The Book of Intimate Grammar

33

And at the end of the month, after nearly two weeks away at work camp, Gideon returned; Aron knew he was coming home; the night before as he was getting ready for bed, he had this feeling, this hunch, and he took a long bath and washed his hair and tried to comb his eyebrows so they’d connect over the bridge of his nose, and he looked into his eyes in the mirror and silently asked himself the one important question: was Gideon still loyal to him, because the outer Yaeli was fading fast, and Aron acknowledged without too much pain that he no longer cared whether she was loyal or not, it was Gideon who counted; if Gideon had waited for him, that was all that mattered.

He slept deeply and peacefully for the first time in weeks, and when he woke up the next morning he put on clean clothes and left for school, but he took the back path, and between the buildings he caught sight of Gideon, looking very tan, his walk more vigorous, more arrogant than ever, but what did that mean; in itself, nothing.

At Memorial Park Gideon was joined by Meirky Blutreich and Hanan Schweiky and Avi Sasson, who marched alongside him, listening intently as he talked and waved his hands around, and Aron scratched his forehead on a branch; even from this distance he could see Gideon was lecturing about the war, that’s all anyone cares about these days, why doesn’t it just start already so they can get it over with, and it wasn’t hard to guess what he was saying, that we have to smear those Arabs once and for all, he knew Gideon, he knew he would go out andvolunteer today to join the Red Magen David Society, or to fill sandbags, but more important, Gideon hadn’t actually changed that much in all the time he was away, except for the shadow of a mustache over his lip which did appear a little darker and thicker from here, and his eyebrows had just about connected, though not completely yet; maybe he was still taking the pills every day. Aron winced with guilt.

He followed him up to the school gate, unsure whether to go over and show his face and talk to him as if nothing had happened, so what had, and if God forbid it had, Aron wasn’t the one who ought to feel guilty, and there would be one definite answer to a million questions, and there would no longer be any need to ask or to hope, but he didn’t go over to him or show his face, he slinked behind from tree to tree, from post to post, discerning a change in Gideon, after all; he did look sturdier or something, more sure of himself, conceited even, it was hard to say what. At the school gate Gideon turned around, and for a moment there was a troubled look in his eyes, as though he was searching for something, yes, as though he was missing someone, and Aron gasped as a quivering heartstring snapped with pain, he nearly burst out of his hiding place to show Gideon that if he did wait for him, Aron would be there, only at the very last second a viperlike message hissed through his mind, maybe it wasn’t Aron he was waiting for, and he froze and waited for Gideon to disappear into the school, and then, shrinking off, he grabbed a handful of friendship-sugar cubes from his back pocket, popping one after another into his mouth, to hell with his teeth. On his way home he stopped to pick the three leaves on the right from the bottom of the big ficus tree by the path to Gideon’s entrance; I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, poor things, here they thought it was an ordinary day, they were happy and green in the sunshine, and without any explanation someone came and plucked them. Why? Because, that’s why. And then he went home, to bed, and worked on his laugh glands for a while, just for the record, so they would say he always tried to be cheerful, and then he put a little nylon bag over each of his middle fingers to compare the sweat, for no particular reason, what was the point, he was only running around in circles, breaking himself down, because he needed something new, fresh fuel to burn inside, but he didn’t have strength anymore, he couldn’t go on, and he wondered if Gideon had come home yet and seen it. And at four in the afternoon, not one second earlier, he went down to their rock in the valley andwalked around and around it until seven o’clock, but Gideon never showed up, maybe he took the back way home and didn’t see the leaves missing on the ficus tree; well, that was the first try.

And the morning after Aron used two stones to twist open the tap on the little pipe behind the building, and made it drip with the hollow whistling sound you could hear from far away, and at four o’clock he went down to the rock again, and again he traipsed around, all the way to the junkyard this time, but no one came, maybe a neighbor had heard the dripping and closed the tap before Gideon came home from school; second try.

