The Book of Intimate Grammar

29

“So what say, Aronchik, do we start sewing a wedding suit?”

At supper they teased him. Papa joked about seeing him down by the rock with Yaeli and Gideon, and Mama said someone reported spotting the three of them at the movies. They were positively glowing: the dreary gray curse of recent events seemed to have suddenly lifted. Papa poked his face into Aron’s and inquired, amid howls of laughter, what the lady’s father did for a living, and Mama reflected that Yaeli’s family name — Kedmi — sounded, eppes, like it might have been changed to cover up what it was before. She interrogated him closely about their house: when did they last redecorate, how big was their refrigerator, and was Yaeli’s mother the same Kedmi who bought an expensive wig from America, because, you know, she hastened to explain, her eyes shining, sometimes a woman wants a wig to make the neighbors jealous, but sometimes it’s to hide her baldness, which may run in the family; she pursed her lips self-righteously. “Nu, enough already, Mamaleh,” chided Papa. “It’s a little early to talk about hair and balding, I think, but how’s about inviting your girlie home to meet us, Aronchik, so we can take a good long look at her.”

Mama broke out in a smile that Aron detested, her fawning female smile, and Papa asked again what the little lovely’s name was, and Aron turned bright red and hid his head between his shoulders, terrified they would repeat her name with their mouths full. “Go on, eat, ess!” urged Mama, heaping the mashed potatoes on his plate. “Your time has come!You have to start gorging yourself!” And Papa carved a thick hunk of rye bread with his deadly knife and stuffed it into his hand. “My own Aronchik,” he cheered, “you’ll never know how glad I am!” They were truly exultant. Suddenly they looked carefree, radiant with youth, as Papa raised his plate and scraped some beans out on Aron’s plate. “There, have a little fasoulia! Gonna meet your girlie tonight, huh?” And Mama and Papa burst out laughing and shared a look he’d never seen before, and when Mama served the meat her hand rested on Papa’s arm. “Have another thigh!” she insisted, passing Aron the chicken from her own plate. “You’ve got to make up for lost time now! Eat! Don’t store it in your mouth! I said eat!” They buzzed around him, filling his plate with the choicest morsels, their hands hurrying back and forth, canceling the features of Yochi’s face as she chewed her food in silence; and Aron too averted his eyes, letting her down when this new pride trickled through to him, as though all by himself, with a snap of his fingers, he had opened the window they had their noses pressed to and let in a stream of wonderful fresh air. For a moment he yielded to a sense of elation, but catching sight of Yochi’s downcast head and the face of his mother greedily drinking in the breeze, he suddenly remembered the shoes he wore for his bar mitzvah, those elevator shoes. His shoulders drooped. His eyes sought Yochi’s, and his tongue cleared a path through the warehouse in his mouth, to touch his milk tooth. Mama and Papa went on chewing and talking, but he didn’t hear them anymore. Mama forgot to feed Grandma with a spoon, and Grandma sat before her plate of mashed chicken, a thread of saliva dripping down to her bib. Aron stuffed his mouth but couldn’t swallow. He shunted the warehouse from cheek to cheek, dug into his piece of bread, nervously picked out the caraway seeds one by one, and set them out in an arrowhead formation, like a flock of storks; from now on he’d better eat halvah and mashed potatoes every day to fortify himself so he’d be able to hold on to that place inside with the dancer, and at least seven squares of chocolate besides, not so good for the teeth but it would strengthen his internal Gideon, the Gideon who used to be, and he gravely checked the list again; the sugars of friendship and the starches of perseverance and the carbohydrates of loyalty, his own personal nutriments, and he smiled to himself; two weeks ago there had been nothing there, it was just another unfamiliar place inside his body, and now he could feel it alive and throbbing; and he woke up to Yochipushing her dessert plate away and going over to spit in the sink: Yuck, what did you put in that? Mama glared at her and tasted from the tip of her spoon. Her face turned yellow. So nu, she said, I must have switched the plates; if you helped me serve instead of sitting around like a princess with her feet in the air, a thing like that would never happen, she muttered, flushing red as she passed the dessert with the crushed medication to Grandma. Now sit down and eat your compote, nothing happened, why did you blow up like that; and Aron looked around bewilderedly, he’d been dreaming again, maybe they’d asked him a question or ordered him to do something that had to do with the future, his future; he nodded in anguish, what did they want from him; he stared down at the table, discovered the arrowhead of caraway seeds, flicked them away, and shook off the seeds that stuck to his fingers, all he needed now was for Papa to see what he’d done to a good piece of bread.

