The Book of Intimate Grammar

12

They raced downstairs, and Gideon jumped three at a time, rankling with resentment. In silence they ran past the stump of the fig tree — one day a person named Eisen had phoned the municipal inspector to report a sick tree, only there was nobody named Eisen in the building project — and as Gideon dashed across the road, forgetting to look both ways, Aron remembered how he and Gideon used to risk their lives at street crossings, accidentally on purpose, just so they could overflow with gratitude when one pulled the other back to safety in the nick of time. They headed for the valley. A cool November wind blew in their faces. Gideon trudged ahead, weighed down by his silly knapsack. “He went to see Dr. No again,” he said accusingly to Aron, looking away. “How come? He’s seen it twice already,” called Aron, trying to catch up, aware that his lagging behind like this was yet another proof, and stumbling as he thought: My legs are short.

Suddenly Gideon veered around. For a moment Aron hoped he was going to smooth over those snarls between them, but instead Gideon spluttered in his face: “Look, Kleinfeld—”

“Call me Ari! Ari!” cried Aron, so bitterly that Gideon cooled down, reminded of their four blood pacts and the basalt stone they hid in a cave.

They squatted on the path together to absorb this latest shock. “Well, Kleinfeld’s your name too, isn’t it?” asked Gideon with a hint of caution.

Aron sifted dust between his fingers. He was afraid he might starttrembling if he opened his mouth. At school the kids had taken to calling each other by their last names. The Tel Aviv crowd started last summer, and now it was catching on here too. Strashnov and Smitanka and Blutreich and Schweiky — the well-blended ingredients of a delicious cake were slowly disintegrating into dry components: Ricklin, Sharabi, Kolodny. Names that belong on official envelopes, on checkbooks and draft notices. On the rough, shroudlike covering of skin.

“So why didn’t you go to the movies with him?”

“I didn’t feel like it today.”

In other words, tomorrow he might. But Aron would take it in his stride. He’d plan the day wisely, to avoid being stranded all afternoon. He would practice escaping out of something with a lock. He had been neglecting his Houdini act lately. The trouble was, he needed another person there to lock him in.

“So why don’t you come along,” Gideon suggested limply.

“I hate James Bond.” Silence. Shut up, stupid. “What’s so great about going to see an English movie with a lot of girls in makeup and all that spy baloney?”

“For your information, even the”—he lowered his voice, peering cautiously around—“Mossad uses James Bond movies as part of their training for spies. Manny told me. Seriously, to help develop their intelligence and instincts.”

What do you know about spies, thought Aron wearily, about secrecy and being on your guard all the time, acting as if you belong, when you’re only playing a part, abandoned forever in enemy territory.

“Why don’t you come with us sometime and see for yourself?”

Then too: there’s the risk of being misclassified with a hasty glance: by movie ushers, for instance; or the new nurse at school; nearsighted old ladies who think you’re a little child; the substitute teacher who, without any warning, moves you from the third row to the front; first-graders staring at you open-mouthed as you walk by with your friends, though maybe that was his imagination; or muddleheaded gym teachers on field day; or the crow that raids the trash bins who isn’t quite sure whether Aron has reached the age when they stop throwing stones; or Grandma Lilly, who wanted to buy him a fire engine for his bar mitzvah, well, she is a bit daffy.

Keep quiet. Bite your cheeks. “And anyway,” he blurted, “how do you know they’ll let you in? What if they check your ID’s at the door?”“We’ll see,” said Gideon, gratuitously and in the wrong tone of voice. But now there were dusky shadows in the sky and around the two of them, and Aron wondered, Why is there such a lovely word for something as disgusting as peach fuzz, and he peered around to dry his tears, observing the little valley through an evening mist, his eyes resting on the blistered rock, on the stream of sewage that flowed into the valley from the building project, on the junk heap with the rusty Tupolino and the stinky old refrigerator … What was it about him that made Sophie Atias so nervous, what harm was she afraid he would do her, and he felt something so bitter and heavy inside him, he had to blurt out that tomorrow he was going to break into that apartment upstairs and see if anyone was hiding there. And he swallowed his spit and asked Gideon if he would stand guard outside the door.