And on the third day Aron took sand from the Wizo Nursery School and blocked up the holes in all three sewer covers behind the building and poured in water to make it goopy and wiped his hands and was satisfied. But he kept smelling something, he checked his shoes, no, he hadn’t stepped in anything, and still he smelled it, maybe it was coming from the sewer. He stepped on the round cement cover and laughed for real; oh, the hours they had spent here playing aju, the thousands of apricot pits they had traded, he and Gideon and Zacky; I wonder if Gideon noticed this time, maybe I should have thought of bigger, more obvious signs back then; when you’re a kid you notice these things right away, and when you grow up you have other things on your mind and you don’t walk around with your head down, searching; so in fact, if Gideon hadn’t noticed the signs, that in itself was the answer, there was nothing more to say. And at four sharp Aron went down to the valley and dozed on the rock shelf, as the warm sunshine quickened the Yaeli and Gideon inside him, faceless but both there, setting off a kind of vibration like two strings which he tried to play on so they would blend inside him, and he felt the strings twang so that when he opened his mouth he made their sound. By the time he woke up it was five-thirty, he’d certainly developed a flair for naps, at least that, and he walked down to the junkyard and checked around and did his calculations, and opened and closed the door at least ten times, and decided the problem was that the tongue of the lock stuck too far into the socket, which made it pretty hard to pull the pin away from the inside, not to mention the problem of lighting, because what if he dropped a nail or hinge with his perspiring fingers, how would he find them on the floor in the dark, he wouldn’t even be able to light a match in there because there wouldn’t be enough oxygen, maybe he could tape a little flashlightunder the freezer compartment, and by now it was seven o’clock, so Aron went home; he wasn’t totally discouraged yet, not at all, though there was a kind of sadness gnawing at him, the sadness of parting, but what if Gideon never went out behind the building and didn’t notice the wet sand in the holes.

The next morning he picked up a piece of chalk and followed the arrows on the sidewalk, at first he thought he would have to draw the arrows himself, he’d forgotten that every generation draws arrows and all he had to do was add two slanty lines to each of the existing arrows; he was enjoying this as though he were part of the game, and for a moment he even thought of following the arrows past the building project, but he ran out of curiosity, what did he care where their treasure was. In the afternoon he went down to the junkyard and climbed inside the little refrigerator, and discovered that the freezer compartment forced him to work with his chin on his chest, this was an unexpected problem. He crawled out and closed the door, and tried to stick his hand in through the rubber insulation strips, but they didn’t stretch enough and snapped behind his fingers with a moist, wormy swish, and Aron thought maybe he’d have to grease it with something, but suddenly he had a better idea, he would bring a big can opener from home, the kind with ball bearings, and he’d wind it up the rubber insulation strips of the refrigerator, the way you open a can, only from the inside out. And he patted himself on the shoulder and said, Dynamite idea, Kleinfeld, but there remained the problem of the tongue in the socket: he tried to poke in the skinny little Yemenite, the runt of Papa’s screwdrivers, but couldn’t even fit that in. What to do? He sat and thought a minute, his feet dangling out, not touching the ground; on the bus he liked to practice finding the seats over the wheels at a single glance, they were higher, and suddenly a loud siren pierced the air, maybe the war had started already, and it stopped right away, they must be testing them, but the shrill wailing sound had annoyed him, he jumped out and slammed the door; the squatty refrigerator wobbled as though absorbing the shock.

