Everything Is Illuminated

by Jonathan Safran Foer

  FALLING IN LOVE, 1934–1941

  STILL EMPLOYED by the Sloucher congregation, which had become something of an unknowing escort service for the widows and elderly, my grandfather made house calls several times a week, and was able to save up enough money to begin thinking about a family of his own, or for his family to begin thinking about a family of his own.

  It's so good to see your work ethic, his father told him one afternoon before he left for the widow Golda R's small brick house by the Upright Synagogue. You're not the lazy Gypsy boy we thought you were.

  We are very proud of you, his mother said, but did not, as he had hoped, follow it with a kiss. It's because of Father, he thought. If he weren't here, she would have kissed me.

  His father came close to him, patted his shoulder, said, without knowing what he was saying, Keep it up.

  Golda covered all of the mirrors before she made love to him.

  Leah H, twice widowed, to whom he would return three times a week (even after his marriage), asked nothing more than his seriousness when handling her aged body: that he should never laugh at her dropped breasts or balding genitalia, that he should be earnest with the varicose veins of her calves, that he should never shrink from her smell, which she knew was like rot on the vine.

  Rina S, widow of the Wisp Kazwel L, the only Wisp of Ardisht able to kick the habit and descend from the rooftops of Rovno to a life on the ground—a victim, like the Dial, of the flour mill's disk saw—bit into Safran's dead arm while they made love, so she could be sure he wasn't feeling anything.

  Elena N, widow of the undertaker Chaim N, had seen death pass through her cellar doors a thousand times, but never could have imagined the depth of the grief that she would live with after the chicken bone went sideways and stuck. She asked him to make love to her under her bed, in a shallow subnuptial grave, to take away a bit of the pain, to make things a little easier. Safran, my grandfather, my mother's father, whom I never met, obliged them all.

  But before the portrait is painted too flatteringly, it should be mentioned that widows comprised only half of my young grandfather's lovers. He lived a double life: lover of not only grievers, but women untouched by grief's damp hand, those closer to their first death than their second. There were some fifty-two virgins, to whom he made love in each of the positions that he had studied from a dirty deck of cards, loaned to him by the friend whom he kept leaving at the theater: sixty-nining the one-eyed jack Tali M, with tight pigtails and folded-yarmulke eye patch; taking from behind the two of hearts Brandil W, who had only one very weak heart, which made her hobble and wear thick spectacles, and who died before the war—too early, and just early enough; spoons with the queen of diamonds Mella'S, all breasts and no backside, the only daughter of the wealthiest family in Kolki (who, they say, would never use silverware more than once); mounted by the ace of spades Trema O, most diligent in the fields, whose shrieks, he was sure, would give them away. They loved him and he fucked them—ten, jack, queen, king, ace—a most straight and royal flush. And so he had two working hands: one with five fingers and one with fifty-two young girls who couldn't, and wouldn't, say no.

  And, of course, he had a life above his waist as well. He went to school and studied with the other boys his age. He was quite good at arithmetic, and his teacher, the young Sloucher Yakem E, had suggested to my great-grandparents that they send Safran to a school for gifted children in Lutsk. But nothing could have bored my grandfather more than his studies. Books are for those without real lives, he thought. And they are no real replacement. The school he attended was a small one—four teachers and forty students. Each day was divided between religious studies, taught by the Fair-to-Middling Rabbi and one of his Upright congregants, and secular, or useful, studies, taught by three—sometimes two, sometimes four—Slouchers.

