The Book of Intimate Grammar

by David Grossman

  There are kids in this class he’s been with since kindergarten, yet he hardly knows them. Some of them are clods, some are probably smarter than he is. Take Shalom Sharabani, for instance. Now, there’s one kid who knows how to avoid calling attention to himself. He’s a real pro at that. He never ever gets called on in class. But when you talk to him in the yard you find out he’s not a bit stupid: he has everything planned out. He will not go to high school. His father runs a stonecutter’s shop near the cemetery, and in a few years Shalom will start working there too and make good money. Compared to his type, Aron feels silly, like he’s wasting his time. And whenever Aron does his hilarious impersonations or his fabulous Houdini act at school parties, and the kids go wild, there in the audience sits Shalom Sharabani, scorning Aron for playing up to them, for craving their cheap, fickle love, in his ignorance about real life.

  Aron looks up and down the aisles. So this is what will be left someday to turn into memories. Eli Ben-Zikri, for instance. Not twelve years old and already a hardened criminal. He has squinting eyes and wrinkleson his forehead, and his mouth never stops: he’s always licking his lips, biting the gold chain he wears around his neck, or puffing on his pen like a cigarette; squirming around like a caged tomcat. What do I know about him, though? Nothing. The only time he ever talked to me was when he sold me the passkey and said those dirty words. Even the teachers leave him alone. One day I might be proud of going to school with such a famous burglar.

  But who will I be? What will I be? Maybe somewhere in this world a baby girl has just been born who will be my wife in twenty years. Maybe she’s in school already and she has no idea that I’m opening a savings account for us, she has a boyfriend and doesn’t realize it’s only a phase, that someday fate will bring us together. He smiles and shivers with anticipation, with secret joy, could it be that he’s already living his fate? Mama didn’t know anything about Papa either, she was busy raising her brothers and sisters in Jerusalem while he was slaving away in the taiga, in the ice, and little by little their paths converged, until suddenly, boom, like colliding stars, they knew they were made for each other.

  Aron peeks around. Who can she be, he wonders. Pudgy Naomi Feingold stares straight at him. He blushes and quickly looks away. Sometimes he has the feeling that Naomi has a crush on him. Not that they ever talk in class, but once a year, on the school trip, she works up the courage to push her way into his crowd, the crowd with the good kids. He doesn’t like her, though: she hangs around them and yaks all day till everyone stops listening, that’s how she unwinds enough to show them who she really is—a girl who’s frightened of being hurt. And she never stops eating and making fun of herself for being fat, for being a party pooper and a real flat tire; she reminds him of Yochi in certain ways, they have the same kartofel nose, the same red creases in their thighs from wearing shorts. Maybe Naomi is in love with him. Who cares. It’s her sense of humor that annoys him, knowing as he does from Yochi that making fun of herself the way everybody liked —ha ha, Naomi Feingold, she’s a card—is her first and last line of retreat, and what does she get out of it: a broken heart, humiliation, hate. Again he peeks around and sees her gazing dreamily at Gil Kaplan; who cares, good riddance, but just the same he feels a little pang.

  Or take Anat Fish. Anat-fish. If you dare call her Anat without the Fish, she glares at you as if you invaded her privacy. Anat Fish goessteady with a “freshie” named Mickey Zik, who invited her camping in Eilat during school vacation, everybody’s whispering about it, but she hasn’t made up her mind yet. Aron peers around at her. She’s stacked. They say she needs a bra with three hooks in the back, and she wears “fuck me” stretch pants to high-school parties. She’s shameless, really. There she sits, nonchalantly, ignoring the notes that nitwit Avi Sasson keeps throwing her. Even Rivka Bar-Ilan gets flustered when she looks into those Egyptian eyes. Aron has noticed the way Rivka starts fiddling with her hair whenever Anat Fish is watching her, and then you can see that she was a little girl once too, sitting in a classroom just like this, and Aron rests his chin on his palm to contemplate Rivka Bar-Ilan, a homely girl with a big nose, she must have gotten teased about it, and there was probably some beautiful, coldhearted girl like Anat Fish in her class too; see how carefully she avoids Anat Fish’s eyes, it’s the same in every generation, but were any of the adults he knew like him, he wonders, and thinks of his father; but no.