But neither Papa nor Mama noticed, they were so full of their happiness, they took long, loud slurps of compote, how he loved to watch Yaeli sipping from a glass, because then he could see her pretty mouth double, but now their lips curled in convulsive laughter and they looked like prisoners jeering at a newcomer to the cell who is trying to pretend he doesn’t belong there. The words they used rotted in their mouths: wonderful words like “pleasure” and “love”; he would have to abstain from those words for a full day now. No: for a full seven days. Till they were clean again. “There’s one thing I still don’t get,” said Papa, unbuckling his belt and spilling out into the room. “You walk her home from school with Gideon. You play in the valley with her and Gideon. You go to the movies — with Gideon again! He’ll probably tag along on your honeymoon and hold the candle for you too.”

Papa heaved with loud, heavy laughter, but in Mama’s eyes there was a strange metallic glint. “If you wait too long, he’ll snatch her away,” she said in a humorless voice. “Remember, Aron, when it comes to things like this, no friends and no favors! It’s first come, first served! Nice guys finish last!” She threw a sharp glance at Papa and there was sudden silence as an onerous memory filled the room, almost as if it had burst in through the walls and the floor.

“Take it from me, Aron”—Mama repeated the warning, whetting her voice to rip the silence to shreds—“when it comes to things like this, if you wait like a lamb you’ll end up bleating like a lamb! Beeeeh!”Her mouth formed a fleshy crescent. “You understand what I’m saying?” And all the while she was feeding Grandma, her hand rising and falling from the compote dish, catching a drop every three trips under Grandma’s mouth. Yochi couldn’t stand it anymore.

“I won’t have you sticking your nose up, young lady!” Mama fumed at her. “You’re a real authority, you are! So where are the beaux in your life? In their envelopes? Under the stamps? Let’s see them!” “Sha, enough, Mamaleh. Leave the girl alone!” With Yochi’s matriculation exams coming up, Papa protected her with deep solicitude. He would get up in the middle of the night sometimes and tiptoe to the kitchen, caress her head as she dozed over the notebooks, and make her coffee and a nice, thick sandwich, and then tiptoe out again so as not to distract her. “I will not put up with this from her,” grumbled Mama. “When she gets a husband let her do what she likes, not here.”

Aron buried his face in his plate and chewed the mush in his mouth. The potatoes will go in and some of them will come out in my shit and the rest will stay inside and become a part of me. So, in fact, I am eating a part of myself, before it has actually become me; it’s strange to think that any old potato, or even a cucumber or an egg, might someday become a part of me, Aron Kleinfeld, or a part of someone else, for that matter, but I still can’t tell what’s mine and only mine and not from someone else and not available to anyone else even if I wanted to give it to them, because it can’t exist in anyone but me, and when I find out what it is I will cling to it with all my might, because the rest will be taken from me, I know that already, or else I’ll give it away, and maybe it wasn’t really mine in the first place, but that which is mine and mine only I will cling to until my dying breath; he didn’t want to listen to Mama’s insinuations, or the urgency in her voice, as if his entire fate depended on winning Yaeli, on conquering Yaeli, but how can you conquer someone you want to love, how can you conquer someone you love precisely for being free and independent. He stuffed more and more food into his mouth just to avoid looking at Mama’s bouncing chin, and he vowed never to be jealous of Gideon on Yaeli’s account, because that was the beauty of their three-way friendship: without a word they had made an equitable division, they each got all of Yaeli, and at the same time, the Yaeli of each of them was a different Yaeli, because Gideon knew the Yaeli everyone else knew, the more public Yaeli, whereas Aron was in love with a different Yaeli, the Yaelishe would have wanted to be, and no one knew her the way he did, deep inside.

