peppers and sauerkraut and pimientos and olives and pearl onions, even carrots; there’s nothing she doesn’t pickle, no vegetable is safe with Mama around.
The spine, the spine, Aron corrects him in a whisper.
You’d think he’d know a simple word like that.
Mama and Yochi start from opposite sides and work toward the middle, till he’s positively bursting with bliss.
Imagine Papa trying to pronounce something long and complicated, like hippopotamus, or that word in the health book —hypothalamus, or even an easy word, like firefly: could a big fat tongue like his pronounce it without flubbing, and wouldn’t it be awful if it tied itself in a knot forever trying to say flierflifflfflff!
Aron wants to jump out the kitchen window right now, run to the Wizo Nursery School, and squat in the dark, but the windowsill is full of jars, jars of pickled cucumbers and pickled peppers and sauerkraut and pimientos and olives and pearl onions, even carrots; there’s nothing she doesn’t pickle, no vegetable is safe with Mama around.
Nimbly snipping, he tries to be careful.
Only his fingertips move.
And the women are busy massaging Papa from top to bottom.
You could melt just thinking about it.
They’ve never given him such a long one before.
It’s impossible to see the whole of him from here; maybe they dismantled him and later they’ll put him back together again, only this time they’ll decide how.
And if you throw back your head a little you see a section of shoulder and Mama’s fingers lingering on the muscles, examining something, scratching with her fingernail, trying to find out if it’s real, and then she gives another little scratch.
Hey, what kind of massage is this.
And her fingers start tickling, coochie-coochie-coo!
And
Papa squirms and squeals with laughter, and she tickles him all the way up his arm, accidentally shoving Yochi and Grandma out of the way, allowing herself the liberty of a little smile, she hasn’t smiled like that in weeks, and Papa’s mouth is squashed against the Bordeaux sofa in a saggy grin, you could easily mistake it for a frown, and the question is whether that mouth could manage a word like “thread,” and Aron pictures a golden thread shining in the sunlight, dripping honey, like a guitar string still aquiver with the melody a moment after it was strummed.
Threa-d, murmurs Aron with fine-drawn lips, with deep devotion, threa-d, like a string plucked out of his depths, lyrical and sweet, but airy too, and hazy like the halos around those people in his negatives, and he can easily slip through any crack, through a needle’s eye.
He tilts his head, eyes shut, lips parted like the mouth of an urn, uttering “Threa-d,” like the whistle of the wind, gentle but cutting, and he smiles to himself: Papa can’t get in, like a thread with a knot at the end.
Ha ha: Aron the passing thread, thready-Aron passes, while Papa, the knot-man, with his face and his body and his blackheads—wham!
Aron is all the way in now, alone inside where everything is soft, translucent, simple as a diagram, pure and simple, all aglow with a firefly light; there is a little light in everything, even the steel wool for scrubbing panels has a mysterious spark, even dark purple grapes have a dusky gleam, or a thick drop of blood on the tip of your finger, that too, if you say it right with deep devotion, “a drop of blood,” you see a beacon flashing forth as from a distant lighthouse, and certain words, if you know how to pronounce them in a special way, not from the outside but as though you were calling their names, right away they turn to you, they show you their pink penetralia, they purr to you and they’re yours, they’ll do anything you want; take “bell,” for instance, he rolls it over his tongue as though tasting it for the first time ever, “bellll,” or “honeysuckle,” or “lion” or “legend” or “coal” or “melody” or “gleam” or “velvet,” melting on his tongue, sloughing off their earthly guises, till suddenly there is red heat, a cinder of memory spreading its glow as it slowly disappears into his mouth, for
Lo
,
this bath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is expiated.
Only his fingertips move.
And the women are busy massaging Papa from top to bottom.
You could melt just thinking about it.
They’ve never given him such a long one before.
It’s impossible to see the whole of him from here; maybe they dismantled him and later they’ll put him back together again, only this time they’ll decide how.
And if you throw back your head a little you see a section of shoulder and Mama’s fingers lingering on the muscles, examining something, scratching with her fingernail, trying to find out if it’s real, and then she gives another little scratch.
Hey, what kind of massage is this.
And her fingers start tickling, coochie-coochie-coo!
And
Papa squirms and squeals with laughter, and she tickles him all the way up his arm, accidentally shoving Yochi and Grandma out of the way, allowing herself the liberty of a little smile, she hasn’t smiled like that in weeks, and Papa’s mouth is squashed against the Bordeaux sofa in a saggy grin, you could easily mistake it for a frown, and the question is whether that mouth could manage a word like “thread,” and Aron pictures a golden thread shining in the sunlight, dripping honey, like a guitar string still aquiver with the melody a moment after it was strummed.
