Everything Is Illuminated (25 page)

(Laughing, splashing at the mass forming like a garden around her.)
It's bringing forth the most whimsical objects!

GYPSY GIRL

(In the shadows cast by the two-dimensional trees, very close to
SAFRAN
's
ear.)
What did you say?

SAFRAN

(Using his shoulder to push his dead arm onto the
GYPSY GIRL
's
lap.)
I was curious as to whether or not you liked music.

SOFIOWKA N

(Coming out from behind a tree.)
I have seen everything that happened. I was witness to it all.

GYPSY GIRL

(Squeezing
SAFRAN
's
dead arm between her thighs.)
No, I do not like music.
(But what she was really trying to say was this: I like music better than anything in the world, after you.)

THE DISGRACED USURER YANKEL D

Trachim?

SAFRAN

(With dust descending from the rafters, with lips probing to find
GYPSY GIRL'S
caramel ear in the dark.)
You probably don't have time for music.
(But what he was really trying to say was: I'm not at all stupid, you know.)

SHLOIM W

I ask, I ask, who is Trachim? Some mortal curlicue?

(The playwright smiles in the cheap seats. He tries to gauge the audience's reaction.)

THE DISGRACED USURER YANKEL D

We don't so fully fathom anything yet. Let's not be hasty.

PEANUT GALLERY

(An impossible-to-place whisper.)
This is so unbelievable. Not at all like it was.

GYPSY GIRL

(Kneading
SAFRAN
's dead arm between her thighs, tracing the bend of his unfeeling elbow with her finger, pinching it.)
Don't you think it's hot in here?

SHLOIM W

(Quickly undressing himself, revealing a belly larger than most and a back matted with ringlets of thick black hair.)
Cover their eyes.
(Not for them. For me. I'm ashamed.)

SAFRAN

Very hot.

GRIEVING SHANDA

(To
SHLOIM,
as he emerges from the water.)
Was he in solitude or with a wife of many years?
(But what she was really trying to say was this: After everything that's happened, I still have hope. If not for myself, then for Trachim.)

GYPSY GIRL

(Intertwining her fingers with
SAFRAN
's dead ones.)
Can't we leave?

SAFRAN

Please.

SOFIOWKA N

Yes, it was love letters.

GYPSY GIRL

(With anticipation, with wetness between her legs.)
Let's leave.

THE UPRIGHT RABBI

And allow life to go on in the face of this death.

SAFRAN

Yes.

(Musicians prepare for climax. Four violins are tuned. A harp is breathed on. The trumpeter, who is really an oboist, cracks his knuckles. The hammers of the
piano know what happens next. The baton, which is really a butter knife, is lifted like a surgical instrument.)

THE DISGRACED USURER YANKEL D

(With hands raised to the heavens, to the men who aim the spotlights.)
Perhaps we should begin to harvest the remains.

SAFRAN

Yes.

(Enter music. Beautiful music. Hushed at first. Whispering. No pins are dropped. Only music. Music swelling imperceptibly. Pulling itself out of its grave of silence. The orchestra pit fills with sweat. Expectancy. Enter gentle rumble of timpani. Enter piccolo and viola. Intimations of crescendo. Ascent of adrenaline, even after so many performances. It still feels new. The music is building, blooming.)

AUTHORITATIVE VOICE

(With passion.)
The twins covered their eyes with their father's tallis. (
CHANA
and
HANNAH
cover eyes with tallis.)
Their father chanted a long and intelligent prayer for the baby and its parents. (
UPRIGHT RABBI
looks at his palms, nods his head up and down, gesturing prayer.)
Yankel's face was veiled in the tears of his sobbing. (
YANKEL
gestures sobbing.)
Unto us a child was born!