  Every schoolboy learned the history of Trachimbrod from a book originally written by the Venerable Rabbi— AND IF WE ARE TO STRIVE FOR A BETTER FUTURE, MUSTN'T WE BE FAMILIAR AND RECONCILED WITH OUR PAST?—and revised regularly by a committee of Uprighters and Slouchers. The Book of Antecedents began as a record of major events: battles and treaties, famines, seismic occurrences, the beginnings and ends of political regimes. But it wasn't long before lesser events were included and described at great length—festivals, important marriages and deaths, records of construction in the shtetl (there was no destruction then)—and the rather small book had to be replaced with a three-volume set. Soon, upon the demand of the readership—which was everyone, Uprighter and Sloucher alike— The Book of Antecedents included a biennial census, with every name of every citizen and a brief chronicle of his or her life (women were included after the synagogue split), summaries of even less notable events, and commentaries on what the Venerable Rabbi had called LIFE, AND THE LIFE OF LIFE, which included definitions, parables, various rules and regulations for righteous living, and cute, if meaningless, sayings. The later editions, now taking up an entire shelf, became yet more detailed, as citizens contributed family records, portraits, important documents, and personal journals, until any schoolboy could easily find out what his grandfather ate for breakfast on a given Thursday fifty years before, or what his great-aunt did when the rain fell without lull for five months. The Book of Antecedents, once updated yearly, was now continually updated, and when there was nothing to report, the full-time committee would report its reporting, just to keep the book moving, expanding, becoming more like life: We are writing ... We are writing ... We are writing...

  Even the most delinquent students read The Book of Antecedents without skipping a word, for they knew that they too would one day inhabit its pages, that if they could only get hold of a future edition, they would be able to read of their mistakes (and perhaps avoid them), and the mistakes of their children (and ensure that they would never happen), and the outcome of future wars (and prepare for the death of loved ones).

  And I'm sure that my grandfather was no exception. He, too, must have skipped from volume to volume, page to page, searching...

  YANKEL D'S SHAMEFUL BEAD

  The result of certain shameful activities, the disgraced usurer Yankel D's trial took place in the year 1741 before the High Upright Court. Said usurer, after being found guilty of having committed said shameful deeds in question, was obligated by shtetl proclamation to wear the incriminating abacus bead on a white string around his neck. Let the record show that he wore it even when no one was looking, even to sleep.

  TRACHIMDAY, 1796

  A fly of particular pestiferousness stung on its tuches the horse that pulled the Rovno Trachimday float, causing the touchy mare to buck and toss its fieldworker effigy into the Brod. The parade of floats was delayed for some thirty minutes while strong men recovered the soggy effigy. The culpable fly was caught in the net of an unidentified schoolboy. The boy raised his hand to smash it, knowing that an example must be made, but as his fist began its descent, the fly twitched its wing without flight. The boy, the sensitive boy, was overcome by the fragility of life and released the fly. The fly, also overcome, died of gratefulness. An example was made.

  UNHEALTHY BABIES

  (See GOD)

  WHEN THE RAIN FELL WITHOUT LULL FOR FIVE MONTHS

  This worst of all rain spells occurred in the last two months of 1914 and first three of 1915. Cups left on sills quickly overflowed. Flowers bloomed and then drowned. Holes were cut into the ceilings above bathtubs ... It should be noted that the rain without lull coincided with the period of Russian occupation,* and that no matter how much water came down, there were those who still claimed to be thirsty. (See GITTLE K, YAKOV L.)

  THE FLOUR MILL

  It so happened that in the eleventh year of a long-past century, the Chosen People (us) were sent forth from Egypt under the guidance of our then wise leader, Moses. There was no time for bread to rise in the haste of escape, and the Lord our God, may His name inspire buoyant thoughts, who, in seeking perfection with his every creation, would not want an imperfect bread, said
unto his people (us, not them): MAKE NOT ANY BREAD THAT WILL BE AT ALL CRUNCHY, BLAND, BAD TASTING, OR THE CAUSE OF HOPELESS CONSTIPATION. But the Chosen People were very hungry, and we took our chances with some good yeast. What baked on our backs was less than perfect, indeed bland, crunchy, bad tasting, and the cause of many a good poop withheld, and God, may His name be always on our unchapped lips, was made very angry. It is because of this sin of our ancestors that one member of our shtetl has been killed in the flour mill every year since its founding in 1713. (For a list of those who have perished in the mill, see APPENDIX G: UNTIMELY DEATHS.)

