The Book of Intimate Grammar

30

“You be the man. You lead!”

So his mother commanded him, taking his reluctant hands and putting them firmly around her middle. “Go on, lead!” She smiled at him. He could feel her breath on his face and his body stiffened. “Try to relax! Loosen up!” She panted, maneuvering them both around the floor to the record of Swan Lake, which Yochi had once used for her ballet exercises. “You’re not leading! One two three! You’re letting me lead!” Yochi was sitting on the Bordeaux sofa with her arms crossed. She watched them blankly and made Aron feel uneasy, as though she could see the present in the past and could therefore be detached, turn renegade. “Nu, try again,” sighed Mama, wiping her brow. “You have to show her, two three, that you know how to behave, two three, with girls, two three, otherwise that friend of yours is going to snatch her from under your nose, two three, you mark my words!”

He tightened his arm muscles and tried not to notice the beads of perspiration glistening wantonly over her lip. Once, he loved the smell of her breath, like a whiff of a secret, subliminal self. “And quit jerking your head around like a water sprinkler.” From deep inside her it came out, how dare she blow air at him from in there. “I’ll bet he knows how to dance, doesn’t he?” “He” being what she called Gideon now that she knew he and Aron were sharing Yaeli. Aron said Gideon didn’t know how to dance yet either. Not social dancing anyway. “We’re not quite up to social dancing.” Mama laughed over his shoulder to Yochi.“This is just a waltz. We’ll get to social dancing soon enough!” Yochi crossed her legs and scrutinized them with that neutral expression she’d adopted lately; there were only a few months left before she went into the army, and she could hardly wait; this she told Aron in deepest secrecy; oh, to be surrounded by strangers, people who wouldn’t know how to interpret her every fart and sigh and silence and use them against her in devious ways. “But what do you mean, the army,” Aron gasped, “you asked for a deferral, didn’t you?” “I don’t want a deferral, she can shove it, she can forget about me going to the university.” “But you asked for a deferral, you asked for it!” Aron hopped up and down, confused about why he was so offended. “I did, but a little birdie told me I didn’t do so well on the essay part of the matriculation exam,” she informed him dispassionately. “What? You failed the essay question?” “Hmm, I guess I must have had an off day in essay writing.” She smiled at him coolly, and he envisioned her staring dully at the face of the examination monitor. “Come on, don’t fret about it, li’l brother.” She tapped him between his disconcerted eyes. “I can easily fix it after the army, but not a word, you hear?”

Whenever she spoke that way he was alarmed at the amount of hatred in her, and now, seeing the look on his face, she added, as if to hurt him even more, that her only worry was losing control and exploding at Mama before her call-up date. And then all the filth would burst out of her and smear all over the floor and the walls and the furniture. “I’m holding it in with all my might,” she said. “That’s my biggest test now, not to give her the satisfaction of a knock-down fight, oh no no no …” She stretched her short neck out in a crude gesture of contempt. “That she will never get from me.” She squeezed out a laugh, surprising him with the bright blue flame in her eyes. “I … don’t …” he stammered, “I don’t think you have a right to be so angry with her.” She sneered in reply, and for a moment he saw her double chin swelling out like a bladder of resentment. “You defend her, you Goody Two-shoes, after all she’s done to you, you still defend her?” “She hasn’t done anything to me,” he mumbled. “She only wants what’s best, and every family has its problems.” “Listen to me, li’l brother,” she said, coming closer. “Hear the word of the prophetess Yocheved: A day will come when you will hate your mother, you will hate her with an intense black hatred and do anything you can to get out of her clutches; to the ends of the earth you will flee, you will live in the Sahara Desert justto get away from her.” She paused a moment, her face in a weft of wonder, of prayer, looking through him as though she saw him from afar, and then she giggled. “And the worst part is, in the end I’ll be all she has left.” “No!” exclaimed Aron in a strained, stubborn voice. “I won’t hate Mama. She’s my mother. No matter what she does, I’ll never hate her.” “Watch out,” said Yochi, her voice cool and calm. “Beware the day when it’s a matter of honor not to hate her.”

Mama pulled away from Aron’s arms. “You’re letting me lead again! Stop dreaming! How do you expect to be a man?” Again they tried. He laid a tentative sweaty hand on her shoulder, and she grasped it, pressing it masterfully around her fleshy waist. “This is how you lead! With your hand! This is how you let your girlfriend know a man is holding her! Otherwise, psssss, she’ll run away from you!” And she hiccupped a little giggle, a slimy giggle out of her depths, and her breath blew in his face from that place inside her, as Aron turned away, tightened his grip, and led her three steps left, two steps right. “Not like a golem, one two three.” She heaved. “Put some feeling into it, some style, move me around like butter. Turn it up a little, Yochi, will you?”

