The Book of Intimate Grammar

31

As a matter of fact it took her a week to find out what happened. She ignored him and started preparing for the Independence Day party. Almost a year had passed since she and Papa stopped playing rummy on Friday nights, but it was their turn to give the party this time and she didn’t want their friends to think they’d quit just to get out of it. Aron was furious at her for being so calculating. You call that friendship, he cried when she said she would throw such a grandiose party their eyes would pop. What kind of friendship is that, you hide things from them and want them to be jealous and never talk about anything important. He screamed and stamped his foot, startling Mama, who said with a sideways glance, Oh sure, at your age it’s easy to have friends and be palsy-walsy, but wait till you get to be our age, let’s see what you’re willing or not willing to tell each other then. She didn’t stay around long enough to scoff though, she was too busy cooking and baking for the party and making lists, and it wasn’t till later, a few days before they left for work camp, that something inside her clicked, and even then she only suspected. She asked him indirectly, Where is he, why aren’t you with him? I just don’t feel like it today, I’m a little tired, we ran the thousand in gym class, and she transfixed him with a penetrating stare, not saying anything as yet, but next day she barged into his room while he was sitting on the windowsill, looking out and concentrating with all his might on the sumo trick, you can stop tears that way too, and she yelled at him, What are you doing staring outlike a stone, why aren’t you with him,you used to be thick, the two of you, a knife wouldn’t cut between you, and Aron blurted some lie or other, though he knew her brain was already at work, and the following evening, when Gideon and Yaeli had left, cleared out, skedaddled, she suddenly understood; Aron was lying on his bed just then, staring at the ceiling, and she walked into the room and started pacing around him without a word, you could hear it fizzling inside her, and he waited patiently on his bed. Would you mind telling me where he is, that friend of yours? she finally asked through zippered lips, so it wouldn’t burst out of her all at once. The two of you used to be tight as a tuchis, what’s going on, I’d like to know, and Aron took a deep breath and told her quietly, casually, as though he hadn’t just boiled half a cup of stinking oil and drunk it down to feel the Yaeli place in his stomach again. So how long have they gone for? she whispered, her lips turning white and her face sinking under the ash of defeat, Oh, five or six days, he answered voicelessly, and saw how like an avalanche the zap in her heart began. From love and concern, he thought, raising his hand to cover his face, though she wasn’t going to hit him, she merely stumbled backward, her eyes gaping at something in him she’d refused to acknowledge up to now, and then she shut herself in her room, and when Papa came home she called him in and they stayed in for a whole hour, and when they emerged at last they wouldn’t look at him, and for the last two days she’d been running around like crazy, hardly troubling with the party at all; twice now when Aron came home and coughed at the door he found her with Papa in the corner of the kitchen, and right away he sensed there was something going on, this was new, the way they stood there, hugging and kissing with all their might, glued together from top to bottom, so he thought it best to stay out of their sight.

At five in the afternoon Aron was playing Pelé on the narrow asphalt behind the building, with the legendary George Banks as goalkeeper for the rest of the world, the only obstacle between Aron and the shining trophy on the desk of the head of the Olympic committee. Pelé was having a fairly weak day: the playing field was too narrow for him to use his powers to the fullest, especially his swift charge up the pitch, as if Aron was used to the green lawns of Wembley and Rio. Yet all the same, when they invited him to play the match of the century on this seemingly modest field, in Jerusalem, as it happens, a benefit gamefor Elanshil, the polio foundation, he didn’t hesitate for a moment, to hell with them. He sat down on the stairs and sulked, and when that didn’t work he groaned and hugged the ball, sinking into himself. He stayed like this for a couple of minutes until the wave subsided. A standard soccer ball. Made of leather, with the faded autographs of the Jerusalem Hapoel team all over it. Papa knew the players personally because of his job at the workers’ council. Every Saturday there were two tickets waiting for them at the box office. Zacky used to come along and stay outside till halftime, when he could get in free and join them in the bleachers. And how the fans roared whenever Ben Rimozh scored. How they swore at the referee’s mother, and the vapors of their sweat condensed in the air, and from under the stands came the reek of urine, and the men rose up and sat down in a body screaming, “The ref is a son-of-a-bitch, the ref is a son-of-a-bitch,” and Aron went up and down with them, chanting inwardly, “The chef is a son-of-a-bee,” because what did the referee’s mother have to do with anything, and Papa sat beside him, sunburned and sweaty, with a big bag of sunflower seeds between his knees, spitting out shells, roaring with the crowd, and quickly winking at Aron and Zacky: Don’t worry, fellas, it’s all in fun, huh? Whuh? And now a hush fell, as though there were no one in the building. As though the city’d been evacuated. The children were gone. Someone came and led them away, playing a pipe only children that age can hear. Again without noticing it he began to slap his kneecap nervously. It would be interesting to know what Papa did with the other ticket since Aron stopped going to the games with him. Nobody talked about that either. Only silence. Again he slapped his kneecap and suddenly lurched out and charged, dribbling the ball from left field, with the entire defense of the rest of the world after him, and the ball practically glued to his foot, in a continuum of motion; never looking back, because they were running behind him, trying to catch up, surrounded by frightened, angry faces; everyone was avoiding him, even Yochi disappeared all day and came home only late at night, when everyone was in bed. Where did she wander, he knew she didn’t have a boyfriend or girl friend to be with so long, she was probably walking around, counting the minutes to her army call-up, half a year from now, and what would he do on the eve of Independence Day, where would he be, where would he go; in the old days he used to go to town with Gideon and their classmates, but then he couldn’t stand the crowds andthe noise and the crudeness in the street anymore, he would stay home with Yochi and play Scrabble, going nuts, and this year the three of them had planned to go together, he, Gideon, and Yaeli, to the show downtown and the folk dancing, and now, because of his parents’ party, he couldn’t stay at home either, so he had to make plans, to think of a hideout; if only he could do something with Yochi, but where was Yochi, where was he, everything was falling apart, and last night he had that dream again, better not think — suddenly he veered around, only a fool lets himself be lulled to sleep by such sad concerns, and skipping lightly over their outstretched legs, he twirled like a dancer, and the crowd went wild. Lithely juggling just for the fun of it, to break the monotony, to thumb his nose at the human race, and he ran around the mound of bricks and plaster and broken tiles left there two months ago, exchanged a pass with Atias’s gas canister, lost the ball, caught it, tussled with the forwards on the rival team, their furious jaws snapping behind him as he streaked across the lawn and positioned himself in place to kick a goal with a spin to the left, but alas, too hard, too high, maybe he was wearing his jinxed shoes, excuses, excuses, and meanwhile, as the coach, Sir Alf Ramsey, calls the players in for a briefing, Aron dribbles with his famous left, concentrating on the automatic hop-hop, dribble-dribble; “dribble” is a wonderful word; and there’s something else he doesn’t understand, but who can he ask, it’s about anger, their anger at him; he dribbles precisely, he’s good at that, once he held the school record for dribbling, thirty-seven times with heading and shouldering, now it’s working because of the word, dribble, dribble, hopping inside him like a tiny frog, ribble, ribble,their anger at him, why, their contempt, even; to some extent, their hatred; he needs his ball now, he hugs it to his stomach with all his might, he’ll never surrender, never, and break down here in front of a million spectators, but why their anger, that’s the interesting question. So who do you want us to be angry at, smarty, who do you want us to blame? Oh right, I forgot: it’s everyone for himself, like rats on an interminably sinking ship, but you do love me, don’t you, we’re such a loving family, not like the Sephardim or the goyim or the Arabers, who don’t care if their children play in the middle of the traffic; no, you always look after me, you’re always there to tell me, Dress warmly, button your top button, eat, eat, look both ways before crossing, and don’t talk to strangers, so why are you acting like that. Like what? Giving up on meso easily. Without a struggle. And then he stormed ahead, in fear, because the words came out so clearly, and he feinted forward and kicked the ball through the opponents’ goal posts, and gave an overly jubilant cheer, even went down on his knees and crossed himself secretly like the goyishe players do, what did he care, we aren’t any better than the goyim, but then he realized that he’d missed the goal, and noted inwardly that he was having a weak day, an off day; Pelé, the black diamond.