He’d noticed that look on Gideon’s face before: not far from where they were sitting, in fact, three years ago at their Scout initiation. The “freshies” had built a glorious campfire, crowned with torches and flaming pinecone letters you could see for miles. Parents gathered on the edge of the valley to watch as the initiates lined up in their neatly ironed khaki uniforms. When the speeches and cheering were over, the “freshies” quickly crossed hands around the campfire, and the troop leader announced that all initiates would now break into the circle to prove they were worthy of becoming Scouts. Aron’s group tittered anxiously, because the story went that each year there was somebody who didn’t make it through and had to join another youth movement.

Aron, in the first wave of invaders, scuffled with a scrawny-looking “freshie,” kicked him in the shins as hard as he could, broke through the circle, and sat down by the fire. Panting with relief, he suddenly noticed that deep tickle inside that often made him show off or do crazy things, though it also gave rise to some of his best ideas, like adding a final flourish to an already fantastic drawing, or taking one last spectacularly risky spin before kicking the ball into the goal cage. Gideon had broken through the circle too and was sitting beside him, all aglow. Aron examined Gideon’s red little ears. They were pointy like his brother Manny’s, and their mother’s. The family ears. Kids were always teasing Gideon about his ears, but looking at them in the firelight now, as though for the first time, Aron couldn’t help admiring their delicate form, the proud sense of lineage they conferred upon him, like a family crest in cartilage, duly preserved, faithfully imparted. Gideon’s childrenwould probably inherit those ears, how could they help it, and suddenly Aron felt a vague irritation; maybe it was the smoke blowing in his face, making him choke and fidget, as yet unconscious of himself amid the tumult of runners and blockers and the crackling of the fire, and he rose to his feet, aware of nothing but the spasm of dread that beckoned to him, forcing him to wake and listen: because there is a narrow path through the visible realm which Aron alone could tread; and he could spell mysterious new words out of old familiar letters; he was churning, feverish. For a moment he stood bewildered, and the children who were already sitting in the circle began to stare at him. Maybe they thought he didn’t feel well, but he felt great. This was a declaration, of what, he didn’t know yet; and it was also an outcry, against what, he didn’t understand, though he reveled in the possibilities that glittered between the wires, flitting in and out, to and fro; and in the process something would melt, and unfold to him in all its glory, yes, oh yes, that’s what he wanted, free passage through the fortified wall.

And he remembered that his mother and father were up there now with the other parents, Mama and Papa dressed up and solemn, and someday he too would stand on the rim of such a valley, a serious adult, watching his own child breaking through the circle, doing his family proud, from father to son, in a long succession without shirkers or traitors. And all at once he took off. This was freedom, this joy welling up as he burst through the circle a moment later, waving his arms like a little airplane; yes, he was free, but now he was an outcast, too. Crushed by the ceremony and its cruel attendants. Maybe that’s when it started, in the days before cousin Giora outgrew the striped shirt, and Mama and Papa were still planning to hire an expensive photographer from Photo Gwirtz for his bar mitzvah instead of Uncle Shimmik with his trembling hands and old box camera, and they would sit in the kitchen every night going over menus; that was when Aron broke through the wall of “freshies” and ran into the furry cassia bushes, then stopped, turned around, and astounded them all by charging in again.