Threa-d, murmurs Aron with fine-drawn lips, with deep devotion, threa-d, like a string plucked out of his depths, lyrical and sweet, but airy too, and hazy like the halos around those people in his negatives, and he can easily slip through any crack, through a needle’s eye.
He tilts his head, eyes shut, lips parted like the mouth of an urn, uttering “Threa-d,” like the whistle of the wind, gentle but cutting, and he smiles to himself: Papa can’t get in, like a thread with a knot at the end.
Ha ha: Aron the passing thread, thready-Aron passes, while Papa, the knot-man, with his face and his body and his blackheads—wham!
Aron is all the way in now, alone inside where everything is soft, translucent, simple as a diagram, pure and simple, all aglow with a firefly light; there is a little light in everything, even the steel wool for scrubbing panels has a mysterious spark, even dark purple grapes have a dusky gleam, or a thick drop of blood on the tip of your finger, that too, if you say it right with deep devotion, “a drop of blood,” you see a beacon flashing forth as from a distant lighthouse, and certain words, if you know how to pronounce them in a special way, not from the outside but as though you were calling their names, right away they turn to you, they show you their pink penetralia, they purr to you and they’re yours, they’ll do anything you want; take “bell,” for instance, he rolls it over his tongue as though tasting it for the first time ever, “bellll,” or “honeysuckle,” or “lion” or “legend” or “coal” or “melody” or “gleam” or “velvet,” melting on his tongue, sloughing off their earthly guises, till suddenly there is red heat, a cinder of memory spreading its glow as it slowly disappears into his mouth, for
Lo
,
this bath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is expiated.
He pushes himself on the tabouret which Mama likened to King Farouk wearing a fez, and leans forward to watch, carefully so as not to let anything leak out.
He observes the salon: the three women working on Papa’s back like cranes on a water buffalo.
Grandma seems to
be getting tired.
Even now that she’s had an operation, the power controlling her mind is pretty weak.
Mama settles her on the Franzousky, so she’ll rest.
She sniffs her from behind in case she made.
Grandma’s eyes are covered with a membrane.
Just don’t let her die in the house.
And Mama mutters under her breath, How long can we go on keeping her at home like this?
And if Grandma makes in the middle of the salon, he thinks, they’ll kill her for certain.
And after the “thorough” yet, when everything’s shiny and clean.
And on such a special day, the day Papa came home.
Mama will murder her on the spot.
He cringes and freezes all over.
Only his lips are still Aron, and he slowly puckers them till they let out a whistle, the secret ultrasonic whistle only females can hear, and then they follow you blindly and do whatever you want.
But he didn’t believe Giora, not even at the time.
He puckers his lips.
Concentrates.
Forgets the rest.
Forgets what’s building up inside him, dense and ugly.
His lips weave a web.
He observes the salon: the three women working on Papa’s back like cranes on a water buffalo.
Grandma seems to
be getting tired.
Even now that she’s had an operation, the power controlling her mind is pretty weak.
Mama settles her on the Franzousky, so she’ll rest.
She sniffs her from behind in case she made.
Grandma’s eyes are covered with a membrane.
Just don’t let her die in the house.
And Mama mutters under her breath, How long can we go on keeping her at home like this?
And if Grandma makes in the middle of the salon, he thinks, they’ll kill her for certain.
And after the “thorough” yet, when everything’s shiny and clean.
And on such a special day, the day Papa came home.
Mama will murder her on the spot.
He cringes and freezes all over.
Only his lips are still Aron, and he slowly puckers them till they let out a whistle, the secret ultrasonic whistle only females can hear, and then they follow you blindly and do whatever you want.
But he didn’t believe Giora, not even at the time.
He puckers his lips.
Concentrates.
Forgets the rest.
Forgets what’s building up inside him, dense and ugly.
His lips weave a web.
The three women sat up with a start, as though someone had tickled them inside.
As though someone had whispered their names.
Even Grandma quivered.
Only Papa lay inert and didn’t notice anything.
Deaf and heavy, he sprawled on the sofa.
Aron stopped in alarm, and the women went back to their task.
Again Aron set his lips, forming his snare of a whistle, and with faithful precision wove his mighty web.