And very slowly — he was familiar with this process, the heart contracts before the mind catches on — the answer came to him that maybe there’s something in the brain like, say, a soccer center, which was closing up on him for some reason, and he checked himself again, with tremulous composure, noting that there did seem to be some deterioration in the brain center for triangle kicks, and he conducted several more experiments, double-passing with the Atiases’ and Kaminers’ gas canisters, only to discover that he was off in his estimate of the bounce, and he was astonished that in the midst of a war his brain should find time to harass him with something so trivial, and he headed for the stairs, concealing his temporary weakness from the fans.

He sat down, calmed himself. Pounded his kneecap nervously. A lubberly piece of flesh. Come on, get up, play another game, a corrective one, but he didn’t have the strength for it. I’m on the bench, second string. It’s five-thirty already. Where are they — by now they’ve finished working in the fields and croplands, or in the barns and silos, with the plowing and the gathering, the mowing and the grape picking. He never could remember which came when. And they’d all go in to shower together, Aron among them; he would approach the leader and gravely show him the sore on his foot which prevented him from getting his body wet for the duration of work camp, either in the public shower or the swimming pool or water tower. But there were other ways; for instance, he could say he was allergic to the chlorine, it made him break out in ghastly hives, or he could fracture his arm again, like he did last summer in defiance of the trip to Tel Aviv, yes, there goes Aron, strolling through the kibbutz, his arm in a sling, a mere broken arm couldn’t keep him from going out with the rest of the class, colorful doodles and scribbles cover the plaster, just like last time he broke his arm, a chart for crossing out the days till the cast comes off, words of encouragement and the barely legible autographs of friends on the curve,it isn’t easy to write left-handed on your right arm; and after the shower we go in to eat, you should see how they feed us here, not like at home, here nobody coddles you, unpeeled cucumbers with all the vitamins and the natural taste of earth left in, and at midnight we steal chickens out of the coop, or catch a fat pigeon and wring its neck, ping its peck, ding its deck, with a single twist they wring it, they’re capable of that, you know, already they’re capable of it, they aren’t tortured as he is by dreams of a moth implanted in a sticky web, its antennae twitching accusingly; he slapped his knee, hop to, poor flesh — like if you shine a light in your eye, the pupil contracts in seconds, that’s a reflex too, that too is something Aron can perpetrate against his body; “pupil,” now there’s a word for you, Gideon’s father has a flashlight he uses for his coin collection; he groped in his back pocket, the coin was still there, he’d had it for almost two years now, couldn’t get rid of it, and his knee jerked up and down, what will happen when they come back from work camp and notice his latest chendelach, making his knee jerk over and over. And now they’re probably in the dining hall, it’s self-service, there’s a basin on the table for leftovers, and a groundskeeper and a dairyman, and boots and mustaches, and the children’s home, and they smoke in the shadows so the leader won’t see, and at night they have fun painting each other, but only after the campfire, or after skinny-dipping in the pool, don’t skip that in your thoughts.

He ran. Ran across the Wizo Nursery School, up Halutz Street and Bialik Street, all the way to the tree-lined house where she lived, and into the yard where the laundry hung, cool sheets that draped around his face, caressing his cheeks as he slashed his way by them, and they let him pass, led him gently from one to the next, as though helping him out of there. It’s no use, child, go home now, there isn’t anyone here for you. Breathless and exhausted he swept through, emerging at last with a frightened backward glance at the armada of sheets billowing in the wind. He pressed his burning face against Yaeli’s window, peeked through the blinds at her little room. It was dark. No Yaeli in there. But even with his eyes closed he knew this room. There was the bed and there was the bureau and there was the closet and there was her desk. And there was the shelf with her doll collection from when she was a little girl. He smiled. And up there, the cardboard box where she kept her collection of fluffy bits of yarn; Aron himself had supplied her with threads from every sweater he had, the orange one with the stars,the brown checkered one, the abadayat sweater from his bar mitzvah; Mama noticed, when she changed the mothballs, that the sweaters were a fraction of a centimeter out of place, and she waylaid him and caught him in the act, she would skin him alive if she ever found him pulling threads out again, she used the same wool over, year after year, was she a Rothschild, no, she was a balebusteh who could knit the old into new, but he risked his life to pull out more threads for Yaeli, even from the green one, his newest, with the big white triangles; he plucked it out and gave it to Yaeli, to hide in her treasury of fluff, like a woolly nest with carousel colors; and in his mind’s eye he saw her messy desk, with the ink spot the shape of an apple, and the clipping from Maariv Magazine for Youthwhich she’d tacked up over it: Love is calling. The flame of love is calling to you. You must love the trembling lips that say it: Love. You must notice little things, a smile that plays upon tender lips. A dreamy gaze. A teardrop hiding a mute and bitter pain.He read through the slats in the blinds, with mouth a-tremble: You must desire to tread this earth in search of its profoundest secrets, the riddles of the night. You must gaze into a young girl’s eyes, ready to feel the warmth of love, though it burns you till you cry out in pain. True love is single-hearted, a great, strong surging of the blood. Tears wrung out of sacred sentiments… He was worried about this last bit of youthful eloquence by our correspondent in Ashkelon, Ziona Kapach, hanging there before his innocent Yaeli’s eyes; what if she wasn’t ready for such a burning love yet, and was tempted by the pretty words into trying something cheap and phony, love isn’t a game, you know, it’s a matter of life and death, you can save a life with love, and maybe Yaeli’s feelings were lighter than his, a little shallower, maybe she wasn’t committed the way he was; oh, if only he could learn from her the wisdom of that lightness of feeling. As he backed away from the window, something touched his head and frightened him: the laundry again. Sleeves and hems hung limply now. The sheets were like empty sails. He walked through with his eyes closed, lost among them, how did Ziona Kapach from Ashkelon learn to speak so true. He wound a shirtsleeve around his hand, a towel, a pillowslip, meandering through this grove of ghosts, drawing profound secrets and tears and sacred sentiments after him, words to be purified inside before he said them aloud, lightheartedly; and he tasted the name of the stranger from Ashkelon, Ziona Kapach. Who was she? Not one of ours, judging by her surname, and he secretly fleshed herout in a shack full of barefoot children wading in the mud and a drunken father, and in the corner of the shack, by the light of a kerosene lamp, sits a slender girl with a serious, delicate face and glasses, writing the profoundest secrets of her heart, and suddenly her father comes up and starts beating her and yelling, Get out of here and earn some money, and her mother laments that Ziona doesn’t know how to cook and sew, she has two left hands, who would ever marry her, a blot on the family, and Ziona looks up, entreating, despairing: from whence will her help come, is there anyone in the whole world who can understand her in her loneliness? If only he had the nerve to send her a letter. She would understand him. He could tell her everything, simply, without digressions. And she would read his letter by the light of the kerosene lamp, transported to him out of her life. She would have stayed. Yes. She would never have left him like that. He was frightened. Because of the betrayal. Again he whispered, Yaeli, till he felt the ember spreading circles of warmth inside him. He reached out. He ran his hand over the clothesline with his eyes shut. He grabbed something. He stuck it in his pocket. Ran away. Ran for his life. At the corner of the boulevard he stopped. He ducked into the bushes, took it out of his pocket: her sock. The green-and-red stocking. He sniffed it: the good smell of laundry soap. He inhaled deeply. Good. Good. Everything was good. Then he wrapped the sock around his fist and was amazed: was her heart so small, then? How could such a heart contain the heart of one who tried to win it? Run, get help, go to Mt. Tabor and rescue Yaeli in a daring night raid. But already he knew that he was too weak, he wasn’t what he used to be, so what was he, so who was he, who was the real twin and who was the one who had slyly taken over, because sometimes while he was pissing he would cover his face with a towel and listen to it streaming out with a different sound, a deeper sound, as though it were someone else’s; what did it mean, who was pissing out of him? He stuck the sock in his pocket and began running helter-skelter, awash with sweat, seeking refuge in the crowded shopping center, pretending to be calm, like a normal boy. But they noticed him right away. He was the only child there. He and the barber’s son Binyumin, who leaned against the door of the barbershop and watched him with interest. And Aron hurried by. As if he had somewhere to go. Straighten up so they won’t think you’re a hunchback too on top of everything. Surely Binyumin would hit him now. Now that he was a head taller than Aronhe would get revenge for the beating he’d taken from him way back when. But Binyumin wasn’t thinking about hitting him. He merely watched him and hinted with his eyes: Over there, over there. Where? There. But there’s nothing there. Except Morduch, the blind man. Sitting, moving around. And Aron turned away with his head held high. Mosco the iceman’s cart horse swerved around and looked into his eyes. Aron tried to fight it, to control himself, but his fingers dug deeper and deeper into his pocket, touching the rotten onion strips: on Moshav Aderet a two-headed calf was born, read the horse through the onion strips, and bared its teeth in wild laughter. Aron recoiled and walked blindly by. Someone turned on the loudspeaker in the square, whistles and squeaks filled the air. A song started and suddenly stopped. Remember our names forever. Preparations for Memorial Day. And there was Morduch again. In the exact same place. Muttering over his rusty tin can. The can of Richard Levy corned beef they always took on the yearly school trip. But why was he here looking at Morduch again, wasn’t he going in a different direction? And he quickly strode ahead wearing a troubled expression, following two big guys who were juniors in high school, and one of them who looked like Mickey Zik, Anat Fish’s boyfriend, said in a loud voice: “So anyway, when the other animals saw it was no go they decided to send the rabbit in to show the lion how you do it.” And Aron froze. It was crowded. He took a few more steps.

