The Zigzag Kid

by David Grossman

  Now I was sure he wouldn’t try to surprise us, and put the gun back in my pocket.

  Dad smiled wryly, and said to Felix: “In the end, what we teach them, they use against us, eh?” and Felix nodded.

  Dad drew nearer, looking big and sweaty and unshaven, the perfect SOS. We hadn’t seen each other for three days. I wanted to jump up and hug him and shout for joy that it was ending this way. But we didn’t even shake hands. Maybe it was better that way, man-to-man. Felix asked us to enter the vault and sit back-to-back. He tied us tightly to each other, humming as he worked, and the mark over his lips stood out again, the way it did each time he tied somebody up. He finished tightening the belt so I wouldn’t be able to undo it, and I could hear Dad rasping at him not to tie it too tight. “Don’t hurt the boy,” he said.

  Then Felix pulled Dad’s handcuffs out of his pocket and cuffed his hand to mine. Hearing the cuff clicking around Dad’s wrist, I remembered the prisoner on the train and how he had turned into the policeman’s jailor. What a weird trip this had been.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Felix leaning over Dad. “She was very special,” he said. “I know you really love her. But enough. You must to forget the dead. Life goes on. Nonny is good boy. He needs to have a mother. Listen to me, Mr. Feuerberg: old Felix knows many, many women in his day—but no one, ever, like your Miss Gabi. She is very smart lady. Think kind thoughts of her. Forgive me if I am mixing up in your private affairs. Thank you and goodbye.”

  I could feel Dad breathing against my back. I was afraid he was about to explode. Felix circled the parcel he had just tied together and leaned over me with a smile; at first it was the old mesmerizing smile that turns everything blue, but then suddenly he wiped it off and gave me another one, from the heart.

  “We have good time together, eh?”

  I nodded.

  “You are kid like nobody else. You are like crook and you are also good. Big jumble! Now that I see you, there is nothing more I need, because now I know: Felix will live on in this world.” He sniffled loudly. His blue eyes were red at the rim. “Okay, enough. I must to go now. Urgent business elsewhere. Maybe I see you again sometime. Maybe not. Maybe one day you meet Grandfather Noah in street and say hello. Anything can happen in this world. But most important is that you know Felix now, and I know you.” He reached out gently and touched the golden ear of wheat on my chain as though bidding it farewell, too. “And also, is important that I know Lola will be watching over you, to make sure you don’t turn out, God forbid, like Felix, except in little ways, so you remember there is more to life than rules, that in this life there must to be room for rules you make yourself!” And then he drew closer and, before I knew it, kissed me on the forehead.

  “And remember, Nonny: life is the light between darkness and darkness. And you have seen better than most the light of Felix passing through this world.”

  A flash of blue and he was gone.

  We sat in silence, Dad and I, back-to-back.

  Where do we begin?

  Where do we be-ga-be—ga-be—ga-bi.

  “So how’s Gabi?” I ventured.

  Silence, then a sigh, “Waiting at home.”

  “Is she going to leave us?”

  I heard him rub his whiskered cheek against his shoulder.

  “She gave me an ultimatum. I have till Sunday to decide.”

  Just as I figured. Yes, I knew everything.

  Neither of us spoke.

  And then he grumbled, “Do you still have the gun?”

  I felt my pocket with my elbow. It was empty except for the folded scarf. Felix, that scoundrel, had picked my pocket while he kissed me! I wanted to laugh, but stopped myself out of respect for the feelings of my father, to whom I was very much attached.

  And suddenly Dad said, “Do you realize it’s only a few more days till your bar mitzvah?”

  I just couldn’t hold it in anymore. The laughter blared out of me. Dad sat in silence, his broad back sturdy and still. I laughed from the pit of my stomach and from my toes; I laughed back and forth and to and fro … and then I felt him kind of move, kind of shake behind me, trying to stop himself with all his might, until finally he roared with laughter, pitching me from side to side like a boat in a storm, like someone trying to waltz with a refrigerator on his back. I guess you could say I had just made him laugh for the first time in my life. The first, the only, and the last time: that’s three times, all in all.