  Now their bottoms are wriggling on the hard seats, as they cross and uncross their legs. All eyes are fixed on Gil Kaplan’s pompadour, over which he signals the five, four, three. Varda Koppler and Koby Kimchi jostle elbows on the halfway line of the desk, trespass it and you die. Zacky Smitanka, Meirky Blutreich, and Hanan Schweiky wave their hands exuberantly to rectify any bad impressions. Dorit Alush chews her gum and writes around the face with the bangs: Dorit Alush, grade 6C, Beit Hakerem Elementary School, Jerusalem, Israel, Asia, earth, universe …and then she stares out the window: what else was there? Michael Carny and Rina Fichman exchange notes and giggle behind their hands. Naomi Feingold munches pretzels under her desk. Anat Fish turns slowly with a sharklike stare at Avi Sasson, who shot a rubber band at her, and David Lipschitz’s face lights up, he looks so woebegone when he smiles like that, but she looks right through him, he isn’t there, can’t she at least give a sign that he exists; Aron vows revenge, he’ll steal something valuable from her and give it to David Lipschitz, how he loathes her, yet he can’t help admiring her a little too, for her beauty, for her coldness, for making a crazy boy fall so helplessly in love with her; and then Rabbi Yohanan Ben-Zakai slipped into the coffin, and his devoted pupils carried him out through the gates of the besieged city, and that is how he made his escape and founded his new center of learning. After the destruction, after the destruction—the words grateon his nerves. Two minutes left. Redheaded Aliza Lieber stretches her mouth for all to see. Miri Tamari has a hairy mole on the side of her hand that she tries to hide. A backward glance. The albino head is still jerking, almost as if it has a gizmo inside it, a spring or something that makes it bob around like that. “After the destruction of the Temple, children, Rabbi Yohanan Ben-Zakai founded the spiritual center of Yavneh.” The bell rings. Hurray. A monster with eighty arms and legs scrambles out through the narrow doorway past Rivka Bar-Ilan, who turns away with a vague look of horror in her eyes.

  Aron’s favorite is Roxana. He’s fond of Rosaline and Natalie too, and he feels a certain sympathy for Angela, but even though he always knew it was his fate to marry a blind woman and be her eyes, he can’t quite ignore that shadow of a smile on Angela’s lips, that hint of pleasure in some of the pictures. He tries to mimic the smile, but stops himself, afraid he’ll be noticed by the noisy crowd as they walk home together. They’re fifteen strong, the boys and girls of the workers’ neighborhood, as they storm through the shopping center, with Aron, as usual, in the eye of the hurricane, telling jokes and talking about his inventions, though lately he prefers to observe them from the side, from behind.

  Slowly they move on. Gideon and Zacky, and Dorit Alush chewing gum, a head taller than the boys; tiny Varda Koppler, with the womanly face and a ring on every finger, doesn’t seem to fit in anymore; bringing up the rear is a fifth-grader, little Yaeli Kedmi, whose mom asked them to keep an eye on her when they cross the street, but no one talks to her, she follows them meekly, practically invisible except for her wavy black hair; Michael Carny slithers along as if he were made of jelly, he only smiles when Rina Fichman’s around, and Aron turns away from the gloomy expression on his face; redheaded Aliza Lieber is pensively licking her lips … Take a good look, he tells himself: why is everyone so withdrawn, so lost in thought, so sad, even, though outwardly they’re as noisy and cheerful as ever; together they pass through the new electric door at the supermarket, and Aron is careful not to cross the threshold alone, he doesn’t trust these automatic things, and the kids swarm by the food shelves, so many colors and no smell, thinks Aron, and they stop to watch Mr. Babai
off at the fish counter kill a carp with one blow, the body goes on squirming, and while the rest of them chase their tails around the aisles, Aron tarries at the fish counter till the carp liesmotionless and the manager rushes over shouting, Shhhhh! And the chorus of children answers, Shhhhhine my shhhhhoes! and go rollicking out the automatic door, and Aron vows he’ll make it through alone at least once before his bar mitzvah. Outside he sees Binyumin the gimp standing in the doorway of his father’s barbershop. A year ago they had a fight. Aron beat him up and walked over him to make him stop growing, and in revenge Binyumin cursed him, well, sticks and stones can break my bones; now they file past Morduch, the crazy blind beggar, who either blesses you or curses you, depending on your charity, and as usual, Zacky finds a nail or screw in the street and sneaks up on Morduch and says in a husky voice, “Here you go, Mr. Morduch!” And the beggar stirs hopefully, groping in his direction with trembling hands, and Zacky tosses a screw into the rusty cup, and it lands with a ring. The blind man beams: “May the Holy One bless your household! May He doubly reward you, and grant you health and prosperity!” And they laugh their heads off. Gideon has given up lecturing Zacky about this daily prank, and Aron, who used to stifle his laughter for Gideon’s sake, imagines Morduch coming home at night, if he has a home, spilling the coins out on his little table, and counting the day’s take with his crooked fingers, and the way he must feel when he touches Zacky’s screw. He can picture it vividly, as though he were actually there: the dirty room, the bare walls, the hungry children, Morduch’s lips trembling with disappointment … Come on, y’alla, Aron shouts to the others, and starts walking faster, his head held high, and then someone makes a wisecrack behind his back, and someone else, or maybe several children, splutter with laughter.