He dallied in front of the new supermarket. No one happened to be going in. The automatic door stood there innocently, pretending it was only glass. Daring him to enter. Come on, prove you’re a man, it said in Glass-dooric. He looked around. Not a soul was heading that way. To save him from the door. All right, he had no choice. He stepped up slowly, sure that all eyes were upon him. Now he’d have to stall for time: he bent down to tie his shoe. An old woman was approaching. Thank God. He waited for her, crouching, watching her out of the corner of his eye, and, at the right moment, stood up and joined her on the rubber mat. The door slid open, for both of them together, and Aron distinctly heard it hissing, ssssee… he hurried by the crowded shelves. In a blur he saw the fruit and vegetable counters, so much color and abundance, but he still had to get out of here. To exit through that door. And nobody else seemed ready to leave yet. He lingered by the newspapers, casually sneaking up on it. Menashe Anwar’s attorneyargues that his client was temporarily insane at the time of the murders. What kind of country is this anyway: a person can murder, rob, be a spy, and if they say they were crazy all is forgiven. Come on, pay attention, run! He made for the door just as a young man with an armload of shopping bags was about to go out. Aron shuffled over, hands in his pockets. Just an ordinary boy, on his way out of the supermarket. But the young man stopped. Uh-oh! He stopped! The cashier called him back to the checkout line, waving a slip of paper, and the man turned around, leaving Aron stranded at the door, the automatic glass door that senses people, senses their bodies. It can’t be fooled. It’s as cruel and uncompromising as an infirmary scale, emitting invisible rays through the skin to see whether your body is real or not. He cringed. Again he leaned down and tied his shoe. The whole shopping center was probably licking its lips by now. Oh God, please let someone come in. Even a dog. But no one did. Aron stood up. He set his foot on the rubber mat. He felt as if he was floating. As if he couldn’t quite land with his full weight. He hunched his shoulders, walked through.

Sure it opened, dum-dum. Did you really think it wouldn’t. What’s wrong with you, huh, tell me, what is wrong with you. Wearily, unresistingly, he looked up and met the gaze of Binyumin. Binyumin, who said nothing but ordered Aron over there. What does he want from me? Over there, and Aron complied obediently, reaching into his pocket: what could he throw the beggar that would sound like metal; he kept one of Papa’s old razor blades under the sole of his shoe, and the piece of saw he swiped from shop class hidden in his cuff; Mama kneeled with pins in her mouth, taking his trousers up, cheating for him, so no one would notice, and the small nails and the long black lead nail he carried around, the equipment he always had on him, in case there was an opportunity to do a Houdini act, which there hadn’t been for over a year, but where are we? What are we doing here? And Binyumin, yes, yes, we saw, he stuck his leg out indicating: There, over there, and Morduch the beggar shut his mouth, raised his bony head with the twisted veins, looking for something in the air, groping around, his mouth open wide to reveal his rotten teeth; of course! Finally Aron understood! What a dimwit he’d been not to catch on sooner, and he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the coin he’d won in the water, which had preserved its chill over such a long time, and withheavy resignation he dropped it into the rusty can in Morduch’s hand.

