The Book of Intimate Grammar (9 page)
Read The Book of Intimate Grammar Online
Authors: David Grossman
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 cellophane
voice, 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.
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 smoked
openly.
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.
He
forgot 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.
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 smoked
openly.
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.
He
forgot 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.
And here he sat, fully clad among the half-naked Tel Avivians, listening to their chatter with a hollow grin.
Last year there were only boys in the gang, but this year there were girls too.
As they talked and joked, the boys began to jab each other, right in the shoulder muscle, where it hurts the most, though luckily nobody did that to him.
Nearby he could hear two kids snorting with laughter, trying to persuade Giora to steal a chicken from Gucha’s freezer: Hey, it’s your turn, what’re you scared of, just put it back when you’re finished and no one will ever know.
Aron stood up.
He shuffled down to the water, hands in his pockets, fiddling with the coin.
Someone started humming “Pocket Ping-Pong.”
Raucous laughter rang out behind him as he waded into the sea.
How is it that kids learn the same things everywhere, like what to say and what to do; it’s as if they’re plugged into the same current; “with the fowl of the air in attendance,” for some reason this was the phrase that came to mind, followed, much to his annoyance, by an image of a frozen chicken, with its legs spread wide over the big round hole and Mama’s hand dripping blood after wringing out the innards, but he shook off the image and sailed it away on a receding wave.
Then he took the coin out of his pocket and was about to throw it, may it sink a thousand fathoms and never return, amen, when Giora walked up beside him so suddenly he barely had time to close his fist around the coin.
Last year there were only boys in the gang, but this year there were girls too.
As they talked and joked, the boys began to jab each other, right in the shoulder muscle, where it hurts the most, though luckily nobody did that to him.
Nearby he could hear two kids snorting with laughter, trying to persuade Giora to steal a chicken from Gucha’s freezer: Hey, it’s your turn, what’re you scared of, just put it back when you’re finished and no one will ever know.
Aron stood up.
He shuffled down to the water, hands in his pockets, fiddling with the coin.
Someone started humming “Pocket Ping-Pong.”
Raucous laughter rang out behind him as he waded into the sea.
How is it that kids learn the same things everywhere, like what to say and what to do; it’s as if they’re plugged into the same current; “with the fowl of the air in attendance,” for some reason this was the phrase that came to mind, followed, much to his annoyance, by an image of a frozen chicken, with its legs spread wide over the big round hole and Mama’s hand dripping blood after wringing out the innards, but he shook off the image and sailed it away on a receding wave.
Then he took the coin out of his pocket and was about to throw it, may it sink a thousand fathoms and never return, amen, when Giora walked up beside him so suddenly he barely had time to close his fist around the coin.
Don’t mind them, they’re only fooling, said Giora.
Hey, did you hear about the chicken?
I thought it up myself, brilliant, huh?
Giora grinned at him as if the word “brilliant” were another sly dig, only Aron’s mind was elsewhere: what if the spy had caught on when he wiped off the greasy fingerprints with 70 percent alcohol; with all his might he pitched this troubling thought into a receding wave, but Giora, staring at the sea beside him, was positively unrelenting, and jabbered on about how the players on the Italian soccer team aren’t allowed to fuck before a game, it’s true—look at Gianni Rivera.
Aron took a tiny step backward to protect the tips of his shoes from an oncoming wave.
He’s really been sliding since his engagement to that sexy showgirl, have you noticed?
Pay no attention, concentrate on the sea, thought Aron, trying to throw off his mounting despair; high and low he’d searched for the
pictures, till finally weeks later he found them—the nerve of that spy —hidden in Papa’s tool chest.