Again the women turned around as in a trance, moonily picking up their colorful dusters, and while Papa rose on his elbows with a “Huh?”
and a “Whuh?,” they surrounded Aron with mincing softness, fluttering by him like feather clouds, titillating the creatures of his writhing back, rippling with the pleasures of the intimate tickle, with helpless, jellylike giggles of laughter, and Aron whispers “lion,” “honeysuckle,” “melody,” “legend,” and one by one the words present their sleek underbellies, giving out a reddish glow, revealing a tiny vibrant tongue inside that tintinnabulates with longing for his own supple tongue, his tongue unbound, his lump of flesh, and Aron grew sublimely giddy with self-transcendence, and one twilit moment later, swathed in darkening shame and the stench of primal disgrace, he slid off the tabouret onto the floor, where, strangely cool, he passed the runty knife over the cut on his middle finger again, watching the timorous spurt, and in his bowels, an amazing void, an emptiness like nothing he can remember, the emptiness of somebody else.
And oh, the unbearable sting of bliss at that moment, long as eternity, when he flowed and flowed; giving
birth to himself, a small, beloved, stinking self; rid at last of the horrible anguish, the harsh dark secret, not his own, he had been forced to keep inside.
Circumspectly he lay down with his cheek to the floor.
The stench filled the kitchen.
A fire in his pants.
The blood trickled out near his open eye and he observed it.
Like somebody else’s blood dripping into the cracks.
In fact, everything was somebody else’s.
He felt so light.
Light enough to float.
With naught to encumber his immortal soul.
Aury.
Aery.
Ari.
There was no doubt: from now on everything would change.
To tell the truth, the ordeal has weakened him.
Not just the events of the last few weeks.
Forget that.
But everything he’s been through in these three years of waste.
His brains have weakened too.
He forgets things.
He’s not on the ball anymore the way he used to be.
He finds it hard to concentrate.
He scribbles nonsense on exam papers.
It’s as if the whatzit in there were bloating up and crowding out everything else, pressing down and squashing it flat.
He used to be known as a comedian.
He could really make them laugh.
Do impersonations of just about anyone.
Now even the laughter center had pooped out on him, and he was gray and boring.
Other kids were growing up while he—yeah right, he made lists of Adam’s apples and hairy legs and armpits and pimples and body odor.
But Mama’s noticed something.
She sits up suddenly.
Her forehead wrinkles.
And he will be redeemed.
Oh yes, no two ways about it.
He will remember all he has lost.
And she blurts out a question to Yochi in Yiddish: Do you smell anything, Yochileh, and Yochi sniffs and says no.
Because so help me, if she just made on the Franzousky, I’m taking her to Emergency first thing in the morning and leaving her there, a thousand doctors won’t persuade me to take her back, and Aron doesn’t even have to reach into his pocket and touch the onion strip to hear her thinking: No more happy times with Mamchu here.
But Aron will be a good boy.
He’ll change.
He’ll learn how to play the guitar again, he’ll play his new guitar for them, he will play a golden flute and lead the other children in a song, he will be crowned a prince, tell stories, interpret dreams, fend off famines, trap the lustrous auras of this world in glassy marbles.
Mama rushes over to Grandma and forces her to her feet, sniffs her from behind, and stays fixed for a moment.
And to each and every aura Aron will give a name, a secret name, and he will string the names together on a fine golden thread, he himself will be that thread, and he will draw forth the soul of things and hide it between his lips … Again Mama sits up.
Disconcertedly she pushes Grandma down on the Franzousky, and her nostrils quiver, scanning, tuning in, homing in on the kitchen, bouncing back to Grandma, then stubbornly returning to the kitchen, advancing, shrinking, and flaring slowly in double perplexity, in disbelief, in revulsion, until a lightning bolt of pagan horror flashes on her face.
As though someone had whispered their names.
Even Grandma quivered.
Only Papa lay inert and didn’t notice anything.
Deaf and heavy, he sprawled on the sofa.
Aron stopped in alarm, and the women went back to their task.
Again Aron set his lips, forming his snare of a whistle, and with faithful precision wove his mighty web.
Again the women turned around as in a trance, moonily picking up their colorful dusters, and while Papa rose on his elbows with a “Huh?”
and a “Whuh?,” they surrounded Aron with mincing softness, fluttering by him like feather clouds, titillating the creatures of his writhing back, rippling with the pleasures of the intimate tickle, with helpless, jellylike giggles of laughter, and Aron whispers “lion,” “honeysuckle,” “melody,” “legend,” and one by one the words present their sleek underbellies, giving out a reddish glow, revealing a tiny vibrant tongue inside that tintinnabulates with longing for his own supple tongue, his tongue unbound, his lump of flesh, and Aron grew sublimely giddy with self-transcendence, and one twilit moment later, swathed in darkening shame and the stench of primal disgrace, he slid off the tabouret onto the floor, where, strangely cool, he passed the runty knife over the cut on his middle finger again, watching the timorous spurt, and in his bowels, an amazing void, an emptiness like nothing he can remember, the emptiness of somebody else.