For a moment everyone in the square seemed to freeze. His heart pounded once, like an enormous gong announcing the entrance of a mysterious guest, faceless and nameless, whom everyone knew. Aron closed his eyes, reeling as he stood over him. When he opened his eyes again he saw that everything was back to normal. No one, apparently, had noticed anything. Anxiously he glanced around: people walking by with bags and briefcases. Shopping for the holiday, hurrying home. Cars drove past, honking for no reason. See, it’s all in your mind. You’re the one who’s abusing you. Put that pumpkin head to work and plan what you’re going to do tomorrow evening: where will you hide, how will you pass the time. See, everything’s normal. Except that Morduch the beggar was staring at Aron with his empty eyes, nodding his veiny skull, his hands fluttering this way and that, and Binyumin too was shifting his weight in the doorway of the barbershop, as though in prayer, as though they were tying an invisible knot together from opposite sides of the square. Aron fled. He ran for his life, past the drooping trees along the boulevard, home, home; he barely made it up the stairs, paused at the door, and gave his little cough, but when it opened they were in there glued together with all their might again, only this time he knew it was different, there was not the slightest trace of a nasty smile on their faces, and a fragment from a recent dream floated up, pieces that didn’t quite fit, two animals chasing each other gently in circles, creating a kind of moving wholeness, a full revolving circle, though luckily for him he was sound asleep at the time, peeking out of his dream at Yochi’s back; she was pretending to be sleeping, and she was frightened too, things like that had never happened around here before; luckily he wasn’t a light sleeper, he could curl up in his sleep with an imperceptible contraction, you can practice even in your sleep, you can stop the flow of fear through your body, you count their breaths and gather scientific data, all arranged and classified; one person chases the other around and around in a circle and suddenly they crash; no, at the last minute they don’t crash, a hand reaches out and catches them; at last they noticed him, standing in the kitchen, and slowly they separated, glaring at him, but why this anger, it choked him inside, and they blamed him yet, as if it were his fault, as if it were anybody’s fault, and she said he’d wasted his growing years, bullshit, baloney, and yet — who knows, she can dish out the sarcasm, oh yes, she’s a pro, but ifonly she’d tell him what to do about it. They were even ashamed to admit to the doctor that something like this had happened in their family. And they blamed Aron for it, as if he had betrayed them or brought some plague into the house that isn’t mentioned in the Bible, and ruined everything, the quiet life they led, even Yochi was distant these days. He could feel it, she and he were not as they used to be. He was becoming extremely sensitive to people who acted distant. People whose expressions changed. He knew of course what she was thinking inside: that if she ever did find a husband, they’d have to hide Aron so he wouldn’t think it was hereditary. There was no doubt that’s what she was thinking. Even if she still loved him a little and was ashamed of thinking that, that’s what she was thinking. Because that’s how they’d brought her up to think. But how could he fight his damn biology single-handed; he pleaded with the thing inside his brain, the particular gland responsible for growing: Okay, you’ve had your fun, you’ve had your laughs, three years you’ve been fooling around with me, we get the point, now do something, give me something, stop being so mean, just one little drop, from here to there, one teeny-weeny drop flowing no more than half a millimeter, and then everything will change, the world will change; for the past year and a half he had been praying to the gland, he had nothing to hide anymore and no strength to hide it, yes, for a year and a half now he had been secretly putting on tefillin under the covers, chanting from his bar mitzvah portion: Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is expiated.Because maybe he had sinned, maybe he needed to atone. But what could he have done. He was pure, the purest member of the family. He couldn’t even shit in the toilet at home, for fear of pulling the chain too hard and causing a flood. And he never rubbed himself; who needed that when he could barely drag himself around. Still, maybe he was guilty of something. Like the time he gave Binyumin a beating and held him down and walked over him saying, “May you never grow.” Or maybe he had sinned in his imagination. At times he liked to imagine that he wasn’t really their son but the son of, say, a nobleman or a king. People from England or maybe Sweden, tall and slender, gracefully attired, speaking English quietly, wearing gold-rimmed glasses as they play the piano, because sometimes he suspected this would not have happened to him in a different family, as though it were something here, in their house, that cramped his soul, but no matter how he prayed, how hepleaded with the gland, it wouldn’t answer him; no matter how he banged his head against the floor trying to jolt it — No answer, no answer, mumbled Aron, trudging through the busy streets as noisy shouts and patriotic songs blared over the loudspeakers, and the smell of burning in the air after the fireworks, how the night sky suddenly burst into color, with a pang of longing he thought of Yaeli, and people kept bumping into him, saying, Hey, kid, watch where you’re going; he was out of step, out of sync, he always ruined everything, someone hit a sour note on the accordion: “Sing, oh water / Flow to the Negev.” “Flow,” that’s nice, and there are public showers there, but what about the flow of blood, and carefully he extricated the word “flow” from the general clamor, stripping it gently and whispering it backward thrice with great intensity; “Wolf wolf wolf,” his mouth clamped shut so none of the outer pollution would infiltrate, the tumult and the smoke and the crowds, till the dusty, sweaty sheath of “flow” dropped away like a cast-off skin, with its shrill notes and dissonances and random undertones; he hid it inside him, in the intimate new center, quickly checking over the other words he had smuggled in over the past few days: “supple,” “lonely,” “gazelle,” “profoundest secrets,” “sacrifice,” “tears,” words that welled out of an endless stream, and now “flow”; for seven days he would refrain from saying it aloud, till it was purified, till it was his, his alone. He struggled through the crowd, what a mob. Look at him, see the way he walks, he’s talking to himself. What’s the matter, kid, have you been drinking cognac? “Wolf wolf wolf,” it was hard to concentrate, hard to hear it over the noise. If only they’d shut up a minute, he would be able to organize his thoughts and wander through the streets again, free from worry, enjoying the music, having fun, if only he could get rid of that monotonous buzzing, that never-ending lament in his head, no answer, no answer, the gland was indifferent to him, it wouldn’t answer, and it was so hard to keep the rhythm as he walked through the crowd; maybe there’s a course in public walking like they have in public speaking, obviously you’ve never taken it, you stop, they move, they stop, you bump into them, and for almost an hour now they’re the ones who’ve been deciding where you go, they push and crush you like food passing through the alimentary canal, and now he found himself in front of a high platform, with a loud, incessant roaring in his ears as the crowd hemmed him in on every side. He turned and tried to flee, but the crowd was like a solid wall of fortified flesharound him. No chinks anywhere. Folk dancers in colorful costumes were doing the hora on the platform, while below the platform teenage kids were unabashedly doing the twist to the rhythm of the hora; “the social set,” he raised his weary head, having fun, living it up. Great bunch, he muttered aloud, to fool whomever it was necessary to fool, and meanwhile, with an expert eye he squinted at them tracking down the stowaway, the enemy he instantly identified as he went on counting Adam’s apples and sideburns and mustaches and breasts; it wasn’t easy either, they kept moving all the time, they really were enjoying themselves, playing with their new toys, idiots, they don’t belong to you! You’ve been had! But wait, maybe he was the one who didn’t understand, he, Aron, who wouldn’t allow himself a single moment of illusion or self-forgetting; maybe they go together, those things and the pleasure they bring. If only he could win the struggle with himself, get around himself, forget himself for five minutes, maybe that’s all he needed, five little minutes when his brain wasn’t watching, five free minutes. Okay, we heard you the first time, and you know what would happen then? You’d be just like they are. Huh? Whuh?

He stood there mumbling and shuffling his feet, pushed by the bodies that crowded around, puffing their breath at him, and he stared entranced at the shoes of the dancing boys, his right hand tightening around his left wrist, as he counted at a precise and moderate tempo. They looked so big. Tremendous. Shoes betokening massive bones, like the jaws of a prehistoric animal, and a word floated past in the rushing stream, “youth”; he felt it instantly, a lovely word, dive in, why don’t you, and fish it out. I’m too tired. Dive in and get it, now, he ordered, and dully obeyed, his head hanging down to his chest. Now fish it out, “youth,” all bubbly, happy, swingy, springy, free, htuoy, htuoy, he mumbled, and something inside him groaned, but he had taken a physician’s oath: yet he couldn’t do it all by himself; too bad, he had responsibilities; so many words pounding at the doors of the secret hospital he had established in the bush. Htuoy. Words streaming by, from people from the radio from newspapers from billboards from popular songs from the onion strip. Htuoy. It sounds Japanese. In urgent need of treatment, Aron operates, counting twenty-five seconds; when he gets to thirty usually the pins and needles start in his wrist and fingertips. Again he tried to break through the stifling ring of flesh, floundering but unable to budge, not even Houdini could help him here;he turned his head with difficulty and for an instant saw his face reflected in a store window, a small white face like a spot of brightness in the crowd, like an absence: Yaeli, where are you, what are you doing now? Thirty-one, thirty-two, he could feel the blood throbbing frantically against the barricade of fingers around his wrist, his poor muddled blood, he’d been driving it nuts in the last few days, thirty-seven already, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, and the worst of it, as usual, was the nausea: in every experiment the body’s ultimate weapon against him. But here too, Aron was training himself, sticking his finger down his throat for one second, then almost two, ho hum, this finger isn’t him, neither are the nausea and the gagging and the vomiting, he was himself in spite of these, forty-three now, don’t give up; for once he had to get through the nausea, because if there’s something beyond it, the body has its reasons; now the nausea is coming in waves, but maybe beyond it, or beneath it, at the bottom of the swamp there was someone imprisoned in a bubble, banging his head against it, begging him to go all the way as a matador and a partisan, but any minute he would vomit or faint, it was coming, fifty-one, don’t give in, this is the body against the soul, so don’t give in, but he does give in. As usual. His hand lets go of his wrist. Another minute and he would have vomited all over everyone, too bad, too bad. Pins and needles in his hand. Too bad.