Oh no, just what we need, thought Yochi, leaning over the record player and watching out of the corner of her eye as Grandma Lilly hobbled into the salon, groping half-blindly for the source of the music that woke her up. In deep amazement Grandma surveyed the scene, then turned around, trailing the hem of her oversize bathrobe across the floor. Yochi hurried to her and grasped her arm. She seemed about to take her to her alcove, but on second thought drew her gently, indifferently over to the Pouritz, where she sat her down, smoothed her bathrobe and her wispy gray hair, which was starting to grow out now; it was a long time since Yochi let Mama cut Grandma’s hair, maybe she would even grow a braid. Do sit down, Grannykins, she whispered in her heart to muffle the Mama inside her. Come watch with me.

Mama caught on right away. “Hold me tighter!” she blared at Aron, who was inattentive for a moment. “Not like a nebbich!”

Her shouting startled him out of a dream. Obediently he led her around the room, trying his best to please her, but something inside would not be appeased, it protested. Stop thinking, he told himself, forget everything, surrender, be reckless, and his limbs relaxed, his shoulders and arms and the painful, petrified muscles of his legs. You see you can do it; if you want to, you can do it. And he let his eyelidsdroop, loosened the grip of his fingers, now it’s final; a timorous leap went through him from head to toe, something melted and began to flow. I’m really dancing, and with a quiver of amazement and delight he felt his mother washed out of his arms and carried by the dance like a fish by water, and she fluttered her eyelashes and threw her head back as though a masterful fist had grabbed her by the hair, and then her hands groped their way up his arms till they were firmly gripping his shoulders, and she gave a little laugh as if in her sleep and lifted his hand and twirled around under it, her dress belling out, showing her thighs and the hem of her slip, and her armpits unlocked and blinked their curly lashes at him, and he gazed at her in helpless revulsion, at her lips splitting further and further apart, and he grabbed her hand, pulled it too hard, lost the beat, stumbled into her … Slowly, sadly, she regained her senses, and the old expression reappeared in her eyes. Wearily she shook her head at him. “You simply won’t let yourself go,” she whispered, prolonging their ungainly dance, and he couldn’t understand why she was whispering. “That’s the problem with you, you cramp yourself, you freeze up, no girl’s going to look at you twice if you stay the way you are.” Versed as he was in her intricate patterns of voice and expression, he looked over his shoulder, and when he saw Grandma Lilly there, watching them, he tripped over Mama’s feet and disgraced himself. Grandma sat up in the fauteuiland followed their progress as though straining to hear them better. It’s lucky for Mama, thought Yochi, that Grandma can’t open her mouth. “Dance! Move your feet! Klutz!” rasped Mama, holding on tightly and dragging him around, and he suddenly remembered the spit on the lips of that man in the picture watching Lilly dance, and again he lost the beat and was no longer dancing: he was capering in jerky confusion, and Mama twirled him around and around to keep out of Grandma’s sight, but though she tried to maneuver away from them, her eyes kept encountering Grandma’s and Yochi’s, like swords clashing in midair, and sparks flew out of Grandma’s seeing eye, the sparks of double derision: at Aron for being such a clumsy oaf and at Hinda for wasting her future on such a son. “Now listen to me, Aron,” Mama blared again, he always cringed when she started off like that. “A wallflower at fifteen stays a wallflower for life. Oh yes!” Yochi bit her cheeks: Mama grabbed his hand and held it out in front of her face, which suddenly tightened: she was unbearably herself again, emanating a shrewdness of appraisalwhich made whatever her gaze happened to rest on seem cheap, shoddy. “Because at your age, Aron, parties are IT!” she said, puffing at him in her dickering way till he felt as though he were standing naked on an auction block. “When you dance and neck and lollygag! You’ll see!” Oh, if only she could help him cross this river with her wisdom and experience, if only she could help him to be himself for the duration of these “critical” years. “And believe me, when it comes to that, you’re either in or you’re out! And when I say out, I mean out!”