  He did have a laugh—a real horselaugh!

  “Things get so complicated sometimes,” he said when we had both calmed down.

  “I missed you,” I said quickly.

  “So did I,” said Dad, and that was all I needed from him.

  A few minutes later I was able to talk again. “I was in the newspaper,” I said.

  “Oh, is that all? The whole country was up in arms on account of you. And in the end you say it wasn’t a kidnapping.”

  “Because it wasn’t.”

  “I’m going to get in trouble because of this mess. As usual. Never mind, though. One reprimand more or less won’t make much difference.”

  I said nothing. I had already decided for him about the police. I didn’t care whether they came to my bar mitzvah or not. Who needed their presents? I had plenty of presents now.

  “So I’ll get in trouble,” he said suddenly, tightening the muscles of his back till I was lifted off the floor. “I’ve been in trouble with them for the past twelve years! For twelve years I haven’t gotten any kind of decent promotion. They throw only the most piddling cases my way. What more can they do to me?”

  We heard the wailing of sirens in the street. A loud commotion, shouted orders.

  “They’ve arrived!” Dad was fuming. “I told Ettinger to be here at 0900. I didn’t tell him why. Looks like we’re going to have a hot time now.” Then he added the amazing words: “I hope at least your grandfather got away.”

  That evening we went out to a restaurant, Gabi, Dad, and I. It was the happiest dinner of my life, though I must admit, the meal at the restaurant with Felix was a little more elegant. As we were tucking in, I told them everything, or almost everything—or actually, very little, because the minute I started talking I realized I couldn’t tell them the main thing, because the main thing was kind of vague and didn’t make much sense. I felt like someone waking out of a dream, trying to convey that dream to the people around him, only to feel it fading away.

  But one thing was still solid and substantial: the gift that had been sent to me out of the dream, and which was sitting on my lap. I held it tightly, and it’s been with me ever since. Too bad I don’t have a good enough ear to play the recorder, the simple wooden recorder Zohara left me. But whenever I feel sad or lonely, I sit on the windowsill, with my legs dangling out, put the recorder to my mouth, and listen for the undertones.

  Later we discussed Dad’s future on the force, and it turned out he didn’t have one.

  “I’ll submit my resignation tomorrow morning. Look—uh—Gabi, I want to start a new life.”

  Gabi blushed red and stared down at the tablecloth. Suddenly I understood something: that he didn’t say “uh—Gabi” to annoy her. He was just pausing to make sure he didn’t blurt out another name accidentally, the name that was always on the tip of his tongue.

  “It was a mistake, staying on the force for so many years after what happened with Zohara,” he said, and I knew I had guessed right. It also made me feel good to hear him utter her name so freely.

  “My real life was right here all along, only I didn’t see it. I buried myself in hard work and wasted a lot of precious time.”

  I listened openmouthed. I had never heard him talk this way before. It was almost as if Gabi had written the speech for him. Gabi, by the way, was silent almost all evening. She seemed to be waiting to hear his decision.

  “The past few days have taught me what’s important, and who’s important, and about the kind of life I want to live and what’s really right for me
. I wanted to use this evening—to make a change,” he said.

  He groped for something in his pocket, a little square box, the kind widowers take out of their pockets in the movies when they want to propose to their children’s governess.

  “Wait, Dad!” I shouted. “Don’t spoil it for me!”

  I pulled the wrinkled scarf out of my pocket, like a magician pulling a scarf out of his sleeve, and I was a magician, too; I spread it on the table, purple and sheer, and waited for all the heavy breathing to subside, and then, with forced composure, set the golden ear of wheat in the middle.

  “This is for you, Gabi,” I said. “I did it all for you.”

  Gabi covered her red face with her hands, and the tears began to flow.

