Be My Knife (19 page)
Authors: David Grossman
The kid who used to be—I’ve never told you—well, come along, make yourself at home.
The kid who, at the age of eight, approximately, tried to kill himself in the shed.
To commit suicide, as it is called, using the thin, all-purpose belt belonging to his father.
And since no one had ever explained to him exactly how people die, he, with all his strength, stretched the belt tightly around his heart, ha ha.
And lay on the floor, quietly awaiting his death.
All of this because he saw how one neighbor, one Surkis from around the corner, standing in an undershirt, with his hairy back and cigarette in his mouth, drowned two kittens in a tin pail, just like that, shoving his hand under the water, talking to the kid’s father out of the corner of his mouth while the bubbles rose.
And after a very long time on the garage floor, the most eternal time he ever felt, when he saw he wasn’t dying, he got up and went back home, and sat quietly, exhausted, at dinner with his parents and his sister.
He heard them talking and performed all the movements of an eight-year-old child, and vaguely understood, and still understands, that even if he had died, they would never have discovered it.
The kid who, at the age of eight, approximately, tried to kill himself in the shed.
To commit suicide, as it is called, using the thin, all-purpose belt belonging to his father.
And since no one had ever explained to him exactly how people die, he, with all his strength, stretched the belt tightly around his heart, ha ha.
And lay on the floor, quietly awaiting his death.
All of this because he saw how one neighbor, one Surkis from around the corner, standing in an undershirt, with his hairy back and cigarette in his mouth, drowned two kittens in a tin pail, just like that, shoving his hand under the water, talking to the kid’s father out of the corner of his mouth while the bubbles rose.
And after a very long time on the garage floor, the most eternal time he ever felt, when he saw he wasn’t dying, he got up and went back home, and sat quietly, exhausted, at dinner with his parents and his sister.
He heard them talking and performed all the movements of an eight-year-old child, and vaguely understood, and still understands, that even if he had died, they would never have discovered it.
And this is the same kid who, at the age of ten, read
Zorba the Greek.
Because there was one teacher he loved who spoke of the book with such reverence, and tears shone in her eyes, and he had never seen such tears, not from another kid and certainly never from an adult.
She had tears of longing, though he didn’t know that word (and would never have dared write it if you hadn’t written it first).
And there were no books in his house—books collect dust, books are dirty, that’s what the school library is for, books—and he stole money from his father’s wallet, from the Holy Wallet, and went and bought a book from a bookstore for the first time in his life.
He read it, and didn’t understand much, didn’t understand anything, really, only that it was too beautiful to contain, it was simply roaring with life, calling out his name.
And with his huge overwhelming, he swallowed the whole book in about a year, and finished it exactly on his eleventh birthday.
A little secret gift to himself.
Zorba the Greek.
Because there was one teacher he loved who spoke of the book with such reverence, and tears shone in her eyes, and he had never seen such tears, not from another kid and certainly never from an adult.
She had tears of longing, though he didn’t know that word (and would never have dared write it if you hadn’t written it first).
And there were no books in his house—books collect dust, books are dirty, that’s what the school library is for, books—and he stole money from his father’s wallet, from the Holy Wallet, and went and bought a book from a bookstore for the first time in his life.
He read it, and didn’t understand much, didn’t understand anything, really, only that it was too beautiful to contain, it was simply roaring with life, calling out his name.
And with his huge overwhelming, he swallowed the whole book in about a year, and finished it exactly on his eleventh birthday.
A little secret gift to himself.
Not very pleasant, hm?
Discreetly, at the cost of terrible stomachaches that conquered all medicines, every dose of cod-liver oil, finishing a page, shredding it into little pieces, chewing with dedication, and swallowing.
A page a day, with three-hour breaks between the doses—a whole detailed
bureaucracy ruling the ritual.
Do you remember those books from Am Oved Press?
With the discount for the labor unions of civilian army workers?
The mustard-covered-the red-trim-bound-the somewhat—bitter?
Three hundred and something pulpless pages.
He gnawed this way for a year out of his verbal passion of the flesh.
But, oh, Miriam, you should always be a little suspicious of him—he had already learned that behind every action lies more than one motive, and behind every noble idea peeps a rat’s tail.
Because perhaps he ate
Zorba
also so that the house security would not discover, in their searches through the bottoms of his desk drawers, a new book with no satisfactory explanation for its presence there.
For example, a book without the school library stamp?
Discreetly, at the cost of terrible stomachaches that conquered all medicines, every dose of cod-liver oil, finishing a page, shredding it into little pieces, chewing with dedication, and swallowing.
A page a day, with three-hour breaks between the doses—a whole detailed
bureaucracy ruling the ritual.