He hurled himself at the wall, only to be repulsed by the antagonized “freshies,” who banded against him, driving him back with a rhythmic chant. Initiates who had failed before now broke easily into the circle. Again and again he charged at them, till he was too exhausted to plan his next onslaught. The beating he took no longer hurt, it merely annoyedhim, like a persistent tapping on the shoulder. When at last he came up for air, doubled over in the darkness, he could see the others around the campfire. There in the circle sat Gideon and Zacky, talking together; what were they talking about at a time like this, why didn’t they do something, why didn’t they rush to his side? Already he regretted his folly, but mostly he felt their vengeance trickling into him like poison; how swiftly they had joined the rank and file. They were ruthless in their zeal. In their cliquishness. He charged and was confronted by a cast-iron body. Panting, dripping sweat, he charged again: Touch me, I’m burning. “Hey-hop,” they clamored, and it was their most effective weapon, his hidden weakness; again he fell and rose and charged at them, bellowing blindly, while they, unwitting, with the instinct of the herd, exploited his Joseph-like transcendence and offered him up in sacrifice, the victim of their unity.

Finally Gideon turned toward him with a withering look and Aron stopped in his tracks before the circle, devastated by Gideon’s haste to condemn him for his one silly weakness when he was missing the point. Oh, he knew exactly how he seemed to Gideon just then: like a fighter pilot whose plane crashes while he’s showing off over the air base. And suddenly Aron’s legs turned to jelly and the scene dissolved before his eyes. If Gideon could be so wrong about him — And he turned from them in resignation and slinked away into the darkness.

“Hey, tell me something,” said Aron flimsily, searching for words to fill the heavy silence, “how’re your eyes?” “Pretty lousy, thank you,” answered Gideon, stiffly polite. His left eye was still weak and he kept seeing this crooked little thread in front of him all the time, so his mom told him to have it checked at the Sick Fund clinic, but he was sure it would go away in time. Aron suggested that perhaps he ought to start taking three pills a week instead of two, and Gideon answered that it might do more harm than good. What harm, asked Aron distantly, his lips pursed with lies: Grandma Lilly and Mama have been taking those pills for years, which is why they don’t need glasses. He put his hand in his back pocket and pulled out the square of waxed paper with a yellow pill inside. Gideon reached for it, and Aron’s split-second hesitation upset the little bubble on the level between them; once he wouldn’t have noticed, it all started with that awful business: now he was forced to learn the language of exile; and then he added, all innocence, “I hear they can be real bastards at flight school,” and he feltthe chilly contraction of Gideon inside him. “I read somewhere that they have instruments they poke in your eyes.” He still hadn’t given the pill to Gideon, who continued to hold out his hand, pretending not to notice the delay. A coarse-haired bow had scratched against the catgut of his new malevolence. Suddenly Aron turned around, whistled for Gummy, and said, “Here, boy, good dog,” and scratched him under the chin, and on the belly, where it makes their leg jerk, and he knew that Gideon was boiling mad now and fed up to here and that he was only controlling himself because he needed the pill. “Knock it off, Aron,” cried Gideon. “Quit acting like such a nitwit over some dog who’s probably dead by now, I mean, what are you trying to prove?!” Aron looked up at him and said in a tremulous voice that he could do what he wanted with Gummy; Gideon, relenting on account of the pill, said Aron knew darned well that his mother got rid of Gummy two years ago after she saw him mounting the Boteneros’ bitch out by the trash bins, but Aron protested that he would go on raising Gummy any way he liked till it was Gummy’s time to die, in about twelve years, so Gideon could mind his own business; Gideon stared back at him and said, “You know, Aron, sometimes I just can’t figure you out,” and Aron pouted and wanted to scream, Oh yeah? And how about you and your stupid knapsack, what are you trying to prove, strapping it on like an army tracker, and why does your pal Zacky wear a gold chain around his neck and carry that six-blade pocketknife he keeps snapping all the time; he didn’t really know what Gummy had to do with the knapsack or the pocketknife; he only knew that he personally couldn’t stand toting all that stuff around. “Go ahead, take it!” He suddenly raised his voice, distressed to be in this unsought position.

Gideon gulped down the pill without water.

“Listen,” he said all of a sudden, “I … Count me out this time.”