He drooped among the sturdy bodies supporting him, covered with sweat he collapsed and slowly recovered: still, he did manage to hurt it a little, he did get revenge. But then his vision cleared, and what was this, what was going on, only now did he spot the familiar faces, how come he hadn’t noticed before, how was it possible; he’d been standing here all this time while they were dancing, and now he recognized them, before he didn’t. As though someone had played a trick on him: he’d been here for the past quarter of an hour, how did that beautiful girl suddenly turn into Anat Fish? He shrugged his shoulders, past hope of understanding: here she was, the beautiful Anat Fish, dancing barefoot in the street. He stared at her, trying not to look at the others, Anat Fish, in the black stretch pants the boys call fuck-me pants, and if you look carefully you see she really has lost something; she’s faded, who knows why, maybe because of what they said about her and that guy, the one she went to Eilat with, yes, yes, we know all about it, and maybe she’s lost some of her charm because David Lipschitz isn’t around anymore to adore her, and there’s Adina Ringle and Aliza Lieber, thekids in the social set who didn’t go to work camp, and look, wow, Michael Carny, what’s he doing here, he’s not a “socie,” not in any youth movement, either, pareveh, but he’s dancing too, look, he’s dancing with chutzpah right in front of the unperturbable Anat Fish, stealing a dance like a hungry beggar; but at least he dared, watch and learn, his gland has secreted that special substance that enables you to forget yourself and deceive yourself for a minute, look. Aron forced himself to look directly at Michael Carny undulating camel-like. Watch what happens; he watched, withering inside as Michael Carny revealed his body, rocking around with a startled joy, with a curious violence, to and fro he danced, watch and learn how — Wait a minute! Because in the middle of his ungainly dance Michael turned to Aliza Lieber, the redhead, and asked her to dance, and she refused, naturally she refused, look at her and look at him, but he doesn’t despair, how well Aron knows the importance of not despairing now; he can’t stop dancing even for a moment, and carefully, as though guiding a sleepwalker across a roof, Michael offers himself to Rina Fichman, who is standing there with Miri Tamari and Esty Parsitz and Osnat Berlin and Varda Koppler; what’s this, half the class is here, and Rina’s dressed in a miniskirt like a real doll, he’s never seen her like that; if he saw her in the street and didn’t know her, he’d think, There goes a real doll; if Mama saw her, she’d smile that smile and elbow Papa in the ribs and say, “Husti gezein? Did you see that?” And Rina and Michael have been sitting next to each other in class for years, always passing notes, like two gigglepusses … Aron muttered as though telling himself an old old story … htuoy, htuoy, and Michael drew nearer, hopping and dancing over to adorable Rina Fichman, lightly, as though carrying a trembling candle in the storm, and timidly touched her hand and said something to her Aron couldn’t hear, with all the shouting and singing, the crowd was all, and out of the crowd Rina Fichman raised her startled eyes to Michael Carny, and smiled at him and began to sway her supple body; “supple” was also in isolation, being purified inside him now, tomorrow its turn would come, for seven days he had been careful not to utter it aloud and tomorrow he would put it back into its natural surroundings, he would be permitted to use it in his silent communion with Yaeli and Gideon, and the weary doctor paused, removed his pith helmet, wiped the sweat from his brow, and carried on with his dedicated work, never taking his eyes off Michael Carny’s glowing face, words like “dance,”“jubilant,” “bliss,” “darling,” and he forced himself to gaze at this mystery, this ineffable moment of emergence, the butterfly moment when a shiny thread went out between Michael and Rina; but how did half the class get here, when did they plan it, was there a notice up on the bulletin board that he hadn’t read, and all the while he kept worrying he would bump into Yochi, he sensed her presence nearby, knew that she too was wandering through the streets, avoiding their parents’ party. He stared at the dancing shoes in the street again, potent-looking boys’ shoes. They’re gaining this thing called mass, he explained to himself, yes, their bones have a higher density now, they’re full of marrow, it must be that, and through their shoes he sensed the soles of their feet soaking in the iron dust of the fecund earth, but did that mean they also existed more than he did, who could say, who could measure, but yes, he guessed dispassionately, they probably did exist more, though what exactly did that mean, did they feel something he didn’t? What was it like for them? Is it like muscles of steel in the pit of their stomach? And does the blood fizz through their veins and practically gush out of them like soda from a bottle when you shake it up? Yes, could be, he consoled himself with a scientific hum, but the thing is, what did they have to give up in return? Huh? Whuh? Good question. The sixty-four-dollar question! Ask again! Did they give up something in return? Yes! Yes! He almost howls it, clinging to the vaguely comforting hope that by accepting the awe-inspiring code of mass, the canon of the flesh, they had chosen the path of enslavement and drudgery, directly and without digression, step by step to the bitter end. Death. And then he sneered at himself and stifled the filthy laughter in his armpits. Har-de-har-har-har, who do you think you are, oh, high-and-mighty one, do you think you’re safe because you’re different? Even now you’re sinking, sinking, you’re worse than they are. Look at you. Like the living dead. Everybody’s watching you. He hunched his shoulders even more, muttering wolf, htuoy, ssilb, a Dr. Schweitzer of the jungle, a Dr. Doolittle of language. Get out of here, quick, breathe.

He broke away, slogging through the crowds, ducking down a half-deserted alley where three little children accosted him and bopped him with their plastic squeak hammers, calling after him, “Pumpkinhead! Pumpkinhead!” But he just kept walking to avoid a fracas, smiling inwardly at their mistake, they thought he was their age. Then two skinny hoods grabbed his arm and dragged him over to a deck of playingcards spread out on the sidewalk: Bet one pound, take home ten, everyone’s a winner here. He wriggled free, nauseated by the wine on their breath, and darted off again, sealing out the music that blared at him from the tall buildings and puffing out the smoke he had inhaled from the air so it wouldn’t pollute him inside; what’s the time, they were probably having a campfire about now, charred potatoes on a wire, blackened fingers smudging an autograph on somebody’s cheek, the smell of smoke in her hair, her quiet laughter. Take the hair out of my mouth, would you please, Gideon, my hands are covered with soot. A gangly old man without a face emerged from the shadows and walked up to Aron, holding out his hand. I thought you weren’t coming, he simpered. Didn’t Simo tell you to be here at eight? Aron stared at him uncomprehendingly, shivering down his spine, the voice sounded familiar, and suddenly he felt a skinny hand on the back of his neck with squidlike fingers, and heard him snicker in his ear, Shall we go for a little walk, Simo tells me you’re new around here. Aron veered around and sank his teeth into the slippery hand; he snapped at the fingers hard as he could till he felt the flesh break, and didn’t stop there, flesh and blood, he bit down murderously, to kill, to annihilate once and for all, but when he tasted the blood he spat it out and fled for his life, shuddering and shaking, while the faceless man collapsed in the alley, howling with pain and bewilderment, and Aron kept running, spitting out every drop of saliva in his mouth, maybe the man had a contagious disease, what was that all about, maybe he wanted to force him into joining a gang of robbers; Aron didn’t know where he was anymore, the din from the loudspeakers pursued him through the alleyways. The streets had no names, the houses no numbers; he trembled so, his hands started fluttering at his sides; if only a miracle would happen and Yochi would appear now, calling to him with open arms: Come here, li’l brother.