Yes, Aron gasped, the tool chest Papa used at least once a day, because there’s always something to fix around the house, lucky Papa’s so handy or the house’d fall to pieces, the electricity and the plumbing and the blinds, screw in to the right, unscrew a light bulb counterclockwise, same direction as a tap; he used to know that stuff by heart; go, wave, go, take it away, but there was Giora, looking out to sea, his voice booming over the breakers, telling Aron about this kid named Cockeyed Sammy, who’s feeling up his girlfriend for the first time and she says, Sorry, I can’t, I have the curse, so he says, Don’t worry, sticks and stones will break your bones, and Giora howled with laughter, staring hypnotically at the waves, and Aron thought, Away, away, but how did the pictures vanish from the tool chest, only to turn up again, after a week of frenzied searching, at the bottom of the drawer where Papa keeps the receipts, and how did they find their way from there into the first-aid box in Papa’s army kit bag, that’s where Aron found them, and he prayed there wouldn’t be a war.
So Sammy’s girl keeps trying to explain, No, really, I have the curse, and Sammy says, Hey, didn’t I tell you not to worry, I’ll fix that son-of-a-bee.
Aron groaned, the waves Giora reeled in were dark and sullen, hurling themselves at Aron’s shoes with their scum and seaweed and nylon bags, and Giora said, Tide’s in, and Aron searched his face for an allusion to the storm last year, which was, he suspected, when his problem began, maybe his brain had been deprived of oxygen or something, he was afraid to ask, because what if Giora gave a different answer, or blurted out more of the filthy secrets lurking behind his grin and the charcoal blotches on his coarsened features, and he slipped the coin back into his pocket, because he knew that Giora would only retrieve it if he threw it in, so he said, a little lamely, that he had to go home and rest now.
Fine, said Giora, I’ll walk you back.
Hey, did you hear about the chicken?
I thought it up myself, brilliant, huh?
Giora grinned at him as if the word “brilliant” were another sly dig, only Aron’s mind was elsewhere: what if the spy had caught on when he wiped off the greasy fingerprints with 70 percent alcohol; with all his might he pitched this troubling thought into a receding wave, but Giora, staring at the sea beside him, was positively unrelenting, and jabbered on about how the players on the Italian soccer team aren’t allowed to fuck before a game, it’s true—look at Gianni Rivera.
Aron took a tiny step backward to protect the tips of his shoes from an oncoming wave.
He’s really been sliding since his engagement to that sexy showgirl, have you noticed?
Pay no attention, concentrate on the sea, thought Aron, trying to throw off his mounting despair; high and low he’d searched for the
pictures, till finally weeks later he found them—the nerve of that spy —hidden in Papa’s tool chest.
Yes, Aron gasped, the tool chest Papa used at least once a day, because there’s always something to fix around the house, lucky Papa’s so handy or the house’d fall to pieces, the electricity and the plumbing and the blinds, screw in to the right, unscrew a light bulb counterclockwise, same direction as a tap; he used to know that stuff by heart; go, wave, go, take it away, but there was Giora, looking out to sea, his voice booming over the breakers, telling Aron about this kid named Cockeyed Sammy, who’s feeling up his girlfriend for the first time and she says, Sorry, I can’t, I have the curse, so he says, Don’t worry, sticks and stones will break your bones, and Giora howled with laughter, staring hypnotically at the waves, and Aron thought, Away, away, but how did the pictures vanish from the tool chest, only to turn up again, after a week of frenzied searching, at the bottom of the drawer where Papa keeps the receipts, and how did they find their way from there into the first-aid box in Papa’s army kit bag, that’s where Aron found them, and he prayed there wouldn’t be a war.
So Sammy’s girl keeps trying to explain, No, really, I have the curse, and Sammy says, Hey, didn’t I tell you not to worry, I’ll fix that son-of-a-bee.
Aron groaned, the waves Giora reeled in were dark and sullen, hurling themselves at Aron’s shoes with their scum and seaweed and nylon bags, and Giora said, Tide’s in, and Aron searched his face for an allusion to the storm last year, which was, he suspected, when his problem began, maybe his brain had been deprived of oxygen or something, he was afraid to ask, because what if Giora gave a different answer, or blurted out more of the filthy secrets lurking behind his grin and the charcoal blotches on his coarsened features, and he slipped the coin back into his pocket, because he knew that Giora would only retrieve it if he threw it in, so he said, a little lamely, that he had to go home and rest now.
Fine, said Giora, I’ll walk you back.
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