The Book of Intimate Grammar

21

Mama stood in the kitchen, cooking lunch. Her hands went through the motions like a pair of trusty horses as she sank in contemplation of the sudden turn her life had taken, thanks to a certain Hungarian Miss Eegan-meegan; thanks to her idiot of a husband too, who, like all men, had a tendency to lose his head at the first scent of fresh meat; three weeks, she reckoned, this farce had been going on, sapping her strength, preventing her from attending to any number of tasks; when was the last time she repapered the kitchen cupboards, for instance, or changed the mothballs in the linen closet, or sat down for a talk with Aron; the child was going out like a candle before her eyes, what was happening to him, it wrenched her heart, he would doze for days like somebody’s grandfather, it was having an effect on him, all this, all this … She searched for the appropriate word, but caught a whiff of a strange odor that made her lose her train of thought, and she turned her attention back to the pot in front of her, stirring gradually.

Who would have believed it, such a thing happening to us, she sighed, a model family. Mechanically she tasted the soup, added a pinch of salt, stirred joylessly. She had even stopped worrying her head about Edna Bloom in the past few days. If nothing had happened so far, chances were it wouldn’t. Passions are like fruit, she whispered to her image in the shiny pot, pick them when they’re ripe or they rot on the tree. Again she caught a whiff of the unfamiliar odor, impelling her hands to stir more vigorously, and when this is over, and Moshe comeshome with his tail between his legs … she crushed a clove of garlic, added a tablespoon of oil, and began to peel the vegetables for another soup: a vegetarian I’ve got me now, on top of everything, the food I make him isn’t good enough anymore, the boy’s a regular fein-schmecker. He has more pity for a chicken than he does for me here, killing myself to cook his dinner. But then the odor pierced her nose and startled her out of these ruminations.

For a full fifteen years Mama had lived in this dingy-gray building project, and she knew the luncheon menus and baking repertory of the housewives inside out, shrewdly identifying each curlicue of smell in the tangled skein of aromas that wafted out of their kitchens.

So it must have been appalling, a veritable stab in the belly, when these undreamed-of smells infiltrated the familiar ranks, assailing her nostrils with a gypsy effrontery, a fandango of exotic spice. Still ablaze with the memory of her debacle, Mama lost her head, picked up her umbrella, put on her heavy Khrushchev, and walked out the door. Down the stairs to the muddy, neglected garden she hurried, turning left and right. She sniffed the air. Where was it coming from? Dreary gray rain had been drizzling down for the past few days. She flared her nostrils, shut her umbrella so it wouldn’t get in the way, and marched ahead, nose in the air, her goider bulging toadishly till, all at once, in back of the house, she inhaled an aromatic cluster that burst in her nose like a bustling bazaar and filled her heart with foreboding.

It was almost noon. The children were not yet home from school. The rain fell dully, undeviatingly down. The days of heavy downpours were over, it seemed; winter had reached its peak too soon, and now there were only wishy-washy showers. She scrambled up the growing mound of debris under Edna’s window and sniffed the air. Here, on top of this monument to her own defeat, with her nose in the clouds, she was struck by a distinctive odor — no mere kitchen scent with seasonings this, but a rarefied female perspiration mingling with the cooking, that special smell Mama remembered all too well from bygone days, which came of a woman’s stirring herself into the pot and spraying it with the musk of her intimate longings. Mama climbed down the mound, like a hen deposed from a refuse heap, and shambled home, brokenhearted.