At last he found himself in the crowded street again and heaved a sigh of relief. The faces of the people streaming in on every side shone red and yellow under the colored lights. Aron stopped to glance at his watch. It would be six or seven hours before he could go home. He sank exhaustedly on the curb. People bumped into him, stepped over him, cursed him angrily. He cradled his head in his hands. Through the legs of the revelers he saw another group of children. He studied them carefully: this time they were strangers, but so what. They all lookedthe same when they were dancing. Cavorting. With wild exuberance. He searched for the most attractive couple. Two by two he examined them. Swallowed them longingly with his eyes. He caught his breath, stretched out on the sidewalk. All tired out, but no malingering, he had to check them over by the book. No exceptions. He cleared his throat. Sat up a little. He chose a few more couples out of the crowd. He swore to be honest with himself. To admit the truth, even if it hurt. But no matter how he tried, he couldn’t find any real happiness in them. He felt the urgency in their steamy shouts of jubilation, to be as alike as they possibly could, to know that which Aron — like a deaf man watching faces in the audience — could only surmise by their quivering movements, that they wanted to surrender to it, crying out in airy rapture, in sheer oblivion, before the alarm buttons went off in their horrified hearts.

So he stared at their dancing feet, his face bare and his secrets scrawled rudely upon it. A group of children noticed him sitting there, moving his lips, and pointed at him conspicuously. Someone spilled the dregs of a juice bottle over his head, drip, drip, it leaked into his collar. He ignored it. Easily. What did he care if he was wet. There, they quit and walked away. Relieved, as if a vicious hand had suddenly let go of him, he stretched his legs out and leaned back. Relieved of the pain, of the unbearable heaviness in his heart. Just like that, for no particular reason, a brief respite. Who knew what he would have to pay for it.

And in the midst of this, in the split-second interval between the blow and the pain, with the instinct of an elderly fourteen-and-a-half-year-old, he knew that the dancers were just as miserable as he was. That having a body is itself a defect. That even this gaiety they yielded to, this frenzied urge, was inwardly childish and playful, not deep, not really theirs, he sensed without words for it, in the darkened cell of his nascent mind: and all they have is a consolation prize, wonderful but strange and callow, the kind you use up quickly, in the shadows, with humiliating greed, with dark forebodings; this, like a letter, they would pass on to others …

Sometime later, around midnight, he headed home from the center of town. Slowly plodding through the streets, he continued his little experiment, forced to add the new blister on his foot to the repertory, to time the yelps of pain; how long did it take them to reach his brain, did they mingle there like echoes, and sometimes he would count howmany times he could hop on one foot before his thigh muscle started shaking, or he would stare directly into the blinding streetlamps, observing the influence of light on his pupils; what does that have to do with anything, though maybe it did have something to do with it, maybe he would draw sudden insight from it, a flash of brilliance from the pupil of his eye. He repeated the facts again, he would have to juggle them in order to solve the riddle, to break them down and build something new, healthy, lively; it would be interesting to know what was going on there now, maybe at midnight everybody kissed, maybe they’ve gone even further, maybe they kiss with their tongues by this time. He tore a hair out of his cowlick. Three seconds of pain. That’s interesting: this morning it was five.

When he finally approached the house, he heard raucous voices and music inside. There were Menachem and Aliza Bergman on the balcony with Yosaleh and Hanna Stock, snorting with laughter at something or maybe someone, not him, of course, though he did hear them say “rarin’” to go, which sounded for a minute like “Aron”; but their voices had that tone he knew, and he retreated deftly into the shadows, where he saw them suddenly switch to the code; Yosaleh Stock lit a cigarette and there was suddenly red lipstick on Aliza Bergman’s lips. Maybe they did notice something after all. How long was the party going to last? He wandered around the neighborhood. What if he went upstairs and rang the bell and said hello to everyone and walked through the hall to his bedroom: We all went home so we’ll be able to wake up fresh at 4 a.m. to watch the sunrise, and he turned away in shame. Maybe he’d wander around for a while. Maybe he’d go do a mitzvah at the hospital where Grandma used to be. The night shift was on now. He could volunteer to change sheets, for instance. This party might last till morning, and when he said goodbye nobody even asked where he was going. What an idiot he was not to take his passkey. Then he could have taken a little nap in the shelter. Or sneaked into Edna Bloom’s, he thought with surprise, shivering as he fled from the empty space of her apartment, with a backward glance at the imaginary thing that might jump out and grab him and lock him up inside, and so he ran to the end of the street, and only then slowed down, out of breath, with a stitch in his side, and shambled aimlessly, hugging himself with cold, and again and again he thought about Yaeli, but he was so tired, so tired, his jealousy and pain were muffled. Maybe this was the momentto start the separation. Be realistic, she’s not for you. He even evoked an unpretty picture of her as she emerged from the oven, bloated and puffy, and for a moment he could imagine how she would look one day. She’s not for you. You need someone different. Someone more … More what? More sad, he thought. Tentatively he spoke her name: Yaeli, Yaeli. Nothing. Only a dull and distant pain passing through him, and so he continued, careful to stay half-asleep throughout the operation, and he tried to decide rationally who his next love would be; he felt so logical, he began by crossing off all the ineligible women of the world, like Mama, for instance, and Yochi and Grandma Lilly and Gucha and Rivche and Itka, and women who were out because they were too old, like Golda Meir and Bebe Idelson and Henrietta Szold, yes, go on, and how about the ones in hospitals and mental institutions, like Rivche’s Lealeh; there, you see, so many women who can never be yours, one Yaeli more or less won’t make any difference, and how about the millions of women in China and Japan whom he would never even set eyes on, or the Arab women he had to disqualify because they were enemies and stank, and he came to the conclusion that his love would have to be Jewish and live in Israel, because how else could they meet, and as he sleepwalked through the darkness under the bowing cypress trees, he eliminated all Jewish women of Moroccan, Kurdish, and Turkish descent, he knew Mama would never let him bring one home and he didn’t have the strength to fight her now, and after brief consideration he eliminated Bulgarians too, and hesitated over Romanians, she always warned him that Romanians are almost one of ours but not quite, that they try to marry up, she had this complicated hierarchy of Ashkenazim and Franks, and finally he went through the list of suitable girls he knew, checking them off one by one, like Rina Fichman, she could definitely be right but it seemed she was taken already; Naomi Feingold might be the best one in fact, except what about that brother of hers; and then, as he traipsed back along the narrow road that led to the building project, surely they were gone by now, he realized after all that the only girl who was eligible to be the love of his life was Yaeli, and the thought of it woke him up with the pain of an open wound when the bandage is torn off, and he heard the chirring in his ears again: No answer, no answer, no answer, and now he stood in front of the building where the noisy party was still in full swing. Now where? Down to the valley, maybe, dare he go therein the dark, to hide in the cave till the party was over. He shuffled along, turning down the side street that led to the valley, skulking near fences every time the headlights of a passing car rushed by, but at the end of the street, on the edge of the valley, the utter darkness filled him with terror and he couldn’t go through with it. He sat on a rock, laid his head on his arms, and dozed off, awaking in a panic every minute, where am I, cruelly banging his kneecap, tearing out hairs, muttering, This is war, this is life or death, and dozed off again, tired out, and life, if he ever lived it, if his disaster didn’t portend an untimely death, would in all likelihood force him to be constantly alert, constantly juggling, without pride, without distinction, what would such a life be worth. But what choice is there? He heaved a bitter sigh: Calm down, you’re becoming hysterical, you’re exaggerating, there are plenty of kids your age who haven’t started growing yet, you might start growing any minute. Right away, in fact. But what about his measurements, he argued with himself; every morning he measured himself, in the morning the cartilage between the vertebrae is still unabraded, which makes a difference of about three millimeters in his favor, and thanks to the marks Papa drew for him once on the door, Aron knew for a fact, every time he left or entered his bedroom, that he was no taller now than he had been at ten and a half, he was exactly the same height and weight; so what, stupid, he didn’t need measurements, he knew from the pangs in his heart and the coded communications, the idiom of his most intimate grammar, that this was no temporary delay, it was becoming, God forbid, the thing itself, and just as he had felt chosen somehow before his problem started, now he felt chosen, too, same difference, which gave his disaster a certain dark and twisted logic: it was his disaster, out of which he had been fashioned.

