Everything Is Illuminated

by Jonathan Safran Foer

  "Tell her I'm so glad to meet her," the hero said. "We are all so glad to meet you," I said, and on accident I punched the pillowcases box with my elbow. "It would be impossible for you to comprehend how long we have been searching for you." She made a fire on the stove and began to cook the food. "Ask her to tell us everything," the hero said. "I want to hear about how she met my grandfather, and why she decided to save him, and what happened to her family, and if she ever talked to my grandfather after the war. Find out," he said quietly, as if she might have comprehended, "if they were in love." "Slowness," I said, because I did not want Augustine to shit a brick. "You are being very kind," Grandfather said to her, "to take us into your home, and to cook for us your food. You are very kind." "You are kinder," she said, and then she performed a thing that surprised me. She looked at her face in the reflection of the window above the stove, and I think that she desired to see how she appeared. This is only my notion, but I am certain that it is a true one.

  We watched her, as if the whole world and its future were because of her. When she cut a cabbage into little pieces, the hero moved his head this and that with the knife. When she put those pieces in a pan, Grandfather smiled and held one of his hands with the other. As for me, I could not retrieve my eyes from her. She had thin fingers and high bones. Her hairs, as I mentioned, were white and long. The ends of them moved against the floor, taking the dust and dirt with them. It was rigid to examine her eyes because they were so far back in her face, but I could see when she looked at me that they were blue and resplendent. It was her eyes that let me understand that she was, without a query, the Augustine from the picture. And I was certain, looking at her eyes, that she had saved the hero's grandfather, and probably many others. I could imagine in my brain how the days connected the girl in the photograph to the woman who was in the room with us. Each day was like another photograph. Her life was a book of photographs. One was with the hero's grandfather, and now one was with us.

  When the food was ready, after many minutes of cooking, she transported it to the table on plates, one for each of us, and not one for her. One of the potatoes descended to the floor, PLOMP, which made us laugh for reasons that a subtle writer does not have to illuminate. But Augustine did not laugh. She must have been very shamed, because she hid her face for a long time before being able to view us again. "Are you OK?" Grandfather asked. She did not answer. "Are you OK?" And suddenly she returned to us. "You must be very fatigued from all of your traveling," she said. "Yes," he said, and he rotated his head, like he was embarrassed, but I do not know what he would be embarrassed about. "I could walk to the market and purchase some cold drinks," she said, "if you like cola, or something else." "No," Grandfather said with urgency, as if she might leave us and never return. "That is not necessary. You are being so generous. Please, sit." He removed one of the wooden chairs from the table, and on accident gave a small punch to the box marked MENORAHS/INK/KEYS. "Thank you," she said, and lowered her head. "You are very beautiful," Grandfather said, and I did not anticipate him to say that, and I do not think that he anticipated to say that. There was silence for a moment. "Thank you," she said, and she moved her eyes from him. "You are the one who is generous." "But you are beautiful," he said. "No," she said, "no, I am not." "I think you are beautiful," I said, and while I was not anticipating to say that, I do not lament saying it. She was so beautiful, like someone who you will never meet, but always dream of meeting, like someone who is too good for you. She was also very timid, I could perceive. It was rigid for her to view us, and she stored her hands in the pockets of her dress. I will tell you that when she did confer us a look, it was never to us, but always to me.

