The Book of Intimate Grammar (2 page)

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Authors: David Grossman

BOOK: The Book of Intimate Grammar
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Aron took one last peek through the blinds.
Mama and Papa were about to disappear into the house, but just as they reached the fig tree, Edna Bloom approached from the opposite direction, slender, boyish Edna Bloom, with her fuzzy yellow hair shining between the leaves.
Okay, let’s see if you have any guts now.
Good evening, Miss Bloom.
Good evening to you, Mrs.
Kleinfeld, Mr.
Kleinfeld.
You seem a little tired today, Miss Bloom.
Well, I have to work for a living, Mrs.
Kleinfeld.
Yes, but you’re awfully pale.
Ha, did you see that, Moshe, the way she blushed when she looked at you?
Oi, Hindaleh, you’re imagining things, a girl like her and a man like me.
You should relax more, take things easy, Miss Bloom, you have your whole life ahead of you.
Ha, any minute she’ll miss the boat.
What are you talking about, Hindaleh, she’s just a girl.
Allow me to be the judge of such matters, Moshe, to you she may seem young enough, but I looked at her teeth and teeth don’t lie, she’s thirty-eight if she’s a day.
So, maybe she isn’t interested in men.
Not interested?
Ha!
Don’t you see the way she devours you with her eyes, the little lemaleh, butter wouldn’t melt, pshhhhi, pshhhhi—Bye-bye, Miss Bloom, take care now.
Yes, thank you, goodbye.
And Aron watches her trail away; twenty-five seconds left to lock the door with his passkey, but he can’t resist one last look, and now she’s in the building, now she’s walking up the stairs, now she’s on the second floor, run for your life.
Wait.
Because as soon as Mama and Papa turned their backs she played a trick on them: instead of walking up the stairs to her apartment, she waited in the hallway till they disappeared into Entrance B, and then, breathless and birdlike, she reappeared, and Aron’s heart soared, so she too had tricks, she too had secrets, and she rested under the leafy branches of the fig tree, surrendering to it like a girlish bride, breathing in its fragrance, her delicate hand on the massive trunk.
And suddenly she trembled.
Papa was there.
He had returned.
How did he know?
He approached the tree and stood beside her.
A hunk of a man, twice her size.
A bull and a crane.
But where was Mama?
The broad leaves rustled, concealing, revealing.
“Moshe!”
She called Papa from afar.
Papa hunched his shoulders.
Then he reached up and tapped one of the
branches.
A cloud of tiny insects swarmed through the air.
Edna recoiled.
Papa looked away.
“Moshe!”
shouted Mama from the hallway, key in hand.
“Where did he go?”
“See, I had this feeling, Miss Bloom,” said Papa, his words fluttering up to the fourth-floor window.
“What feeling, Mr.
Kleinfeld?”
She tilted her chin up but avoided his eyes.
A blush spread over her smooth white neck, visible only to Aron.
“The fig tree is sick,” said Papa simply.
Their eyes did not meet.
They spoke through the tree.
“My fig tree, sick?”
whispered Edna Bloom, saddened, shocked, though the tree belonged to everyone.
By the time Mama came down again, all three boys were standing under the fig tree with Edna Bloom.
A single glance was enough for Mama.
There was something murky in her eyes.
High and low she hunted for Papa, squinting suspiciously up at the tree.
At last she caught sight of his fleshy red heels flopping around.
Controlling her temper she called his name.
The leaves fluttered, and Papa’s sunny face popped out between the branches.
“Oioioi,” he greeted her.
“This tree is covered with sores, Mamaleh, it needs a good wiping.”
Mama pursed her lips and squeezed her collar tight.
Then she turned abruptly and hurried home.
The next day, after stopping by the Romanian apothecary’s on his way home from work, Papa showered, changed into a clean undershirt, and sat down at the “little cripple” table in the pantry to prepare an ointment for the fig tree.
First he mixed the powders, then he added water and squeezed in a tube of smelly goo, his big red face puckering with concentration as he stirred.
Mama was watching over his shoulder.
When a tree is sick, she sneered, you have to be ruthless and whack off the rotten branches, as anyone with half a brain and a little instinct would tell you.
That’s the only way to get the healthy ones to grow.
Papa merely nodded, carefully measuring out a few drops from a tiny vial, with his tongue pressed tightly between his teeth.
Then he climbed on the rickety Franzousky in the kitchen and rummaged through the storage loft.
Cascades of dust spilled down as Mama watched him, till suddenly she felt the zetz in her heart, and sure enough, when she ran out to the balcony there was Grandma Lilly leaning over the rail, halfway to the next world.
Mama grabbed her by the arm and dragged her back to the alcove.