At supper that evening everyone ate in silence, concentrating on their plates. Papa’s army knapsack was packed and ready by the door, and Aron wondered what would become of him if Papa left too and he stayed home alone with Mama. Grandma coughed and spat a little mashed chicken on the table, and Mama slapped her shoulder, hard,too hard. For a moment they all stopped chewing, Grandma gasped, and Aron thought it was all over. But she recovered. It wasn’t her time yet. Who wants some more mashed potatoes? asked Mama wearily. Papa did; she got up to serve him and Aron saw she was walking peculiarly, sort of dragging herself a little bowleggedly. Oh please, give me a break, she’s walking the way she always does, and Aron quickly asked for seconds too: More mashed potatoes, thanks, lots of mashed potatoes, he said too loudly. She made a face, who cares, and she wouldn’t look at him directly; that is, she looked at him, but from the side. He devoured the starch of perseverance and asked for thirds. Yochi’s chair stood empty, and everyone kept glancing at it, even Grandma. A couple of days ago, at such a time as this, right in the middle of supper, Yochi opened her mouth and announced that her continued efforts over the past few months had finally paid off, the town major had agreed to give her an early call-up date, and with a smile of triumph, of sweet revenge, she described how she had sat outside his office every day, morning till night, for three solid weeks, till he finally gave in and signed her up six months ahead of schedule, and Aron, the food in his mouth a tasteless mush, retorted inwardly what Mama said aloud: What, you’re so miserable here you have to run away to the army, and Yochi said nothing in reply, she was silent, and everyone kept silent with her, they ate their soup and swallowed, ate and swallowed, and Mama sighed, she was on the verge of tears sitting next to Yochi, but she controlled herself, maybe she regretted the deferral she’d wanted so badly for her, and he peeked up and saw Yochi surveying the scene, as though pressing down on a seal to engrave it in her memory: the little kitchen with the narrow Formica table and the tiles with the flower decals where Mama stuck the wax paper and the nylon bags to dry, and Mama herself, and Papa and Grandma and him; everything was converted to the past tense by the sheer force of her gaze, and the next few days were so insufferably oppressive Aron couldn’t wait for Yochi to leave, and on the morning of the third day Papa took her down to the recruiting center and she disappeared as if she’d cut herself out of the house with a knife, and then late last night she finally called; they woke him up and sent him running to the phone in his pajamas to talk to her, he was sleepy, he heard the exultant voice on the other end of the line and didn’t know who it was. She said that due to the situation she’d been transferred to a field unit. She spokefast, didn’t call him by name, didn’t say li’l brother, and when she asked how he was, it sounded as though she didn’t want to know.

Now he lay in bed planning tomorrow, trying to guess what Gideon was thinking; suppose he hadn’t seen the signs, could be, maybe he was busy concentrating on the preparations, but why hadn’t he come over to see Aron after camp, what was he afraid of, what did he have to hide, all he had to do for God’s sake was to say one word; was he loyal, yes or no, and it wasn’t as if Aron would do anything to him, all he needed was his answer, and after that, Gideon would be free of him forever, because if the answer was yes, if Gideon had remained loyal and waited, then Aron would be instantly redeemed. He was absolutely sure of it. Like Sleeping Beauty waiting for a kiss; like the Independence Day parade that doesn’t begin until the Prime Minister gives the signal. Aron was ready. One word and everything would zoom ahead.

The smell of Papa’s cigarette drifted in from the balcony. He was bursting with impatience. At least ten times a day he called his unit, the military police, and they kept saying they didn’t need him yet. From the salon came the sound of mumbling: Mama. There was something in her tone of voice, a wrinkle of secrecy and subterfuge. Aron jumped up, always prepared, and tiptoed to the hall for a peek. But he was wrong this time: there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. Mama had sat Grandma on the Pouritz with her right hand on the armrest. She rotated it to the desired angle and then placed Grandma’s paralyzed left hand on the support she’d made with two volumes of Winston Churchill. Aron watched, trying to remember what had excited his attention. On the balcony he saw the broad shadow of Papa’s back with a slender column of smoke rising above it. Mama wound the yarn on Grandma Lilly’s outstretched hands. Now try to remember, Mamchu, she whispered so low he could scarcely hear, Leibaleh’s brother, What’s-his-name, the one you told us about who was killed by the Germans, remember? Nod yes or no, the one you said there was something wrong with, do you remember what it was? What? Show me by nodding. Was he, eppes, deaf? Was he epileptic? If yes, nod; was he crippled from polio? Was he a midget? And she began to wind the yarn from the double pack on Grandma’s hands into a ball, sputtering questions Aron strained to hear: Was he missing any fingers or toes, Was he an albino? Was he feeble-minded? Aron stared at the growing ballof yarn, and Mama’s nimble fingers, and her lips moving in the monotonous interrogation, till at last she fell strangely silent, though she seemed still to question Grandma wordlessly as her hands flitted right and left, stretching and winding, her little face receding to the monotonous winding rhythm, and Aron watched the green wool stretch and wind, stretch and wind; he knew that color, it was his sweater! The green sweater with the triangles she knitted him last winter, that still fit, what was she doing, her eyes were turning glassy, shining coldly. Aron took one step forward, even if he went in and stood in front of her now she wouldn’t notice, she was completely out of herself, her hands worked on mechanically. Now, now, go in and scream at her: Why, how dare you, it was a perfectly good sweater, but he said nothing and only stared at her glassy eyes over the green ball of yarn, her tongue sticking out between her teeth, small, pointy, very pink; she took short whistling breaths, her hands never stopping, like a human spinning wheel. Unless someone stopped her, she could go on like this forever. Grandma stared blindly ahead, maybe she would stay in her condition for years, maybe death had forgotten her, maybe she was already dead, maybe this was death, and when the yarn was all gone, then Grandma herself would start to unravel, and then the Pouritz, and then the Vichtig carpet and the Methuselah fauteuiland the Bordeaux and the buffet and the wallpaper and the walls, everything would start to unravel, it wouldn’t die, it would unravel into one long thread, and just then the tail end of the green yarn passed through Mama’s fingers and she twiddled the empty air. Her shoulders dropped. Her face fell. She sighed.