  "What are you talking about?" the hero asked. "Has she mentioned my grandfather?" "He does not speak Ukrainian?" she asked. "No," I said. "Where is he from?" "America." "Is that in Poland?" I could not believe this thing, that she did not know of America, and I must tell you that it made her even more beautiful to me. "No, it is far away. He came on an airplane." "A what?" "An airplane," I said, "in the sky." I moved my hand in the air like an airplane, and on accident I gave a small punch to the box with FILLINGS written across it. I made the sound of an airplane with my lips. This made her distressed. "No more," she said. "What?" "Please," she said. "From the war?" Grandfather asked. She did not say a thing. "He came to see you," I said. "He came from America for you." "I thought it was you," she said to me. "I thought you were the one." This made me laugh, and also made Grandfather laugh. "No," I said, "it is him." I placed my hand on the head of the hero. "He is the one who voyaged over the world to find you." This incited her to cry again, which I did not intend to do, but I must say that it seemed befitting. "You came for me?" she said to the hero. "She wants to know if you came for her." "Yes," the hero said, "tell her yes." "Yes," I said, "everything is for you." "Why?" she asked. "Why?" I asked the hero. "Because if it weren't for her, I couldn't be here to find her. She made the search possible." "Because you created him," I said. "By saving his grandfather, you allowed him to be born." Her breaths became brief. "I would like to give her something," the hero said. He excavated an envelope from his fanny pack. "Tell her it has money. I know it isn't enough. There couldn't be enough. It's just some money from my parents to make her life easier. Give it to her." I secured the envelope. It was brimming. There must have been many thousands of dollars in it. "Augustine," Grandfather said, "would you return with us? To Odessa?" She did not answer. "We could care for you. Do you have family here? We could take them into our house also. This is not a way to live," he said, pointing to the chaos. "We will give you a new life." I told the hero what Grandfather said. I saw that his eyes were impending tears. "Augustine," Grandfather said, "we can save you from all of this." He pointed to her house again, and he pointed to all of the boxes: HAIR/HAND MIRRORS, POETRY/NAILS/PISCES, CHESS/RELICS/BLACK MAGIC, STARS/MUSIC BOXES, SLEEP/SLEEP/SLEEP, STOCKINGS/KIDDUSH CUPS, WATER INTO BLOOD.

  "Who is Augustine?" she asked.

  "What?" I asked. "Who is Augustine?" "Augustine?" "What's she saying?" "The photograph," Grandfather said to me. "We do not know what the writing is on the back. It might not be her name." I exhibited her the photograph again. Again she made to cry. "This is you," Grandfather said, putting his finger under her face in the photograph. "Here. You are the girl." Augustine moved her head to say, No, this is not me, I am not her. "It is a very aged photograph," Grandfather said to me, "and she has forgotten." But I had already secured into my heart what Grandfather would not allow in. I returned the currency back to the hero. "You know this man," Grandfather said and did not inquire, putting his finger on the hero's grandfather. "Yes," she said, "that is Safran." "Yes," he said, looking at me, then looking at her. "Yes. And he is with you." "No," she said, "I do not know who those others are. They are not from Trachimbrod." "You saved him." "No," she said, "I did not." "Augustine?" he asked. "No," she said, and she exited from the table. "You saved him," he said. She put her hands on her face. "She is not Augustine," I told the hero. "What?" "She is not Augustine." "I don't understand." "Yes," Grandfather said. "No," she said. "She is not Augustine," I told the hero. "I thought that she was, but she is not." "Augustine," Grandfather said, but she was in the other room. "She is timid," Grandfather said. "We surprised her very much." "Perhaps we should go forth," I said. "We are not going anywhere. We must help her to remember. Many people try so rigidly to forget after the war that they can no longer remember." "This is not the situation," I said. "What are you saying?" the hero asked. "Grandfather thinks she is Augustine," I told him. "Even though she says she isn't?" "Yes," I said. "He is not being reasonable."

  She returned with a box from the other room. The word REMAINS was written on it. She put it on the table and dislodged the top. It was brimmed with many photographs, and many pieces of paper, and many ribbons, and cloths, and queer things like combs, rings, and flowers that had become more paper. She removed each item, one at a time, and exhibited it to each of us, although I will say that
it still seemed that she gave her attention only to me. "This is a photograph of Baruch in front of the old library. He used to sit there all day long and you know he could not even read! He said he liked to think about the books, think about them without reading them. He would always walk around with a book under his arm, and he took out more books from the library than anyone in the shtetl. What nonsense! This one," she said, and excavated another photograph out of the box, "is Yosef and his brother Tzvi. I used to play with them when they came home from school. I always had a little thing in my heart for Tzvi, but I never told him. I planned on telling him, but I never did. I was such a funny girl, always having little things in my heart. It would drive Leah crazy when I would tell her about them, she would say, 'All of those little things, you are not going to have room for any blood!'" This made her laugh at herself, and then she became silent.