And oh, the unbearable sting of bliss at that moment, long as eternity, when he flowed and flowed; giving
birth to himself, a small, beloved, stinking self; rid at last of the horrible anguish, the harsh dark secret, not his own, he had been forced to keep inside.
Circumspectly he lay down with his cheek to the floor.
The stench filled the kitchen.
A fire in his pants.
The blood trickled out near his open eye and he observed it.
Like somebody else’s blood dripping into the cracks.
In fact, everything was somebody else’s.
He felt so light.
Light enough to float.
With naught to encumber his immortal soul.
Aury.
Aery.
Ari.
There was no doubt: from now on everything would change.
To tell the truth, the ordeal has weakened him.
Not just the events of the last few weeks.
Forget that.
But everything he’s been through in these three years of waste.
His brains have weakened too.
He forgets things.
He’s not on the ball anymore the way he used to be.
He finds it hard to concentrate.
He scribbles nonsense on exam papers.
It’s as if the whatzit in there were bloating up and crowding out everything else, pressing down and squashing it flat.
He used to be known as a comedian.
He could really make them laugh.
Do impersonations of just about anyone.
Now even the laughter center had pooped out on him, and he was gray and boring.
Other kids were growing up while he—yeah right, he made lists of Adam’s apples and hairy legs and armpits and pimples and body odor.
But Mama’s noticed something.
She sits up suddenly.
Her forehead wrinkles.
And he will be redeemed.
Oh yes, no two ways about it.
He will remember all he has lost.
And she blurts out a question to Yochi in Yiddish: Do you smell anything, Yochileh, and Yochi sniffs and says no.
Because so help me, if she just made on the Franzousky, I’m taking her to Emergency first thing in the morning and leaving her there, a thousand doctors won’t persuade me to take her back, and Aron doesn’t even have to reach into his pocket and touch the onion strip to hear her thinking: No more happy times with Mamchu here.
But Aron will be a good boy.
He’ll change.
He’ll learn how to play the guitar again, he’ll play his new guitar for them, he will play a golden flute and lead the other children in a song, he will be crowned a prince, tell stories, interpret dreams, fend off famines, trap the lustrous auras of this world in glassy marbles.
Mama rushes over to Grandma and forces her to her feet, sniffs her from behind, and stays fixed for a moment.
And to each and every aura Aron will give a name, a secret name, and he will string the names together on a fine golden thread, he himself will be that thread, and he will draw forth the soul of things and hide it between his lips … Again Mama sits up.
Disconcertedly she pushes Grandma down on the Franzousky, and her nostrils quiver, scanning, tuning in, homing in on the kitchen, bouncing back to Grandma, then stubbornly returning to the kitchen, advancing, shrinking, and flaring slowly in double perplexity, in disbelief, in revulsion, until a lightning bolt of pagan horror flashes on her face.
Nevertheless, that spring Aron fell in love.One evening, on his way across the yard of the Wizo Nursery School, he caught a glimpse of Zacky Smitanka making out with Dorit Alush on the bench.
Aron ducked off the path before they noticed him, slinked along the hedges till he found the hole in the fence, and slipped through.
He hurried home and sat around in the gloom of his bedroom, silent, empty.
Reluctantly he dragged his feet in to supper.
Mama came over to him right away and pressed her lips to his forehead, and for a minute he thought she was going to kiss him because she knew what he was feeling, a mother’s heart, so he closed his eyes helplessly, nearly bursting with the softness of her lips on his forehead, where they lingered, hovered a moment, pressed down again; she hadn’t kissed him in ages and he never dreamed he wanted her to so badly, but no, he didn’t have a fever, she reported dryly, sitting down again.
So why do you look like that?
growled Papa, suppressing his annoyance.
Like what?
asked Aron weakly.
Squashed like a pacha, said Mama.
Like someone sat on your face.
He sighed and shrugged his shoulders, imagining Dorit Alush’s long brown leg jerking up and down with pain or pleasure, who knew how many more smutty surprises were lurking out there.
Papa was silent.
Mama was silent too.
Aron left the table and said he didn’t feel so good, and he put on his pajamas and got into bed, and tried with all his might to fall asleep, to sink deeper and deeper, deeper than his mind and memory, and he must have succeeded, because through the
alchemy of despair, the only philosophy he really knew, Aron’s first love blossomed overnight.
Aliza Lieber, Miri Tamari, Rina Fichman; dizzily he circled among them on a mystic quest, a seeker of love.