The next day Aron went off with his school bag and a sandwich and an apple, but he hid at the Wizo Nursery School till he saw Mama leave to do the shopping, and then he hurried home. First he made sure Grandma was still breathing under the tightly tucked Scottish plaid, then he went to piss and smelled vomit in the toilet; somebody barfed in there, well, they probably had an upset stomach, that’s all, maybe the herring yesterday was spoiled, why twist everything around, they’re old, at their age it’s impossible, yes, but what about that woman in Egypt, the one Yochi mentioned. Quickly he climbed up on a chair and started rummaging through the top shelves in his closet. But he forgot, why had he climbed up here and what was he looking for, and then he started groping around, unfolding his old clothes, all the shorts and long trousers, the checkered flannel shirts and the pullovers and pajamas,from last year and ten years ago, even his baby clothes; we never throw anything out around here. With this pair of pants he won the fifth-grade jumping championship, on these pants there was a permanent bloodstain, he had worn them the time he tried to find out how a blind person feels riding a bicycle, and here was the Trumpeldor shirt with the cut-off sleeve for the plaster cast, and here were the pajamas he wore as a five-year-old when he slept over at Gideon’s for the first time, and here it was, this was what he had been looking for, the red T-shirt from day camp, the time he and Gideon had their big feud, when Aron was the captain of the volley ball team and had to choose his players and he picked Gideon last, not because Gideon wasn’t a good player, he just wanted the suspense to build up before he rescued Gideon in the end, like when he pretended the Arabs conquered Jerusalem and the Egyptian Colonel Shams, out of esteem for Aron, let him save his five best friends from the firing squad, and Aron went down the lines of beseeching faces; he only did it to increase the excitement and Gideon’s relief and happiness, like Joseph confessing to Benjamin and his brothers at the last minute, but that started their big feud, for a whole month, the worst month of their lives, which was when Aron devised the secret sign system, to guarantee that no future fight of theirs would endure for more than a week, and now he tried to fold the clothes and straighten up the mess he’d made. Hmm, how long would it take her to notice, he wondered, and then he washed the red shirt with water and ran downstairs to hang it as conspicuously as possible on the line behind the building, only a blind man would miss it there, and then he went back home.

He sat down at his desk and started writing to Yochi: he hoped she was well, taking good care of herself, things here were fine, nothing new at home, her bed was waiting for her; and he started wondering about her pen pals, they must all have been called up by now, and blithely, as though someone else were doing it, he opened her drawer and weighed her padlocked letter box in his hand, she’d taken the key with her to the army, and as he was closing the drawer he found a page sticking halfway out of the box, and he couldn’t resist, he pulled it gently and read the strange list of names there, the names of all her pen pals, with unintelligible directions next to each in a tiny scrawl: lover killed in action, poet, daddy longlegs, dreamer, athlete, adopted, twenty-five years old, attempted suicide, romantic invalid; and beside the nameof the cripple from Australia, printed clearly: the truth. Aron read up and down the page, but it made no sense to him and he didn’t have the energy to fathom it. Quickly he scribbled out a few more lines to Yochi: Keep up your morale, the nation is behind you.

He arrived at the rock at four o’clock and sat there waiting patiently, but no one came down the path to the valley; maybe Gideon was at home getting ready, getting ready for what, all he had to do was say whether he was or wasn’t, even if he didn’t say the words out loud, if he just nodded, it would be understood. And Aron reviewed the signs he’d left so far, maybe he’d skipped one and Gideon was confused, but no, he’d left them in the proper order. From the bottom leaves of the ficus tree to the red camp T-shirt. Hmm, interesting, even then he’d had the brains to think of all those signs, and at a time when there was nothing to worry about yet; on the contrary.

