The Book of Intimate Grammar

11

At five in the afternoon Aron was playing soccer with Pelé on the asphalt behind the building project. The game had been going on for over an hour and he was getting bored. Gideon wasn’t home yet, and Aron didn’t feel like hanging around with Zacky, so he sat down on the narrow steps of the Wizo Nursery School, smashed a few pine-cones against the cement, and started pecking at the dusty pinones. Time stood still. Utterly still. There were gray November clouds in the sky and birds on the wires fluffing their feathers against the cold. The pantry screens at the Atiases’ were coming off, and Esther and Avigdor Kaminer were out on their kitchen porch cleaning the grill of their kerosene heater. Aron was practicing his signature, forefinger in the dirt, an impressive autograph for soccer fans to collect someday. He didn’t like his name. Aron Aron Aron. He pronounced it with deep concentration till it wrapped around him like a heavy overcoat, a hand-me-down from an old relation, Aron Aron Aron, a subtle pulsing of his selfhood was alive and calling to him out of his somber name, like a twinkling eye, like a squeal of glee in the gloomy vowels, but the more he said it, the further his tiny selfhood receded, the faster it faded, like a match flaring with elation, how strange; he forced himself to go on, though, just for fun, to keep repeating his name in search of the twinkle, until there was no reaction anymore when Aron said Aron, so Aron quit.