  “Don’t cry!” I implored her in a whisper. “You’ll ruin everything!”

  “Let her cry,” said Dad. “They’re tears of joy.”

  Apparently something had changed between them while I was away.

  Gabi ran her fingers over the scarf and she clasped the ear of wheat. “Now I have everything,” she said. “Everything I need to make a wish. Will wonders never cease?”

  She bit her trembling lip and looked bravely at Dad. She shut her eyes tightly and made a silent wish.

  As she was wishing, Dad opened the little box and placed a beautiful, shiny ring on the table. People sitting nearby us dropped their forks and watched.

  “What do you say—uh—Gabi, if you’re not too busy next week, will you marry me?” asked Dad shyly.

  He sure knew how to propose, my dad.

  “A ring,” murmured Gabi. “A diamond—you shouldn’t have—”

  With trembling hands she picked up the ring, smiling apologetically at Dad as she struggled to get it on her finger. She tried a thinner finger, but that didn’t work either, and Dad cleared his throat and scowled at the other tables, until finally she managed to slip it on her little finger, she would never be able to get it off again, and Dad forced himself to smile and said, “That’s so you can go on twisting us all around your little finger.”

  She glanced at me and then at him and started to laugh. It was a new sort of laugh, low and mysterious, like the burbling of a secret joke inside her throat, and for a moment I had a strange and probably ridiculous thought—that maybe Gabi had played a slightly larger role in my kidnapping than I first supposed. Maybe she hadn’t been working alone but in secret association with a cunning, slightly crooked partner, someone who—but no—impossible—it couldn’t be!

  I looked back at her, intrigued, amazed: was it yes or no? Her face gave nothing away. I never did find out the answer to my question, and consequently deposited it in the bureau of questions I delight in musing about without ever wanting to know the answer, because while it’s true that knowledge is power, mystery has its own special sweetness.

  Then Gabi turned to Dad full face, turned to him with radiant joy; for a moment her inner beauty really did light up her face, and she said in a clear, ringing voice, “Yes, Jacob, I will marry you.”

  And she looked around with girlish pride at all the people in the restaurant, beaming from ear to ear, beaming at everyone, at me, and at Dad, and said tenderly, “Oh, Jacob—”

  Then she stood up and hugged him around the neck. The waiters and the other customers stared unabashed. I, as usual, wanted to bury myself. First Felix and Lola, now Dad and Gabi. There was apparently something about me that made men and women throw themselves at each other.

  I looked down, I looked up. “Jacob,” that’s a nice name, I thought. I wanted to tell them to call, me Nonnik from now on. Then I ran out of things to think about. Gabi, all in tears, reached for my hand behind Dad’s back and pressed it thankfully, and then she raised it in the air and traced two words, like a secret message from her to me:

  AT LAST!

  Footnotes

  1 Should Mr. Aviezer Carmi, our retired school principal, ever read this story, I hope he will forgive me, and of course, I’ll gladly compensate him for the damage. Please understand, though, Mr. Carmi, I had no choice. The fear of Chaim Stauber leaving me was utterly unbearable. It was his friendship that saved me, I don’t know from what, maybe from being like Micah Dubovsky, another ordinary kid. When I was with Chaim, I felt there was more to me, that I had the chance to learn something else. And when Chaim began to get tired of me, I could feel myself falling back into Micah’s gaping mouth.

  About the Author

  David Grossman was born in Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous works of fiction, non-fiction, and children’s literature. His work has appeared in the New Yorker and has been translated into thirty languages around the world. He is the recipient of many prizes.