  "Augustine?" Grandfather asked, but she must not have heard him, because she did not rotate to him, but only moved her hands through the things in the box, like the things were water. Now she did not give her eyes to any of us but me. Grandfather and the hero did not exist to her anymore.

  "Here is Rivka's wedding ring," she said, and put it on her finger. "She hid it in a jar that she put in the ground. I knew this because she told me. She said, 'Just in case.' Many people did this. The ground is still filled with rings, and money, and pictures, and Jewish things. I was only able to find a few of them, but they fill the earth." The hero did not ask me once what she was saying, and he never did ask me. I am not certain if he knew what she was saying, or if he knew not to inquire.

  "Here is Herschel," she said, holding a photograph up to the light of the window. "We will go," Grandfather said. "Tell him we are leaving." "Do not go," she said. "Shut up," he told her, and even if she was not Augustine, he still should not have uttered this to her. "I am sorry," I told her, "please continue." "He lived in Kolki, which was a shtetl near to Trachimbrod. Herschel and Eli were best friends, and Eli had to shoot Herschel, because if he did not, they would shoot him." "Shut up," he said again, and this time he also punched the table. But she did not shut up. "Eli did not want to, but he did it." "You are lying about it all." "He does not intend this," I told her, and I could not clutch why he was doing what he was doing. "Grandfather—" "You can keep your not-truths for yourself," he said. "I heard this story," she said, "and I believe it is a truth." I could perceive that he was making her to cry.

  "Here is a clip," she said, "that Miriam would keep in her hair so that it would not be in her face. She was always running from here to there. It would kill her to sit down, you know, because she was always loving to do things. I found this under her pillow. It's true. Why was her clip under her pillow, you must want to know. The secret is that she would hold it all night so that she would not suck on her thumb! That was a bad thing she did for so long, even when she was twelve years old already! Only I know that. She would kill me if she knew I was talking about her thumb, but I'll tell you, if you witnessed close enough, if you gave it attention, you could see that it was always red. She was always ashamed about it." She restored the clip back into REMAINS and excavated another photograph.

  "Here, oh, I remember this, this is Kalman and Izzy, they were such jokers." Grandfather did not view at anything except for Augustine. "See how Kalman is holding Izzy's nose! What a joker! They would make so much joking all day, Father called them the clowns of Trachimbrod. He would say, 'They are such clowns that not even a circus would have them!'" "You are from Trachimbrod?" I asked. "She is not from Trachimbrod," Grandfather said, and rotated his head away from her. "I am," she said. "I am the only one remaining." "What do you signify?" I asked, because I just did not know. "They were all killed," she said, and here I commenced to translate for the hero what she was saying, "except for the one or two who were able to escape." "You were the lucky ones," I told her. "We were the not-lucky ones," she said. "It is not true," Grandfather said, although I do not know what part he was saying was not true. "It is. You should never have to be the one remaining." "You should have died with the others," he said. (I will never allow that to remain in the story.)

  "Ask her if she knew my grandfather." "Did you know the man in the photograph? He was the boy's grandfather." I presented her the photograph again. "Of course," she said, and again disbursed her eyes to me. "That was Safran. He was the first boy I ever kissed. I am such an old lady that I am too old to be shy anymore. I kissed him when I was only a girl, and he was only a boy. Tell him," she said to me, and she took my hand into her own hand. "Tell him that he was the first boy I ever kissed." "She says that your grandfather was the first boy she ever kissed." "We were very good friends. He lost a wife and two babies, you know, in the war. Does he know that?" "Two babies?" I asked. "Yes," she said. "He knows," I said. She inspected REMAINS, excavating photographs and putting them on the table. "How can you do this?" Grandfather asked her.