He called Gideon’s name a couple of times, maybe he was back bynow. Then he whistled for Gummy, his invisible dog, at a frequency only a dog can hear, and charged up the pitch with him to score a few more points behind the building project, and ran out of breath and sat down again. It had to be ten past five already. Time was standing still. For his bar mitzvah they promised him a watch, a present from Grandma Lilly. Out of her savings. Out of what Mama put aside from selling her embroidered pillows. Maybe she didn’t even know about it. Who was he waiting for? Oh right, Gideon. Or was it someone else? Some guest, some relative from far away? To judge by his excitement, there were a lot of people coming. Whole crowds of them. Go on. He scratched Gummy’s belly, ran his fingers through his fur, and tickled him where it makes their leg jerk; it’s a canine reflex, even if their brain resists, they can’t help jerking when you tickle them there; and then he made a little earth mound, glancing around to see if anyone was watching, the Kaminers were still on the kitchen porch with their backs to him; he wondered whether Avigdor Kaminer would live long enough to warm himself beside the kerosene heater that winter, or would Esther Kaminer be left alone, he did seem to be doing his best to stay alive for her, and Aron blew into the mound of earth and said, Let there be man, but he blew too hard as usual and the dust flew to the four winds. Nothing was going right today. How did that brainteaser go? Can God make a mountain so high even He can’t get over it? He turned it around in his brain till it sickened him, and then he called out quietly, Gideon, Gideon. Had he been religiously inclined, he would have prayed for Divine intervention with his problem. But he had stopped believing in early childhood, seeing that his parents only went to synagogue twice a year, on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, and didn’t keep the Sabbath. How come? And once they slapped his face for telling company that Papa ate salami sandwiches with butter. Go know. What time was it? He rolled a leaf and made a whistle out of it, and first he played “Skipping Like a Ram,” and then what he’d learned to chant so far from his bar mitzvah Haftorah, Isaiah, Chapter 6, in his lessons with the hairy rabbi, who yelled at him for daring to ask if God is always just. Gideon, Gideon, come on already. In his heart he reckoned the days: today’s menu: beans, buttermilk, bananas; tomorrow we have corn and cabbage, and maybe a little chicken soup would be in order too. That wasn’t enough though, probably. You need carrots for your eyes, cheese for your bones, meat for your muscles. And more too, something to build up yourwillpower, otherwise how would you ever get rid of that stubborn baby tooth. From his pocket he took a small round mirror and looked for the tooth. There it was, white and tiny, sticking up between two permanent teeth. Right in the middle of his mouth. But he knew how to grin without letting it show. That was him all right, civilized down to his smiles. He turned the mirror over. He’d like to engrave Anat Fish’s name there with a knife and give it to David Lipschitz. He’d risked his neck swiping the mirror out of her school bag. That he had the guts to do, but not to go knocking on the Lipschitzes’ door and say to David’s big-shot dad, Here, this is for David, it belongs to Anat Fish, so he’ll have something to remember her by in his new environment. He looked at himself in the mirror. Stuck his tongue out between his teeth. He had three lips this way. Hey, he could work out a special lip number and perform it someday. He twisted his mouth and suddenly felt the scornful eyes of Anat Fish on him, her cold Egyptian stare; he probably seemed like a moron to her. What did he care. It must be twenty to five by now. His lips felt numb. How come there’s no such thing as a lip massage. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pecks of pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick. Not bad. He tried “Hey, Beebo, hey, baibo” and got through the “hefti befti belabelabefti” like a whiz, thousands of tiny tongue muscles, how amazingly well they worked together; in a little while he’d go upstairs and knock on Gideon’s door. Maybe Gideon was avoiding him. No, that was silly. Just the same he ran out through the entrance hall and walked around for a couple of minutes, one foot in the street, the other on the curb, that seemed like the appropriate thing to do, from now on that would be his walk, though he knew the look Gideon would give him, like he was a real pain in the neck, a huge embarrassment, and he stopped and glanced casually in the direction of Gideon’s balcony. Empty. Hmm. What if he really did go to see Dr. No with Zacky. Aron walked out behind the building and practiced the glorious fall of a soldier shot in the back, writhing on the ground, full of pathos, then suddenly leaping up and spraying the air with his submachine gun. Who was supposed to be coming today? A relative maybe, from Tel Aviv or Holon? Something was definitely in the air. Now Sophie Atias, the young wife of old Peretz Atias, came out to the trash bins wearing those pink zapatos Mama can’t stand, noticeably waddling though she’s only three months gone, she doesn’t even have a belly yet and already she wants to showoff. He decided to be a gentleman, ran up to Sophie, and offered to carry the garbage. Don’t be silly, Aron. She flashed a toothy white smile. Come on, give it to me, I’m strong. Well, I am too, thank God, but he tried to grab it anyway, that was the most they’d ever spoken. Let go, Aron, she said, not smiling anymore. But you shouldn’t be carrying things, he blurted as they struggled over the handle. Watch it, she shrilled at him, then yanked the pail away and toddled off, leaving Aron frozen there, feeling scared, all he needed now was for Sophie to have a miscarriage thanks to his good intentions. He sprinted after her and waited by the trash bins, pale and tense, practically standing at attention in an effort to see what would happen now and whether she would look at him or not. She emerged from the bins and walked blindly past his rigid, upturned face. What’s your problem? She scowled at him, menacingly rough, not at all like a married woman speaking to the child next door, and suddenly he saw her crudeness, he saw a cheap young girl breaking out under her panic, people said landing old Peretz Atias was the only way she could get herself a furnished apartment with all the accessories; she used to sit with Peretz and Papa and Aron and her little boy sometimes to watch wrestling on Lebanon TV, and once she kidded Peretz that it was good for him to watch because it got him hot, and then she poked him in the ribs and they all laughed, and Aron suddenly realized how close to his age she was; maybe she was afraid they’d find out now, and that’s why she wouldn’t look at him; sure, that must be it, the guttersnipe. He watched her waddle away like a duck, and again he started pacing up and down behind the building project, kicking the gas canisters, sipping water from the highest tap just for the heck of it, not because he was thirsty, the way a dog pees on a tree, and then he saw a shiny beetle on its back, attacked by a column of ants. He, Gideon, and Zacky had been slacking their FBBF Patrols (Flip Beetles Back on their Feet) for quite a while, and they used to be so conscientious, too, checking around the electric poles, rescuing beetles from certain death, till Zacky became bored and the project fizzled out; damn that Sophie Atias anyway, who does she think she is. It would serve her right not to see anybody but Peretz for nine months, then she’d give birth to a bald-headed baby with a mustache. Oh help, who’s coming, what now. Is it the lottery, could that be it? Did he forget something, is there a big drawing today for valuable prizes? He ran through his list: not the Tempo bottle caps that win you a weekendfor two at the Galei Kinneret Hotel in Tiberias, or the Popsicle sticks with the letters that spell out “bicycle,” and there were three days left before the Toto results came in, so it wasn’t that. Five-twenty-five. What if they really did go to the movies. He kicked a crumpled pack of El Al cigarettes, then picked it up. Examined it carefully. Sniffed it: it didn’t smell like onions, but you never know. He struck a match from the matchbook Uncle Shimmik got in the airplane. He held it up to the pack of cigarettes. Nothing. Maybe we’re talking about an extremely resistant kind of invisible writing here. He found the old strip of onion in his pocket, rubbed it against the pack, his own discovery: when the invisible onion sniffs the visible onion it reveals itself, only this time it didn’t, not one letter of the invisible writing showed, maybe the juice was used up and he needed a new onion strip.