She stood in the kitchen, wearing her apron, leaning against the marble counter, which had been stained and cracked over the years ina faithful, unflattering reflection of her life. Furtively, tormentedly, she took another whiff, and shuddered: it wasn’t just an unfamiliar smell anymore but a whole new language. Like an animal she sniffed, holding back her tears so as not to lose the scent. The humiliating part was that Papa had never so much as hinted he was dissatisfied with her cooking, or susceptible to a craving for other food; suddenly she remembered and cringed with pain, his farts had a different smell to them lately; as a matter of fact, she realized to her indignity, for the first time since she’d met him, he let them out on the sly instead of tooting unabashed. Again she sniffed and flared her nostrils, drawing in all the errant odors. And thus, with fists clenched on the kitchen counter, did Mama learn the culinary language of her rival. Despondently she returned to the chicken soup mit lokshen, the noodles floating in the watery broth Moshe liked so well. Tfu! She almost spat out her biliousness, then settled herself on the “little cripple,” crossed her arms over her breasts, and stared in the air. Only when Aron’s nervous cough reached her ears did she shake herself out of it, disappointed to discover that for the first time since early youth she was sitting in her kitchen as she worked.

Aron slinked off to his room and lay on his bed with open eyes, kneading his sore, distended belly. Rain fell outside the window, blurry, watery, insipid. Sure has been raining, reflected Aron, listening to the pitter-patter; first there were floods, and the tree out front, that plane tree, almost collapsed, I mean the entire building creaked and groaned. He yawned. Shut his eyes. Maybe he would catch a few winks before lunch. Before the main siesta from two to four. Or the nap from four to seven. Brilliant of those grownups to come up with the siesta. It used to drive him crazy to have to lie down after lunch when there was a whole world out there. But he was calmer nowadays. And in any case, there wasn’t much to do, he’d been having a kind of dead spell lately, like a hibernating bear, and what was the use of going out in this rain, in this spray like a thick gray veil, in this mizzle and drizzle. And Papa was missing beyond it.

Aron hadn’t been to Edna Bloom’s for days. The booms were heard less frequently now. Papa was working with a drill, with a chipping hammer and a chisel; his tools were getting smaller and smaller. Sometimes he seemed to be doing nothing at all, maybe he was just sitting on the floor there, lost in thought, listening, wondering. From time totime a passerby would see him loom statuelike in the window, staring out at the tepid rain. Then he would suddenly shake himself awake, rub his eyes ill-humoredly, and start pounding the wall again, only to languish a moment later. And once or twice a day, his powder-white mane would lean out the window as he threw a bucketful of debris onto the rising mound below. Yesterday on Aron’s way home from the trash bins, he saw Papa in the window like that. Papa stared blearily, meshed with sleep, not quite seeing or recognizing him. Aron stood motionless, with arms outstretched, hidden in the coat with the sleeves that came down over his hands, his tummy sticking out for all to see: his little pregnancy, a medical specimen, a dry fact. For a moment Papa’s eyes grew wide. A trace of disillusion shot through them. I’ve been like this for three whole weeks, Aron thought at him with all his might, you have no idea how much it hurts. Papa shook his head in disbelief. Or maybe he was only shaking the dust off, because he promptly went in and shut the window, and curtains of trickling rain closed over it, and once more his hammer blows resounded, urgent, angry, like banging on the doors of a moving train, and Aron hurried to his secret hiding place at the Wizo Nursery School, maybe now, at long last; he looked down with revulsion at his little potbelly, calling to Papa in his heart, encouraging him: Harder, harder, come on, we’ll make it, but he knew Papa was too far gone by now, he recognized this wordlessly, trudging through the snow-covered steppes, hunching his shoulders as he thrust deep into winter, and Aron stood up and shuffled wearily home. He dived under the blanket, under the roots of lights, forgetting Papa, who had disappeared, who had wandered beyond the storms, beyond thunder and lightning, those childish displays of an amateur-winter, and who would tell him he was going astray, that he was running in circles like a huge, blinkered mule around a grindstone, inscribing frozen rings on the ice, but Papa doesn’t hear as he goes on pounding, soullessly, with lackluster eyes, striving to destroy the site where winter was begotten, the place where there is no day or night, a barren clifftop, gleaming blue like a marble egg, the winter’s heart where the winds draw their chill, which Papa will smash to release a warm little chick …