Aron stared at him blankly till he realized that Gideon was referring to the stakeout. “So you’re turning chicken on me? Like Zacky? Terrific.” He said it like an actor delivering the wrong line.

“I’m no chicken and you know it.” Again they were silent and withdrawn, as though all their energy had ebbed away. Adults, Aron reflected, carry things around with them, like wallets and pens and cards and stuff, and coins and beads and rings and key chains; why have I been breaking so many pencils lately, and losing pens, he frowned at his hand, and yesterday at supper I knocked my glass over again, andat school I slammed the door on my finger, and what about the way I always miss a few times before I get the straw in the bottle? And he wondered if anyone had noticed yet, a few days ago when Papa asked him to change a light bulb, he screwed it the wrong way and it shattered in his hand.

“You want to know what I think?” said Gideon, “we’ve been going along with your ideas since age zero, every summer you come up with a spy or a buried treasure, or we spend months trying to discover an unknown substance”; he rattled off the list as though proving a point, but despite himself, he softened. “And remember the time you convinced us old Kaminer was a werewolf …” Gideon chuckled and Aron smiled. “And we sneaked into their apartment.” “And found a woman’s wig,” Gideon recalled. “See? I told you. It must have come from one of his victims!” “Oh sure, and there was this huge carpenter’s file there, and you told us that’s what he used to file his teeth …” “Well, what about that calendar? How do you explain that?” “What calendar?” “The one with the red marks that show when the moon is full!” And Gideon shook his head and sighed. “Oi, Ari, the ideas you used to come up with,” and Aron thought, And still do, if you’re with me. “And remember the last time we sneaked into What’s-her-name’s?” Aron nodded silently. Little did Gideon suspect that Aron had been back there at least once a week ever since. “Do you still have the key, that passkey?” Aron pulled it out of his pocket and showed it to Gideon. He’d bought it three years before from Eli Ben-Zikri, who had initiated him into the mystery of locks and keys with obscene allusions which to this day excited him whenever he tried a new lock. In return Aron had given Eli the key to the bomb shelter of the building project, the long, narrow cellar where people stored what they didn’t have room for in their crowded apartments. And suddenly the shelter began to expand; no matter how much stuff people brought down, miraculously there was always room for more; and Aron shivered at the thought of what would happen if anyone found out.

“And remember the time Kaminer came back from dialysis and almost caught us?” “Lucky I made Zacky stand guard outside,” said Aron proudly. Aron and his foolproof plans. “Poor Zacky, you always made him wait outside, didn’t you?” Gideon chuckled.

They smiled at each other, a wan smile of complicity. A brief respite. “And remember the time you decided Peretz Atias was a member ofthe Ku Klux Klan.” Gideon groaned with mirth, stretching this thread of grace even more, till Aron began to suspect he would try to shirk his duty. “And you would suddenly decide someone walking down the street was an Egyptian spy, and we’d follow him until he started getting suspicious …”

Aron cleared his throat, to release the nectar of longing. “Okay, then, who’s Yigal Flusser?!”

“Yigal Flu … oh, right: twenty-seven years old.”

“Twenty-four.”

“Twenty-four. He escaped to Egypt and spied against Israel. And he fell in love with the wife of What’s-his-name … Altshuller, the guy who was in prison there! But which prison?”

“Abassia Prison! And who else was in with them?”

“Just a second, don’t tell me … Victor Gershon from Pardes Hanna. And Nissim Abusarrur.”

“Not bad. And what was the name of the Egyptian interrogator?”

“Uh … I forget.” Gideon shrugged his shoulders.

“You forget? Colonel Shams of Egyptian counterintelligence.”

“Right. Shams … and you wanted to train us to survive his interrogations … You really had a thing about spies and traitors.”

“I still do, I guess.” Aron giggled. “And remember, nu, what was I going to say, oh yes, sometimes I still wonder about that guy they said looked like a kibbutznik, the one in prison, with the private cell?”

“They said it was hard to believe anyone who looked like that would want to spy against Israel.”