  By the Same Author

  Novels

  The Smile of the Lamb

  See Under: LOVE

  The Book of Intimate Grammar

  Duel

  Be My Knife

  Someone to Run With

  Lovers and Strangers

  Non-fiction

  The Yellow Wind

  Sleeping on a Wire

  Death as a Way of Life

  Writing in the Dark

  Also Available by David Grossman

  Be My Knife

  ‘Exhilarating … The peeling away of lies and social restraints to disclose the naked soul is gripping’ Daily Mail

  An awkward, neurotic seller of rare books writes a desperate letter to a beautiful stranger whom he sees at a class reunion. This simple, lonely attempt at seduction begins a love affair of words between Yair and Miriam – two married, middle-aged adults, dissatisfied with their lives, yearning for a sense of connection – and reawakens feelings that they thought had passed them by.

  ‘Impressive, extraordinary and exotic’

  New York Times Book Review

  Death as a Way of Life

  ‘A writer of passionate self-honesty, unafraid to ask terrible questions’ Nadine Gordimer

  In autumn 1993 the Oslo Agreements were signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, marking the beginning of the promise of constructive peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The ten years that followed were charted first by hope and optimism only to deteriorate into revenge and violence. Throughout this decade David Grossman has published articles in the American and European press, written in a personal voice – father, husband, peace activist, novelist. As he witnesses devastating events, he cries out with a prophetic wisdom, imploring both sides to return to sanity, to negotiations.

  ‘This is an eclectic mix of reflections which reinforces Grossman’s position as a major political writer … Wonderful … This refreshing critique from the inside of the crucible helps us understand a little of what has been going on since Oslo’ Independent

  Someone to Run With

  ‘Brings together the differing aspects of his writing in a book that unites social realism and dizzy teenage romance … This is a book about feelings, about highs and lows, chemical, emotional, religious’ Daily Telegraph

  Assaf has reluctantly taken a dull summer job working for the City Sanitation Department. But the days take a strange turn when he is ordered to find out who owns a distressed stray Labrador and ask them to pay a fine. Across the city, the dog’s lonely owner, Tamar, is preparing her own mission - to rescue a young drug addict caught up in Jerusalem’s dangerous underworld. As Assaf searches the streets of Jerusalem for Tamar, his life is about to irreversibly change. All he can do is hold onto the rope around the dog’s neck as together they start to run…

  ‘Both a profound study of the inner lives of two teenagers and a novel that has pace, bite and a well-sustained plot … Beautifully drawn … An intensely gripping novel’ Financial Times

  Lovers and Strangers

  ‘Absorbing and moving’ Daily Mail

  These two novellas concern love. In ‘Frenzy’, Shaul is convinced that his wife is having an affair. He feverishly imagines her, in every painful detail, with her lover. Esther has never seen the human side of her alo
of brother-in-law, but during a night-time journey Shaul unburdens himself, recreating an affair he has never witnessed. Is he mad? Or has he divined the truth? In ‘Her Body Knows', Rotem has spent most of her life being angry with her mother, Nilli. Now Nilli is dying and Rotem, who has finally found happiness in London, must return to say goodbye. She arrives with a story about Nilli, full of accusations, empathy, love and forgiveness.

  ‘Shaul’s fantasy and Rotem’s spin on a true story are two sides of one coin: Grossman’s passion for the redeeming, unpeeling power of fiction, and his art in creating fiction with such power’ Independent

  Writing in the Dark

  Throughout his career, David Grossman has been a voice for peace and reconciliation in the Israeli-Palestinian divide. In this groundbreaking collection of essays on literature and politics, he addresses the conscience of present-day Israel, a country that has lost faith in its leaders and its ideals. Writing in the Dark ends with the speech in which Grossman famously attacked Israel's disastrous Lebanon war that tragically took the life of his twenty-one-year-old son, Uri. Moving, brave and clear-sighted, these essays on literature, political ethics and the morality of the imagination are a cri de coeur from a calm voice of reason at a time of doubt and despair.

  ‘The bravest and most clear-headed interpreter of the Israeli-Palestinian divide’ Observer

  Order your copy:

  www.bloomsbury.com/DavidGrossman

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney

  Copyright © 1994 by David Grossman

  Translation copyright © 1997 by Betsy Rosenberg

  First published in Great Britain 1997

  This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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  50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

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