What did she want from him. How far would she hound him. He traipsed home with Gideon and Yaeli. Today it was Gideon’s turn to carry Yaeli’s school bag. Lucky thing too, because she had a geography lesson and the atlas weighed a ton. They walked in silence at his side, and Aron told them that he’d decided to learn Esperanto when he grew up and help spread it all over the world, so that everyone would speak one language and understand each other and there would be no more secrets in society. They listened and nodded, and Aron grew elated and told them his other plan, to write a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, requesting that Esperanto be written in Braille instead of regular letters so that people everywhere would read it exactly the same, and there would be no discrimination against those who couldn’t read regular writing. Yaeli said it sounded like a good idea. A dynamite idea, really. Gideon said yes, Ari comes up with some brilliant ideas. Aron blushed as he walked between them, inflated with pride, lapping up their praises. Walking with them now he knew how absurd what Mama said about Yaeli was. She and Gideon didn’t argue anymore. They seemed calmer now. Maybe even a little more open to Aron, overflowing with goodwill, smiling at him, putting him in the center. Pensively they strolled beside him, looking off in opposite directions, stroking the bark on the trees. And if they continued, thought Aron, very soon he would be able to unravel the knot inside him, to pull out one end of the string and tell them everything, so they’d understand the hell he’d been living through. Till recently. It was scary to think how recently, how short a time separated him from those terrible days. Soon. At the next cypress tree. At the car after that. Later.

They stopped outside Yaeli’s and crumbled honeysuckle leaves. She and Gideon were silent. Gideon looked down at the tips of his shoes. Aron said that if capital punishment were allowed, Menashe Anwar would hang for ruining three families, can you imagine, waking up oneday and murdering three innocent people, but still Yaeli and Gideon said nothing, they had no opinion on the matter, and Aron too was silent now; the poor victims, living peacefully, never suspecting that somewhere a man like Menashe Anwar existed, while they were growing up and going to school, and that everything was leading up to their deaths, maybe he’d even passed them on the street once, but they were totally unaware of their doom. But Aron didn’t want to sink into such dark ruminations, so he told about a special key ring the Delek gas company was handing out in honor of Independence Day, a key ring in the shape of a Mirage jet, his father had a whole collection of key rings from various stores and companies, and lately, since Edna Bloom, he had been devoting himself seriously to this wonderful hobby, he even put red plastic hooks on the salon wall to hang them up in a little exhibition, Mama was all for it. Better this than his other mishegoss, she said with a smile, and she even let him mar the newly painted walls with his collection, which kept him busy every day after work, trading with Peretz Atias and Felix Botenero, but Gideon and Yaeli still said nothing; why were they so quiet, why did they look so sad? He decided that if that’s how they were going to be, then he would be quiet too; sure, he was terrific at being quiet. Quiet was his middle name. Ha ha. But suddenly he couldn’t stand it anymore, this wasn’t normal quiet, this was a deep silence. Better they should argue, because what did he have to talk about, what would he say to them now; that he wanted to know exactly when he was going to die, he’d already told them that and it made them uncomfortable and they started teasing him about it, but he didn’t care, let them laugh, as long as they broke the silence and returned. “When I die,” he began in a quiet voice, and they looked up uncomprehending, “I want my death to be long and drawn-out.” They stared at him in dismay. “No really, I’m serious, don’t laugh!” But they didn’t even smile. “I’ve given it a lot of thought: I really want to get to know my death. To die very slowly. I mean, that’s the important thing in life, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t it? No, seriously.” Again they looked away. Shut up now. Watch out. There’s something going on here. “I mean, usually when your time comes, you’re either too old or too sick to understand, and it’s all wasted, no, really, because at the most important times of life you’re too busy worrying about trivial things to notice what’s happening and understand the important things.” He began talking fast, frantically piling on the words: “I mean, that’s howit is when you’re born, you’re too young to understand the importance of being born and living life, and at our age too, we still don’t really understand what’s going on, so obviously it’s like that when you get old and mixed up, which is why I want to die at my peak, so I’ll know death as an experience, no really, I’m serious: it’s the deepest experience you can have!” Enough. There were no words left to fill the silence, and his tongue dipped into the crater left by his milk tooth. Traitor, selling himself like that, always willing to pay more for less, and he hung his head and waited. Then suddenly Gideon blurted, “Listen, Kleinfeld, you know that youth movement camp we were supposed to go to in the Carmel mountains before Independence Day …” Aron listened.

“Well, in the end, because of the recession and the kibbutz situation, they’ve changed it around, see. All the groups are going together. The decision came from the central council. It wasn’t our decision. You see?”