(Blackout. Curtains wed.
GYPSY GIRL
spreads her thighs. Applause mingled with hushed chatting. Players prepare stage for the next scene. The music is still building.
GYPSY GIRL
leads
SAFRAN
by his dead right arm out of the theater, through a maze of muddy alleys, past the confectioners' stands by the old cemetery, under the hanging vines of the synagogue's crumbling portico, through the shtetl square—the two separated for a moment by the Dial's final casting of the day—along the Brod's loose bank, down the Jewish/Human fault line, beneath the dangling palm fronds, bravely through the shadows of the crag, across the wooden bridge—)

GYPSY GIRL

Would you like to see something you've never seen before?

SAFRAN

(With an honesty previously unknown to him.)
I would. I would.

(—over the black- and blueberry brambles, into a petrified forest that
SAFRAN
has never before seen.
GYPSY GIRL
stands
SAFRAN
under the rock canopy of a giant maple, takes his dead arm into hers, allowing the shadows cast by the stone branches to consume her with nostalgia for everything, whispers something in his ear [to which no one other than my grandfather is privileged], eases his dead hand under the hem of her thin skirt, says)
Please
(bends at the knees),
please
(lowers herself onto his dead index finger),
yes
(crescendo),
yes
(puts her caramel hand on the top button of his dress shirt, sways at the waist),
please
(trumpet flourish, violin flourish, timpani flourish, cymbal flourish),
yes
(dusk spills across the nightscape, the night sky blots up the darkness like a sponge, heads crane),
yes
(eyes close),
please
(lips part),
yes.
(The conductor drops his baton, his butter knife, his scalpel, his Torah pointer, the universe, blackness.)

12 December 1997

Dear Jonathan,

Salutations from Ukraine. I just received your letter and read it many times, notwithstanding parts that I read aloud to Little Igor. (Did I tell you that he is reading your novel as I read it? I translate it for him, and I am also your editor.) I will utter no more than that we are both anticipating the remnants. It is a thing that we can think about and converse about. It is also a thing that we can laugh about, which is something we require.

There is so much that I want to inform you, Jonathan, but I cannot fathom the manner. I want to inform you about Little Igor, and how he is such a premium brother, and also about Mother, who is very, very humble, as I remark to you often, but nonetheless a good person, and nonetheless My Mother. Perhaps I did not paint her with the colors that I should have. She is good to me, and never bad to me, and this is how you must see her. I want to inform you about Grandfather, and how he views television for many hours, and how he cannot witness my eyes anymore, but must be attentive to something behind me. I want to inform you about Father, and how I am not being a caricature when I tell you that I would remove him from my life if I was not such a coward. I want to inform you about what it is like to be me, which is a thing that you still do not possess a single whisper of. Perhaps when you read the next division of my story, you will comprehend. It was the most difficult division that I have yet composed, but I am certain not nearly so difficult as what is still to come. I have been putting on a high shelf what I know I must do, which is point a finger at Grandfather pointing at Herschel. You have without doubts observed this.

I have learned many momentous lessons from your writing, Jonathan.
One lesson is that it does not matter if you are guileless, or delicate, or modest. Just be yourself. I could not believe that your grandfather was such an inferior person, to be carnal with the sister of his wife, and on the day of his wedding, and to be carnal while standing, which is a very inferior arrangement,for reasons you should be aware of. And then he is carnal with the aged woman, who must have had a very slack box, which I will utter no more about. How can you do this to your grandfather, writing about his life in such a manner? Could you write in this manner if he was alive? And if not, what does that signify?

I have a further issue to discuss about your writing. Why do women love your grandfather because of his dead arm? Do they love it because it enables them to feel strong over him? Do they love it because they are commiserating it, and we love the things that we commiserate? Do they love it because it is a momentous symbol of death? I ask because I do not know.

I have only one remark about your remarks about my writing. With regards for how you ordered me to remove the section where you talk about your grandmother, I must tell you that this is not a possibility. I accept if because of my decision you choose not to present me any more currency, or if you command for me to post back the currency you have given me in the previous months. It would be justifying every dollar, I will inform you.

