The Book of Intimate Grammar

by David Grossman

  Let’s race up the hill, suggested Gideon. Notice how quick he is to manipulate the situation, thought Aron, certainly a lot quicker than he used to be. They went down on one knee, arching their backs. Wait, cried Aron, switching feet, and a second later switched back again, but when that still didn’t feel right, he said he’d like to start from a standing position, if that was all right with them, which it was. You know you’re going to win, said Gideon, and Aron flexed his muscles, and Gideon said ready-set-go and they scrambled up the slope, Aron in the lead as usual, though they had longer legs now, and he wondered whether it was true what they said, that swimming champions shave themselves before a race to minimize the friction, maybe that’s why Aron ran faster than they did, so that even this little triumph turned into a humiliating proof of something, or maybe he had been propelled up the hill by the fear that seized him when Gideon said go, and for the first time ever, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Gideon’s voice had cracked.

  8

  On Thursday nights, when the housecleaning is done, Papa takes a nice long bath. With a shiny red face and a towel around his waist he strides into the salon. “Ahh, a mechayeh,” he says, and lies facedown on the sofa. Aron watches from the kitchen, where he is sitting on Farouk in front of a heap of potatoes he has to peel for the Sabbath cholent. He’s a real pro at this.

  As soon as they finish the thorough cleaning, Mama and Yochi wash their hands and change into comfortable housecoats. Then they fetch the towels and cotton and 70 percent alcohol and converge on Papa in the salon. Grandma Lilly joins in. She likes to be included in their cleaning sprees, but most of all she likes to work on Papa’s back. It’s a miracle from heaven, says Mama, misty-eyed, the way our little Mamchu comes to life for the Thursday “thorough” and Papa’s back. And it’s true: whenever they bring out the pails and mops, her eyes light up. She scurries out of the alcove, mumbling and waving, begging for a piece of steel wool to scrub the panels. “Good for you, Mamchu,” says Mama, leading her to her corner in the kitchen under the stove, where the greasy grime collects. She sits her on the taboret and moves her hand around in circles. There, there, good, harder, till the movement gets into her system and suddenly she’s cleaning all by herself. Mama watches over her a little while longer to make sure Grandma’s making progress on the panel. Sometimes her mind wanders and you have to lead it back.

  When the work is done, the cleaning things go back on the kitchen porch: brooms, towels, luffa gourds, sponges, steel wool still raring to go; feather dusters; and floor rags drooping over buckets, oozing sweat, exhausted from their frenzied dance around the room. And Papa lies facedown on the sofa, with the women huddling over him. Mama has eyes like a hawk, she can spot a blackhead a kilometer away. When she does, she sounds a little battle cry and the three of them confer on how best to get rid of it—should they squeeze with their fingertips or dig in with their nails, and from which angle? Mama squeezes. Papa groans. Grandma applies the cotton and Yochi disinfects with 70 percent alcohol. Meanwhile, Mama starts hunting for a new one. When she spies an ugly whitehead they shriek with rapture and report it to Papa, cursing, threatening, exaggerating the size of it, gasping with horror, basking in anticipation of his relief. Deep inside him Aron can feel the tickling tongue of their excitement.

  It’s hard to concentrate on the potatoes. Slowly, discreetly, he drifts into thought, Aroning again. But he can still hear Papa groaning out there. And when they’re through with his back, Papa wants to talk to him; that is, Mama asked him three times in her mustard voice, as Yochi calls it, Will you please talk to Aron, and Aron knows why, but he won’t go, nothing doing, they’ll have to kill him first.