  "Here," she said after a long search. "This is a photograph of Safran and me." I observed that the hero had small rivers descending his face, and I wanted to put my hand on his face, to be architecture for him. "This is his house we are in front of," she said. "I remember the day very much. My mother made this photograph. She was so fond for Safran. I think she wanted me to marry him, and even told the Rabbi." "Then you would be his grandmother," I told her. She laughed, and this made me feel good. "My mother liked him so much because he was a very polite boy, and very shy, and he would tell her that she was pretty even when she was not pretty." "What was her name?" I asked, and I was attempting to be kind, but the woman rotated her head to tell me, No, I will not ever utter her name. And then I remembered that I did not know this woman's name. I persevered to think of her as Augustine, because like Grandfather, I could not stop desiring that she was Augustine. "I know I have another," she said, and again investigated REMAINS. Grandfather would not look at her. "Yes," she said, excavating another yellow photograph, "here is one of Safran and his wife in front of their house after they became married."

  I gave the hero each picture as she gave it to me, and he could only with difficulty hold it in his hands that were doing so much shaking. It appeared that a part of him wanted to write everything, every word of what occurred, into his diary. And a part of him refused to write even one word. He opened the diary and closed it, opened it and closed it, and it looked as if it wanted to fly away from his hands. "Tell him I was at the wedding. Tell him." "She was at the wedding of your grandfather and his first wife," I said. "Ask her what it was like," he said. "It was beautiful," she said. "My brother held one of the chuppah poles, I remember. It was a spring day. Zosha was such a pretty girl." "It was so beautiful," I told the hero. "There was white, and flowers, and many children, and the bride in a long dress. Zosha was a beautiful girl, and all of the other men were jealous people." "Ask her if we could see this house," he said, pointing to the photograph. "Could you exhibit us this house?" I asked. "There is nothing," she said. "I already told you. Nothing. It used to be four kilometers distance from here, but everything that still exists from Trachimbrod is in this house." "You say it is four kilometers from here?" "There is no Trachimbrod anymore. It ended fifty years ago." "Take us there," Grandfather said. "There is nothing to see. It is only a field. I could exhibit you any field and it would be the same as exhibiting you Trachimbrod." "We have come to see Trachimbrod," Grandfather said, "and you will take us to Trachimbrod."

  She looked at me, and she put her hand on my face. "Tell him I think about it every day. Tell him." "Think about what?" I asked. "Tell him." "She thinks about it every day," I told the hero. "I think about Trachimbrod, and when we were all so young. We used to run in the streets naked, can you believe it? We were just children, yes. That was how it was. Tell him." "They used to run in the streets naked. They were just children." "I remember Safran so well. He kissed me behind the synagogue, which was a thing to get us murdered, you know. I can still remember just how I felt. It was a little like flying. Tell it to him." "She remember
s when your grandfather kissed her. She flew a little." "I also remember Rosh Hashanah, when we would go to the river and throw breadcrumbs in it so our sins would float away from us. Tell him." "She remembers the river and breadcrumbs and her sins." "The Brod?" the hero asked. She moved her head to say, Yes, yes. "Tell him that his grandfather and I and all of the children would jump into the Brod when it was so hot, and our parents would sit on the side of the water and watch and play cards. Tell him." I told him. "Everyone had his own family, but it was something like we were all one big family. People would fight, yes, but it was nothing."

  She retrieved her hands from me and put them on her knees. "I am so ashamed," she said. "You had to do anything. You could not allow anyone to see your face after." "You should be ashamed," Grandfather said. "Do not be ashamed," I told her. "Ask her how my grandfather escaped." "He would like to know how his grandfather escaped." "She does not know anything," Grandfather said. "She is a fool." "You do not have to utter anything that you do not want to utter," I told her, and she said, "Then I would never utter another word again." "You do not have to do anything that you do not want to do." "Then I would never do anything again." "She is a liar," Grandfather said, and I could not understand what was forcing him to behave this way.

  "Could you please leave us to be in solitude," Augustine said to me, "for a few moments." "Let us go outside," I told Grandfather. "No," Augustine said, "him." "Him?" I asked. "Please leave us to be in solitude for a few moments." I looked to Grandfather so that he could give me a beacon of what to do, but I could see that his eyes were impending tears, and that he would not look at me. This was my beacon. "We must go outside," I told the hero. "Why?" "They are going to utter things in secrecy." "What kinds of things?" "We cannot be here."