“And where was Simon Kramer from?”

“Hey.” Gideon smiled. “Remember the time you made us believe you were a double agent?”

“Uh-uh. Simon Kramer was from Rishon LeZion. He crossed the border into Gaza and joined Egyptian intelligence.”

“You were always pretending you knew spy secrets … you’d draw marks on the sidewalk, to signal planes …” Something flashed in Gideon’s eyes, and Aron turned hastily around. “You’re wrong,” he said. “I drew those marks for a different reason. I thought them up in fifth grade, after our big fight.”

“Ah, I remember!” cheered Gideon, misled. “Right, we had this big fight, but what was it about? We thought the world had ended.” It had. And when they made up again, the friendship changed: from a habitof childhood it became an earnest choice. They laughed together quietly. They laughed too much. A farewell sigh wafted in the words. Aron wasn’t certain what had happened in the last few minutes, he only hoped that Gideon would take pity and relent.

“Right,” Gideon recalled, running his hand through his hair. “You worked out some complicated system of signs; seven signs, remember?”

“Did I?” asked Aron cautiously. “Funny, I don’t remember anymore.”

“Sure, you must: that red T-shirt from day camp, you said that if an emergency came up while you and I were feuding, we could hang the shirt on the laundry line and then the other would see it and know to hurry down to the rock. Our feuds never lasted for more than a week, you made sure of that.”

“Hmm. Anything else?”

“We were supposed to tear the three bottom leaves on the ficus plant in the hallway. That was the first sign. And on Mondays there was a different one … Oh yes, leave the tap dripping in the back yard; if one of us saw that, he’d rush to the rock, no matter what. As soon as we woke up from our naps, you said, at four o’clock sharp.”

“See that, I can’t remember anything,” said Aron, choking.

“Sure! You used to draw tails on the sidewalk arrows, don’t you remember?”

“No. Remind me.”

“And … we’d pour sand into the holes in the sewer caps. I can’t believe you’ve forgotten that.”

“It’s beginning to come back to me now, wait, wait.” He dragged out the suspense. “Wasn’t there one last sign that would rally us from the ends of the earth?”

“I’m amazed at you, forgetting that, with a mind like yours.” Aron squinted at his moving lips. “If one of us was in bad trouble all he had to do was climb on the rock and SOS with a mirror. Flashing at the other’s bedroom ceiling.”

“Hmm … do you still remember how to SOS? I’m sure I don’t.”

Gideon knitted his brow. “Like this: dot dot dot, dash dash dash, and dot dot dot again: fast, slow, fast. Morse code is something I will never forget.”

“That’s terrific,” said Aron, leaning back, breathing deeply.

“The ideas you used to have.”

Shut up now. Control yourself. “Better than James Bond, I can tell you that”—he went and spoiled it.

“Those were the days …” sighed Gideon. And Aron echoed, Those were the days. Again the silence interrupted them. Gideon yawned broadly, and Aron stared into his open mouth; why is Gideon so exhausted all the time, Mr. Stashnov wanted to know. Shut your mouth, Aron begged silently, and burrowed into his thoughts, looking for something to distract him from his guilt and shame, to fan the tiny flame that had flickered between them a moment ago. What would he say? He knew a blow was coming at the end of this conversation. Full of anguish, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the coin. Gideon studied it: “Seems like it’s been rubbed with a stone.” “But maybe it’s a rare coin?” said Aron. “Looks obsolete to me. Ask my dad to take a look. He has a coin collection.” “Right, a coin collection. I forgot. See how forgetful I am today.” He was playing for time. Again he mustered the strength to say, What do you think, should we throw it to Morduch, and with a wavering smile he added that he knew it wasn’t right to cheat a blind man, and Gideon, carefully looking away, said Morduch wouldn’t know the difference, and Aron whispered, That’s true, he wouldn’t know the difference. He blesses you no matter what you throw into his cup, said Gideon. Right, no matter what, Aron repeated listlessly, drawing out the endings of Gideon’s pithy utterances, as if secret caresses emanated from them.