Three cats loped by.

Aron felt so miserable he jumped up and ran after them; instinctively, like a child, with the persistence of a child. They slipped through a hole in the fence at the Wizo Nursery School, and Aron hid his ball under a pile of leaves in the hollow of a poplar tree and followed the cats, picking up two sharp stones as he chased them, till suddenly he recognized Mutzi-Chaim, and he held his fire. Mutzi’s mother had kittened her about two years before in the furnace room of the building project with everyone standing around to watch. Mutzi was the sixth and last of the litter, and she looked so puny coming out that the neighbors clicked their tongues. She’d be better off dead, in her condition, said mealy-mouthed Esther Kaminer, whose meaning was lost on no one. But Papa picked up the blind little kitten and hurried home. He put it in Aron’s hands for safekeeping, stuck a tiny dropper down its throat, and gently pumped. The dropper filled with a golden fluid and the kitten sputtered and started to squirm. It has to have a name, thought Aron, we have to name it right away. Papa repeated the procedure with consummate skill, while Aron racked his brains for a name. A name, is that all you can think about at a time like this, he chided himself, if you name the kitten you’ll get attached to it, but he couldn’t refrain from whispering Poppet, Kitty, Checkers (because it was black-and-white), Mitzi, when Papa told him to massage it very gently and Aron obeyed, slowly, with a palpitating heart, and finally he decided on Mutzi, a common name, too common, but there was no time, and Mutzi, Mutzi, he murmured, tenderly transfusing the warmth of his breath into thekitten, fervently blowing on it, as on a dying ember; suddenly the kitten heaved its tiny rib cage and lay motionless in his palm, and Aron’s heart stopped beating. It seemed to be struggling against some powerful force till finally with a mighty spasm, it jerked itself free, squeaked and wriggled, and began to breathe. Papa and Aron smiled at each other. For a week they dropper-fed the kitten, which, as it turned out, was female, and Aron decided to add the word “life” to her name, the way Minister Moshe Chaim Shapira did when he miraculously escaped from death.

She was a beauty, Mutzi-Chaim. Plump and graceful, black-and-white. Aron gazed at her affectionately, he hadn’t seen her for a very long time, they had parted on bad terms, long ago, it seemed, but he wasn’t angry anymore, he smiled at her and decided to head back, at his age cats weren’t that exciting anymore. But all of a sudden Mutzi yowled and rolled over, rubbing her neck voluptuously in the dust, and Aron realized that the other two cats must be rutty males, and he had to smirk as he watched them, the way their eyes never left her as she lay there licking her inner thigh. The pads on her paws were pink and puffy. The yellow tomcat howled in pain. Mutzi regarded him a moment, then licked herself all the way up her thigh, where suddenly her tongue met the other little mouth that opened there. Aron cleared his throat. He could feel their maleness bristle at the sight of her rosy penetralia. The big black tom approached with an almost martial rigidity of limb, slowly swishing his tail, till Aron could feel the panther-python movements winding around his waist. He kneeled down cautiously, parting the shafts of wild wheat to peek out at the cats.