  Fast and furious he wields his knife, losing half a potato in the process. Nothing doing, he will not go. He’ll run away to the Gaza Strip. “The Voice of Cairo” promises a paradise for anyone who gets sick of living in Israel. He laughs. Thanks but no thanks, he will not go to Tel Aviv this summer. They can’t pack him off like a little kid anymore. He’ll be having his bar mitzvah soon. The peels squirt out between his fingers. Nothing had been mentioned since Passover, so he was kind of hoping they’d given up, and then suddenly last week Mama told him that he was going to spend the entire vacation at Giora’s, Papa said so and that’s final. But I want to stay here. There’s nothing more to discuss, you’re going to Tel Aviv this summer, you want to grow up healthy, don’t you. But I’m not sick. The fresh air and sunshine will make you big and strong, she said deviously, anyone in your shoes would jump at the chance. He tried to protest: what about his bar mitzvah, how was he supposed to learn his Haftorah portion by next winter? Brains you’ve got, she answered snidely, you’ll manage. Aron stomped off to his bedroom and sat on the windowsill, one foot resting on the keroseneheater, which had a blanket over it. He gazed out at the street, where some little kids were playing freeze tag. He was running out of ideas. He didn’t know what to do. Just before Shavuot, Aunt Gucha had sent them another package of clothes for charity. Giora’s shirts reached down to Aron’s knees, and the trousers were enormous. The kids outside had scampered off and now the street was deserted. He heard footsteps in the hall. Was Mama coming to tell him she’d changed her mind, that she was only testing him? No, it was Grandma Lilly, wrapped in her Scottish plaid, her lips murmuring silently and her face tremulous. What does she want from me? Go back to bed, Grandma, you shouldn’t tire yourself. With an anxious glance over her shoulder Grandma Lilly grasped his hand and put something into it. But what? She dropped it into his palm and quickly pulled away, beaming proudly at him, urging him with her eyes to look. He did. But his hand was empty. He showed her it was. Go lie down now. Grandma’s face appeared sallow. And suddenly she grabbed his hand and turned it over, digging between his fingers with yelps of disbelief. She wanted to give him something. What is it, Grandma? Again she glanced anxiously over her shoulder. She was terrified of Mama. Maybe she’d heard they were sending him to Tel Aviv and she wanted to give him a going-away present. Again she clasped his hand. She leaned down and examined it closely. Her breath blew softly on his palm, cooling it like you do in the finger-play: “Granny stir the porridge, Granny stir the pot.” Only his granny never stirred the porridge, she was a useless old woman; for shame, how could he think such things about her when she would soon be—All right, Grandma, go lie down on your bed and look at the pretty pictures, come on, I’ll help you. But suddenly her eyes lit up. She smiled at him like a baby as she searched through her bathrobe pocket, turned it inside out—what is she hunting for—and then she beamed at him again, holding out a tiny thread between her fingers, or was it a speck of lint or basting from her robe, but the robe was blue and the thread was yellow, golden really, what does she want from me, all he needed now was for Mama to have a zetz and find her out of bed and the two of them whispering together, at least he was whispering. Here, Grandma, I don’t need it. She pushed his hand away impatiently. What is it, Grandma? Is this a special thread? Am I supposed to keep it or something? But instead of answering, Grandma hid behind the blanket and tripped off to bed. Go know what she was trying to tell him, maybe inher mind it was a precious treasure. Or maybe once he’d asked her to embroider him something with golden thread, but she was so muddled now that the memory of his request had popped up like a missing letter. But when did I ever ask her for anything? he brooded, twiddling the thread between his fingers, and anyway, Grandma was wacky long before the trouble in her head; it was Mama who made a mensch of her, who taught her how to behave around strangers, not to laugh too loud or tell the truth, it was Mama who civilized her, and yet, a year ago she was a regular member of the family and now she wasn’t anymore, whole days went by when he ignored her and she was left entirely to poor Mama. The twirling thread was barely visible, a mere golden blur, and he felt a vague anxiety that maybe Grandma knew she was about to die, maybe people in her condition have an animal instinct about that and she wanted to give him a present, something precious to remember her by. Like an heirloom. He laughed d
ejectedly. Poor Grandma, she spends a lifetime embroidering, and in the end all she has to leave me is a piece of thread. When he looked again there was nothing there, but out of deference to her, he pretended to put it in his pocket for safekeeping.

  “How many times do I have to call you, Aron?” Mama was standing over him, and he quickly hid his fingers. “What’s the matter, why are you so jumpy these days?” She gave him one of her vivisecting looks, unaware that deep inside he was sealing himself off from her, slamming doors. “Why are you staring at me like that?” “Like what?” “Oh fine, now maybe you need glasses too.” “What are you talking about? I see perfectly well!” “With eyes like this? Like a Chinaman’s?” She mimicked, squinting up, and shook her head in bewilderment. “What I wouldn’t give to be in your dream when you make that face.” Again she mimicked him. I’m all alone in here, he thought, just me, myself, Aroning.

  “And watch the potatoes. You’re cutting them into snippets. I wouldn’t serve cholent like that to my worst enemy. Now clean up in here, and sweep the floor, because Papa has something to say to you, right, Moshe?” Papa strode into the kitchen without a glance. Mama hurried off to help Yochi put Mamchu to bed. Slowly Aron started picking up the peels from the newspaper on the floor, and Papa sat down at the Formica table. He flipped through the Sick Fund account books and licked in the reddish-yellow stamps, making sure each onewas glued in place, God forbid he should skip a month. Aron finished sweeping and stood before Papa. Papa was still poring over the account books, still ignoring him.