They continued this game of peek-a-boo, then stopped and fell silent. Aron’s head drooped between his shoulders, revealing his slender nape, and still he waited, but Gideon said nothing. Aron was too tired to wait anymore. He couldn’t understand why Gideon seemed so strange and threatening. Absentmindedly he touched the knapsack, stroked the puppylike padding inside. Gideon glanced at his fingers in surprise. Aron pulled them away.

“Now that we finally have the chance to capture a genuine spy, or maybe even a hired assassin, you want to drop out, well thanks a heap …” He didn’t know why he was talking such nonsense. He tried to act the injured party, but his voice sounded too whiny and high-pitched, and his face appeared suddenly devoid of itself, revealing his strange, dejected depths. If only Gideon had looked at him just then, he would have seen into the heart of his anguish. But alas, with the egotism children need in order to survive, with the amazing detachmentthat maintains their loyal friendships, and with a vestigial sense of caution, Gideon turned away and was spared. He looked out into the distance, remaining sensitive and decent. And Aron knew that all was lost.

“Zacky says he’s getting sick of your make-believe.” Gideon embarked on his mission, tossing off “make-believe” with dignified haste.

He might have said “babyish” instead or, worse, “childish.” And Aron, both grateful and humiliated, knew that Gideon had taken it upon himself to break the news and shield him from Zacky’s tactlessness.

“I was making up adventures for you,” whispered Aron, his lower lip trembling.

“Adventures are fine …” Gideon squirmed, and in the silence that followed Aron reached into his pocket, touched the onion strip that reveals the invisible workings of the mind, and heard Gideon thinking: But we’re about to set off on the greatest adventure of our lives. Aron dropped the onion strip as though burned.

“So what, are you saying you don’t want to do the Houdini act anymore either?” Better to hear it now, the bare truth; he had always secretly felt protected, having Gideon there to lock him in and tie the ropes.

“Okay, but explain one thing,” said Aron, perishing. “I want to understand, because maybe I’m a little slow, so tell it to me straight, why did it used to be fun to sneak into a strange house two years ago and now suddenly it isn’t anymore? What’s changed?”

“I don’t know, it’s just different now.” Gideon was evasive again, and a warning flashed from the tower of his self-control.

What’s different; who’s different, oh God, please let there be a spy this year, that’ll show them, that’ll clear this whole big mess … Here’s Gideon, pursing his lips with the heartrending expression of a gladiator forced to kill his own brother before a bloodthirsty mob, but where is the mob, who are the invisible spectators goading them on, and where is the emperor; and Aron looked up and for one last moment saw the bird of Gideon’s love for him fluttering across his features, as though trying to rouse him. Get up, Aron, get up, it whispered behind the mosquito netting draped over the sleeping child. Get up, we’re going on a long journey, as Aron curled around himself, bloodless, fleshless. If you were loyal to me you would wait as long as it takes, and Gideonretreated further into the brightly lit corridor, where a sturdy truck or tank appeared, and on it, in a blinding light, he distinguished his classmates, noisy boys and girls with their knapsacks and ropes and poles and pocketknives. No, no, I can’t come yet, he whispered, his eyes filling with regret. You see, I’m going away for a while, I’m entering the chrysalis phase of my disaster, Aroning into a cocoon. “Will you listen to me for a minute, Ari.” It was his caution and tact that made Aron decide. “For your own sake, just listen to me, you have to, you have to get hold of yourself—”

“To hell with you!” screamed Aron savagely. “To hell with all of you. I’ll go in alone! All alone!” And he stood up and ran away, with one last shriek in Gideon’s dumbstruck face, racing blindly through pitch darkness, into the huge black maw of the valley, sobbing and choking and screaming inside that he would never stop, he would break into strange houses, and escape out of boxes and trunks and cars, he would stay as he was, himself, forever.