No, he wasn’t jealous of Gideon, if only because he didn’t really know which of them gave him more happiness — Gideon, who made it possible to get close to Yaeli, or Yaeli, who made Gideon open up to him again. Or maybe his great happiness came from the two of them combined? He stole a glance at Yochi, all hunched up; she’d probably hate him now because of Yaeli, but Yochi glanced back encouragingly, and his heart went out to her. Don’t give in to them, li’l brother, said her eyes. Neither of them has ever experienced the twin joys you feel in your heart. They know nothing. They know less than a fourth of what you know. Maybe that’s why they’re abusing you now. But Mama spurred him on with her prickly tongue, and listening to the way she sounded, seeing the fierceness in her eyes, you might have thought she was the one competing with Gideon around here. “Take some money, go on!” She stuffed it into his hand as he was about to leave for the movies. “And if he buys her a falafel, you buy her a shewarma! Don’t skimp! Everything’s on me!” And later, when he returned from his evening out, she would be waiting for him in her bathrobe, looking ruffled as a bird of prey, interrogating him down to the smallest details: what did she say, and what did he say, did it seem to be coming to a head yet, were there any hints of a decision? She wrung her hands, muttering the monosyllabic answers along with him. Sometimes when she dunked him in her bitterness, and painted a lurid picture of the trouble there would be if he wasn’t careful, if he let Gideon snatch her from right under his nose, he had a strange suspicion that she derived a twisted pleasure from infecting him, from lashing his ear and forcing him down to earth, her earth. “And next time you see your doll,” she warned him, sparks flying out of her eyes, “don’t show her you’re interested! Not on your life! She’ll only want to humiliate you if you do!” She squinted at him narrowly and her voice was solemn, resonating with age-old innuendos. “And don’t act like a pipsqueak around her, the way you usually do! Don’t let her see what you’re thinking. Don’t sell yourself cheap, don’t give yourself away. Play with her a little. Why not. Women like that. I’m telling you!” Aron thought of his innocent Yaeli and the rosy blush that spread over her throat, and he almost burst out laughing.

“Don’t laugh like that, nebbich,” she raged. “Your little doll isn’tthe innocent lamb you think, not if she knows how to twist the two of you around her finger like that; you listen to me, Aron, she knows very well where legs sprout from.”

She shook her head self-righteously, and again he saw the bewildering contrast between the pious expression she wore and her actual face, which was handsome and animated, almost provocative. For a moment he felt trapped in a maze of illusion. Then he shrugged his shoulders and tried to wriggle out.

“And just where do you think you’re going, stand up straight.” She lowered her voice. “Over to her house?”

“Leave me alone. I was about to go to Grandma’s room. To read the newspaper to her.”

“What, are you nuts? Going to read to Grandma? A fourteen-and-a-half-year-old shmo spending time with his grandma? You think she understands anything you read to her? Why don’t you go out with your doll instead?”

“’Cause … ’cause Gideon isn’t home now.”

She hooted at him: “You poor little sap! And what if he’s there, by some strange chance? What if he’s with her in her house, in her room now, sitting on her bed with her and laughing at the fool?”

“He isn’t.”

“Oh no? And you think he’d come running back to tell you if he was? Go on, fly off to her, grab her and run! You have money?”

“What about Grandma—”

“Forget Grandma! Why bother with Grandma? Grandma’s finished, believe me, she wouldn’t bother with you for half a minute!” And she pressed a pound note into his reluctant hand. “Go, go, suck up all the life you can out there, because if you don’t, somebody else will.”

His nostrils constricted like a camel’s in a sandstorm. And still she tried to push him out, then finally gave up. He could do whatever he wanted. She, thank God, was no longer responsible for him. She could get along just fine, thank you. Her fingers squeezed the dishtowel. She walked out and left him alone. He wouldn’t go. He wouldn’t go. He walked out to the balcony and looked around. There were no kids outside. Yesterday’s newspaper was lying on the floor. Aron leafed through it to the obituaries. Abraham Kadishman R.I.P. was his choice for the day. He played around with the letters awhile, dish, ram, main, radish; then he proceeded to Pessia Sternberg, but soon got bored, he’dfinish later in the evening. He went back to his room and sat on the windowsill, one foot propped on the kerosene heater. He opened his box of negatives and looked through them. It had been months since he added anything to his collection. He searched the film for the hazy aura. Some primitive people won’t let themselves be photographed because they’re afraid of losing their souls. Maybe he would ask Uncle Shimmik for a negative of himself. That would be interesting to see. He already knew what his aura looked like. Round with a soft orange glow. What nonsense Mama talked. Gideon and Yaeli, really now. For the past few days they’d been arguing a lot less, thank God. You could actually walk between them without going deaf. And if Aron hadn’t opened his mouth, they might never have talked at all. What did Mama know, anyway. He jumped up, grabbed his soccer ball, and ran downstairs.