He didn’t see. He asked Gideon to explain it to him.

“That’s how it worked out, we’re all going to the Jezreel Valley, and there they’ll spread us around on different kibbutzim. To help in the fields.” Gideon looked up a moment and then quickly looked down again. “It’s because of the recession, see. It’s only because of that. We’re going there to work, not to have fun.”

Aron turned to Yaeli, but Yaeli studied the honeysuckle blossom in her hand, then sucked it intently. Don’t worry, he told himself in a mature and reasonable voice, you’ll understand eventually. But inside there was panic: excuses, explanations: how could he get them to call off the camp; how could he persuade them not to go away; how could he make it all a dream. Slowly he descended into his secret place; if he really concentrated he’d be able to shield himself, though maybe first he ought to put up some more defenses, because the hour of the test was drawing near. A little dancer wearing a leotard was in there, and when Aron sat down beside her, tired and gloomy, she looked at him and smiled. Peaches, he reflected, at least two peaches a day for her cheeks. And choconut ice cream, brown and green, for her almond eyes. This time he would put up a fight, though. For her he would give it everything he had. He’d fight to the death. Not even the outward Gideon would ever be able to take her away. The girl inside danced the cat step for him. He smiled as she did. He couldn’t speak of her yet. For thathe would need words of greater purity. With his eyes he asked her for something: she turned around and, concentrating sweetly, raised a rosy blush over her throat.

“What Gideon means is that all of us in the various youth movements are going away for a week. Sort of. That’s all. We just wanted you to hear it from us.”

We wanted. His gaze lingered on her, weakening steadily. She shook herself from his eyes with a twinge of annoyance. “I told Gideon we ought to talk to you and get it over with.”

“Oh?” He still hadn’t fully understood. “When?”

Yaeli looked at him. “When what?”

“When did you tell Gideon?”

“That’s beside the point.” She waved her hand impatiently. “The point is, you’ll be staying here, and we don’t want you getting any silly ideas.”

“I’ll be staying here? And you … Where?”

“Weren’t you listening? What’s the matter with you? The Scouts and the youth movements are going together.”

He turned his leaden head from Gideon to Yaeli and back again. Something inside him creaked and groaned. Slowly, like a clumsy submarine, his disaster surfaced from the darkest depths.

“We just wanted you to know that nothing’s changed as far as we’re concerned,” said Yaeli, sounding relieved, and she added with a little giggle, “Would you believe we’ve been debating how to tell you for a week already?”

Aron stumbled backward till his foot hit a low stone wall, which he found himself sitting on. What an idiot he’d been to feel happy. Would he never learn.

“The first night we’re sleeping at the Kadouri Agricultural High School near Mt. Tabor, and from there they’ll send us to different kibbutzim.” Yaeli chattered and her eyes shone. “Listen, Arik,” Gideon interrupted anxiously, more familiar than she with Aron’s silences. “The three of us have to trust each other, that’s what counts, we can’t let anything spoil that for us, that’s more important to me than anything, Ari.”

Ah, he’s bribing me with “Ari.” What his mother said had come to pass. Something inside him, like a dim ray of light, sank down down down, to the bottomless depths of eternity. They’ve shot a bird, hethought. It’s over, he thought, as the cold, shadowy grid of his mother’s prophecies hovered over him and clanked down upon his dream. Yes, she was right. She won. And what was worse, he wasn’t the only one she had vanquished.

“Listen, Ari.” The tips of her little shoes were facing his. She had never called him Ari before. “If it means that much to you, I’ll stay behind. We’ve already discussed it. Gideon has to go because he’s a youth group leader, but I could stay if you insist.”

He shook his head, listening to the intimation of closeness in these plans they had made without him. “No no,” he said, mustering his strength. “You go, both of you.” He really was that old man on his deathbed, giving his blessings to a guilty young couple.

“But you have to promise us not to torment yourself, okay? We do know how you get.”

He smiled crookedly. Now he could stretch his neck over the lump that was choking him. “Go, go. Why are you making such a fuss about it? How long is it for, anyway?”

“No time at all,” said Gideon hastily. “About eight days. Maybe a bit more. From just before Independence Day till a few days after.” “But what about school?” he asked in despair. “Aa-bullshit, they’re letting us off because it’s work. Hey, don’t get the wrong impression, we’re really going to hustle there.”

A minute ago she said one week, thought Aron, and they’ll be staying at the Kadouri School, a place Yaeli’s mother told them about, having parties and campfires and stealing chickens and showering together in the middle of the night.