Lie down, Mamchu, supper isn’t ready yet, why are you staring like that, it’s me, Hinda, no one’s going to slit your throat; there, legs up, lie down straight, stop crying, it’s time for your nap; see the pretty pictures on the wall, see the parrots and the monkeys on the trees, you made them, Mamchu, that’s your embroidery.
Now you just rest awhile.
And she covered Grandma Lilly up to her chin with the Scottish plaid, and tucked the corners under the mattress,
and went huffing back to the kitchen.
“You and your meshuggeneh schemes, Moshe,” she said, slapping the nylon bags over the sink to dry with the wax paper from the margarine.
“Your own mother nearly throws herself off the balcony, and here you are still futzing around; honestly, you are so stubborn.”
“I found it,” he hollered, deep in the storage loft, and emerged with a headful of dusty curls, holding a kidney-shaped palette in his hand.
“I knew I put it away up there.”
Carefully he climbed off the rickety Franzousky and wiped the dust and paint from Yochi’s palette.
“You’d better make sure she doesn’t need that anymore,” whispered Mama.
“You know Yochi, she’ll have a fit.”
“Take it, go on, take everything,” screamed Yochi from the bedroom, “I’ll never be an artist anyway.”
Or a dancer either, she muttered angrily to herself, I should have kept on with my painting, though, then no one would care that my legs are fat.
Papa went out and closed the door, carefully balancing the palette with the ointment.
Outside, Aron and Zacky Smitanka were playing Traffic on their bikes.
Aron dipped like a matador, swerving so fast he didn’t see the fierce red face coming at him till he found himself lying on the pavement with Zacky’s bicycle jammed between his wheels.
Papa set the palette down and rushed over to the boys.
“You rat, you dirty creep!”
shrieked Aron, choking back the tears as Papa locked him in his burly arms.
“Just wait, I’ll make mincemeat out of you!”
He waved his little fists at Zacky, kicking furiously.
“Let me at him, let me at him!”
Zacky, alarmed by what he’d done, thrashed back halfheartedly, cursing Aron, calling him a lousy cheater.
“Trying to mess with me, Kleinfeld?
Huh?
Huh?
Trying to mess with me?”
he screamed, aiming higher because he couldn’t think of anything better to say.
Papa hoisted Zacky up with his free hand and roared with laughter as he held the two boys face to face, and let them swing at each other: wiry little Aron wriggled in the air, heaping abuse on Zacky and his bike, and Zacky screamed back: “You trying to mess with me?
Huh?
Huh?,” his snub-nosed face burning with indignation.
A sudden squeeze reduced them both to silence.
Roaring with laughter Papa let them down, and they reeled on the ground with all the fight knocked out of them.
Zacky got his wind back and started to whine that Aron was playing dirty, trying to be a wise guy.
But those are the rules, burbled Aron, you ride up, you lunge, and then you ride away as fast as you can; was it his fault Zacky was such a klutz, such a golem and a turtle and a snail?
Papa frowned at the torrent of words.
“All right!”
he shouted.
“Sha!
We heard you the first time, big mouth!”
Instantly he regretted his sharpness of tone, and tousled Aron’s soft yellow hair; then, noticing the miserable expression in Zacky’s eyes, gave him a big hug and scratched his bristly head.
The two boys took comfort in the warmth of Papa’s hands, and Zacky sidled up to feel the prickly hair on his leg.
“Off, you two, go play, and if I hear you brawling again, you gonna be sorry.”
Aron was the first to break away, and Papa patted Zacky on the shoulder.
“A-shockel, Zachary, get on your bike and ride.
I’ll keep an eye on you from the tree.”
Papa climbed up the fig tree and seated himself comfortably on a branch.
Aron gripped the bike wheel between his knees and tried to straighten it.
Papa parted the leaves and asked Zacky to fetch him the palette he’d left on the fence.
Aron pressed down on the fender so hard it nearly cut his skin.
Papa leaned back.
The leaves reached out to caress his face, to nuzzle him like friendly colts.
He breathed in the muskiness of the fig tree and ran his hands around its ample trunk.
Then he kicked off his plastic scuffs, startling Zacky, who was on his way back to the tree, and making him jump like a frightened kitten.
Solemnly, deliberately, like a craftsman spreading his tools out, Papa cracked his knuckles one by one.
Then he shook himself and inspected the tree.
There were sores on the branches: lesions infested with little white worms.
The sores ran all the way up the tree, and Papa followed them with his eyes to the fourth-floor window.
He thought he noticed Edna’s curtain flutter and crossed his arms over his barrel chest.
This would not be an easy job.
He took a roll of flannel out of his pocket, deftly tore a piece off, and poked the sore.
A sticky gold fluid soaked through the cloth.
He sniffed, nodded wonderingly, shrugged his shoulders, and tossed the rag down.
