Everything Is Illuminated (21 page)

Those things that you wrote in your letter about your grandmother made me remember how you told me on Augustine’s steps about when you would sit under her dress, and how that presented you safety and peace. I must confess that I became melancholy then, and still am melancholy. I was also very moved — is this how you use it? — by what you wrote about how impossible it must have been for your grandmother to be a mother without a husband. It is amazing, yes, how your grandfather survived so much only to die when he came to America? It is as if after surviving so much, there was no longer a reason to survive. When you wrote about the early death of your grandfather, it helped me to understand, in some manners, the melancholy that Grandfather has felt since Grandmother died, and not only because they both died from cancer. I do not know your mother, of course, but I know you, and I can tell you that your grandfather would have been so so proud. It is my hope that I will be a person that Grandmother would have been so so proud of.

And now, to concern informing your grandmother of our voyage, there could not be a question that you must do it, even if it will make her to cry. In truth, it is something abnormal to witness your grandparent cry. I have told you about when I have witnessed Grandfather cry, and I implore myself to say that I desire to never witness him cry again. If this signifies that I must do things for him so that he will not cry, then I will do those things. If this signifies that I must not look when he cries, then I will not look. You are very different from me in this manner. I think that you need to see your grandmother cry, and if this means doing things to make her cry, then you must do them, and if this means looking at her when she cries, then you must look.

Your grandmother will find some manner to be content with what you did when you went to Ukraine. I am certain that she will forgive you if you inform her. But if you never inform her, she will never be able to forgive you.And this is what you desire, yes? For her to forgive you? Is not that why you did everything? One part of your letter made me most melancholy. It was the part when you said that you do not know anybody, and how that encompasses even you. I understand very much what you are saying. Do you remember the division that I wrote about how Grandfather said I looked like a combination of Father, Mother, Brezhnev, and myself? I made to remember that when I read what you wrote. (With our writing, we are reminding each other of things. We are making one story, yes?) I must inform you something now. This is a thing I have never informed anyone, and you must promise that you will not inform it to one soul. I have never been carnal with a girl.

I know. I know. You cannot believe it, but all of the stories that I told you about my girls who dub me All Night, Baby, and Currency were all not-truths, and they were not befitting not-truths. I think I manufacture these not-truths because it makes me feel like a premium person. Father asks me very often about girls, and which girls I am being carnal with, and in what arrangements we are carnal. He likes to laugh with me about it, especially late at night when he is full of vodka. I know that it would disappoint him very much if he knew what I am really like.

But more, I manufacture not-truths for Little Igor. I desire him to feel as if he has a cool brother, and a brother whose life he would desire to imper-sonate one day. I want Little Igor to be able to boast to his friends about his brother, and to want to be viewed in public places with him. I think that this is why I relish writing for you so much. It makes it possible for me to be not like I am, but as I desire for Little Igor to see me. I can be funny, because I have time to meditate about how to be funny, and I can repair my mistakes when I perform mistakes, and I can be a melancholy person in manners that are interesting, not only melancholy. With writing, we have second chances.

You mentioned to me that first evening of our voyage that you thought you might have been born to be a writer. What a terrible thing, I think. But I must tell you, I do not think that you understood the meaning of what you said when you said that. You were making suggestions of how you like to write, and how it is an interesting thing for you to imagine worlds that are not exactly like this one, or worlds that are exactly like this one. It is true, I am certain, that you will write very many more books than I will, but it is me, not you, who was born to be the writer.

Grandfather interrogates me about you every day. He desires to know if you forgive him for the things he told you about the war, and about Herschel.

(You could alter it, Jonathan. For him, not for me. Your novel is now verging on the war. It is possible.) He is not a bad person. He is a good person, alive in a bad time. Do you remember when he said this? It makes him so melancholy to remember his life. I discover him crying almost every night, but must counterfeit that I am reposing. Little Igor also discovers him crying, and so does Father, and even though Father could never inform me, I am certain that it makes him melancholy to see his father crying.

Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was. Sometimes I feel ensnared in this, as if no matter what I do, what will come has already been fixed. For me, OK, but there are things that I want for Little Igor. There is so much violence around him, and I mean more than merely the kind that occurs with fists. I do not want him to feel violence anymore, but also I do not want him to one day make others feel violence.