  And suddenly Aron realized there was nothing to fear. The moment he had been waiting for had come at last: Papa was about to look into his eyes and whisper something, the secret code that went from father to son, from king to prince, or maybe he would touch him somewhere only fathers know about; it might hurt, of course it would, pain and change go hand in hand, like when you’re circumcised; he blinked in anticipation, so what happens, is it like a slap on the face or a stomach punch or a knife wound that leaves a scar like Papa’s, without an anesthetic, and it hurts like crazy, but if you can stand the pain, you’ve made it, you’re in. Papa stood up. Aron stretched and straightened his shoulders. Papa approached the stove. Or did they brand you like a new calf joining the herd? Papa lit a cigarette from the burner. Watch closely, and learn what to do with your own child when the day comes. Finally Papa opened his mouth, and Aron melted with gratitude for his clumsiness, his awkwardness, not like certain strange, unreliable fathers with high-flown words and a tongue like a snake’s; Papa muttered something about Tel Aviv, about summer and having fun, and how lucky he was to be going away. Aron hung his head, feeling both sheepish and relieved. Papa stammered and waved his heavy hands: Aron was old enough to do this for him, to help the family out. Silence. A pair of eyes gazed up in bewilderment, and the other pair avoided them. Nu, stop looking at me like that. Like what? Like a, like a, like a lousy commissar. Papa, it seemed, wanted Aron to save his Tel Aviv bus tickets so he could turn them in at the workers’ council. You get a refund, he explained, good money too, no questions asked.

  9

  Just as he feared, he did not have a good time in Tel Aviv that summer. Giora made an effort to be friendly, he was friendlier than ever, in fact, and wouldn’t leave him alone for a single minute. He was always sidling up to him, jabbering at him in that new voice he had, giving out his new smell, and swinging his arms, till you had to be blind not to notice. Aron tried to avoid him; he refused to go to the beach with the gang, but much to his astonishment, Giora decided not to go either. He wanted to tell Aron about the signals a guy their age should know: like, when you meet a girl, if you rub your thumb from right to left over the palm of her hand, it’s a signal. And if you swish your tongue from your right cheek to your left cheek while you’re looking at her, that’s a signal too. Anything can be a signal. And a girl with a build like Sophia Loren might really just be wearing falsies underneath. When Mama came to visit she tried to explain how important it was for his health and well-being that he should stay in Tel Aviv. She was wearing a flower print dress he’d never seen before that smelled of stale perspiration. Settling herself in Gucha’s armchair, she told him all the latest: the Pouritz was at the upholsterer’s, there were plans for a little redecorating before winter, but she hadn’t made up her mind about the buffet yet; they couldn’t just throw it out after eighteen years, it was almost like new, though she supposed it could do with a bit of a facelift. And it’s high time we thought about painting too, there’s a moisture stain in the salon over half the ceiling, she went on in her cellophanevoice, as Yochi called it, the voice she used with the neighbors in the hallway, and then, holding her coffee cup close to her mouth, she told him the good tidings: Nitza Knoller would be his homeroom teacher again next year, and Yochi was cramming for finals, Mama had seen to her army deferral and the rest of the bougeras, and also, she and Papa had decided that the way things were going now, Grandma needed to be looked after properly, somewhere nice, with a haimish atmosphere. Please, begged Aron, take me back to Jerusalem. I’ll help with Grandma. I swear I will. I’ll wash her for you. I’ll even wipe her. You leave Grandma to me, said Mama in the old voice. It’s yourself you have to worry about, you hear? Aunt Gucha, who had been listening with a blank expression on her face, remarked that this year, eppes, Aronchik didn’t seem to be having much fun. He’d rather stay home and read a book than go out and play with the other children. Mama looked worried. Him, read a book? This boy cannot sit still for more than five minutes. And Aunt Gucha, to ease the tension, smiled at him and said she was sure that by the end of the summer they’d see a world of difference.

  There were forty-one days left. On alternate Thursdays, when Mama came to visit, Gucha’s Efraim gave up his place in the double bed for her and slept on a mattress in Giora’s room. Aron would lie awake half the night listening to Mama and Gucha. Over the whirring of the water cooler he could hear them whispering together in Yiddish, about Papa and even about Uncle Efraim, and it made Aron sick the way Mama laughed. He guessed—with a flickering of the ember inside him—whenever she crossed the border between girlhood and womanhood, and he almost gagged at the memory of what he found on his search for Roxana and the others. Oi, Gucha, Gucha, said Mama at the door next day when it was time for the makisht-zich, you’re the only one I ever laugh with like this, like we used to when we were girls.