The street out front was deserted. He played here, played there. By the fig tree stump he noticed something and stopped. He hugged the ball to his chest and drew closer: a leaf. A small green leaf was sprouting out of the stump. His eyes darted up to the blinds on the fourth-floor window. Where was she now? He walked around the stump. Leaned over and gently touched it. What a winter. Someone, possibly even Mama, had telephoned Edna’s parents and told them to pick her up. The whole building peeked out and watched her walk rigidly away between her two small parents. Edna disappeared into a waiting taxi. He half expected her father to turn around and shake a fist at the neighbors’ blinds, hurling curses that would all come true, but he didn’t turn around or curse; the three of them quietly drove away forever, they probably took her home, or found a more suitable environment for her. Another person I’ve betrayed, he thought, and then jumped back and charged up the street as the crowd roared, but all of sudden he stopped in his tracks. Enough, he didn’t need that make-believe stuff anymore. Thanks to Yaeli he was in real life now. Again he glanced up cautiously at the fourth-floor window. And thanks to Yaeli he no longer felt the emptiness of Edna Bloom’s, or the fluttering thing that was trapped inside it forever, beating its wings against the walls. He tore his eyes away and fled, hopping on one foot, mildly bitter, and thanks to Yaeli he had been spared a whole variety of future ills. But where were all the children? How strange. Softly he called Gideon’s name. Silence. Maybe he would stroll to the shopping center. Maybe Mamaneeded something. A bottle of oil maybe. She was surprised to find the bottle almost empty yesterday. He was eating everything fried lately. Suddenly he was running up the stairway of Entrance C. He tiptoed past Zacky’s. Went up to the third floor. Pressed his ear to Gideon’s door. Silently called his name. From inside came angry sounds of shouting and Aron drew back. Mira, Gideon’s mother, yelled: “What are you doing to us? You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” And Gideon’s father answered her in his viciously noble tone: “It’s your happiness I’m thinking of, my dear. What could be more important to me than that?” There was a moment’s silence and then Gideon’s mother sobbed: “Don’t go, I beg you. Don’t leave me here alone with him. You’re pushing me into it. Why? Why?” And Gideon’s father answered with cold amusement: “A new love will do wonders for your complexion, darling.” Aron fled, devastated, disgusted. Everything they touched, these grownups, became contaminated. He sat down on the steps behind the building and hid his head between his knees. He would never be like them. Never. His love would be pure eternally. Thus he loved Yaeli now, and thus he would love her till his dying day. He only hoped he would die before she did, so he would not have to live a single day of his life without her. He tried to visualize a world she did not inspirit. The fingers of his left hand tightened around his right wrist, but he noticed what he was doing in time and scolded himself. We don’t do that anymore. That, thank heavens, is behind us. Now we have Yaeli. Because life means nothing without Yaeli. Yes, it was dangerous to be dependent but maybe that’s how he’d learned to love the way he did. An all-or-nothing love. But his fingers kept sliding up to choke his wrist. What was Mama doing to him? Why was she like that? What did she know about him or Gideon or friendship? How could you explain to her, for instance, that Aron had written a poem to Yaeli, the most beautiful and love-filled poem ever written, a poem written with his heart’s blood, which he would never under any circumstances give to Yaeli or even allude to, because Gideon doesn’t know how to write poems. But what if she’s right. Maybe he really is naive. Maybe in momentous biological matters like this there is a powerful instinct at work which he hasn’t developed yet, which is why he remained virtuous. Or naive. Deeply disgusted, he found the pound note she’d given him in his pocket. He ordered himself to bury it in the yard. Her voice inside him tried to bargain, sawing and hissing in his brain. Aron tightenedhis stomach muscles against her. Yaeli, he thought, Yaeli, and he dug into the earth with rigid fingers and buried the money there. Good. It was like a sacrifice, only he didn’t feel purified. On the contrary. How come she always made him feel so disgusted with himself. Where could Gideon be? A cobweb glistened on the rosemary bush. How many dead insects were hiding there? He tossed a twig at the cobweb. At the invisible spider. Maybe there was no spider. He couldn’t go to her alone. He’d rather die. He loved his Yaeli and he trusted her. There was something else too, something important: thanks to his love for her he knew he liked girls. Females, that is. Because sometimes the terrible thought occurred to him that perhaps, among other ideas and inventions of the disaster in his body, he would start liking boys. Males, that is. Such things were known to happen. A kid reached this age and suddenly there was a kind of order from his glands, so what could he do, argue, plead? Because what’s inside is also outside, like potatoes strewn over a distant field, cucumbers and lettuce and onions, a stranger who didn’t belong. What time was it, where did everyone go? Gideon, Gideon.