A car slowed to a halt very near him, with its lights dimmed, and the couple in it started writhing and moaning, but Aron didn’t wake up, he slept like a stone, counting their breaths; by ninety-one it’s usually over, sometimes ninety-five at most; he knows these things, it’s always the same, with minimal variations. A long bare foot jutted out through the open window, and in important matters they have no choice; when it comes it comes, it grabs them by the claws and won’t let go, and it’s seventy-five already, and the clumsy back goes up and down, why do they always groan like that, and maybe it has to go in and out a few times before it connects, and soon we’ll hear the krechtzes; ninety-one,ninety-two, what’s this, a hitch, some technical difficulty, ninety-nine wow, a hundred already, and he continued to count in sheer amazement, awakened by the sight of the bare brown foot with the painted toenails which began to squirm, one hundred and thirty-seven already, here come the krechtzes, thank God, maybe he miscounted, maybe he was so tired that he counted faster than he usually did at home, one two three and four groans jumbled up; now she’ll whisper to him, Pull out, and five and six; what’s the matter with her, she’s supposed to scream, Pull out, arois, it’s been like that for nights already, and then he’ll cling to her with all his might, he won’t want to pull out, and she’ll push him and scream in a whisper the whole house can hear, Arois arois, be careful, pull out, arois charois marois parois, but the lady in the car doesn’t push him away, she doesn’t scream, Pull out, they just keep panting and groaning, going up and down like a giant piston, with the bare foot wriggling and squirming out the window, and the long toes stretching out farther and farther, soon they’ll stretch all the way to Aron, maybe she can’t hear him, but the whole world can hear him now. Aron counts the groans in astonishment, seven, eight, nine, maybe he’ll find a use for these details someday, maybe someday the question that has been plaguing him for so long — ever since he saw that curious amber glob in the handkerchief — would be answered once and for all: when exactly do they decide to piss the sperm, and he sat up, suddenly excited, that is, if they do decide! As if it were something they could decide! You stupid idiot! And he started banging his kneecap with one hand, sticking the other between his teeth and biting it hard, to keep from sobbing, and the darkness whirled before his eyes as the animals ran around and around and grabbed each other’s tails in their mouths, chasing faster and faster; what timing and precision were needed here, to prevent them from crashing, because just as they’re about to, a long hand, a reliable hand, will reach out and grab them in midair, but what if it misses them, what if someday they explode into a thousand pieces, or maybe it happened already.

He jumped up, forgetting they might see him, and ran with a pounding heart all the way to Memorial Park, but here too there were groans and whispers and sucking sounds; where could he run now, where could he rest awhile and understand his mounting fear, how long would they go on dancing up there; again he stumbled back toward the building project, beating his temples with his fists to silence them, it’s nothing,it couldn’t be, it’s all in your mind; he could hear the music from afar, Mama was dancing too. Who with? Whose arm was holding her, whose masterful hand was guiding her to the beat like a fish through water. Hello, hello, he whispered from his hiding place, what are you doing, what have you done, you already have a girl and boy, right? But there’s no answer, no answer, muttered Aron to himself, retreating half asleep, hungrily drifting through the drowsy streets; no matter how he tried, there was still no answer; why this anger, why this hatred, hadn’t he been trying his level best for the past three years, sitting for hours in front of a faucet that dripped once every second, he thought that would have an effect, collecting cigarette butts in the street and smoking them secretly in the bomb shelter, breathing in and out through his nose so the smoke would get in and make him sneeze so hard it would jolt it; and he would go to building sites and open his mouth and inner self when they dynamited the rocks, and once he swiped a huge magnet from the science lab at school and slept with it under his pillow all night, though he knew it could cause terrible damage, what if the good came out with the bad in one big hodgepodge, did he have a choice, and nothing happened; it was enough to drive you crazy, so near and yet so far, a fat little mound with a drooping eye in the middle and pouting lips, and little warts all over, the memory center and the laughter center and the speech center and the sports center, and maybe there’s a love center and a happiness center too, glued to it, dependent on it alone; now we will hurt this mound, we will injure this gland, this Hitler, we will stick pins in the veins of our hands and feet, ice on the jugular, you won’t get any blood or any air, a total blockade; he put his hands around his neck and choked himself for thirty seconds, forty seconds, forty-five seconds, black circles whirled around in his head, dark birds, wake up, bitch, wandering around the house with an upturned lid; granules penetrate it. Infection. Pus. He smeared a drop of nail-polish remover inside his nose and screamed when the burning started. But he didn’t give up, how could he, this was life or death.