  THE EXISTENCE OF GENTILES

  (See GOD)

  THE ENTIRETY OF THE WORLD AS WE DO AND DON'T KNOW IT

  (See GOD)

  JEWS HAVE SIX SENSES

  Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing ... memory While Gentiles experience and process the world through the traditional senses, and use memory only as a second-order means of interpreting events, for Jews memory is no less primary than the prick of a pin, or its silver glimmer, or the taste of the blood it pulls from the finger. The Jew is pricked by a pin and remembers other pins. It is only by tracing the pinprick back to other pinpricks—when his mother tried to fix his sleeve while his arm was still in it, when his grandfather's fingers fell asleep from stroking his great-grandfather's damp forehead, when Abraham tested the knife point to be sure Isaac would feel no pain—that the Jew is able to know why it hurts.

  When a Jew encounters a pin, he asks: What does it remember like?

  THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: WHY UNCONDITIONALLY BAD

  THINGS HAPPEN TO UNCONDITIONALLY GOOD PEOPLE They never do.

  THE TIME OF DYED HANDS

  Occurring shortly after the mistaken suicides, the time of dyed hands began when the baker of rolls Herzog J observed that those rolls that were not watched with a cautious eye would sometimes disappear. He repeated this observation numerous times, placing his rolls about his bakery, even marking their placement with a coal pencil, and each time he would turn quickly away and steal a glance back, only the markings would remain.

  All this stealing, he said.

  At that point in our history, the Eminent Rabbi Fagel F (see also APPENDIX B: LISTING OF UPRIGHT RABBIS) was chief executor of legal regulation. So as to conduct a fair investigation, he saw to it that everyone in the shtetl was treated like a suspect, guilty until proven otherwise. WE WILL DYE THE HANDS OF EACH CITIZEN WITH A DIFFERENT COLOR, he said, AND WILL THIS WAY DISCOVER WHO HAS BEEN PUTTING THEIRS BEHIND HERZOG'S COUNTER.

  Lippa R's were dyed blood red. Pelsa G's the light green of her eyes. Mica P's a subtle purple, like the sliver of sky above the Radziwell Forest's tree line when the sun set for the third Shabbos of that November. No hands or hues were exempt. To be fair, even Herzog J's were dyed, the pink of a particular Troides helena butterfly that happened to have died on the desk of Dickle D, the chemist who invented the chemical that couldn't be washed off, but would leave smears on whatever the dyed hands touched.

  As it turned out, a simple mouse, may his memory live close to a stinky tuches, had been sneaking away with the rolls, and no colors ever appeared behind the counter.

  But they appeared everywhere else.

  Shlomo V found silver between the thighs of his wife, Chebra, may her behavior be unique in this and every other world, and said nothing about it until he'd painted her breasts green with his hands and then covered those breasts in white semen. He pulled her naked through the gray moonlit streets, from house to house, bruising his knuckles black-blue on the doors. He forced her to watch as he cut off the testicles of Samuel R, who, with raised silver fingers, pleaded for mercy and cried, ambiguously, There has been a mistake. Colors everywhere. The Eminent Rabbi Fagel F's indigo fingerprints on the pages of more than one ultrasecular periodical. The cold-lip blue of the grieving widow Shifrah K across her husband's gravestone in the shtetl cemetery, like the rubbings children do. Everyone was quick to accuse Irwin P of running his brown hands up and down the Dial. He's so selfish! they said. He wants everything for himself! But it was their hands, all of their hands, a compressed rainbow of every citizen in the shtetl who had prayed for handsome sons, a few more years of life, protection from lightning, love.

  The shtetl was painted with the doings of its citizens, and since every color was used—except for that of the counter, of course—it was impossible to tell what had been touched by human hands and what was as it was because it was as it was. It was rumored that Getzel G had secretly played every fiddler's fiddle—even though he didn't play the fiddle!—for the strings were the color of his fingers. People whispered that Gesha R must have become an acrobat—how else could the Jewish/Human fault line have become as yellow as her palms? And when the blush of a schoolgirl's cheeks was mistaken for the crimson of a holy man's fingers, it was the schoolgirl who was called hussy, tramp, slut.

  THE PROBLEM OF GOOD: WHY UNCONDITIONALLY GOOD

  THINGS HAPPEN TO UNCONDITIONALLY BAD PEOPLE

  (See GOD)

  CUNNILINGUS AND THE MENSTRUATING WOMAN

  The burning bush must not be consumed. (For a complete listing of rules and regulations concerning you know what, see APPENDIX F-ING.)