A pale butterfly, a brownish-gray moth really, came to rest on a nearby leaf. Aron reached out and caught it and, without pausing to think, stuck it on the web. Its wings fluttered. A barely perceptible stirring. In an instant the spider was there. Huge, with long legs. Aron gasped. But surely it won’t crawl out on the dry leaves! he screamed in his heart. What fault of mine is it that the moving moth attracted it? Before his eyes the spider besieged the moth. Swiftly, methodically, it spun a web around the frail, stunned body and Aron didn’t lift a twig to stop it. He didn’t want to disturb the spider. He sat and stared at this little murder, guilty and agitated. Why aren’t you stopping it? But if the moth hadn’t done that the spider wouldn’t have noticed it. Done what? Showed it was alive. You’re crazy, you’re cruel, you’re not yourself anymore; now hit the spider with a twig so it will run away and leave the moth alone. The spider isn’t even touching it, just spinning a web around it from afar. What have you done? Don’t you see, you’re enjoying this. Enjoying what? Helping, cooperating with death.

It was over in a flash. The moth drained out of itself. It twitched its antennae one last time, like a last request or warning to Aron, and then expired. The spider stood over it, somber and still. Only the web breathed. Aron trembled. He hugged himself and tried to calm down. How did it happen? Yes, but what if they were cheating on him inthere. What if they were laughing at the fool. Sudden footsteps approached. A hand touched his shoulder. Gideon stood over him, looking stern, drawn, hopeless.

“What’s up, Kleinfeld?”

“Nothing. Just sitting here.”

“I went out looking for you. Come on, let’s go to her house.”

Aron stood up. Stood up in front of Gideon. Stood up to him. “Listen, listen …”

“What’s wrong, Aron, tell me.”

“Come here … first let’s do something.” He didn’t know what he was talking about.

“What, what do you want to do?”

“I need your help with something.” Oh please, let him say it right. “See, I’ve got this tooth—”

“What tooth?”

He giggled apologetically. “I have a milk tooth left.”

“No kidding. You mean it’s still in there?” Gideon was so amazed he let a question mark into his voice.

“Yes. Just one. I want to pull it out. Now. My father told me how.”

“Why now?”

“Well, because. Because it’s really wiggling.” Because you waited for me. Because you and I know how to be friends. Because we’ll never be like our parents. “You take a string and tie it to the tooth, and then you tie the other end of the string to a door and you slam it shut.”

“That’s what your father told you?”

“Yes, that’s what they used to do when he was a little boy in Poland. You have the nerve to do it?”

“I … Well, yes. But what if … it might hurt.”

“It’s about to fall out anyway.”

They ran together, side by side, silent, serious, all the way to the shopping center, to Zadok’s hardware store, where they bought three meters of nylon string.

“We can’t do it at my house,” said Gideon hastily.

“Or at my house either. How about the shelter?”

“What if somebody walks in?”

Help. Don’t let it stop. Where were his ideas when he needed them. Oh, come, oh, come, ideas. “Y’alla.” “Where are you off to?” “Let’s go.”