For a moment they remained perfectly still. Evening sounds from the building project reverberated in his ears. Pots clattering, a song on the radio, water running in the shower; Edna Bloom on the telephone, talking to her parents in Hungarian, raising her voice till it cracked, as usual. Windows closed, blinds rolled down. Then the yellow tom leaped in the air and smacked the black one under the eye, and the two of them tumbled in the dust, fierce with the knowledge of things to come, ripping each other to pieces, howling and yowling, drenched in darkness, and Aron squatted and gasped with astonishment, even his recalcitrant ofzeluchi brain momentarily drank in the frothy blood his heart had been withholding so long. Presently the black cat surrendered and slinked away, sloughing off the disgrace of innumerable lost futures, and the yellow one, panting and prickly with the terrors of war, approachedthe female and started yowling in her ear. Mutzi-Chaim turned her head as though she wanted to think it over, but then she let out an identical yowl, how did she make that sound, he wondered, and again he envisioned Mutzi-Chaim in the early days, his lithesome kitten, poised like an elastic muscle with a triangular head you could hold in your palm, and he decided to raise her as a vegetarian, he wouldn’t let anyone feed her meat or bones, he had this idea, he wanted to prove it could be done, that you could prevent a cat from growing up carnivorous; he even thought of training her to perform with pigeons, to add a little variety to the Houdini act, but his parents laughed at him; Gideon was skeptical too, which made Aron all the more determined to prove that nothing was impossible, and for the next few weeks, or maybe months, he kept Mutzi-Chaim locked in the bomb shelter and fed her out of his own hands, and felt a surge of pride as she sidled up with eyes only for him, and rubbed against him though he hadn’t brought her a single bite of meat; and one day he came down to the shelter and found her gone — there was a hole in the ventilator grid — but he never lost faith in her, he defended her to tears whenever Mama and Papa teased him about the way she ransacked the garbage cans at night behind his back and feasted on chicken legs, and when he screamed that they were lying and pounded the floor with his fists, they laughed their heads off and said, Why don’t we conduct a little experiment, then: go call your vegetarian pussy and let’s find out, and he refused, but Papa opened the door and went “Pssss” and in she pranced with her tail held high, kitty-catting over and rubbing against his legs, purring loudly, and then Aron really blew up and told them to leave her alone, but Papa grabbed him, roaring with laughter, and pinned his arms down, and Mama exploded with hilarious gurgling noises, and then she took a piece of dripping red liver out of the refrigerator, he couldn’t believe it, she was about to waste a good piece of liver on a cat, and Aron screamed as loud as he could, Watch out, Mutzi-Chaim, it’s poisoned, but she scurried to the liver Mama had put in the saucer from the table service Gamliel and Rochaleh gave them for their wedding, and Mutzi-Chaim, humming electrically from her ears to the tip of her tail, grabbed the liver with her bare teeth, which looked different all of a sudden, and Papa let go of Aron, exchanging secret glances with Mama, and together they watched him approach Mutzi-Chaim, recoiling at the sound that came, not from her mouth, but from deep inside her, astrange new sound, like a throaty snarl; she had turned into a stranger, clenching the liver between fiercely bared teeth, her ears flattened ominously; and then she arched her back, crouched down, and slinked out of the house, and Aron burst into tears and ran around wailing that the Houdini act was ruined, till he bumped into something soft, his magnanimous Mama, who forgave him everything, and hugged him tightly to her breasts with pity, with love, effacing the memory of the arching cat and that awful sound he could hear again now, though it didn’t frighten him anymore. The cats’ ears were so flat it seemed as if an invisible presence were trying to strip them of their earthly guise, and Aron crawled forward, and the tall grass brushed against his face as the triangular heads of the male and Mutzi-Chaim came together and they yowled their gravelly song, so loudly Aron couldn’t stand it anymore. Suddenly Mutzi-Chaim veered around and Aron let out a shameful moan. At that she blinked with annoyance and streaked away, the male in pursuit, and Aron after them. An old woman playing with her grandchildren watched him from the sandbox, so he pretended to be a child, a child chasing cats, diving into the rosemary bushes, where he found them snuggling together like sweethearts.

This was a rude invasion of their privacy, and they turned to him with quiet dignity, their furry triangular heads merging first, then one behind the other, coolly studying him, till he bowed before the scepters in their eyes. And then they scampered away.