Ariella Biltzky, Osnat Berlin, Tammy Lerner; everyday girls lit up from within, shyly inclining their sunflower faces; Ruthy Zuckerman, Hanni Altschuller, Hanni Hirsch, Orna Agami; he loved them all despite their flaws, and presently, because of them, those minor imperfections that seemed like secret clues intended for him alone; Ruchama Taub, Gila Shalgi, even chubby Naomi Feingold for ten days (till he found out her brother had six toes on his left foot); he loved them whole and he loved them piecemeal; sometimes he lost his heart to a cheek, the grace of a hand, the lilt of a giggle, and ignored their cruder appendages; he became infatuated with Varda Koppler for a week of illusion and dark jealousy over her soldier pen pal, when he noticed her lisp.
And then he discovered a dimple on Malka Shlein and the crater of a vaccination on the adorable arm of Adina Ringle, and it filled him with wonder that in every girl he studied closely there was something worthy of his eternal love, and he circulated like a courier bursting with the secret knowledge he carried, speaking out to them in his quiet way; Esty Parsitz, Aviva Castlenuovo, Nira Vered … the glass slipper worked overtime.
Ariella Biltzky, Osnat Berlin, Tammy Lerner; everyday girls lit up from within, shyly inclining their sunflower faces; Ruthy Zuckerman, Hanni Altschuller, Hanni Hirsch, Orna Agami; he loved them all despite their flaws, and presently, because of them, those minor imperfections that seemed like secret clues intended for him alone; Ruchama Taub, Gila Shalgi, even chubby Naomi Feingold for ten days (till he found out her brother had six toes on his left foot); he loved them whole and he loved them piecemeal; sometimes he lost his heart to a cheek, the grace of a hand, the lilt of a giggle, and ignored their cruder appendages; he became infatuated with Varda Koppler for a week of illusion and dark jealousy over her soldier pen pal, when he noticed her lisp.
And then he discovered a dimple on Malka Shlein and the crater of a vaccination on the adorable arm of Adina Ringle, and it filled him with wonder that in every girl he studied closely there was something worthy of his eternal love, and he circulated like a courier bursting with the secret knowledge he carried, speaking out to them in his quiet way; Esty Parsitz, Aviva Castlenuovo, Nira Vered … the glass slipper worked overtime.
Yaeli Kedmi was a year younger, in seventh grade, and for the past few years she’d been walking home from school with him and the other neighborhood kids.
She was small and demure, but her cheeks were full, and better than he knew her face or voice he knew the shiny black mantle of her wavy hair.
Since the age of nine she had trailed along, and they were used to her silence, her modesty.
Rarely did anyone address her, nor were they particularly careful with secrets in her presence: she was What’s-her-name Yaeli whom they were supposed to keep an eye on at the Bet Hakerem intersection till she drifted away without a word at the corner of Bialik Street.
She was small and demure, but her cheeks were full, and better than he knew her face or voice he knew the shiny black mantle of her wavy hair.
Since the age of nine she had trailed along, and they were used to her silence, her modesty.
Rarely did anyone address her, nor were they particularly careful with secrets in her presence: she was What’s-her-name Yaeli whom they were supposed to keep an eye on at the Bet Hakerem intersection till she drifted away without a word at the corner of Bialik Street.
But one afternoon Aron accompanied Yochi to her ballet class in the Valley of the Cross near the new wing they were building at the Israel Museum.
What interested him there were the blasts of dynamite every day around five and the shock waves that filled the air, and when Yochi went to change into her costume, Aron watched the younger girls just finishing their lesson, among whom he suddenly spotted Yaeli.
She wore a tight black leotard, and her arms and legs didn’t look skinny anymore,
they looked gracefully slender as she danced, like the swiggles of a sharpened pencil, and the billowing hair which had always seemed heavy and overlavish on such a tiny frame, flowed around her now as she pirouetted, glorious, sublime.
What interested him there were the blasts of dynamite every day around five and the shock waves that filled the air, and when Yochi went to change into her costume, Aron watched the younger girls just finishing their lesson, among whom he suddenly spotted Yaeli.
She wore a tight black leotard, and her arms and legs didn’t look skinny anymore,
they looked gracefully slender as she danced, like the swiggles of a sharpened pencil, and the billowing hair which had always seemed heavy and overlavish on such a tiny frame, flowed around her now as she pirouetted, glorious, sublime.
Aron stepped back in confusion and stood by the entrance door, staring at Yaeli.
Rina Nikova, the aging ballet mistress, clapped her hands and gave him a start—he thought she was going to point at him.
He tried to assume an air of indifference, but it melted in the heat leaking out of him.
