Everything Is Illuminated (5 page)

Notwithstanding that we had a deranged bitch in the car, who made a proclivity of throwing her body against the windows, the drive was also difficult because the car is so much shit that it would not travel any faster than as fast as I could run, which is sixty kilometers per the hour. Many cars passed us, which made me feel second rate, especially when the cars were heavy with families, and when they were bicycles. Grandfather and I did not utter words pending the drive, which is not abnormal, because we have never uttered multitudinous words. I made efforts not to spleen him, but nonetheless did. For one example, I forgot to examine the map, and we missed our entrance to the superway. “Please do not punch me,”

I said, “but I made a miniature error with the map.” Grandfather kicked the stop pedal, and my face gave a high-five to the front window. He did not say anything for the majority of a minute. “Did I ask you to drive the car?” he asked. “I do not have a license to drive the car,” I said. (Keep this as a secret, Jonathan.) “Did I ask you to prepare me breakfast while you roost there?” he asked. “No,” I said. “Did I ask you to invent a new kind of wheel?” he asked. “No,” I said, “I would not have been very good at that.” “How many things did I ask you to do?” he asked. “Only one,” I said, and I knew that he was pissing off, pissing everywhere, and that he would yell at me for some durable time, and perhaps even violence me, which I deserved, nothing is new. But he did not. (So you are aware, Jonathan, he has never violenced me or Little Igor.) If you want to know what he did, he rotated the car around, and we drove back to where I fashioned the error. Twenty minutes it captured. When we arrived at the location, I informed him that we were there. “Are you cocksure?” he asked. I told him I was cocksure. He moved the car to the side of the road. “We will stop here and eat breakfast,” he said. “Here?” I asked, because it was an unimpressive location, with only a few meters of dirt amid the road and a concrete wall separating the road and farmlands. “I think this is a premium location,” he said, and I knew it would be a common decency not to argue. We roosted on the grass and ate, while Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior attempted to lick the yellow lines off of the superway. “If you blunder again,” Grandfather said while he masticated a sausage, “I will stop the car and you will get out with a foot in the backside. It will be my foot. It will be your backside. Is this a thing you understand?”

We arrived in Lvov in only eleven hours, but yet traveled at once to the train station as Father ordered. It was rigid to find, and we became lost people many times. This gave Grandfather anger. “I hate Lvov!” he said. We had been there for ten minutes. Lvov is big and impressive, but not like Odessa. Odessa is very beautiful, with many famous beaches where girls are lying on their backs and exhibiting their first-rate bosoms. Lvov is a city like New York City in America. New York City, in truth, was designed on the model of Lvov. It has very tall buildings (with as many as six levels) and comprehensive streets (with enough room for as many as three cars) and many cellular phones. There are many statues in Lvov, and many places where statues used to be located. I have never witnessed a place fashioned of so much concrete. Everything was concrete, everywhere, and I will tell you that even the sky, which was gray, appeared like concrete. This is something that the hero and I would speak about later, when we were having an absence of words. “Do you remember all the concrete in Lvov?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. “Me too,” he said. Lvov is a very important city in the history of Ukraine. If you want to know why, I do not know why, but I am certain that my friend Gregory does.

Lvov is not very impressive from inside the train station. This is where I loitered for the hero for more than four hours. His train was dilatory, so it was five hours. I was spleened to have to loiter there with nothing to do, without even a hi-fi, but I was very good-humored to not have to be in the car with Grandfather, who was likely becoming a deranged person, and Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, who was already deranged. The station was not ordinary, because there were blue and yellow papers from the ceiling. They were there for the first birthday of the new constitution. This did not make me so proud, but I was appeased that the hero should view them when disembarking the train from Prague. He would obtain an excellent picture of our country. Perhaps he would think that the yellow and blue papers were for him, because I know that they are the Jewish colors.

When his train finally arrived, both of my legs were needles and nails from being an upright person for such a duration. I would have roosted, but the floor was very dirty, and I wore my peerless blue jeans to oppress the hero. I knew which car he would be disembarking from, because Father told me, and I tried to walk to it when the train arrived, but it was very difficult with two legs that were all needles and nails. I held a sign with his name in front of me, and fell many times on my legs, and looked into the eyes of every person that walked past.