From the kitchen he could hear the clatter of dishes. Mama was setting the table. Soon she would call him in to eat. But how would he put anything in his mouth. As if there were any room left for food in there.He curled up on his side, not daring to lie on his stomach. If he were a mensch, if he had the strength, he would get up and do something: he had a math quiz tomorrow, there was Bible homework to do, at the very least he could straighten out the mess in his bottom drawer. It was impossible to find anything in there with all the bottle caps and labels and newspaper clippings and trademarks and Popsicle sticks and lottery tickets, who would have believed there were so many contests, and this morning he made a vow that from now on he would send in at least one a day, a brain twister or a completed jingle or a crossword puzzle, or “Find the Seven Differences,” at least that much he ought to do, because what else did he have to occupy him lately, sleeping, waiting, wasting his life. And he heaved a sigh. Once he loved summer. Then he started preferring winter. The pale colors, the warm steam of his breath that left a smell in the woolly mouth of his stocking cap; and winter clothes are thick, so at least they make you look a little bigger. But this winter has been tough for him. And the rain is deceptive: like nothing much, but the cold pierces through. Every day on the radio they tell about chickens freezing to death. Crops destroyed by frost. Aron feels cold too. Like not enough blood is circulating maybe. He nestles inward. Worn out.

“What’s with you?” Yochi walked in, home from school, and threw down her satchel. Up went his knee. So they’d know there was a body under the blanket. “Open the window, how can you breathe in here?” Why did everybody open the window whenever he was in the room. “But it’s cold out.” She relented and lay down on her bed, massaging her temples, panting with stifled rage, with misery. Who knows what was going on with her friends at school. How they treated her there. She never discussed them with him. Never mentioned names or admitted she was jealous of the ones who had boyfriends now. Never went to parties at school. Maybe Yochi was the Shalom Sharabani of her class. Quiet. Unobtrusive. Knowing. Once she used to share her thoughts with him. They would have these little talks at night before they fell asleep. They’d hide in their parents’ linen closet, leaving the door open just a crack for air, and Yochi would make up stories for him, what a wild imagination she had; he didn’t remember the details, only her soft, flowing voice, and the smell she gave off as she sat facing him on the chest of drawers, a special girl scent that got stronger and stronger as the story reached its climax, and then there was their secret code, thelast one home from school would ask: Is A B? Meaning: Is Mama angry? And what about that friend of hers, Zehava, thought Aron, straining, indifferently, to fulfill an old duty. Who was Yochi to him now? When did they start to drift apart? Until a couple of weeks ago they had been close, they loved each other. Where were the beautiful years of their togetherness? And maybe she’d wind up marrying a big fat rich guy, dumb but sensitive, who would build a special room in the house for Aron. That would be Yochi’s condition for marrying a man she didn’t really love. And her children would play with him. One of them would look a lot like Aron, and they would be very dear to each other, but he would die young. And the other two, a son and a daughter, would be wilder and bratticr. They would throw Aron around like a ball and take away his Houdini equipment and seal him in an enormous pickling jar, and sit there staring at him from outside, pressing their noses against the glass, it’s a good thing Yochi walked in just in time to rescue him. And when Mama and Papa came to visit them once a year, Yochi would bring Aron out. And they’d sit around the table on her dainty chairs, while Aron and Yochi conversed in refined phrases, fragile words. And the salesman, Yochi’s husband, would watch them with a contented smile on his face, though he wouldn’t really understand. And Mama and Papa would sit there, meek and gray, awkwardly twiddling their forks, wondering whether it’s okay to eat chicken with your fingers.

“Want a massage?”

“A massage?” he squealed. “How come?”

“No special reason. To thaw you out. You look frozen.”

“Uh-uh … A massage, are you joking?” He shrank even more. With a little giggle. Staring fervently at the ceiling.