Father is never home because then he would witness Grandfather crying. This is my notion. “His stomach,” he said to me last week when we heard Grandfather in the television room. “His stomach.” But it is not his stomach, I understand, and Father understands this also. (This is why I forgive Father. I do not love him. I hate him. But I forgive him for everything.) I parrot: Grandfather is not a bad person, Jonathan. Everyone performs bad actions. I do. Father does. Even you do. A bad person is someone who does not lament his bad actions. Grandfather is now dying because of his. I beseech you to forgive us, and to make us better than we are. Make us good.

Guilelessly,

Alexander

“Jon-fen,” I said, “Jon-fen, arouse! Look who I have!” “Huh?” “Look,”

I said, and pointed to Augustine. “How long have I been asleep?” he asked. “Where are we?” “Trachimbrod! We are in Trachimbrod!” I was so proud. “Grandfather,” I uttered, and moved Grandfather with much violence. “What?” “Look, Grandfather! Look who I have found!” He moved his hands across his eyes. “Augustine?” he asked, and it appeared as if he could not be certain if he was still in dreams. “Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior!” I said, shaking her. “We are here!” “Who are these people?” Augustine asked, and she was persevering to cry. She dried her tears with her dress, which signified lifting it enough to exhibit her legs.

But she was not ashamed. “Augustine?” the hero asked. “Let us roost,” I said, “and we will illuminate everything.” The hero and the bitch removed themselves from the car. I was not certain if Grandfather would come, but he did. “Are you hungry?” Augustine asked. The hero must have been acquiring some Ukrainian, because he put his hand on his stomach. I moved my head to say, Yes, some of us are very hungry people. “Come,” Augustine said, and I detected that she was not melancholy at all, but happy without controls. She took my hand. “Come inside. I will arrange lunch, and we will eat.” We walked up the wood stairs that I first witnessed her roosting on and went into her house. Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior loitered outside, smelling the clothes on the ground.

First, I must describe that Augustine had a very unusual walk, which went from here to there with heaviness. She could not move any faster than slow. It looked like she had a leg that was damaged goods. (If we knew then, Jonathan, would we have still gone in?) Second, I must describe her house. It was not similar to any house that I have seen, and I do not think that I would dub it a house. If you want to know what I would dub it, I would dub it two rooms. One of the rooms had a bed, and a small desk, a bureau, and many things from the floor to the ceiling, including piles of more clothes and hundreds of shoes of different sizes and fashions. I could not see the wall through all of the photographs. They appeared as if they came from many different families, although I did recognize that a few of the people were in more than one or two. All of the clothing and shoes and pictures made me to reason that there must have been at least one hundred people living in that room. The other room was also very populous. There were many boxes, which were overflowing with items. These had writing on their sides. A white cloth was overwhelming from the box marked weddings and other celebrations. The box marked privates: journals/diaries/

sketchbooks/underwear was so overfilled that it appeared prepared to rupture. There was another box, marked silver/perfume/

pinwheels, and one marked watches/winter, and one marked hygiene/spools/candles, and one marked figurines/spectacles. If I had been a smart person, I would have recorded all of the names on a piece of paper, as the hero did in his diary, but I was not a smart person, and have since forgotten many of them. Some of the names I could not reason, like the box marked darkness, or the one with death of the firstborn written in pencil on its front. I noticed that there was a box on the top of one of these skyscrapers of boxes that was marked dust.

There was a petite stove in this room, a shelf with vegetables and potatoes, and a wooden table. It was at this wooden table that we sat. It was hard to remove the chairs because there was almost no room for them with all of the boxes. “Allow me to cook you a little something,”

she said, giving all of her words and glances to me. “Please, do not make any efforts,” Grandfather said. “It is nothing,” she said, “but I must tell you that I do not have so much currency, and for that reason I have no meat.” Grandfather looked at me and closed one of his eyes. “Do you like potatoes and cabbage?” she asked. “This is a perfect thing,” Grandfather said. He was smiling so so much, and I am not lying if I tell you that I had never seen him smile so much since Grandmother was alive. I saw that when she rotated to excavate a cabbage from a wooden box on the floor, Grandfather arranged his hairs with a comb from his pocket.

“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.