We are being very nomadic with the truth, yes? The both of us? Do you think that this is acceptable when we are writing about things that occurred? If your answer is no, then why do you write about Trachimbrod and your grandfather in the manner that you do, and why do you command me to be untruthful? If your answer is yes, then this creates another question, which is if we are to be such nomads with the truth, why do we not make the story more premium than life? It seems to me that we are making the story even inferior. We often make ourselves appear as though we are foolish people, and we make our voyage, which was an ennobled voyage, appear very normal and second rate. We could give your grandfather two arms, and could make him high-fidelity. We could give Brod what she deserves in the stead of what she gets. We could even find Augustine, Jonathan, and you could thank her, and Grandfather and I could embrace, and it could be perfect and beautiful, and
funny, and usefully sad, as you say. We could even write your grandmother into your story. This is what you desire, yes? Which makes me think that perhaps we could write Grandfather into the story. Perhaps, and I am only uttering this, we could have him save your grandfather. He could be Augustine. August, perhaps. Or just Alex, if that is satisfactory to you. I do not think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem.

Guilelessly,
Alexander

"I
HAVE NEVER
been in one of these," said the woman we continued to think of as Augustine, even though we knew that she was not Augustine. This required Grandfather to laugh in volumes. "What's so funny?" the hero asked. "She has never been in a car." "Really?" "There is nothing to be afraid of," Grandfather said. He opened the front door of the car for her and moved his hand over the seat to show that it was not evil. It seemed like a common decency to relinquish the front seat to her, not only because she was a very old woman who had endured many terrible things, but because it was her first time in a car, and I think it is most awesome to sit in front. The hero later told me that this means to sit shotgun. Augustine sat shotgun. "You will not travel with too much speed?" she asked. "No," Grandfather said as he arranged his belly under the steering wheel. "Tell her that cars are very safe, and she shouldn't be scared." "Cars are safe things," I informed her. "Some even have airbags and crumple zones, although this one does not." I think that she was not primed for the
vrmmmm
sound that the car manufactured, because she screamed with much volume. Grandfather quieted the car. "I cannot," she said.

So what did we do? We drove the car behind Augustine, who walked. (Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior walked next to her, to be her companion, and so that we would not have to smell the bitch's farts in the car.) It was only one kilometer distance, Augustine said, so it would be possible for her to walk, and we would still arrive before it was too dark to see anything. I must say that it seemed very queer to drive behind someone who is walking, especially when the person who is walking is Augustine. She
was only able to walk several tens of meters before she would become fatigued and have to make a hiatus. When she hiatused, Grandfather would stop the car, and she would sit shotgun until she was ready to walk in her strange way again.

"You have children?" she asked Grandfather while she gathered her breath. "Of course," he said. "I am his grandson," I said from the back, which made me feel like such a proud person, because I think it was the first occasion I had ever said it in the loud, and I could perceive that it also made Grandfather a proud person. She smiled very much. "I did not know this." "I have two sons and one daughter," Grandfather said. "Sasha is the son of my most aged son." "Sasha," she said, as if she desired to hear what my name sounded like when she uttered it. "And do you have any children?" she asked me. I laughed, because I thought this was a weird question. "He is still young," Grandfather said, and put his hand on my shoulder. I found it very moving to feel his touch, and to remember that hands can show also love. "What are you talking about?" the hero asked. "Does he have any children?" "She wants to know if you have any children," I told the hero, and I knew that this would make him laugh. It did not make him laugh. "I'm twenty," he said. "No," I told her, "in America it is not common to have children." I laughed, because I knew what a fool I sounded like. "Does he have parents?" she asked. "Of course," I said, "but his mother works as a professional, and it is not unusual for his father to prepare dinner." "The world is always changing," she said. "Do you have children?" I asked. Grandfather presented me a look with his face that signified, Shut up. "You do not have to answer that," he told her, "if you do not desire to." "I have a baby girl," she said, and I knew that this was the end of the conversation.