Madame Nikova explained something to the girls in her thick Russian accent.
Yaeli did not look his way.
Again the music played, and they practiced the arabesque as Aron devoured Yaeli’s face, so lovely and delicately drawn with a sharp quick line; and her gaze of concentration when she practiced the “cat step”; and her milky skin; the note of defiance in her nose; her slanty almond eyes, which seemed unable to decide whether to be brown like his or hazel; and the smile that hovered over her full red mouth, the netherlip swollen.
Aron could feel his heart pound, it was happening, a burst of light; Yaeli danced before him so airy and free—free as a bird, the words beat through him like wings in flight—and then he knew, he knew with certainty that she was a vegetarian as he had been, and he also knew that this time, for her sake, he would assert his vegetarianism, and then, most miraculously, with a single look and a single heartbeat, Yaeli was redeemed.
Rina Nikova, the aging ballet mistress, clapped her hands and gave him a start—he thought she was going to point at him.
He tried to assume an air of indifference, but it melted in the heat leaking out of him.
Madame Nikova explained something to the girls in her thick Russian accent.
Yaeli did not look his way.
Again the music played, and they practiced the arabesque as Aron devoured Yaeli’s face, so lovely and delicately drawn with a sharp quick line; and her gaze of concentration when she practiced the “cat step”; and her milky skin; the note of defiance in her nose; her slanty almond eyes, which seemed unable to decide whether to be brown like his or hazel; and the smile that hovered over her full red mouth, the netherlip swollen.
Aron could feel his heart pound, it was happening, a burst of light; Yaeli danced before him so airy and free—free as a bird, the words beat through him like wings in flight—and then he knew, he knew with certainty that she was a vegetarian as he had been, and he also knew that this time, for her sake, he would assert his vegetarianism, and then, most miraculously, with a single look and a single heartbeat, Yaeli was redeemed.
Yochi came back wearing her leotard, moving leadenly.
By now it was impossible not to notice she was fat, and the only reason Madame Nikova didn’t kick her out was that soon she would be going into the army.
Her legs were flabby, and her buttocks fairly burst out of the leotard.
Approximately two years before, though she had perfectly smooth legs inherited from Grandma Lilly, Yochi started waxing off the hair so it would grow back thicker and she could remove it like all the other girls.
Now, as she slowly twirled before his eyes, he could see the black dots on her calves and for a moment he was angry with her, hostile even, but it wasn’t her fault, poor thing, what with Papa’s appetite and Mama’s constipation, and still he felt angry when she was pushed back into the third row with the beginners, a dove among the sparrows.
By now it was impossible not to notice she was fat, and the only reason Madame Nikova didn’t kick her out was that soon she would be going into the army.
Her legs were flabby, and her buttocks fairly burst out of the leotard.
Approximately two years before, though she had perfectly smooth legs inherited from Grandma Lilly, Yochi started waxing off the hair so it would grow back thicker and she could remove it like all the other girls.
Now, as she slowly twirled before his eyes, he could see the black dots on her calves and for a moment he was angry with her, hostile even, but it wasn’t her fault, poor thing, what with Papa’s appetite and Mama’s constipation, and still he felt angry when she was pushed back into the third row with the beginners, a dove among the sparrows.
Madame Nikova clapped three times.
Lesson over, she declared, and a stream of girls burbled out to the dressing room.
Aron backed off
and leaned against the wall, blushing with shyness and excitement, dizzy with the mingled scents of orange blossom, perspiration, kittens.
A pair of legs paused in front of him as he stared fixedly at the floor, two legs he had once thought scrawny, bony, which were now most definitely slender and shapely, and for a split second he glanced up at her with a trembling heart and wobbling knees, and the expression she wore was gentle, but also defiant and playful and self-assured: I saw you looking, said her eyes, I was dancing for you, can you believe it’s me?
Lesson over, she declared, and a stream of girls burbled out to the dressing room.
Aron backed off
and leaned against the wall, blushing with shyness and excitement, dizzy with the mingled scents of orange blossom, perspiration, kittens.
A pair of legs paused in front of him as he stared fixedly at the floor, two legs he had once thought scrawny, bony, which were now most definitely slender and shapely, and for a split second he glanced up at her with a trembling heart and wobbling knees, and the expression she wore was gentle, but also defiant and playful and self-assured: I saw you looking, said her eyes, I was dancing for you, can you believe it’s me?
The next day, on their way home from school, Aron didn’t dare exchange glances with her.
Zacky and Gideon walked in the lead as usual, arguing boisterously, with Aron at their side lagging slightly behind, listening to them through Yaeli’s ears.