A week has gone by since Independence Day and they’re still not home from camp, where are they; he poked little things into his wounded nose: a tiny piece of dough with a Trojan horse of yeast inside it and a note with the ineffable Name, like the Golem of Prague, and nothing. Please, wake up, give a sign of life, say that someday everythingwill work out. Even if it’s ten years from now, I don’t care, just let it work out okay in the end. He wrote with his finger in the sand, in the air, he didn’t care that people were staring, he wrote begging letters, appealing to its common sense, and what did it answer, nothing, it ignored him. So he had no choice, he sat down and wrote out a vicious threat, cutting out the black letters from the obituary notices, It shall be neither mine nor thine.His hand trembled as he folded the paper into a tiny ball and pushed it up his nostril with a matchstick, ten times at least the gland tossed it back to him with a sneeze, till he managed to push it in beyond the sneeze line, and for three days now the letter had been carried upward by a courier or the shadow of a courier, or a child, white and pure and tiny, running with the letter in his hand, winding in and out of the nasal cavities, onward, onward. Aron to Aron, where are you now, over; Aron to Aron, still far away, over; and so day in day out, whether he was walking in the street or sleeping or eating supper or Aroning, inside him burned an ember with a little dancer and a green-eyed boy whose ears were pointed with seriousness and responsibility, and Aron was with them too, three friends, three in one, quietly planning how to salvage the one, and meanwhile, the misty courier crosses the white plain, the ossified reticulation in the forehead, and works his way upward, over a scaffolding of bones and pipes and cords, and suddenly stops in fear: before him, all alone in a red-black sea of cool clotting blood, floated a large marble egg, or was it a pale-yellow coral, forsaken, full of fissures, covered in a frosty film. Aron to Aron, how will I cross the sea, over; Aron to Aron, an anonymous paper boat is waiting at the dock to take you, over. A misty boy floats in a paper boat, rows quietly across, careful not to wake the Cyclopean eye in the middle of the fatty mound on top of the coral, and the sea is thick, its tides slow and lazy, and before the boat lies the sleeping coral, and coming closer he can see it was swollen, yellow, you could scarcely feel it breathing, and the three-in-one awaited the news, silently cheered him on with the loveliest, purest words in the world, putting their heads together, fusing into each other, never to part; they have a single language, rings of warmth spread out from them to his stomach, to his legs, and in birds’ nests lined with colorful fluff lie the invalids, squeaking through their gaping mouths at Aron the savior; today’s atrivals are “longing” and “wandering” and “heron” and “diamond” and “autumn” and “lonely” and “a purple scarf” and “beauty unadorned”and “Jerusalem of gold,” all culled from the Hit Parade on the radio, an excellent source of words; in the middle there was news, Nasser Kasser Basser Yasser, and later that afternoon he would be releasing “lamb” and “twilight” and “train” and “midnight” and “kiss me by the sea” from that pretty new song, so he must send them off with supplies for the journey, three squares of friendship sugar and a spoonful of royal jelly, and he opens the jar of sour cream and licks off the buttery coating; Mama was standing behind him but she didn’t say a word, she saw he opened her refrigerator without permission, but she watched in silence, she wouldn’t dare say anything now. He crosses to the sink. Turns the tap. Turns it some more. Her eyes bore into the back of his neck. He doesn’t turn it off. Stomps away; the water gushes, splashing him as far as the pantry. There’s a tap in the bathroom too. And a flushing toilet. The water comes from far away, from deep wells and vast cisterns, and electricity reaches us from distant cataracts, and whirlpools and rushing rivers, and gas to cook the chicken soup with noodles gushes out of the earth, in the beginning there was tohubohu, he runs his finger over the gas switch, he can feel a giant rig boring into the sea, into the ground, he hears a high-pitched whistle, and sniffs a pungent smell, and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters; slowly he walked out of the kitchen, directly in front of her staring eyes, and a mighty stream of water flows, and the courier in the paper boat has secretly reached the shores of the coral island, tied his boat to a blighted bush. Aron to Aron, have reached shore, am on my way, over; Aron to Aron, what do you see there, over; silence. The only sound coming through is the sound of his astonished breathing. Aron to Aron, I repeat, what do you see, what is it like, tell me, tell me, over; silence; and the tender boy, misty and white, fades out as he slithers over the chilly ash-or-frost-dabbled earth, creeping cautiously over the crimpled terrain and the pearly-gray craters. Aron to Aron, you wouldn’t believe how horrible it is here, over; Aron to Aron, I hear you, over. And a little boy crawls through crevices and crannies with a black letter in his hand, and withered bushes scratch his face and crumble at his touch; once everything was full of life here, the bushes flowered and thrived, there were four flowing rivers, blue and clear, he had original ideas, innovations, children enjoyed them. Where am I today and where are they, thinks Aron, lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, there are no children here, they all stayed to fill in the dwindling ranks for theharvesting or reaping or gathering or gleaning or whatever, and at night they sit around the campfire, singing to the strains of the accordion, and there was only one important question left, namely, was Gideon still loyal, was he still waiting for Aron, and the courier presses on in silence, his eyes open wide, and he ran his grief-stunned hand over memories and sights and reflections and laughter now gray and musty as withered fruit, the Aron it had cursed and turned to stone by growing over his life and stifling it; and suddenly the ember in his stomach glowed with a soft red light that spread through his limbs, warming him inside, trickling down to his feet. An idea, an idea, he had an idea, eureka, we’re saved, ideas were coming out of his new place now. Aron to Aron, an urgent message: pick up everything you can, do you read me, over? Aron to Aron, message unclear, repeat, over; Aron to Aron, collect whatever you can and smuggle it back here on the double, everything must go, remove it and evacuate, over and out; and Aron jumped from his bed, bewildered, why hadn’t he thought of it sooner; and now we have to help him, muster our forces, call up the reserves, the volunteers and the civil guard, and declare emergency measures; the windows were crisscrossed with black masking tape already, Mama and Papa did that yesterday while he lay abed watching them divide the sky into squares; that’s how life prisoners see the world, but he would escape, he would slip out of his cell and break through the siege, through the naval blockade, the fire brigade, the bire frigade, he ran back to the kitchen, the taps were closed and Mama was staring into the open refrigerator, holding two bottles of milk, weighing them in her hands, and suddenly she sensed him there, she veered around and let out a scream, an unidentified expression appearing on her face; Aron stares at her, perceives a primitive stratum, and freezes, shocked; who is she, who is she, reaches into his pocket, and Mama recoils as if he were about to pull out a knife; he gropes in his pocket and doesn’t find it, though he understands well enough without the onion, it’s flickering at him, out of the depths of her Cain-like guilt, a needle of rage and retribution. It’s all your fault, said the onion, you brought it on us, you have only yourself to blame for what happened between me and Papa, and he drew back from the animal look in her eyes, farther and farther back, his hands flying out behind him to keep from bumping into anything, he could knock something over, now let’s see how fast you catch. He bumped into the wall and stopped. Get out, he shouted,moving toward her, get out of here right now, and she retreated, not looking at him, yes, suddenly he saw: she couldn’t look at him. Or maybe she could, and now she did, so what did it mean, groping her way backward. Aron, Aron, come back and be yourself again, she murmured; her voice, she was afraid of him now, let her say more: Aron, I’m asking you, I’m afraid but I’m also worried, what’s become of you lately; if only she would go on looking at him, but she looked away, she did, what could he do to make her look at him again, how would he make her give him that long, deep gaze she used for calming him and winning his forgiveness, now he would really shock her; Eef you vant to be a bradher,he nearly screamed at her, though he didn’t dare, how could she help but guess what was frightening him, when once, before the problems started and her heart was open and quivering to him, he had a horrible dream about her and the whole next morning he could barely look at her, he was so frightened and remorseful, and she guessed, naturally, and sat him down on the edge of the bathtub and said, You dreamed something, didn’t you, and he nodded. Something bad? Yes. And she tilted his chin back and peered into him, through his eyes, and rolled herself inside like a little ball, and washed through him like a storm, through the caves and crevices in him, and came out again and sat facing him like before, only now she was panting; You dreamed I was dead, tfu tfu tfu, and now everything is all right again and I forgive you, and he snuggled up and cried and cried till all the knots came out of him; she knew how to save him, it was easy for her; but don’t you see, she’s trying now too, her eyes transfixed him, her lips suddenly trembled, searching for the words in her mouth to save him. They’ll put you in the crazy house if you don’t start being yourself again, Aron, she implored in a whisper, and in her throat, or was it his, he felt the stab, the spears of all the tears she had swallowed. Ice baths they’ll give you there; he knew: it was her love talking; he listened for the tumult in her voice riding the crest of a tidal wave of tears. Electric shocks they’ll give you there, Aron, and only he and she understand this language, and if not for the pillar of tears Aron and she would be drowning all the time, in a never-ending, a primal scream. And I suggest you get hold of yourself while it’s still possible; but why doesn’t she look at him, who is she protecting, it can drive you crazy, but she has been looking into him, clasping the two milk bottles. Maybe I’ve made some mistakes too, she whispered, we’re all a little tense thesedays, with Yochi going into the army and the military situation, and you’re not so easy to get along with either, you know, maybe you are a special child like everyone says, with your brains and your talent, kineahora, and maybe we’re not smart or educated enough to understand what’s happening to you, Aron, and we haven’t read books or studied in the university, but what, you think I don’t worry about it all the time, and even though your papa never had a father himself and doesn’t know how to be a father and makes mistakes sometimes, and I grew up without parents for most of my life too, we try; so why wasn’t she looking at him again, she remembered suddenly and looked away. And you know we’re only thinking of your good, don’t you, even when we get angry at you, what do we have in this world but you and Yochi. Oh please, let her say it again, let her swear it on the Bible, and now both eyes are definitely on him, big and open wide, swallowing him in; so what’s real, what’s true, let her say it already, let her say definitively, is she or isn’t she, and everything will stop and he’ll relax, and she continued looking at him, taking him in, her arms going out to him, and he too went toward her, everything collapsed inside, but at the last second before he fell into the whirlpool his hands fluttered at his sides and flew out at her and struck the bottles hard; he knew she’d catch them, though, he simply had to do it before the reconciliation, her eyes already promised she would catch them easily, so what did he need this for, and he continued to bellow and lash out at her, blind with rage and humiliation, at her, at himself, and the milk flowed out, all over her body, milk and broken glass, and he pushed her and pushed her: Get out, get out of here, whore, spitting and screaming, and he returned to the refrigerator and stuffed his mouth full of sour cream, and halvah by the handful, to fortify his new place, to defend it and expand it, there was a lot of work to do. Aron to Aron, what have you found, over.