He stood up and stretched as though from boredom, and started pacing this way and that, wondering about that list of Yochi’s. Someday when it was all over, he would have the time to think about things, like Yochi, and historical things like the Phoenicians, or science and flights to outer space, and discoveries and inventions and animals, and the lives of Thomas Alva Edison and Abraham Lincoln, which had interested him for years only he didn’t have the time, or about Louis Pasteur and about explorers, and about the voyage of the Kon Tiki,and about the Gypsies and the Aztecs, and about dirigibles and zeppelins, the world is full of knowledge, and once again he found himself in front of the little refrigerator and he climbed in and noticed that, once inside it, he was less aware of the stink coming out of him, the stink of his breath, and he decided to go through a trial run, without actually closing the door, and then he looked around and found a cardboard box to put his rescue tools in, and set it down on one of the shelves, and, using the little Yemenite, unscrew to the left, lifted out the two small side shelves where you put the eggs and margarine and jars of sour cream and the horseradish and mayonnaise, so they wouldn’t get in the way of his elbows, in any case he could move only his left hand in there and with that he had to untie his right shoelace and remove Mama’s nail file from under the insole, since it was probably the only tool that could fit between the tongue and the metal pin. He let it drop deliberately from pretend-sweaty fingers and groped around the floor with his eyes shut; it took him at least ten seconds too longto find it again, he would have less than sixty seconds to act in a clearheaded way. Again and again he practiced dropping it, training himself to think coolly so he would know by the sound where to find it immediately. Then he went back to the rock and waited till exactly seven o‘clock. Tomorrow, he thought, it would be three weeks since Independence Day, since he said goodbye to Gideon, the waiting, the baiting, the grating, the skating; maybe Gideon had forgotten him, he had other things to think about now, at a time like this it was easy to forget some kid you knew, nobody at school seemed particularly upset that Aron hadn’t turned up in a couple of weeks; they hadn’t noticed at home, for that matter. And suddenly evening fell and it turned cold and he rushed home and burst through the door in the middle of supper; they hadn’t waited for him, they had started without him. He sat down at his place and ate without appetite, and Papa said he called his unit again and they told him to wait patiently, first they take the younger men. As if I’m old, he fumed, I could show those guys where their legs sprout from, and he swallowed an enormous hunk of bread. “Get this, Hindaleh, at work today we were listening to the Voice of Thunder on Cairo radio, and the meathead who reads the propaganda in Hebrew said Nasser’s going to make us ‘lick the bust,’ you hear? He said ‘lick the bust,’” and he split his sides laughing, spraying spit and bread around the table as Mama watched impassively. “Ah, you’re all alike,” she said. “Arabs, Jews, you’re all alike.”

She stood up with a sigh and dragged Grandma off to bed. A few minutes later she returned, with a hasty glimpse at Aron still sitting at the table all by himself; he didn’t even bother to hide the blue-and-purple stains on his knuckles from her. Mama cleared the table. She set about baking a cake to send Yochi. She worked in silence beside him. More wearily than usual. When the silence grew unbearable she turned on the transistor. The management of the Sport Toto wishes to announce that due to the recruitment of many players to military service, all upcoming lotteries and National League games are hereby postponed. Tickets will be refunded at their place of purchase — She switched it off angrily. Aron was shocked. What did they mean, postponing the games. He shook his head in anger: It’s not fair. They’re not fair.

Mama groaned as she cracked the first egg, and her face turned very pale. Aron watched her, not daring to move. She pressed a frightenedhand to her belly. Slowly she took off her kangaroo apron and hung it on the hook. Aron didn’t get up, and didn’t ask what happened. He saw her totter to her bedroom. He was left alone in the kitchen. He cupped his hand around his nose and mouth and smelled the stink, and he knew it came from inside him, from his putrefying brain; soon all the thoughts and words that went through it would come out sick, covered with white patches, stubbed like a cigarette butt. Nervously he switched on the transistor, heard that the Helena Rubinstein Corporation wishes to inform the women of Israel that we are doing everything possible to continue production in this emergency state, to help you look your loveliest for that special man in the army. Kibbutz Or Haner announces that the wedding scheduled for next Tuesday has been postponed until — He switched it off. Soon he would go to sleep. To muster strength for tomorrow. He looked for a clean glass to drink water from but didn’t find one. Drank from a dirty glass instead. In the sink was the egg with the big bloody spot. He felt exhausted again and sat down. He thought he could see Papa on his knees at Mama’s bedside, hugging her, his head buried in her body. Over and over he grumbled to himself, What do they mean, postponing the National League, what harm would there be in letting the players out of the army for a day, for a measly few hours, instead of shutting them in there with those stupid Helena Rubinstein people. Furiously he smacked his fist.