“You wait here. Take off all those layers of clothes, meanwhile.” She jumped up a little overzealously and hurried to the bathroom, pursing her lips. He feared these militant moods of hers. It was exactly how she looked the time she took him into the living room to embarrass Mama in front of her card friends. He lay still. A little frightened. Unconsciously clasping the binding of his sweater. Drawers flew open in the kitchen. Plates clattered. Mama’s angry. Don’t move. Squinch yourself up and wait. It will all be over soon. How long can it take to wreck a house?

Yochi came back with a towel. And some cotton. And a bottle of 70percent alcohol. “Hey, come on. Start stripping.” What did she want from him? Where’d she get all that vigor and vitality? “Come on, Aron. I know, you feel a little neglected, don’t you? Everyone’s busy with their own problems, huh? Say, how many layers of clothes are you wearing? How do you expect your body to breathe under all that armor?” She yanked off his sweater, his Leibeleh pullover, his undershirt. He shivered. Covered himself. Afraid she’d notice his swollen belly. “I can’t believe you’re shy in front of your own sister.” She giggled irritably, tickling him under the arm. “Gitchy-gitchy-goo!” Her eyes were shining, but not with happiness. She was relentlessly playful. Rigorously jocular. Maybe she was going through something, the thought occurred to him, maybe someone had hurt her, insulted her. “Lie down straight. Nu, will you please lie down already!” He did. He rolled over, facedown. His stomach was distended. It looked weird. How long before he simply exploded. Yochi leaned over his half-naked body. A fresh, lemony fragrance bloomed in his nostrils. He knew with his eyes closed that she was rubbing in the cream Uncle Shimmik brought her from Paris. Lemon can be used for invisible writing. Now he cringed in anticipation of her touch. His impetuous body. “What are you — Hey, quit it, Yochi, I don’t need—” “Shhhh! The whole world can hear you.” Her palm was on his back. Near his spine. A cool, smooth hand, rubbing in the cream. Slowly warming. Drawing little whirls of softness on his skin to take away the chill. He squashed his face against the pillow. “Your back is in knots,” she muttered. His finger drilled into the side of the mattress, found the hole there, poked at the crisp, curly fronds of Algerian seaweed, that’s what it said on the label; what strength she has in her hands, her fingers press down on him, they crack him and knead him, she probably misses giving Papa massages, it’s almost a month since he got one after the “thorough” but Papa has the kind of back you can really go wild on. “You’re purring like a happy kitten,” she whispered in his ear, giggling. “I hadn’t noticed.” Why was he whispering? Why were they both whispering? Under his helplessly goofy face, there was a sudden rustling of invisible seaweed as his finger bored deeper into the widening gap, into the tangled mass of kinky roots. All he could hear now was the sound of her grunts, who would have believed she was so strong. She was bursting with all that strength inside her. Why didn’t she go out and tear down a couple of walls? He managed to open an eye in his pancake face, saw her pudgy little foot beside thebed, pink and swollen, and breathed in the wondrous strangeness of it, that foot, God, you could sink your teeth into it and eat it up. Now Yochi settled on his tailbone, but it didn’t weigh down or hurt too much, though the residue of his brains squirted out with a final groan, and the mattress creaked rhythmically beneath him, and Yochi’s breathing in his ear, muffled, powerful, like his own, and her fingers and palms moving over his back and shoulders and down to his waist, unloosing, dissolving, flattening his flesh like a rolling pin, dividing him lengthwise, widthwise, propelling him onward, till a knife dropped suddenly, somewhere far away; but she didn’t stop, she galloped ahead, instilling in him a rhythm of open spaces, onward, onward, to the new frontier, rubbing him with her lemon cream, squeezing out an admission he denied before he even heard it: Stop, Yochi, enough. What is this — a few minutes ago he was lying here Aroning, and now, this; all right, he would make in his bed, like a baby, if only he could, at last, even in bed, but suddenly he felt a mysterious honey trickling down his spine, his neck and shoulders were imbued with strength and straightened out, awash in pungent perspiration; smooth and bold he rose from the mattress like the darkly glistening belly of a monster of the netherworld, spangled with a thousand papillary eyes. It’s coming, it’s coming, but where is it coming from, it’s great, it’s marvelous, only don’t make a mess, and suddenly, before his dazed and blurry eyes, a figure approaches — watch out, it’s all over — the figure of his mother, Mama, a sidelong gleam in her eye, an electric flash that fizzles out in the well of her pupil, and her mouth bolts shut, and with the kitchen towel in her hand she reaches out and swats at Yochi, at his burning back. What’s the matter with you, have you both gone crazy, I’ve got my own tribulations, I don’t need you two fighting like a couple of five-year-olds, and Yochi held her hands up to protect her face, yowling and spitting at her like a cat: Just you wait, I’ll enlist in the army right away. Too late, dearie, you’ve already signed up for a deferment and they’ll never let you out of it. Oh yeah? Watch me, I’ll declare myself a soldier without family and I’ll never set foot in this house again. Who needs you home, you dirty cow, let your precious army pay your way; and Yochi covered her right ear with her hand, as Mama screeched to a desperate halt: We’ll see how long they keep you in the army when they see the way you eat. Isn’t the whistling supposed to be in her left ear, Aron suddenly wonders. Watch me, I’ll marry a Kurd, you waitand see who I bring home to you. Who’d have you? Seen any amorous Kurds around here lately? And Aron buried his face in the pillow, which also retained the heat of his childhood, and the whisper, the trembling that seized him a moment ago and was severed halfway down his spine, where it retreated with a cool hiss, so what was that big thing that gripped the creatures of his back in one tyrannical fist and almost succeeded in squeezing something out of him, in bursting the bounds, before it melted, faded away.