How well she must know them all, he realized, she had absorbed so much over the years, and he wondered what she thought about him, and about his problem.
Zacky told a joke he’d read in the book about Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, and Gideon grumbled that jokes like that ought to be banned because they’re bad for national morale, and Hanan Schweiky hollered, Stop lecturing, Strashnov, and let Zacky give us another one.
Aron was disgusted at their coarseness and vulgarity, how would he be able to protect Yaeli’s innocence, and when Zacky started making fun of Morduch, the blind beggar, and tossed him a nail instead of a coin, Aron drew away from them in protest.
Yaeli trailed behind the group as usual, weighed down by her school bag, drooping under the crowning glory of her heavy hair; he glanced at her furtively.
She dances even when she’s standing still, he thought, not just at Madame Nikova’s, and who had been idiot enough to suppose she was tagging along; his eyes lingered on her sprightly feet, she had a little red scar by the buckle of her sandal and it made him burst with love.
When the rest of them went into the supermarket, he almost dared to lag behind and go through the automatic door all by himself, he could do it, because with every breath he felt a new fullness inside him, and still he hesitated, maybe he wasn’t quite ready yet, and he sneaked in with a young woman pushing a stroller and caught up with the other kids.
He waited his chance to say something to Yaeli, to make contact with her somehow.
As they were crossing Bet Hakerem Street he hung back, and when she barged ahead he blurted, almost gruffly, “Look out, car coming,” and saw her neck turn rosy.
Zacky and Gideon walked in the lead as usual, arguing boisterously, with Aron at their side lagging slightly behind, listening to them through Yaeli’s ears.
How well she must know them all, he realized, she had absorbed so much over the years, and he wondered what she thought about him, and about his problem.
Zacky told a joke he’d read in the book about Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, and Gideon grumbled that jokes like that ought to be banned because they’re bad for national morale, and Hanan Schweiky hollered, Stop lecturing, Strashnov, and let Zacky give us another one.
Aron was disgusted at their coarseness and vulgarity, how would he be able to protect Yaeli’s innocence, and when Zacky started making fun of Morduch, the blind beggar, and tossed him a nail instead of a coin, Aron drew away from them in protest.
Yaeli trailed behind the group as usual, weighed down by her school bag, drooping under the crowning glory of her heavy hair; he glanced at her furtively.
She dances even when she’s standing still, he thought, not just at Madame Nikova’s, and who had been idiot enough to suppose she was tagging along; his eyes lingered on her sprightly feet, she had a little red scar by the buckle of her sandal and it made him burst with love.
When the rest of them went into the supermarket, he almost dared to lag behind and go through the automatic door all by himself, he could do it, because with every breath he felt a new fullness inside him, and still he hesitated, maybe he wasn’t quite ready yet, and he sneaked in with a young woman pushing a stroller and caught up with the other kids.
He waited his chance to say something to Yaeli, to make contact with her somehow.
As they were crossing Bet Hakerem Street he hung back, and when she barged ahead he blurted, almost gruffly, “Look out, car coming,” and saw her neck turn rosy.
Love made him gentle and happy.
He suddenly remembered how
happy he could be.
In the morning, before dressing, he would lie in bed with his hand under his head and stare up at the bright blue sky, feeling as though about to return from a long, long journey.
And then he would jump out of bed to greet the new day.
One evening, when he got a splinter in his finger and Mama was sterilizing a needle over the burner to take it out for him, he almost started crying, his throat felt choked, and Mama thought he was scared or something and started teasing him, though he was really moved to tears that she cared about him and loved him so.
From one day to the next he dropped his secret experiments, forgot about them, blotted them out.
Once when he found a couple of cigarette butts in his school-bag pocket, he blithely tossed them away.
As though they happened to get there by chance.
He dismissed the things of the past.
Even that strange last summer and his winter hibernation.
A new leaf.
A new leaf.
When they sent him out to buy something at the corner grocery, he volunteered to go all the way to the shopping center just to be able to pass her house and smell the flowering honeysuckle in the yard.
There was a place in his stomach, under his heart, that would glow with pain whenever he longed for Yaeli, and at recess one time he agreed to join the kids for soccer, and showed them how a real champion plays, and reveled in the game, running and kicking, and even scored a goal, and everyone sighed: what a waste that someone like Arik Kleinfeld should hang up his shoes, maybe there’s some way we can convince him to start practicing with the team again for the eighth-grade cup at the end of the year.
He left the field flushed and exhilarated, and ran to the water fountain, where out of the corner of his eye he saw she had broken away from a cluster of girls and was coming over to drink.
His courage failed.