And what’s that stink coming out of you? said Mama in a new voice, loud and impervious, when she came to wake him the following morning, and rudely, gruffly, raised the blinds before turning back to him for a better look. You’ve had it for a couple of days already. Notice that she’s looking straight at you, she isn’t afraid of you anymore. And he curled up and hid his face in the pillow; what’s changed her, why is she acting strange? She leaned over him and began to sniff suspiciously, from his feet up to his head, the way she used to sniff Grandma from behind, and suddenly she squinted. Aron to Aron, run for your life, danger, danger, over; he’d seen that look in her eyes before, the flash of horror that time in the kitchen after the thorough cleaning when the shit came out. Roughly she turned him over on his back, pushed away the hands he held up to guard his face, sniffed hard, then zeroed in on his nose. You’re insane, what have you done to your nose, meshuggeneh; it was bad enough without adding this chendelach to your list; in case the blind can’t see what you are, at least they’ll be able tosmell you? And the doctor at the first-aid station said there was no need to worry, that’s the smell you give off when something gets caught in your nasal cavities. Did he by any chance remember accidentally sticking something small up there? Aron only shook his head. Aron to Aron, get out, get out, run for your life, over. All around the station there was tumult. They were getting the stretchers ready, packing bandages, taking an inventory of medicines. From the corner of his eye Aron saw two seventh-graders he knew strutting around in white coats. Everyone looked busy, as though they were hurrying to an important meeting, even the children wore that expression on their faces. It’s a matter of a day or two before the thing starts, breathed the doctor, sticking a fine pair of tweezers into Aron’s nose and poking around. Aha, got it, ho there, that’s in pretty deep, here it comes, we’ll force it out of you, don’t move, it might hurt for just a second, and slowly and carefully he removed the vile-smelling glob and waved it in the air, but his smile of triumph quickly vanished as he peered more closely at the glob, smudged with letters. A boy your age, putting something up your nose, shame on you. The doctor was aghast, tilting his head at Aron, tsss tsss tsss,that’s something you’d expect from a three-year-old, not a grown-up ten-year-old. Silence. Mama froze. Now let her tell him, let her tell the doctor everything and the doctor will tell us what has to be done. This was the last chance. And maybe there was a perfectly simple solution. An electric shock or something. A moment of pain and it’ll be over. Now, please, before the war starts, because afterward who’ll care? He’s twelve, mumbled Mama, shamefaced. Aron stared at her. She didn’t set him straight. And before his eyes, caught in the tweezers, waved the letter that would never arrive at its destination. Aron to Aron, what now, over. He winced at himself. He had no right to complain about her. Wasn’t he too standing here not daring to open his mouth, any more than he had when she bought him elevator shoes for his bar mitzvah. He had said nothing to her then, and hated himself for it, for having betrayed himself. Twelve and a half, she mumbled lamely, tucking her head between her shoulders, dark with disgrace.