Aron chased after them, cutting across footpaths, jumping fences. Stop it, Aron, are you crazy, he panted; the cats aligned their backs in search of another refuge, and Aron practically stumbled over them into their honeysuckle hideaway. The two stared at him in sheer amazement, and Aron could imagine how he must appear to them. Then a look flashed between them, their ears twitched. An agreement had been reached. With a sudden shiver they leaped out into the street. Aron gave up the chase. What did he care about cats, a boy his age. See that, you’ve gone and torn your shirt. And suddenly he was bounding after them.

He followed them up Hechalutz Boulevard, and around the corner to Hagai Street, where they surprised him and scampered into the valley. He’d never seen cats in the valley before. Panting hard, he chased them, his face aflame, calling silently, Stop, stop; they were going too fast, and though he knew it was wrong to do what he was doing, he realizedhe couldn’t stop himself now. The cats paused a minute, okay, now turn around and go home, accept defeat, and again they took off with Aron after them, and he peeled himself off, layer by layer, and inside him there was something that ebbed and flowed and flooded his consciousness, but what did he care, Mutzi-Chaim used to nestle in the palm of his hand, and now look at her, strutting around with her tail in the air, to show off that pinkiness opening up, and the yellow tomcat pointed his ear at the little mouth. Hey, wait a minute, be fair, but they wouldn’t stop, they lagged behind just long enough for him to catch up and then sprang full speed ahead, past the campfire sites where the fourth-grade Scouts came for their initiations, past the soccer field, and the rock ledge, and the cave where he sometimes took a shit; he could barely see, could barely breathe, he scanned the twilight for their eyes, which flashed at him like yellow droplets, thick as resin, blinking out of the bushes, and suddenly he noticed they were no longer in front but flanking him, like a pair of jailors past the tiny sewage stream and into the junkyard, where he collapsed in a heap.

When Aron caught his breath again he saw that the cats had vanished in the dusk. He lay heaving on the ground in the wavy shadow of an ancient Tupolino. Last year he’d used this car for practice, but it was too easy, all four doors were a cinch to open, and he decided not to drag it across the valley, after all, to use in his act for the end-of-the-school-year party. He tried to prop himself up against the car door or the refrigerator next to it, but he didn’t have the strength. Next year he’d show them. He’d get hold of a suitcase with steel locks. He’d escape out of a barrel nailed shut with a sheet of canvas around it, or maybe a big glass cage. He giggled to himself: How silly to go chasing cats like that. He struggled to his feet and made his way up the path to the building project. Those cats, what a riot. He really had them hypnotized.

When he reached the sidewalk in front of the building project he peered this way and that. No sign of Gideon. That was strange. He went through the hallway into the back yard. On the asphalt, outside the trash bins, he signed his autograph in piss, but ran out because there were too many letters in Kleinfeld. Phew, what a fright he gave those cats. What persistence. He shook it once, he shook it twice, the last drop fell in his pants, as usual.

And suddenly, somehow, he was knocking at the door upstairs, andManny, Gideon’s big brother, opened it wearing a gym shirt and said Gideon wasn’t home yet, but come in, he’ll probably be back soon. Aron said he just dropped by to check, and Manny said Sure, sure, and went back to his calisthenics on the carpet. Aron sat down on the sofa, now he realized how exhausted he was from all that running. Never mind. It keeps you fit. He leafed abstractedly through the Guinness Book of World Recordsin English, glancing up from time to time to follow Manny’s muscles bulging walnutlike as he got in shape to be a pilot in the air force. Aron mouthed the English captions: the fastest man in the world, the biggest omelette, the longest fingernail. Still, Gideon didn’t come home. Eddy, the student lodger, had opened the door twice already to ask if Mira was back yet. He’s waiting for her like I’m waiting for Gideon, mused Aron as he sprawled on the sofa, closed his eyes, and fell to Aroning, thinking about Mira, Gideon’s mother, smiling behind dark reading glasses, a petite, retiring woman, he imagined her mouth now, red and soft; what time is it, twenty to six.