Do you remember those books from Am Oved Press?
With the discount for the labor unions of civilian army workers?
The mustard-covered-the red-trim-bound-the somewhat—bitter?
Three hundred and something pulpless pages.
He gnawed this way for a year out of his verbal passion of the flesh.
But, oh, Miriam, you should always be a little suspicious of him—he had already learned that behind every action lies more than one motive, and behind every noble idea peeps a rat’s tail.
Because perhaps he ate
Zorba
also so that the house security would not discover, in their searches through the bottoms of his desk drawers, a new book with no satisfactory explanation for its presence there.
For example, a book without the school library stamp?
I mean—I tried to fake one, sure I tried (I’m not stupid): I drew—on the white page at the end of the book, I drew a big stamp that looked like a miserable fake—and tore the page out and couldn’t throw it into the trash—certainly not into the toilet, how can you throw a page of
Zorba
into the toilet?
So, almost without thinking about it, I put it in my mouth and started chewing (I can remember it still: a strange, unpleasant, dusty taste, pages of hard labor).
And I tried to write a dedication to myself from a friend, and couldn’t fake strange handwriting, and swallowed that page, too.
And in this manner, totally by accident, I came up with this poetigastronomical idea …
Zorba
into the toilet?
So, almost without thinking about it, I put it in my mouth and started chewing (I can remember it still: a strange, unpleasant, dusty taste, pages of hard labor).
And I tried to write a dedication to myself from a friend, and couldn’t fake strange handwriting, and swallowed that page, too.
And in this manner, totally by accident, I came up with this poetigastronomical idea …
(I tried for a moment to read it with your eyes.)
Oh, the effort that went into this deception, and how terrified I was, while reading it, that they would discover my ruse and the theft from the wallet.
It was complete nonsense to think that they would give any thought to it, but just the knowledge that it was within the limits of the possible, within the limits of my family’s repertoire—
It was complete nonsense to think that they would give any thought to it, but just the knowledge that it was within the limits of the possible, within the limits of my family’s repertoire—
I’m not going to tell you about my parents, no way.
No parents.
You’ve told me barely a thing about yours, and rightfully so: they have nothing to do with us, we were freed from their clutches long ago, at least I was (oh well, how many years can one drag out these wars?), and besides that—there’s hardly anything to tell.
My parents are the most ordinary, even the most likable, couple of people you can imagine.
They are reality incarnate.
Mr.
Brown Belt and Mrs.
Rubber Gloves.
There is no mystery to them—all their actions and thoughts are completely transparent, to the bone.
And in general, they are no longer relevant to me.
I
think I told you—my father has, for the past two years, been hospitalized in a vegetable patch for his kind in Ra’Anana.
My mother has taken charge of his care with the full authority of an army general.
She transports pots of nutrition for him in buses and spends eight hours, daily, with him in complete silence, as she tirelessly washes and scrubs and shaves and trims him, and massages and the kneading and the feeding.
She really blossoms in that environment.
(Perhaps he does as well.
I haven’t a clue.
I haven’t seen him in a year and a half—what’s the point?)
No parents.
You’ve told me barely a thing about yours, and rightfully so: they have nothing to do with us, we were freed from their clutches long ago, at least I was (oh well, how many years can one drag out these wars?), and besides that—there’s hardly anything to tell.
My parents are the most ordinary, even the most likable, couple of people you can imagine.
They are reality incarnate.
Mr.
Brown Belt and Mrs.
Rubber Gloves.
There is no mystery to them—all their actions and thoughts are completely transparent, to the bone.
And in general, they are no longer relevant to me.
I
think I told you—my father has, for the past two years, been hospitalized in a vegetable patch for his kind in Ra’Anana.
My mother has taken charge of his care with the full authority of an army general.
She transports pots of nutrition for him in buses and spends eight hours, daily, with him in complete silence, as she tirelessly washes and scrubs and shaves and trims him, and massages and the kneading and the feeding.
She really blossoms in that environment.
(Perhaps he does as well.
I haven’t a clue.
I haven’t seen him in a year and a half—what’s the point?)
This week she announced to me with a shy, conspiratorial smile that she has decided to let him grow a mustache.
And you would probably ask why I didn’t stand in front of them, yelling at them and demanding my own
Zorba,
because I needed it, let’s say, like air for breath, like medicine.
Oh, no way.
Me making demands this way?
Not for me—no, for me there is theft, in wide circles, approaching, retreating—and I also became introduced to a new kind of pleasure, the Coveting Crookedness, as we will so cleverly call it (it’s like the name of a new tea, made with the almond essence of my bile, isn’t it?).