Mama thrust the window open. You stunk up the whole room with your roughhousing, she grumbled, feigning anger, wide-eyed with a concern, with an astonishment that Aron could only sense. Are you a couple of little tots, raising such a rumpus and hitting each other, and she steered Yochi out of the room to set the table and, leaning over Aron, whispered, Who started it, tell me the truth now, who started it? And Aron, bewildered, gave the answer she demanded like one possessed: She started it. And even sobbed: Yochi did. She started it. Mama stood over him. Look what she’s done to your back, the murderess, feh, why didn’t you call me right away, it’s a good thing I heard you. Lie down a minute. I see a big one with a yellow head. Lie still.

He buried his face in the pillow. No longer there. He didn’t have the strength for this. Quietly he sobbed out the grief Yochi had caused him, he couldn’t quite remember how, and nevertheless, his phony sadness choked his throat, a lozenge of misery melting down to relieve the bitterness of heartbreak.

Mama pinched the skin around the pimple. The hem of her bathrobe brushed against his puffy flesh. He waited for the prickle of pain, for the quick spurt. He arched his back: let it come already, let it out, let it hurt and be done with, but she suddenly winced. Pulled angrily away from his protruding rib cage, from his puny, disappointing body. Nu, get dressed already. I don’t have time for you right now. Why are you looking at me like that? Take a look at yourself instead, why don’t you ever wash? I can smell you clear over to here. And what have you done to your mattress! Look! With upraised fingers she charged at the mattress and tried to stuff the seaweed back in, You throw dancing parties on your mattress at night? You think we have the money to buy you a new mattress every other day? She gripped the frayed edges of the fabric and stuffed in more of the crimpy tangles, which managed to slip out between her fingers. Choleria take it, with you and your sister, willyou look at this room, feh, how you stink, I pity the woman who marries you, and what are you doing lounging around here in the middle of the afternoon, you think this is a hotel or something?

“I’m tired.”

“So I noticed. A boy your age, you should be”—she searched for the words—“sucking out life till it dribbles down your chin.” Ha, what a life, she thought, his father’s turning into a regular he-goat and this one’s like a piece of stale bread.