Manny’s breathing was starting to grate on him. The guy’s a fitness freak, he said to himself in the language of the boys at school. The words didn’t suit him. Manny had the same ears as Gideon and their mother. Little pointy ones. Manny’s sweat smelled like the locker room at school after the eighth-graders’ gym class. Only a few of the boys in his class had that smell. Let’s see, Avi Sasson had it, and Hanan Schweiky had it, and Eli Ben-Zikri the hood had it for sure, and what about Meirky Blutreich and Meirky Ganz … He counted on his fingers. Quite a few, actually. This smell too would have to be added to the list, ah, screw ’em. What’s this, he chided himself, talking dirty like you know who. But the clock on the buffet showed a quarter to six, so maybe Gideon really did go to the early show of Dr. No.

“So, Aharon, you’ve come again, I see,” said Gideon’s father, entering in his bathrobe, his hairy legs showing. “Gideon isn’t home yet. How about a nice cup of tea?”

Gideon’s father pronounced his name the way they do on the radio, Aharon, with the accent on the last syllable, which sounded a little silly; ridiculous, in fact. Aron had once heard him telling Gideon: “I’ll always love you as a son, but you have to earn my friendship.” It made Aron cringe to hear Gideon’s father say those words in the course of sometrivial argument. Aron was aghast, how could he talk like that to another human being, even if he was his son.

“Please, don’t be shy,” he said, holding out a box of cat tongues. Aron shrugged politely, the way he’d been taught. In this house manners were important. It wasn’t phoniness. It was refinement.

“Go on, have some. Gideon just loves them. Cat tongues are his favorite chocolates.”

Chocolates, he drawled, in a voice both disdainful and self-deprecating, always wary, always sly. How could Gideon stand him. And on top of everything, he didn’t have a job. He wasn’t prepared to go out and work from eight to four like other people. That’s why they had to take in a lodger, and Gideon’s mother, Mira, wore her fingers to the bone typing. Once or twice Gideon had mentioned that his father was doing research for a book or something, but none of the neighbors thought much of him. In the morning you’d see him mincing across the valley to the university, maybe he sat in the library there. But usually he stayed at home, stinking up the house; he even did the cooking and the ironing, and hung the laundry out to dry. You’d have to shoot me before I let a man in my kitchen, said Aron’s mother. What, let a man futz around with the pots all day.

Mr. Strashnov was tall and limp, with prematurely sagging cheeks and chiselled lips that were permanently pursed, as though keeping in a secret. He would shout down to Gideon from the balcony, “Gi-deon!” like a radio announcer, as though Gideon were some personage out of the Bible, instead of an ordinary kid from the building project. “Gideon!” he called again, though the whole neighborhood heard him the first time, including Papa on his balcony, cooling his feet after a hard day at work. Aron would rush upstairs in time to see the evening paper flutter over Papa’s smile, as he muttered a silent curse at Gideon’s father.

And something else that’s strange: when you see him outside you think he’s a snob. That he looks down his nose on everyone, frowns instead of saying hello. But alone with him in the kitchen like this, he’s almost pleasant. He’s nice to Aron, pours him a cup of tea from the flowered-ceramic kettle and asks him questions about himself and his opinions on various topics, and for a moment you actually believe that grownups care what goes on inside a kid these days. Not that Aron enjoys sitting around the kitchen so long waiting for Gideon, maybethey managed to sneak in somehow without having to show their ID’s, but anyway, it’s sort of cozy here with Gideon’s father, with the tea and the cat tongues melting in his mouth, seeping sweetly into him; he almost feels like the winner of the Vita Queen for a Day contest, as though an important celebrity, or an actor impersonating one, had invited him into his home.

The lodger, Eddy, poked his curly head into the kitchen to see if Mira was home yet. Aron turned around for a better look. Eddy explained that he needed some typing he’d given her, explaining too much. Gideon’s father regarded Eddy with mild derision: “Our young student is impatient today, it would appear … would he condescend to join us for a nice cup of tea?” The student muttered a confused excuse. “Of course,” drawled Gideon’s father in his high-pitched voice. “The gentleman wants our Mira, he requires our Mira right away, and all I have to offer him is tea. Milk he desires, water he gets …” The lodger waved dismissively, smiled forlornly, and walked away. Aron saw the smile fade from Mr. Strashnov’s lips. There was a long silence.