Listen, I’m talking about that pleasant pain, the bitter sweetness that dissolves deep in your guts, twisting you and everything you are, knotting you up like intestines with an infected open ulcer sucking everything out of you from the inside.
With all the usual piercing pain and humiliation.
You already know how to meet these feelings inside you—and afterward you learn how to reproduce them within you—your poorest but most private property, to which you keep returning—and for what else?
The taste of home.
The smell of home.
And here it comes again—unsheathed, stabbing, ready to use at any moment—feel it, get acquainted: this is
me.
This is my body and my soul, recognizing each other once again; I can actually hear the whisper of the internal password (srsrsrsrsr …).
I think perhaps you should wear thick gloves when you hold these pages.
Zorba,
because I needed it, let’s say, like air for breath, like medicine.
Oh, no way.
Me making demands this way?
Not for me—no, for me there is theft, in wide circles, approaching, retreating—and I also became introduced to a new kind of pleasure, the Coveting Crookedness, as we will so cleverly call it (it’s like the name of a new tea, made with the almond essence of my bile, isn’t it?).
Listen, I’m talking about that pleasant pain, the bitter sweetness that dissolves deep in your guts, twisting you and everything you are, knotting you up like intestines with an infected open ulcer sucking everything out of you from the inside.
With all the usual piercing pain and humiliation.
You already know how to meet these feelings inside you—and afterward you learn how to reproduce them within you—your poorest but most private property, to which you keep returning—and for what else?
The taste of home.
The smell of home.
And here it comes again—unsheathed, stabbing, ready to use at any moment—feel it, get acquainted: this is
me.
This is my body and my soul, recognizing each other once again; I can actually hear the whisper of the internal password (srsrsrsrsr …).
I think perhaps you should wear thick gloves when you hold these pages.
It is so easy to infect with this filth.
I was infected so easily.
Have you experienced the ritual of complete excommunication concealed in the statement “I hope you have children like you!”?
Yes, you have.
How did you put it—those certain looks with those twisted lips, silences that negate you, turn you into dust and ashes, and how little it takes to damage a person for good …
I was infected so easily.
Have you experienced the ritual of complete excommunication concealed in the statement “I hope you have children like you!”?
Yes, you have.
How did you put it—those certain looks with those twisted lips, silences that negate you, turn you into dust and ashes, and how little it takes to damage a person for good …
Apparently you know it, at least as I do: “Miriam (did she pronounce
your name the wrong way?), Miriam, just don’t be whatever people are saying about you” …
your name the wrong way?), Miriam, just don’t be whatever people are saying about you” …
I’m not surprised.
Sometimes I think that maybe it was this wound that so attracted me to you from the first moment.
Your election campaign, public smile.
Your mouth at that moment (I haven’t written it to you yet)—the edges of your mouth, like two hungry fledglings scurrying into the shelter of their mother’s wings, or into their guess of the shadow of their mother’s wings.
But you—and I don’t understand how—you were probably saved from this fate, you somehow escaped or reinvented yourself all over again.
Successfully, more or less.
Perhaps this is why you are so afraid, like a fear of death, to return there, even for a moment, for the length of a single piece of paper, for me?
Sometimes I think that maybe it was this wound that so attracted me to you from the first moment.
Your election campaign, public smile.
Your mouth at that moment (I haven’t written it to you yet)—the edges of your mouth, like two hungry fledglings scurrying into the shelter of their mother’s wings, or into their guess of the shadow of their mother’s wings.
But you—and I don’t understand how—you were probably saved from this fate, you somehow escaped or reinvented yourself all over again.
Successfully, more or less.
Perhaps this is why you are so afraid, like a fear of death, to return there, even for a moment, for the length of a single piece of paper, for me?
August 8-9
Maybe it has been too long since I let myself get angry about it, how they came to me at night and weeded my brain so they could plant their seeds for self-inspection gears.
Imagine what it must be like to read
Zorba
in terror—and how can you believe that such miserable terror is capable of clouding the eye of the Zorbic sun?
Do you remember when you danced the sirtaki with me and Anthony Quinn in your living room?
But where were you when I was a child?
Imagine what it must be like to read
Zorba
in terror—and how can you believe that such miserable terror is capable of clouding the eye of the Zorbic sun?
Do you remember when you danced the sirtaki with me and Anthony Quinn in your living room?
But where were you when I was a child?
There was no one.
I used to read only when they weren’t at home (this is final: I will not tell you about them.
I had a mother and I had a father—but the child I was had no parents—you guessed right: my parents bore an orphan).
I had a mother and I had a father—but the child I was had no parents—you guessed right: my parents bore an orphan).
I’m surprised by the freshness of those memories and the emotions that well up thinking about them.
Cigarette?
Cigarette?