And the next day was the last day. At four o‘clock Aron went down to the valley wearing a clean pair of pants and a crisply ironed shirt, his hair slicked down with water. He left the house without a goodbye, for fear that the sight of them would hold him back or set something off inside. He had all his equipment with him. He even remembered thebig can opener, which he hid in his pants. He arrived at the rock and climbed up it, and at the highest point, with the help of his little red mirror, he flashed the reflected sun at Gideon’s open window; three short flashes, then three long ones, and three short ones again. Three times over he did it, his hands trembling slightly but scrupulous with the rhythm, and then he sat down on the rock again, feeling weak, curling up on Gideon’s part of the rock shelf, trying to stop what he was feeling, the draining out, and he must have fallen asleep then, wishing someone would touch him on the shoulder and say, You rang? But at exactly five o’clock he awoke all alone, and stood up languidly and flashed the mirror again three times, aiming at the ceiling in Gideon’s room, because maybe the first time Gideon was sleeping and didn’t see, and right away his knees buckled and he slipped off the rock and lay beside it; he’d had this stunned and hollow feeling, right here, the time he broke his arm; he had been crazy with despair then, much more than now, now was nothing in comparison, now was almost over. Back then he had jumped up and down for over half an hour. Maybe an hour. Waiting for just the right moment when his ofzeluchi brain would stray. When it would neglect to order his arm to bend in time. Back then he’d gone over all his troubles: Giora trying to drown him to save himself, Giora’s hand-me-downs, the looks people gave him everywhere he went, the insults, sly or obvious; and nothing helped, until he imagined round little Uncle Loniu standing before him at the bar mitzvah, repeating “Body-building, body-building,” and suddenly it happened, he heard a crack, and felt the pain, the worst he’d ever experienced, shooting through him as he realized he’d done it, he’d actually done a thing like that, and now they would never send him to Tel Aviv, and that’s when he started to get scared.

Again he looked at his watch and saw that almost an hour had gone by. Strange how fast time was flying, and now to signal for the third time. With what remained of his strength he climbed to the top of the rock and tried to stand up straight — his legs were trembling — to flash a final SOS; maybe last time Gideon was lying on his stomach and didn’t see the moving light-script overhead, because surely if he had seen it he would be here by now, it was an unignorable call for help, even if it came in the middle of a feud. Even when they were both grown up, living apart in foreign lands, lying in bed in their new homes, or palaces even, if they suddenly saw a light flash on the ceiling, threedots, three dashes, three dots, they would leap up and pack their bags and, without so much as a goodbye to anyone, hop on the first plane and get there just in time to rescue each other. They had sworn it.

He leaned against the rock, trying to steady himself, to put on a happy face. Why appear weak and repulsive? Trying to fill up with life from the rays of the setting sun. Let’s say he was in Komi, up to his knees in the ice, longing for this moment by the rock, but he didn’t have the strength to imagine Komi, Komi and the taiga were fading, shrinking. Aron to Aron, I’ve found something else, over; Aron to Aron, I almost forgot you were there, over; I hardly am anymore, I’m hardly there, it’s the end of the road, isn’t it, over; Aron to Aron, what did you find, over; I found, I found, deep down, under the dust, under the ground, another thing maybe you’d like to take with you, a gift, maybe it will help you, maybe it will last like the oil that burned for eight days; she used to buy a carp for the Sabbath, but it was a special carp. You’re the one who made it special, before you came along it was an ordinary carp swimming around in the bathtub, opening and closing its mouth, all fat and shiny, and you sat on the edge of the bathtub and watched it; it looked kind of silly, with its tough little body, opening and closing its mouth like a toy, swimming laps up and down the tub, and suddenly you stood up, yes, now I remember, you ran to her closet, climbed on a chair, and opened her jewelry box with the necklaces and bracelets and rings and pins, till you found what you were looking for, the shiny red bead that had dropped off, a shiny red bead, you were sure it was a ruby, and you ran to the bathtub with it, carrying it high in the air like a torch, your shiny red ruby, and then you caught the carp; it tried to wiggle out of your hands but you held it as tight as you could, though it floundered and flapped its tail and fought you, and you pushed the ruby into its mouth and down its throat with your finger, and it looked at you in furious amazement, but the ruby was in its stomach by then, and all day long you strutted around feeling proud of your secret: I have a fish with a ruby inside, and you waited for Mama to cut the carp open on Friday and find it there and make a wish, and whatever she asked would be granted instantly, so okay, it didn’t turn out the way you planned, things never do, especially not when you’re a child; it’s better not to believe in magic, so you don’t get disappointed, but now, nevertheless, on the path to the valley from the building project, here comes Gideon, just in time, at the very lastminute, walking his walk, his bowlegged walk, maybe I’m dreaming. Aron to Aron, maybe I’m dreaming, yes, maybe I am.

Hi, Kleinfeld, what’s up?

Hello, Gideon.

What are you doing here, all hunched over?

What, you saw my sign?

No. Move over. Let me sit on my side.