  Roxana’s different, he feels, striding briskly ahead, she has a serious air about her that sets her apart. On her cheek there is a mole, which doesn’t make her any less pretty as far as he’s concerned; in fact, it makes her even prettier. As if the little blemish brought them closer together. And there’s one picture that shows Roxana in a nurse’s uniform suckling Fritz and Alfonso the dwarf. No matter how many times he looks at this picture, he always sees it differently. One thing is certain, though: there’s nothing cheap or disgusting about Roxana’s face. Yesterday as he shyly kissed her picture and watched his lip prints melt away, it suddenly occurred to him that even if the circus didn’t exist in real life, even if it was just a filthy sham, there was still a Roxana in this world, a living girl who had her picture taken to earn money becauseshe was poor, and had innocently fallen into the clutches of that bastard Alfonso; if only he were older, if only he had power and money, he would dedicate his life to saving Roxana from Alfonso, because how long would she remain virtuous with so much corruption around her? And again he thumbed through the pictures, maybe he would understand this time, maybe he would figure them out and stop suffering.

  Once every three days—he’s a stickler about this—he shuts himself in the bathroom with the cards and uses Mama’s 70 percent alcohol to wipe off the big, greasy fingerprints that soil Roxana in particular. Tenderly he cleanses her from head to toe. For almost two weeks now he has been watching over Roxana like this, and he wonders whether maybe he should rub himself, the way you’re probably supposed to with these pictures. But reaching down to touch himself, he knows he’s only bluffing. He doesn’t need to. He’s empty still.

  He stopped, turned around, and saw he was alone. His friends had stranded him. Or maybe they’d taken a different route home. Let them, who cares. Still, his feelings were hurt. Gideon had gone along with the others. Then he shrugged his shoulders: he had more important things to think about just now.

  But later that afternoon, while Papa was working high in the fig tree, and Mama and Yochi were shopping, and Grandma was tucked under the Scottish plaid, Aron hurried to the sock drawer and rummaged through it with a practiced hand. And then his heart stood still: Roxana was gone. They were all gone. Overnight the circus had disappeared. The traitor had changed the hiding place.

  6

  Summer went by and winter went by, and then came spring. Nearly a year had passed. One afternoon in the middle of a soccer match against the other seventh-graders, Mama called. From the balcony to the playing field in the valley her voice assailed him. Aron was mortified, but he noticed something different, an unfamiliar tone in her voice that made him hurry home, hot and sweaty from the game. “Shvitz shvitz,” said Mama, sticking her fingers down his collar. “Bren bren, look at you, hoo-haa, chasing a ball like a meshuggeneh, you wouldn’t catch Zacky and Gideon running around like that, no, they have some sense, they let the donkey do the work for them while they sit back and laugh at you,” she grumbled as she picked at the knot around a brown paper package. And then with a Tfu! choleria! she tried to pry it open with her teeth. Why are you staring at me like that? she rasped. I wasn’t staring. If you have to stare at someone, go stare at yourself. But I wasn’t staring at you, who’s the package from, anyway? His bar mitzvah’s less than six months away and he can still walk under a table. Who’s the package from, Mama? Sit up straight, you’re short enough as it is. She bit the knot off and unwrapped a familiar-looking shirt and a pair of shorts. For a moment Aron feared that the clothes had come from someone who died. Mama handed him a striped brown shirt and said, Go try it on.