No, I know, I remember.
But I did laugh when I read in the beginning of our letters that without even thinking you connected the smell of smoke from my pages to the passion burning and rising from me.
But I did laugh when I read in the beginning of our letters that without even thinking you connected the smell of smoke from my pages to the passion burning and rising from me.
Sometimes I am amazed how willing you are to believe in the fantasy that I am.
Perhaps, instead of all these heavy matters, we’ll talk a little bit about the fantasy you are to me?
Whenever you tell me some new detail about yourself—that prior to Amos you were married for five (Siberian) years to that sadistic genius;
that you always blush only on your left cheek; that you have refused to drive a car for years; or that Amos has a son from a previous marriage—or anything else, important or incidental, that I didn’t know about you and never imagined—I feel a little spiritual effort in my soul, as if I have to “push” that little detail inside, to fit it into your image, like pushing a book onto a shelf that’s already very crowded.
But the moment it’s done, all the other details, all my knowledge of you I have gathered so meticulously from the beginning, rearranges itself around that change.
that you always blush only on your left cheek; that you have refused to drive a car for years; or that Amos has a son from a previous marriage—or anything else, important or incidental, that I didn’t know about you and never imagined—I feel a little spiritual effort in my soul, as if I have to “push” that little detail inside, to fit it into your image, like pushing a book onto a shelf that’s already very crowded.
But the moment it’s done, all the other details, all my knowledge of you I have gathered so meticulously from the beginning, rearranges itself around that change.
And because we are already on the topic of new, surprising knowledge, then let me take off my many-faceted joker’s hat in your honor.
There is really nothing for me to say—it was truly a fatal, elegant knockout: I never imagined that the man with you, that titan putz in the sweater, wasn’t your husband.
(So who was he?
Because he was guarding you jealously, at least like a headguard, if not a bodyguard.
The way husbands do.)
There is really nothing for me to say—it was truly a fatal, elegant knockout: I never imagined that the man with you, that titan putz in the sweater, wasn’t your husband.
(So who was he?
Because he was guarding you jealously, at least like a headguard, if not a bodyguard.
The way husbands do.)
You completely confounded me.
The tranquillity with which you described all the other men in your life, one by one.
The one with whom you go swimming; and the painter from Beit Zayit, who sounds to me as if he’s terribly in love with you; and the blind guy with whom you correspond in Braille (did you learn it especially for him?).
And how do you have time for all of them in your busy week?
And you actually forgot to mention the three yeshiva students who study with you, in secret, once a week … Just tell me, write me a description of what your husband looks like.
I mean, which shadow with a knife between its teeth do I have to beware of now?
The tranquillity with which you described all the other men in your life, one by one.
The one with whom you go swimming; and the painter from Beit Zayit, who sounds to me as if he’s terribly in love with you; and the blind guy with whom you correspond in Braille (did you learn it especially for him?).
And how do you have time for all of them in your busy week?
And you actually forgot to mention the three yeshiva students who study with you, in secret, once a week … Just tell me, write me a description of what your husband looks like.
I mean, which shadow with a knife between its teeth do I have to beware of now?
Well, fine, fine, don’t be angry, just a little sting of remonstration because my small mistake had given you “a tiny, tickling, theatrical pleasure,” and you didn’t even feel like correcting me …
You asked me again if I feel cheated by you, and I tried to understand how I truly feel about you, with all your twists and turns.
It’s not a simple question, Miriam, and the answer itself is changing, and turning and twisting in me, and still hasn’t cooled and coalesced into an opinion.
It’s not a simple question, Miriam, and the answer itself is changing, and turning and twisting in me, and still hasn’t cooled and coalesced into an opinion.
But because you are asking me now, I thought that perhaps, instead of an answer, you could go and look at
The Family of Man
(which I like a lot, too).
There are two photographs in there, two facing pages I like to look at: on one side you see students listening to a lecturer in some university.
He is not in the photo—their look is pointed, focused on him, and
it seems that whatever he is teaching is certainly interesting to them.
But on the opposite page you see people from an African tribe, listening to an old man telling them a story.
Children and grown-ups sit among the crowd, they are naked and so is he; his hands are moving in front of them, and they all have the same expression: they are bewitched.
The Family of Man
(which I like a lot, too).
There are two photographs in there, two facing pages I like to look at: on one side you see students listening to a lecturer in some university.
He is not in the photo—their look is pointed, focused on him, and
it seems that whatever he is teaching is certainly interesting to them.
But on the opposite page you see people from an African tribe, listening to an old man telling them a story.
Children and grown-ups sit among the crowd, they are naked and so is he; his hands are moving in front of them, and they all have the same expression: they are bewitched.
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