They arrived panting at the junkyard in the valley. Aron had been pressing his tongue against the tooth all the way there. To loosen it. To pry out at least a millimeter of the root. But small and white, it was fixed immutably. The surrounding teeth were big, healthy meat teeth, only it was a runt. Gideon wouldn’t look at him. He was restless. Three times already he’d asked if Aron was sure it wasn’t dangerous. Aron tingled with excitement. Please don’t let him chicken out now. I’ll make him such a covenant, oh God, oh God. But when he tied the string to the handle of the Tupolino, it crumbled into a rusty powder in his hand. So did the other handle. Gideon was peering anxiously in the direction of the building. He’d already blurted out that Yaeli was probably waiting for them. Aron looked around in desperation. Wait a minute. What a couple of jerks we are. If you want my advice, said Gideon hesitantly, just leave it alone. But Aron forced the door of the old refrigerator open, and recoiled at the stench that came out of it. The stench of death. For years it must have been closed like that. He peeked inside: it was a little thing, a puppy of a refrigerator. You don’t see dinky ones like that around anymore. He tied the end of the string to the heavy steel handle. Just imagine, he giggled to Gideon, doing the Houdini in an old refrigerator like this. Don’t you dare, said Gideon, eyeing him strangely. Just kidding, said Aron. He finished tying the string and backed off a few steps. He felt too shy to ask Gideon to tie his tooth. He tied it himself. He pulled it tighter at the base and already tasted a drop of blood. This would really hurt. In one split second it would pull out the tooth. Everything inside him would be shaken up. But this was the perfect time. And the perfect friend. Cautiously he backed off a few more steps. The string was taut against his lower lip. Now quickly, slam the door, he cried through stretched lips. Are you sure it’s okay? Yes, yes, go on, let’s get it over with. Are you positive it’s loose enough? Yes, positive, don’t chicken out now. Gideon ran a careful finger over the string. He studied the knot around the handle. Suddenly he turned serious, protective, but not like a friend: more like a grownup watching over a child. Who cares. Don’t let in a single negative thought. You have to want this with all your heart. You have to believe, you have to surrender. There will be one instant of terrible pain, the way there is when they brand a new calf joining the herd. “Get ready,” said Gideon, extending his arm in front of the open refrigerator door. “On your mark, set—” Gideon closed his eyes. So did Aron, chin out. Gideon’schin was pressed to his chest. There was a loud bang. A white blade slit Aron’s lip. His jaw cracked. Blood ran. Maybe that was good. He foundered, stunned, crouching over till he was lying prone, numb, but soon there would be pain, where was it, where did it come from, oh, let it come already; and for one endless moment Aron hovered, slowly igniting, spreading, vanishing, hanging by a thread, draining inward, backward, soon to be no more, without any strength left to save himself, to fight it, giving in to it with a flutter of wonder; it came on slowly, like a dream, and he divined it there, a kind of tangled web, a fine, strong mesh at the base of him, revealing and concealing itself under the turbid waves, something made out of her; in fact, out of Mama, that never showed in her face or voice but was her nonetheless, and when he fell he was swathed in it, enveloped in a swoon, a magic cloak that melted into his skin, merged into an already familiar and not displeasing whisper: Death is right,and all the rest is error; never revel in what you find, it isn’t yours, just put it in your pocket and keep your mouth shut. And when the pain throbbed suddenly he was almost relieved. He was still alive.

Gideon ran around him in a panic, shouting his name, scampering off, returning, approaching cautiously, sobbing: “You tricked me! You tricked me! It wasn’t loose!” And Aron, with a mouthful of blood, with a broken heart, his faculties waning, shook his head. It didn’t hurt at all, and it was loose too. He was suddenly alarmed to be lying flat on the ground like this with Gideon standing over him. Exhaustedly he pulled himself together and sat up. His jaw felt heavy and huge, and something was stubbornly piercing his temple and his ear. Gideon kneeled beside him, remorseful, angry, saying over and over that he was sorry. Aron wiped his mouth with his hand. There was blood everywhere. He touched his wound with the tip of his tongue. But no new tooth was growing in its place. Empty. An empty space. And there before him, hanging from the string tied to the refrigerator door, was his tiny milk tooth. Nothing earthshaking. Just a tooth. For fourteen and a half years it had been inside his mouth, and now it was hanging from a string.