She was pacing up and down the little room, swatting his desk with the kitchen towel. Dusting. Grimly her arm went up and down. Aron felt sorry for her. Almost unconsciously he rolled over on his side, bowed his head, got ready for her to notice his ear.

“This morning I ran into Whozit — Zacky Smitanka,” she said with an edge to her voice. Angrily she folded Yochi’s blouse. In the army they’ll make a mensch of her, she won’t have any servants there; and still she hadn’t noticed his expectant ear. “That Zacky, look at him and look at you.” Aron was silent. He and Zacky hadn’t spoken in months. Neither at school nor around the building. And in the interim Zacky built himself a Lambretta out of spare parts he’d found or acquired or maybe even stolen. His big brother Hezkel said he’d kill him if he ever caught him riding it before his sixteenth birthday, but when Hezkel isn’t around, Zacky rides, and how he rides. Once he rode by Aron in the street, at night, on his Lambretta, with a girl hugging him from behind, maybe even Dorit Alush, because the legs around the Lambretta reminded him of those toy divers her father sold in his stall at the market. “He’s miles ahead of you.” Aron didn’t utter a sound. He forgave her, in advance, for everything she was about to say. He could tell how miserable she was. Let her know at least that Aron was faithful to her. Maybe he had been a little confused at first. The hammering drove him crazy. Now it only bored him. The minute Papa started hammering, Aron fell asleep. He didn’t even bother going to What’sher-name’s to watch anymore. Faithful to the end, to Mama, in ways she couldn’t even imagine. A dozen torturers wouldn’t break him down on that score. “I saw him with his mother, Malka; she barely comes up to his shoulder. They almost look like a couple together.” There was a different shade of envy in her voice, not the envy of a mother. Again he proffered his ear. A peace offering, a modest declaration of his loyalty. And she stood there, mocking him, holding out herhands despairingly, till finally, she was trapped: “What’s that in your ear. It’s like a warehouse in there.” He concentrated on her eyes. The blank expression. The steely look when she forgets him and focuses on the yellow in his ear. But at least she wasn’t thinking about her problems now. He took his time and studied her: first she wiped her finger on the other fingers. Little rubbing motions, like a fly about to dine. “Sit up straight. Let me get it out.”

She sat him down. Bent his head. Carefully inserted her finger and began to pick. Digging deep. Saying, as if to herself, Zacky’s miles ahead of you, what a physique, oho, what a walk, he’s a man already, wait, stop squirming; he surrendered to the burrowing finger. But through it he made his way into her, into her ever-swelling heart, like a huge purple grape bursting with juice, the heart she used to clasp him to once upon a time, when he was a little boy, before the problems started, and thinking about it he could feel what was sticking in her throat, a pillar of salt she had sticking in there, sternly separating her kindly heart from the words she uttered. She was more bitter than ever today. Something must have happened. She still wasn’t over it. Pouring out her wretchedness, not to him, he felt, but to the dirt, her ancient adversary, her ally in reverse. “How long have you been storing that filth in there? Fourteen years old and your mother has to clean your ears for you. It’s unbelievable. Give me the other one.”

He turned his head obediently. Following her. She didn’t even notice. She just kept digging, muttering to herself. And what a voice. Baaaa! Like a bull! When he talked I could feel the rumbling in my stomach! Would you mind explaining, just so I’ll know, why your voice still goes peep-peep-peep, while his has changed already. And now you’re turning into a vegetarian. As if one dowry wasn’t enough. Look at those spindle legs. How do you expect to grow on lettuce and carrots? She wiped her finger on the kangaroo apron. Spreading the harvest around in little swirls. Suddenly she noticed his watchful, scientific gaze. Jumped up. Hid the apron behind her back, suspicious of an affront here. “Go look at yourself, Helen Keller Kleinfeld.”