He leaned over nervously and took a sip, and saw her wavy black mane so near he closed his eyes, and drank up vigorously, till he remembered the falling water level in the Sea of Galilee.
He suddenly remembered how
happy he could be.
In the morning, before dressing, he would lie in bed with his hand under his head and stare up at the bright blue sky, feeling as though about to return from a long, long journey.
And then he would jump out of bed to greet the new day.
One evening, when he got a splinter in his finger and Mama was sterilizing a needle over the burner to take it out for him, he almost started crying, his throat felt choked, and Mama thought he was scared or something and started teasing him, though he was really moved to tears that she cared about him and loved him so.
From one day to the next he dropped his secret experiments, forgot about them, blotted them out.
Once when he found a couple of cigarette butts in his school-bag pocket, he blithely tossed them away.
As though they happened to get there by chance.
He dismissed the things of the past.
Even that strange last summer and his winter hibernation.
A new leaf.
A new leaf.
When they sent him out to buy something at the corner grocery, he volunteered to go all the way to the shopping center just to be able to pass her house and smell the flowering honeysuckle in the yard.
There was a place in his stomach, under his heart, that would glow with pain whenever he longed for Yaeli, and at recess one time he agreed to join the kids for soccer, and showed them how a real champion plays, and reveled in the game, running and kicking, and even scored a goal, and everyone sighed: what a waste that someone like Arik Kleinfeld should hang up his shoes, maybe there’s some way we can convince him to start practicing with the team again for the eighth-grade cup at the end of the year.
He left the field flushed and exhilarated, and ran to the water fountain, where out of the corner of his eye he saw she had broken away from a cluster of girls and was coming over to drink.
His courage failed.
He leaned over nervously and took a sip, and saw her wavy black mane so near he closed his eyes, and drank up vigorously, till he remembered the falling water level in the Sea of Galilee.
They peeked at each other, and Aron blushed as he blurted out, “I saw you at Madame Nikova’s.”
Her lip swelled, and her teeth sparkled like pearls for him.
How could she be so calm.
Calmer than he was.
Quietly she said, “I want to be a dancer when I grow up.”
“I used to play the guitar,” said Aron, all aflutter.
“But you quit.”
She didn’t ask.
She knew.
Maybe she was even chiding him for it.
She knew everything about him.
It was no use trying to improve his image in her eyes.
I stand before you.
Help me.
You must have noticed what I’m going
through.
It’s a good thing I don’t have to say it in words.
But I am getting better now, it’s still a secret, Yaeli, but I feel I really am.
Everything is opening up inside me.
Thanks to you-know-who.
“I’m going to take it up again,” Aron mustered the strength to answer.
“I got a new guitar for my bar mitzvah and I’m going to start playing it soon.”
Yaeli smiled at him.
She believed him.
The magic would work.
Their hands lingering on the water fountain were twins, and Aron, who knew exactly what his hands looked like, didn’t pull them back, with all his strength he didn’t pull them back, so she would know everything about him, from her he would keep no secrets, so that a standard of absolute truth and sincerity would prevail from the start, even if it hurt.
“My name is Aron,” he foolishly blurted, but it wasn’t foolish at all: he was offering his name to her, his name with everything in it.
She smiled.
Again her netherlip protruded, curiously, affectionately.
The janitor rang the school bell.
Her lip swelled, and her teeth sparkled like pearls for him.
How could she be so calm.
Calmer than he was.
Quietly she said, “I want to be a dancer when I grow up.”
“I used to play the guitar,” said Aron, all aflutter.
“But you quit.”
She didn’t ask.
She knew.
Maybe she was even chiding him for it.
She knew everything about him.
It was no use trying to improve his image in her eyes.
I stand before you.
Help me.
You must have noticed what I’m going
through.
It’s a good thing I don’t have to say it in words.
But I am getting better now, it’s still a secret, Yaeli, but I feel I really am.
Everything is opening up inside me.
Thanks to you-know-who.
“I’m going to take it up again,” Aron mustered the strength to answer.
“I got a new guitar for my bar mitzvah and I’m going to start playing it soon.”
Yaeli smiled at him.
She believed him.
The magic would work.
Their hands lingering on the water fountain were twins, and Aron, who knew exactly what his hands looked like, didn’t pull them back, with all his strength he didn’t pull them back, so she would know everything about him, from her he would keep no secrets, so that a standard of absolute truth and sincerity would prevail from the start, even if it hurt.
“My name is Aron,” he foolishly blurted, but it wasn’t foolish at all: he was offering his name to her, his name with everything in it.
She smiled.
Again her netherlip protruded, curiously, affectionately.
The janitor rang the school bell.
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