“Go, go.”

“What did I tell you!” cried Yaeli, clapping Gideon on the shoulder, her underlip swollen, inflamed. “I told you we were making a mountain out of a molehill!”

His fingers groped between the stones of the wall. Come on, snake, bite me. Eight days. If Gideon betrays me, he thought in silence, and gulped, “No sweat.” His tongue went hack to the empty hole where the tooth had been. His heart sank. At school they read a story once about a woman who slaved her youth away to pay for a string of pearls she’d lost, and in the end she found out the pearls were fake. Suddenly he felt her hand fluttering in his. Gideon turned away. Aron squeezed it, imploring. But she freed herself from his grip.

She’s playing with the two of you, she can twist you around her little finger, thought Aron, and loved her more than ever.

“Why are we so glum all of a sudden?” wheedled Yaeli. “Look at you, your faces are as flat as a pita! And we still have a few days left before the trip.”

“The work camp,” Gideon and Aron corrected her in a whisper, each one to himself.

They said goodbye to Yaeli and turned the corner together. Silence surrounded them, and neither spoke. Gideon ran back for a sprig of honeysuckle; he practically tore off half the bush, crushed it and spread it over his face, and suddenly started talking, lecturing non-stop in a forced-sounding voice as he fanned himself with the leafy branch. And then he stopped, let the fan drop, and in a different voice, a friendly voice, said he hoped Aron would let him have a couple of pills for his eyes, to take with him to work camp, and Aron thought, What’s the point? For some time he had suspected that Gideon threw the pills away, that he only pretended to swallow them, probably a good thing, too, but he knew he’d let him have some anyway, did he have a choice? Then Gideon started again, saying that in his opinion a work camp joining Scouts and youth movements was the perfect implementation of the Zionist ideal. Aron chewed the sticky words over in his mind but still couldn’t figure out what they meant. He was trying to convince himself that he could trust Gideon. That Gideon was perfectly trustworthy. That his mother would turn out to be wrong. That the world would turn out to be wrong. And that thanks to this switch in the way of things, an evil spell would be lifted from the world and Aron too would be redeemed. You idiot, you jerk, he jeered at himself; they were laughing at the fool, yet in the very same breath he was angry with himself because even if he were to lose everything else, he would still have something no one could take away from him, the love he’d known over the past few weeks, a love which they could never corrupt. Oh? Couldn’t they just? You child. You child. He strode ahead on iron legs, barely noticing that Gideon had left him, slowing down steadily as he approached the entrance. Surely she was home, he thought dejectedly, waiting with his lunch. And she would take one look at him and know. He quietly walked out to the asphalt strip behind the building and sat down on the crooked stairs, covered with dry leaves. He slapped his knee and watched it kick. His lips moved quickly as he talked to himself,made plans: too much time wasted lately. Now he had to start everything all over again. More daring would be required. More ruthlessness toward himself. Where are your ideas; but how would he make it from one minute to the next in the weeks to come? They laughed at you. Enough. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. He pursed his lips and made a mental note to look for cigarette butts. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. That gesture was from Papa. At least something was. Again he slapped his knee. It jerked. It’s an involuntary movement, it’s a reflex. It isn’t the brain that wants it but Aron who makes it happen with his hand, like switching on a machine. And he went on rhythmically slapping his kneecap. It jerked. And jerked again. No doubt his brain was ready to pop because it couldn’t stop it from jerking. And he slapped again. Jeering aloud. With all the contempt in him. So it would hear and know Aron was mocking it. A weak man’s weapon, but at least it was something. A little revenge for the suffering it had caused. A few more slaps. Precise and baneful. And now he felt the bubble filling with life down there, and the warm blood circulating through the membrane that covered it; and a rustling inside, his secret headquarters preparing for battle. Mutiny, mutiny, groaned Aron, slapping his knee and forcing himself to watch with open eyes: there was nothing even faintly humorous anymore about the knee jerking up and down. Again he slapped it, and a faint, far-off nausea threatened, but nausea was his inner weapon, which he used to scare it away, to keep it from sticking its nose in where it didn’t belong or from accidentally divulging secrets, and now he slapped some more, moving his hand up and down like a conductor, like a general, like a little tin soldier in the service of love. Over and over the knee jerked in his trouser leg, bouncing, twisting, he never knew it could bounce like that, bouncy bouncy, bouncing backward, in time, in space, into the mist, with a slap, his kneecap jerking, unrelenting, because when it bounced like