Aron couldn’t bear it anymore and he turned around to peek at the clock on the buffet again. Six-thirty. Now’s when they’d have to leave to get to the early show on time. Someone hesitated, yes or no. He swiped another cat tongue, chewed hard, and swallowed fast, without enjoyment. And then, grim-faced, he quickly ate another one. He stared at the empty box in dismay and apologized. How could he. Gideon’s father nodded, this time without malevolence, with a certain curiosity even. “It’s all right, Aharon. I knew you’d like them.” How did he know? How could he tell? For shame. Aron wanted to dig a hole and bury himself. He was full up to here with chocolate cat tongues, and the oozing sweetness cloyed. “The older you get,” Mr. Strashnov opined in his nasal voice, “the more you realize how unhappy and complicated life can be, eh?” Aron stared incredulously, certain he hadn’t heard right. Gideon’s father had an annoying way of saying things it took hours to scrape off, like dog-do from a shoe. What right does he have to interfere, seethed Aron. “Ah no,” said Gideon’s father, peering deeply into Aron’s soul, as he tried to wriggle free. “Life isn’t easy. I can tell you that from experience: it may seem as though your years are passing with friends and frolic; you think everyone is dancing to the same tune, but later on you realize it’ll take the rest of your life to understand what was happening to you, all the loneliness, yes, and the humiliation. Andhere’s Gideon now,” he said in an utterly changed voice that startled Aron. “Will you join us for a nice cup of tea, Gideon?”

Gideon returned looking grouchy and tired. We used to be so close, thought Aron, and he doesn’t even notice what’s going on with me. Aron knew at a glance that Gideon had held out against Zacky. Traces of the argument still showed all over Gideon’s face. You could practically smell it. So this time Aron was the winner in the secret tug-of-war, but there was no satisfaction there when the very sight of him seemed to infuriate Gideon. Gideon hurled down the navy-blue knapsack he’d taken to carrying lately, declined the tea, and gulped a glass of water. There it is, noted Aron a second time, his Adam’s apple in broad daylight. And so thirstily, almost greedily even. He’d have to remember that too.

“I’m going to rest awhile,” said Gideon, noticing the box of cat tongues on the table. He poked it with disappointment, turned quizzically to his father, who made his face a blank, and walked out of the kitchen. Aron got up to follow, started to say something, and sat down again, shamefaced. “Gideon has been looking awfully tired lately, it seems to me,” said Mr. Strashnov, and Aron averted his eyes. “Have you any idea what’s going on?” Aron did his best to evade the question, swallowed his spit, and firmly shook his head. “He’s always yawning, always sleepy,” said Gideon’s father, his eyes drifting off. “Tell me”—Gideon’s father leaned forward and lowered his voice—“please tell me, does my Gideon go out with girls?” Suddenly he broke into a smile, a smile of bitter resignation, and the mask of cruelty, his outward layer of disdain, was peeled away. “He doesn’t tell me things, you know how it is, I daresay you don’t tell your parents either, but you see, it’s important to me, I want to know, what is he like with girls? Is he keen on them? Maybe he’s out gallivanting with a girl when he tells us he’s with Zacky?” He pushed his face closer and closer to Aron, who flinched as he watched him. For a split second Aron saw something like the negative of Gideon’s father: the leprous eye sockets and lips a deadly pale. There was something vexing and unresolved about the man, like a latent disease, that contaminated him. Aron didn’t know what to say in reply. What was Gideon’s father so worried about? He nearly blurted out that he and Gideon weren’t interested in that. Not yet, he screamed inwardly, not yet!

Gideon strode back into the kitchen in that fast, disturbingly aggressiveway of his. “We’re going down to the rock,” he decreed. “Gideon,” called Mr. Strashnov softly. “I’ll be back soon,” Gideon said, bolting, and Aron thought: Soon. He has no time for me. He just wants me out of here, away from his father. But which of us is Gideon more ashamed of? “Y’alla, let’s go.” Gideon went back for his knapsack — why does he have to take the knapsack — strapped it on, and rushed out again, with Aron behind him, smiling sheepishly, strangely sympathetic to Gideon’s father, who seemed utterly helpless now.