  Giora walked at Aron’s side. His words poured out in a tedious drone. A scorching khamsin hung over the streets of Tel Aviv, and the bleach-white sun rays burst into scarlet drops on the poinciana trees. They always blossom at the same time, reflected Aron, the way cats go into heat. And a tap turns counterclockwise. And a screw turns right to left, or is it the other way around? He rubbed the coin in his pocket, the one he had caught in the sea the year before: a foreign coin, worn smooth by time, he couldn’t make out the inscription on it. Obsolete,he had decided, but kept it safely in his pocket, although he was tempted to toss it away at least a thousand times and the only thing that stopped him was the vow he’d made to throw it back exactly where he found it. Giora was ambling along, full of good cheer. He took an instructive magazine clipping out of his pocket and read aloud: “Foam-rubber padding is a thing of the past. Today’s brassieres have Dacron squares sewn into the lining, or ultra-thin layers of fiberglass that shape the cup.” They were walking up Ben Yehuda Street and Aron found a public telephone and rang up his father at work. If you’re gonna whine like a girl in Tel Aviv, I hate to think how you’ll do in the army, said Papa, who kept bringing up the army lately in strangely resentful tones. The army will make a man of you yet, he said. No sooner did Aron emerge from the phone booth than Giora picked up again: “The latest designs from Rudy Gernreich, creator of the monokini, will be available this summer in a variety of colors: black, white, and flesh tone.” Aron stood still, watching him wearily. Hey, you know that last part, the flesh-tone part—Giora giggled—whew, I come just thinking about it. If you want, I’ll let you
copy it. Aron declined politely. Suit yourself, said Giora, not minding, carefully folding the page back into his pocket. On and on he went, about sixty-nine, about the two holes in a woman’s cunt, one for pissing and the other for the main thing; Aron was scarcely listening anymore. What was going on behind those winks? Giora elbowed him: Get it? They signal you when they’re ready, like, if they bat their eyes and lick their lips, it means they’re hot. Or, if they stick a feather in their hat, that’s a sure signal. And then he told about a Moroccan girl half the neighborhood had used as a mattress till her parents got wise and married her off to a tourist. So then, like on her wedding night, while the man isn’t looking, she takes a dead pigeon out of her suitcase and slits its throat to stain the sheet. Aron studied Giora’s face: his complexion looked muddy somehow, lacking in transparency, there were fuzzy smudges on the cheeks and around the mouth where the skin set waxlike into the lifeless features of a stranger. When he noticed Aron staring at him, Giora offered some more of his mysterious tips: If a girl wears an anklet it means she’s a homo. And if she breaks out it means she’s getting the curse. He gazed darkly into Aron’s eyes. I give up, said Aron, withering, let’s go to the beach and see your friends. He hoped Giora would behave less crudely around them, but no such luck. The Tel Aviv kids were definitely changed. Some of them smokedopenly. Their husky voices made the dirty talking easier. Aron stood limply in their midst like some elderly uncle or a tourist who didn’t speak the lingo. At least Gideon is still loyal, he reassured himself, if only he remembers to take the pills I gave him for his eyes, but he winced at the memory of Gideon that last day in Jerusalem, after report cards, as usual he and Gideon got straight A’s, and Zacky Smitanka ran down to the rock proudly waving a handkerchief at Gideon; mine doesn’t have that yellow stuff yet, muttered Gideon, turning guiltily toward Aron. Show me, show me, cried Aron, jumping up and down behind them, trying to peek. Zacky offered a single tantalizing glimpse, then quickly hid the crumpled handkerchief; why was he getting so full of himself, why did he treat Aron with such contempt, yes, and loathing, as if all along he had been biding his time, just waiting for this moment; but why, he wondered, what did he do to them? Come on, you guys, let me see too, cried Aron, reaching out. Uh-uh-uh, cautioned Zacky, mustn’t touch the merchandise! And Aron was about to say that he also had a secret, something precious to share in return—his last milk tooth, the one that wouldn’t fall out, but he stopped himself. Gideon, glancing at the handkerchief again, asked with shy revulsion if it hurts when the stuff squirts out, and Zacky sprayed the air with a prolonged snicker and answered like a movie actor, looking straight at Aron for some reason, No, it feels all soft and nifty. Let me touch it, please, begged Aron, who by now had lost all pride. Zacky stared at him, wide-eyed. Whoa, Africa awakens! he said, flashing the handkerchief under Aron’s nose. Here you are, ma’am, fresh as yesterday morning, and he led him backward over rock and bush, Aron’s eyes transfixed by the glob in the handkerchief. Must be some kind of new substance, Aron ventured wretchedly, and Zacky howled with laughter, patting him on the head like a backward child, as Gideon turned away, shaking with stifled paroxysms. Hey, what do you say we nominate him for the Nobel Prize in chemistry, suggested Zacky, leading Aron around in hilarious circles. Where did you get it? asked Aron, well aware that he was humiliating himself. There’s plenty more where that came from, shouted Zacky. Care for a peek at my secret factory? I just want to touch it, please, begged Aron, with the sound of Gideon’s wheezing in his ears; all of a sudden Zacky stopped laughing and licked his lips enticingly, and then with a dramatic flourish passed Aron the handkerchief. Aron touched the tiny glob. It was hard as resin. His finger trembled. Heforgot his erstwhile humiliation. Now he knew, whether they did or not: this glob didn’t belong to stupid Zacky. It belonged to something far, far greater. And he savored the moment like a dignified beggar.