a toy, with that soldierly woodenness, it began to spill the secret, to admit what it was in reality, and he slapped it again and again and again; oh, please don’t let the nausea break him down now, because it’s sickening to watch it jerk, and his hand moved up and down and jerked his knee while the aborted fetuses of misbegotten notions ran through his mind, as though his leg were madly spinning a reel of film, and through the blue of daylight he envisioned hazy shadows you could guess about like clouds; maybe in the shadows there were chained black men stumblingover each other while a villain whipped them like in Uncle Tom’s Cabin;and then he saw a man in rags lying prostrate in the street of a distant land, and the indifferent parade marches past and then halts, exclaiming in unison, saluting in unison, and marching on, and when they have passed he suddenly spies a distant field where overgrown men and women, giants maybe, or maybe they were just healthy peasants, were celebrating something, having a wonderful time; again he slapped and then again, maybe they were torturing someone, but who? — a tiny unknown animal, without a skin, and their mouths brim with brutal laughter, and their ears grow longer and longer with the pleasure that could find nowhere else to lodge, and he sobbed in silence: Stop, stop, stop it right now, but he didn’t stop, no, he wanted more, more, but his hand hurt, and his knee was turning red, and he slapped it again, alert with fear: Stop it, stop it, but all the while, all through the disaster there had been a comforting aura about him, a corridor of hope, the secret wish of a tunnel from which he would emerge a new and different being, and maybe somewhere, amid the darkness and confusion, a miracle would occur, an invisible hand would reach out and switch the suitcase, and wave a wand and change the secret orders, so that when Aron reached the light he would meet the new him out there; yes yes, Aron slapped his knee as hard as he could. Maybe it’s all a dream, maybe he was only in prison for one night, for one tunnel length, and then maybe he would be like a blind man when the great surgeon takes off the bandages and hands him a mirror and says, Look, here is your face, a human face like everyone else’s; that’s how he always wished it would happen, that’s what kept him sane; and now he whacked and thwacked, and lucidly, with helpless grief, began to realize that this was just the prelude, that night for him was day, and that there would be no vindication for his abhorrent body, it would emerge from the tunnel with Aron, as himself, not the exuberant, solid piece of life he used to be, and inwardly he still hoped to fuse again, to unite unto death, in a oneness of flesh; and still he continued smacking his knee, thirty times, forty times, till it was raw, a slab of meat and bone, fifty, seventy; and every time it jerked, involuntarily, with no relation to him, it was coming to seem more and more like an artificial limb, all of his body was artificial; the real Aron would force it to confess, he would put his soul into the mutiny from now on, with new ideas and inventions, with a life-or-death cruelty and contempt! The inward Aron cried and cried,and through his sweat-blinded eyes and twitching face he imagined a gloomy little cloud there, a puff of loss and loneliness, and he smacked it harder, ruthlessly, with a groan from the heart, torturing the hostage of the hated enemy, the faithless lover who gradually stopped pretending, and confessed a horrible thing — that she had never ever been his; whose then? He bashed her, feeling nothing in either hand or knee, dry leaves and gray dust swirled beneath her; whose then? Somebody else’s? Up and down she went, loath to answer, forced to answer in the end, Another being’s? Tell me, tell me! Yes yes, another being’s. Whose, whose? I don’t remember. And before that? What were you before? Before, before, what was she before, oh yes, perhaps, quite, yes, before that she was probably the death of the other being. He groaned. And before that? What were you before that? Before that and that. And that. Out of the void she spoke, jerking out the monotonous answers: more, more, more, his death, his death. He stopped. All at once. With a long groan. His body collapsing. What was happening? Someone might see him like this. Like what? Like this, acting crazy. Cautiously he glanced at his leg, sticking out from the curb. He got up, putting his weight on the other. He didn’t want to stay here alone. Alone with her. Again he laughed with astonishment. He wished someone would call him: “Come to me,” or punish him for being a naughty, stupid child, even if it wasn’t fair, a punishment that would make him cry bitterly and stagger away sobbing into the thick of sleep, till at last he reached oblivion, nestling in the sweetness of consolation, sucking his thumb, hugging a cuddly puppy, protected by the talismans of childhood … Wearily he climbed the steps, trying to iron his face out with his hands. Mama would know right away that they went to camp together, that was the kind of thing she would feel in her bones. He stopped at the door and coughed his cough, preparing himself to hide from her eyes, from the look that would see and understand, immediately, without mercy.