The History of Love (26 page)

It was turning out to be a bad day.

“M-E-R-E-M-I-N-S-K-I,” I said to the woman behind the desk in Room 133. I thought, How could he like a girl who couldn’t do the Universal Edibility Test if her life depended on it? “M-E-R-E,” the woman said, so I said, “M-I-N-S—” thinking, She probably hasn’t ever heard of
Rear Window
. “M-Y-M-S,” the woman said. “No,” I said. “M-I-N-S.” “M-I-N-S,” the woman said. “K-I,” I said. And she said, “K-I.”

An hour passed and we didn’t find any death certificate for Alma Mereminski. Another half hour passed and we still didn’t find it. Loneliness turned into depression. After two hours, the woman said she was absolutely one-hundred-percent positive there was no Alma Mereminski who died in New York City after 1948.

That night I rented
North by Northwest
again and watched it for the eleventh time. Then I went to sleep.

19.
LONELY PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

When I opened my eyes, Uncle Julian was standing above me. “How old are you?” he asked. “Fourteen. I’ll be fifteen next month.” “Fifteen next month,” he said, as if he were turning a math problem over in his head. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” He was still wearing his raincoat, which was soaking wet. A drop of water fell in my eye. “I don’t know.” “Come on, there must be something.” I sat up in my sleeping bag, rubbed my eye, and looked at my digital watch. There’s a button you can press to make the numbers glow. It also has a built-in compass. “It’s three-twenty-four in the morning,” I said. Bird was asleep in my bed. “I know. I was just wondering. Tell me and I promise I’ll let you go back to sleep. What do you want to be?” I thought, Someone who can survive in subzero temperatures and forage for food and build a snow cave and start a fire out of nothing. “I don’t know. Maybe a painter,” I said, to make him happy so he’d let me go back to sleep. “It’s funny,” he said. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

20.
AWAKE IN THE DARK

I thought about Misha and Luba, and my father and mother, and why Zvi Litvinoff had moved to Chile and married Rosa, instead of Alma, the one he’d really loved.

I heard Uncle Julian cough in his sleep across the hall.

Then I thought: Wait a minute.

21.
SHE MUST HAVE GOTTEN MARRIED!

That was it! That’s why I hadn’t found the death certificate for Alma Mereminski. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

22.
BEING NORMAL

I reached under my bed and pulled out the flashlight from my survival backpack, along with the third volume of
How to Survive in the Wild.
When I turned the flashlight on, something caught my eye. It was stuck between the bed frame and the wall, near the floor. I slid under the bed and shone my flashlight to get a better look. It was a black-and-white composition book. On the front it said
. Next to that it said
PRIVATE
. Once Misha told me there was no word in Russian for privacy. I opened it.

April 9

I have been a normal person for three days in a row. What this means is that I have not climbed on top of any buildings or written G-d’s name on anything that doesn’t belong to me or answered a perfectly normal question with a saying from the Torah. It also means I have not done anything where the answer would be
NO
to the question:
WOULD A NORMAL PERSON DO THIS?
So far it hasn’t been that hard.

April 10

This is the fourth day in a row that I’ve acted normal. In gym class Josh K. pinned me against the wall and asked if I thought I was a big fat genius so I told him I did not think I was a big fat genius. Because I did not want to ruin a whole normal day, I did not tell him that what I might be is the Moshiach. Also my wrist is getting better. If you want to know how I sprained it, I sprained it by climbing up on the roof because I got to Hebrew School early and the door was locked and there was a ladder attached to the side of the building. The ladder was rusty but otherwise it was not that hard. There was a big puddle of water in the middle of the roof so I decided to see what would happen if I bounced my jack ball in it and tried to catch it. It was fun! I did it about fifteen more times until I lost it when it went over the edge. Then I lay on my back and looked up at the sky. I counted three airplanes. When I got bored I decided to go down. It was harder than going up because I had to go backwards. Halfway I passed the windows of one of the classrooms. I could see Mrs. Zucker at the front so I knew it was the Daleds. (If you want to know, this year I’m a Hay.) I couldn’t hear what Mrs. Zucker was saying so I tried to read her lips. I had to lean off of the ladder very far to get a good view. I pressed my face right against the window and suddenly everyone turned to look at me so I waved and that’s when I lost my balance. I fell and Rabbi Wizner said it was a miracle that I didn’t break anything but deep inside I knew I was safe the whole time and that G-d wouldn’t let anything happen to me because I am almost definitely a lamed vovnik.

April 11

Today was my fifth day of being normal. Alma says that if I were normal it would make my life easier not to mention everyone else’s life. I got to take the ace bandage off my wrist, and now it only hurts a little. It probably hurt a lot more when I broke my wrist when I was six but I don’t remember.

I skipped ahead until I came to:

June 27

So far I’ve made $295.50 from selling lemon-aid. That’s 591 cups! My best customer is Mr. Goldstein who buys ten cups at one time because he’s extremely thirsty. Also Uncle Julian who tipped me 20 dollars once. Only $384.50 to go.

June 28

Today I almost did something not normal. I was passing a building on 4th Street and there was a plank of wood leaning against the scaffolding and no one was around and I really wanted to take it. It wouldn’t have been like regular stealing since the special thing I am building will help people and G-d wants me to build it. But I also know that if I stole it and someone found out I would get in trouble and then Alma would have to come get me and she would be angry. But I bet she won’t be angry anymore when it starts to rain and I finally tell her what the special thing is that I’ve started to build. I’ve already collected a lot of stuff for it, mostly things that people have thrown away with the garbage. One thing I need a lot of that’s hard to find is styrofoam because it floats. Right now I don’t have that much. Sometimes I worry that it will start raining before I am finished building.

If Alma knew about what is going to happen, I also don’t think she’d be so upset that I wrote
on her notebook. I have read all three volumes of How to Suvive in the Wild and they are very good and filled with interesting and useful facts. One part is all about what to do if there is a nuclear bomb. Even though I don’t think there is going to be a nuclear bomb just in case I read it very carefully. Then I decided that if there is a nuclear bomb before I get to Israel and ashes fall everywhere like snow, I’m going to make angels. I’ll walk through anyone’s house I want because everyone will be gone. I won’t be able to go to school, but it doesn’t really matter since we never learn anything important anyway like what happens after you die. Anyway I’m just joking because there’s not going to be a bomb. What there’s going to be is a flood.