Zacky glanced anxiously up at Papa’s feet.
He studied the flannel, took a whiff, made a face, and buried his nose in it, inhaling with rapture.
Papa wound a fresh piece of flannel around his finger and softly whistled a half-forgotten tune, which in his rendition sounded somber and vague: suddenly Mama poked her head out the window and searched for him between the leaves.
She knew where Papa’s mind was whenever he whistled that way.
He began to swab the little hole.
A
bloated worm wriggled blindly in his palm, and Papa examined it, whistling out of the corner of his mouth.
Long ago in Poland, a wily Communist named Zioma had talked Papa into fleeing with him over the border to join the Red Army.
Oi, Zioma, Zioma, you momzer you.
Mama slammed the window shut.
This fig tree business was all she needed now.
She tried to concentrate on polishing the fleishik knives.
Papa had told her once about his childhood in Poland, about the escape to Russia and his three years in the army, about the detention camp at Komi, and his lurid flight from the taiga and the peasant’s wife, but she had covered his mouth with her strong little hand and said, Enough already, Moshe, I don’t want to hear any more, after I’m gone you can tell the world, you can shout it from the rooftops for all I care, but not here, not in my home, in my home I refuse to hear such things; and when the children were born, she made him swear never to speak of those terrible times.
There’s no reason they should know their father was an animal, so he promised her, with his patient nod and ever-ready smile; the only trouble was, she understood his whistling too.
She opened the window and snapped her dust cloth on the sill.
A small gray cloud flew up.
The whistling ceased.
Mama vanished into the house.
Papa blew on the palm of his hand.
The worm dropped off.
He squashed it against the tree trunk with his heel, and quietly started to warble again.
Papa worked painstakingly, pausing only to explain to passing neighbors what he was doing up in the tree or to answer Hinda’s calls.
Two hours later, at six-thirty on the dot, when the signature tune of the evening newscast blared forth over every radio on the block, Papa rested from his labors and listened eagerly, but there was still no news of a devaluation.
Aron rode up and down the street, ignoring Papa, Zacky, and the tree, veering around every so often to call his make-believe dog, Gummy, who chased his bike invisibly.
Zacky stood dutifully at his post, collecting the filthy rags as they landed.
How could a father leave a son like that and go off to make money in Africa, thought Papa.
Then he brooded over Malka Smitanka, sending her child out so she could screw around.
What does a woman like her see in that deadbeat, that slouch of an accountant, or lawyer, or whatever he was?
True, he owns a car, sighed Papa, deploring the waste.
Go ask Hinda for the enema bag, he shouted down to Zacky, and began to muse about the beauty mark on Malka’s bosom and the sassy hair curling under her arms.
“Got it!”
cried Zacky, holding up the bag and startling Papa, who only sent him off again, gloomy-eyed, to tell Hinda he would soon be home.
Papa sat back, lit a cigarette, and puffed with pleasure.
From his perch in the treetop he couldn’t see the building project or the street.
He might have been anywhere; and if he leaned to the right he could just make out the curtains fluttering in a certain window.
But he didn’t move.
It was June, and gallnuts hardened on the branches.
A sweet fragrance enveloped him.
He breathed it in.
Zacky shinned up the tree with the enema bag, and Papa winked to console him for the scolding, playfully scratching his bristly head again.
“You sit here and watch,” he ordered.
First he used the enema pump to dry out a sore, then he dipped a special brush into the ointment and carefully painted around the hole.
Zacky stared open-mouthed at his gently moving hand.
In the street below them, Aron was riding around calling “Gummy!
Gummy!,” his arms outstretched to make Gummy chase the bike.
Papa finished painting the sore.
“There,” he said, looking at Zacky and passing him the enema bag.
“Now you go ‘phoo!’
while I shmear on the ointment.”
Zacky pumped air into another sore, biting his tongue with the effort.
They worked in silence side by side until Aron’s fair head popped up between them.
“How come he gets to do everything?”
Aron whined.
“It’s my turn now.”
Papa and Zacky recoiled from each other and Papa embarked on a loud explanation of how the healing process works.
Zacky started cracking his knuckles, and Aron shuddered.
Suddenly he had an idea.
He slid down the tree and got his bicycle pump.
It was a terrific idea, a brilliant idea, in fact.
How quickly and efficiently the pump dried the sores.
It’s much faster this way, isn’t it, he panted, all aglow.
Yeah, growled Zacky.
Noisier too.
The three of them worked together, swabbing sores, while Aron chattered to fill in the silence and make them laugh with his hilarious imitations of famous people; he did a fabulous one of the Prime Minister, even though his voice hadn’t changed yet; well, what do you expect, he was only eleven and a half.
Once he got started there was no stopping him, though little by little he too fell under the quiet spell of healing.

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