When we found each other, I was very flabbergasted by his appearance. This is an American? I thought. And also, This is a Jew? He was severely short. He wore spectacles and had diminutive hairs which were not split anywhere, but rested on his head like a Shapka. (If I were like Father, I might even have dubbed him Shapka.) He did not appear like either the Americans I had witnessed in magazines, with yellow hairs and muscles, or the Jews from history books, with no hairs and prominent bones. He was wearing nor blue jeans nor the uniform. In truth, he did not look like anything special at all. I was underwhelmed to the maximum.

He must have witnessed the sign I was holding, because he punched me on the shoulder and said, “Alex?” I told him yes. “You’re my translator, right?” I asked him to be slow, because I could not understand him.

In truth I was manufacturing a brick wall of shits. I attempted to be sedate. “Lesson one. Hello. How are you doing this day?” “What?” “Lesson two. OK, isn’t the weather full of delight?” “You’re my translator,”

he said, manufacturing movements, “yes?” “Yes,” I said, presenting him my hand. “I am Alexander Perchov. I am your humble translator.” “It would not be nice to beat you,” he said. “What?” I said. “I said,” he said,

“it would not be nice to beat you.” “Oh yes,” I laughed, “it would not be nice to beat you also. I implore you to forgive my speaking of English. I am not so premium with it.” “Jonathan Safran Foer,” he said, and presented me his hand. “What?” “I’m Jonathan Safran Foer.” “Jon-fen?”

“Safran Foer.” “I am Alex,” I said. “I know,” he said. “Did someone hit you?” he inquired, witnessing my right eye. “It was nice for Father to beat me,” I said. I took his bags from him and we went forth to the car.

“Your train ride appeased you?” I asked. “Oh, God,” he said,

“twenty-six hours, fucking unbelievable.” This girl Unbelievable must be very majestic, I thought. “You were able to Z Z Z Z Z?” I asked.

“What?” “Did you manufacture any Z’s?” “I don’t understand.” “Repose.” “What?” “Did you repose?” “Oh. No,” he said, “didn’t repose at all.” “What?” “I . . . did . . . not . . . repose . . . at . . . all.” “And the guards at the border?” “It was nothing,” he said. “I’ve heard so much about them, that they would, you know, give me a hard time. But they came in, checked my passport, and didn’t bother me at all.” “What?” “I had heard it might be a problem, but it wasn’t a problem.” “You had heard about them?” “Oh yeah, I heard they were big fucking assholes.” Big fucking assholes. I wrote this on my brain.

In truth, I was flabbergasted that the hero did not have any legal hearings and tribulations with the border guards. They have an unsavory habit for taking things without asking from people on the train. Father went to Prague once, as part of his toiling for Heritage Touring, and while he reposed the guards removed many premium things from his bag, which is terrible because he does not have many premium things. (It is so queer to think of someone injuring Father. I more usually think of the roles as unmovable.) I have also been informed stories of travelers who must present currency to the guards in order to receive their documents in return. For Americans it can be either best or worst. It is best if the guard is in love with America and wants to overawe the American by being a premium guard. This kind of guard thinks that he will encounter the American again one day in America, and that the American will offer to take him to a Chicago Bulls game, and buy him blue jeans and white bread and delicate toilet paper. This guard dreams of speaking English without an accent and obtaining a wife with an unmalleable bosom. This guard will confess that he does not love where he lives.

The other kind of guard is also in love with America, but he will hate the American for being an American. This is worst. This guard knows he will never go to America, and knows that he will never meet the American again. He will steal from the American, and terror the American, only to teach that he can. This is the only occasion in his life to have his Ukraine be more than America, and to have himself be more than the American. Father told me this, and I am certain that he is certain that it is faithful.

When we arrived at the car, Grandfather was loitering with patience as Father ordered him to. He was very patient. He was snoring. He was snoring with such volume that the hero and I could hear him even though the windows were elevated, and it sounded as if the car was operating. “This is our driver,” I said. “He is an expert at driving.” I observed distress in the smile of our hero. This was the second time. It had been four minutes. “Is he OK?” he asked. “What?” I said. “I do not make to understand. Speak more slower, please.” I may have appeared noncom-petent to the hero. “Is . . . the . . . dri . . . ver . . . heal . . . thy?” “With cer-tainty,” I said. “But I must tell you, I am very familiar with this driver. He is my grandfather.” At this moment, Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior made herself evident, because she jumped up from the back seat and barked in volumes. “Oh Jesus Christ!” the hero said with terror, and he moved distant from the car. “Do not be distressed,” I informed him as Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior punched her head against the window. “That is only the driver’s Seeing Eye bitch.” I pointed to the shirt that she was donning, but she had masticated the major of it, so that it only said: officious bitch. “She is deranged,” I said, “but so so playful.”