  What do you mean, try it on? I’m not trying on any secondhand clothes. He stood there shrugging a defiant shoulder, his face burningwith impatience to get back to the soccer field, because with him gone for even a minute, the other team would charge up the pitch, and suddenly he felt a gnawing in his heart, and Mama said, These aren’t secondhand clothes, Aunt Gucha sent them from Tel Aviv, from Giora, all right? From Giora? But why? Because he only wore them one season; nu, try the shirt on already so we can see.

  Aron stared at her in bewilderment. Giora was the cousin he went to stay with in Tel Aviv every summer, and after only a few weeks there, Aron fit in like a native; the year he was nine he taught the kids how to see angels: you press your eyeballs and wait till these sparks appear, some of which fade, some of which don’t, depending on how hard you press. And he told them about his secret ambition, to become the first Israeli bullfighter. And the following year he taught them Jerusalem stickball, Alambulik, and they taught him Red Rover at the swimming pool, and he taught them Chodorov’s save from the game against Wales, where the goalkeeper dives parallel to the ground and blocks a “howitzer” shot from right field, and for the entire month that Aron was there, whoever played goalie had to dive that way, even when the ball went into the corner, no one cared as long as it looked authentic. And last year he told them about the great Houdini, master of escape, who lived in America, and demonstrated how he could free his wrists and ankles from thickly knotted ropes; and when they didn’t believe him, he asked them to shut him inside the stinky cooling chest they found on the beach, and tie a rope around it and cover it with empty sugar sacks and stand back fifty paces, and when they were sure he’d suffocated in there, and started blaming each other for letting him do it, out jumped Aron, laughing and panting. The ideas your little Aronchik thinks up, Aunt Gucha wrote Mama, kineahora, you could grow fat just listening to him laugh.

  And the Tel Aviv crowd introduced him to the sea. Of course he’d been to the beach at Ashkelon with his parents and their card friends lots of times, but it was always crowded there and full of tar, and they’d sit around telling dirty jokes and burping, and Aron didn’t like seeing people he knew half-naked in their bathing suits, and they had a policy called “Never turn your back on a wounded kebab”; in other words, never go home with leftovers in the cooler, and they forced Aron to eat himself sick. Papa was a terrific swimmer, you could always tell he was in the water by his powerful kicking and splashing and the pranks heplayed, like diving down and attacking their card friends, trying to pull their trunks down, or to drown their wives, who would float up shouting and squealing; and Aron was very careful
never to go in the water while Papa was there, he had secretly decided that only one of them should be in the water at a time; besides, he suspected Papa liked to piss in the sea, and even when Aron came out and sat on the sand, he felt as if Papa’s piss had followed him; and once, in the middle of a tranquil swim, far away from the crowd, just him and the open sky, he had a sudden apprehension that something was chasing him, he knew it couldn’t be, that he was imagining things, but still he felt it slithering beneath the waves; at first he thought Papa was down there, trying to scare him, which made him panic and kick and splash and swallow water, but then something tough and rubbery circled his waist like a sinewy arm, or the trunk of a giant elephant, trying to pull him down, and when he crawled up on the shore, he knew he hadn’t imagined it, that something very strange had happened in the sea, and Mama and Papa’s card friends ran over to ask what happened, did you forget how to swim, and they wrapped a towel around him and rubbed his shoulders, and he searched for Papa but couldn’t see him, he was reading the paper under a beach umbrella, and he didn’t even look up when Aron shuffled over wrapped in a towel and sat shivering beside him and said, It was just a cramp, and when Papa didn’t answer, Aron sobbed and said, It could have happened to anyone, but still Papa wouldn’t look at him, he merely rolled over with his face in the paper.