  THE NOVEL, WHEN EVERYONE WAS CONVINCED HE HAD ONE IN HIM

  The novel is that art form that burns most easily. It so happened that in the middle of the nineteenth century, all the citizens of our shtetl—every man, woman, and child—was convinced he had at least one novel in him. This period was likely the result of the traveling Gypsy salesman who brought a wagonload of books to the shtetl square on the third Sunday of every other month, advertising them as Worthy would-be worlds of words, whorls of working wonder. What else could come to the lips of a Chosen People but I can do that?

  More than seven hundred novels were written between 1850 and 1853. One began: How long it's been since I last thought of those windswept mornings. Another: They say everyone remembers her first time, but I don't. Another: Murder is an ugly deed, to be sure, but the murder of a brother is truly the most ghastly crime known to man.

  There were 272 thinly veiled memoirs, 66 crime novels, 97 stories of war. A man killed his brother in 107 of the novels. In all but 89 an infidelity was committed. Couples in love wondered what the future would hold in 29; 68 ended with a kiss; all but 35 used the word "shame." Those who couldn't read and write made visual novels: collages, etchings, pencil drawings, watercolors. A special room was added to the Yankel and Brod Library for the Trachimbrod novels, although only a handful were read five years after their composition.

  Once, almost a century later, a young boy went browsing the aisles.

  I'm looking for a book, he told the librarian, who had cared for the Trachimbrod novels since she was a girl, and was the only citizen to have read them all. My great-grandfather wrote it.

  What was his name? the librarian asked.

  Safranbrod, but I think he wrote it under a pseudonym.

  What was the name of his book?

  I can't remember the name. He used to talk about it all the time. He'd tell me stories from it to put me to sleep.

  What's it about? she asked.

  It's about love.

  She laughed. They're all about love.

  ART

  Art is that thing having to do only with itself—the product of a successful attempt to make a work of art. Unfortunately, there are no examples of art, nor good reasons to think that it will ever exist. (Everything that has been made has been made with a purpose, everything with an end that exists outside that thing, i.e., I want to sell this, or I want this to make me famous and loved, or I want this to make me whole, or worse, I want this to make others whole.) And yet we continue to write, paint, sculpt, and compose. Is this foolish of us?

  IFICE

  Ifice is that thing with purpose, created for function's sake, and having to do with the world. Everything is, in some way, an example of ifice.

  IFACT

  An ifact is a past-tensed fact. Fo
r example, many believe that after the destruction of the first Temple, God's existence became an ifact.

  ARTIFICE

  Artifice is that thing that was art in its conception and ifice in its execution. Look around. Examples are everywhere.

  ARTIFACT

  An artifact is the product of a successful attempt to make a purposeless, useless, beautiful thing out of a past-tensed fact. It can never be art, and it can never be fact. Jews are artifacts of Eden.

  IFACTIFICE

  Music is beautiful. Since the beginning of time, we (the Jews) have been looking for a new way of speaking. We often blame our treatment throughout history on terrible misunderstandings. (Words never mean what we want them to mean.) If we communicated with something like music, we would never be misunderstood, because there is nothing in music to understand. This was the origin of Torah chanting and, in all likelihood, Yiddish—the most onomatopoeic of all languages. It is also the reason that the elderly among us, particularly those who survived a pogrom, hum so often, indeed seem unable to stop humming, seem dead set on preventing any silence or linguistic meaning in. But until we find this new way of speaking, until we can find a nonapproximate vocabulary, nonsense words are the best thing we've got. Ifactifice is one such word.

  THE FIRST RAPE OF BROD D

  The first rape of Brod D occurred amid the celebrations following the thirteenth Trachimday festival, March 18, 1804. Brod was walking home from the blue-flowered float—on which she had stood in such austere beauty for so many hours on end, waving her mermaid's tail only when appropriate, throwing deep into the river of her name those heavy sacks only when the Rabbi gave her the necessary nod—when she was approached by the mad squire Sofiowka N, whose name our shtetl now uses for maps and Mormon census records.