“Grandfather,” I said, moving his arm to arouse him. “Grandfather, he is here.” Grandfather rotated his head from this to that. “He is always reposing,” I told the hero, hoping that might make him less distressed.

“That must come to hands,” the hero said. “What?” I asked. “I said that must come to hands.” “What does it mean come to hands?” “To be useful. You know, to be helpful. What about that dog, though?” I use this American idiom very often now. I told a girl at a famous nightclub, “My eyes come to hands when I observe your peerless bosom.” I could perceive that she perceived that I was a premium person. Later we became very carnal, and she smelled her knees, and also my knees.

I was able to move Grandfather from his repose. If you want to know how, I fastened his nose with my fingers so that he could not breathe. He did not know where he was. “Anna?” he asked. That was the name of my grandmother who died two years yore. “No, Grandfather,” I said, “it is me. Sasha.” He was very shamed. I could perceive this because he rotated his face away from me. “I acquired Jon-fen,” I said. “Um, that’s Jon-athan,” the hero said, who was observing Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior as she licked the windows. “I acquired him. His train arrived.” “Oh,”

Grandfather said, and I perceived that he was still departing from a dream. “We should go forth to Lutsk,” I suggested, “as Father ordered.”

“What?” the hero inquired. “I told him that we should go forth to Lutsk.” “Yes, Lutsk. That’s where I was told we would go. And from there to Trachimbrod.” “What?” I inquired. “Lutsk, then Trachimbrod.”

“Correct,” I said. Grandfather put his hands on the wheel. He looked in front of him for a protracted time. He was breathing very large breaths, and his hands were shaking. “Yes?” I inquired him. “Shut up,” he informed me. “Where’s the dog going to be?” the hero inquired. “What?”

“Where’s . . . the . . . dog . . . going . . . to . . . be?” “I do not understand.” “I’m afraid of dogs,” he said. “I’ve had some pretty bad experiences with them.” I told this to Grandfather, who was still half of himself in dream.

“No one is afraid of dogs,” he said. “Grandfather informs me that no one is afraid of dogs.” The hero moved his shirt up to exhibit me the remains of a wound. “That’s from a dog bite,” he said. “What is?” “That.”

“What?” “This thing.” “What thing?” “Here. It looks like two intersect-ing lines.” “I don’t see it.” “Here,” he said. “Where?” “Right here,” he said, and I said, “Oh yes,” although in truth I still could not witness a thing. “My mother is afraid of dogs.” “So?” “So I’m afraid of dogs. I can’t help it.” I clutched the situation now. “Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior must roost in the front with us,” I told Grandfather. “Get in the fucking car,”

he said, having misplaced all of the patience that he had while snoring.

“The bitch and the Jew will share the back seat. It is vast enough for both of them.” I did not mention how the back seat was not vast enough for even one of them. “What are we going to do?” the hero asked, afraid to become close to the car, while in the back seat Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior had made her mouth with blood from masticating her own tail.

The news of his good fortune reached Yankel D as the Slouchers were concluding their weekly service.

It is most important that we remember, the narcoleptic potato farmer Didl S said to the congregation, which was reclining on pillows around his living room. (The Sloucher congregation was a wandering one, calling home a different congregant’s house each Shabbos.) Remember what? the schoolteacher Tzadik P asked, expelling yellow chalk with each syllable.

The what, Didl said, is not so important, but that we should remember. It is the act of remembering, the process of remembrance, the recognition of our past . . . Memories are small prayers to God, if we believed in that sort of thing . . . For it says somewhere something about just this, or something just like this . . . I had my finger on it a few minutes ago . . . I swear, it was right here. Has anyone seen The Book of Antecedents around? I had an early volume here just a second ago . . . Crap! . . . Can somebody tell me where I was? Now I’m totally confused, and embarrassed, and I always screw it up when it’s at my house —