The Zigzag Kid (43 page)

I pulled the wrinkled scarf out of my pocket, like a magician pulling a scarf out of his sleeve, and I was a magician, too; I spread it on the table, purple and sheer, and waited for all the heavy breathing to subside, and then, with forced composure, set the golden ear of wheat in the middle.

“This is for you, Gabi,” I said. “I did it all for you.”

Gabi covered her red face with her hands, and the tears began to flow.

“Don't cry!” I implored her in a whisper. “You'll ruin everything!”

“Let her cry,” said Dad. “They're tears of joy.”

Apparently something had changed between them while I was away.

Gabi ran her fingers over the scarf and she clasped the ear of wheat. “Now I have everything,” she said. “Everything I need to make a wish. Will wonders never cease?”

She bit her trembling lip and looked bravely at Dad. She shut her eyes tightly and made a silent wish.

As she was wishing, Dad opened the little box and placed a beautiful, shiny ring on the table. People sitting nearby us dropped their forks and watched.

“What do you say—uh—Gabi, if you're not too busy next week, will you marry me?” asked Dad shyly.

He sure knew how to propose, my dad.

“A ring,” murmured Gabi. “A diamond—you shouldn't have—”

With trembling hands she picked up the ring, smiling apologetically at Dad as she struggled to get it on her finger. She tried a thinner finger, but that didn't work either, and Dad cleared his throat and scowled at the other tables, until finally she managed to slip it on her little finger, she would never be able to get it off again, and Dad forced himself to smile and said, “That's so you can go on twisting us all around your little finger.”

She glanced at me and then at him and started to laugh. It was a new sort of laugh, low and mysterious, like the burbling of a secret joke
inside her throat, and for a moment I had a strange and probably ridiculous thought—that maybe Gabi had played a slightly larger role in my kidnapping than I first supposed. Maybe she hadn't been working alone but in secret association with a cunning, slightly crooked partner, someone who—but no—impossible—it couldn't be!

I looked back at her, intrigued, amazed: was it yes or no? Her face gave nothing away. I never did find out the answer to my question, and consequently deposited it in the bureau of questions I delight in musing about without ever wanting to know the answer, because while it's true that knowledge is power, mystery has its own special sweetness.

Then Gabi turned to Dad full face, turned to him with radiant joy; for a moment her inner beauty really did light up her face, and she said in a clear, ringing voice, “Yes, Jacob, I will marry you.”

And she looked around with girlish pride at all the people in the restaurant, beaming from ear to ear, beaming at everyone, at me, and at Dad, and said tenderly, “Oh, Jacob—”

Then she stood up and hugged him around the neck. The waiters and the other customers stared unabashed. I, as usual, wanted to bury myself. First Felix and Lola, now Dad and Gabi. There was apparently something about me that made men and women throw themselves at each other.

I looked down, I looked up. “Jacob,” that's a nice name, I thought. I wanted to tell them to call, me Nonnik from now on. Then I ran out of things to think about. Gabi, all in tears, reached for my hand behind Dad's back and pressed it thankfully, and then she raised it in the air and traced two words, like a secret message from her to me:

AT LAST
!

¹
Should Mr. Aviezer Carmi, our retired school principal, ever read this story, I hope he will forgive me, and of course, I'll gladly compensate him for the damage. Please understand, though, Mr. Carmi, I had no choice. The fear of Chaim Stauber leaving me was utterly unbearable. It was his friendship that saved me, I don't know from what, maybe from being like Micah Dubovsky, another ordinary kid. When I was with Chaim, I felt there was more to me, that I had the chance to learn something else. And when Chaim began to get tired of me, I could feel myself falling back into Micah's gaping mouth.

David Grossman was born in Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous works of fiction, non-fiction, and children's literature. His work has appeared in the
New Yorker
and has been translated into thirty languages around the world. He is the recipient of many prizes.

Novels

The Smile of the Lamb
See Under: LOVE
The Book of Intimate Grammar
Duel
Be My Knife
Someone to Run With
Lovers and Strangers

Non-fiction

The Yellow Wind
Sleeping on a Wire
Death as a Way of Life
Writing in the Dark

Be My Knife

‘Exhilarating … The peeling away of lies and social restraints to disclose the naked soul is gripping'
Daily Mail

An awkward, neurotic seller of rare books writes a desperate letter to a beautiful stranger whom he sees at a class reunion. This simple, lonely attempt at seduction begins a love affair of words between Yair and Miriam – two married, middle-aged adults, dissatisfied with their lives, yearning for a sense of connection – and reawakens feelings that they thought had passed them by.

‘Impressive, extraordinary and exotic'
New York Times Book Review

 

Death as a Way of Life

‘A writer of passionate self-honesty, unafraid to ask terrible questions' Nadine Gordimer

In autumn 1993 the Oslo Agreements were signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, marking the beginning of the promise of constructive peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The ten years that followed were charted first by hope and optimism only to deteriorate into revenge and violence. Throughout this decade David Grossman has published articles in the American and European press, written in a personal voice – father, husband, peace activist, novelist. As he witnesses devastating events, he cries out with a prophetic wisdom, imploring both sides to return to sanity, to negotiations.

‘This is an eclectic mix of reflections which reinforces Grossman's position as a major political writer … Wonderful … This refreshing critique from the inside of the crucible helps us understand a little of what has been going on since Oslo'
Independent

 

Someone to Run With

‘Brings together the differing aspects of his writing in a book that unites social realism and dizzy teenage romance … This is a book about feelings, about highs and lows, chemical, emotional, religious'
Daily Telegraph

Assaf has reluctantly taken a dull summer job working for the City Sanitation Department. But the days take a strange turn when he is ordered to find out who owns a distressed stray Labrador and ask them to pay a fine. Across the city, the dog's lonely owner, Tamar, is preparing her own mission - to rescue a young drug addict caught up in Jerusalem's dangerous underworld. As Assaf searches the streets of Jerusalem for Tamar, his life is about to irreversibly change. All he can do is hold onto the rope around the dog's neck as together they start to run…

‘Both a profound study of the inner lives of two teenagers and a novel that has pace, bite and a well-sustained plot … Beautifully drawn … An intensely gripping novel'
Financial Times

 

Lovers and Strangers

‘Absorbing and moving'
Daily Mail

These two novellas concern love. In ‘Frenzy', Shaul is convinced that his wife is having an affair. He feverishly imagines her, in every painful detail, with her lover. Esther has never seen the human side of her aloof brother-in-law, but during a night-time journey Shaul unburdens himself, recreating an affair he has never witnessed. Is he mad? Or has he divined the truth? In ‘Her Body Knows', Rotem has spent most of her life being angry with her mother, Nilli. Now Nilli is dying and Rotem, who has finally found happiness in London, must return to say goodbye. She arrives with a story about Nilli, full of accusations, empathy, love and forgiveness.

‘Shaul's fantasy and Rotem's spin on a true story are two sides of one coin: Grossman's passion for the redeeming, unpeeling power of fiction, and his art in creating fiction with such power'
Independent

 

Writing in the Dark

Throughout his career, David Grossman has been a voice for peace and reconciliation in the Israeli-Palestinian divide. In this groundbreaking collection of essays on literature and politics, he addresses the conscience of present-day Israel, a country that has lost faith in its leaders and its ideals.
Writing in the Dark
ends with the speech in which Grossman famously attacked Israel's disastrous Lebanon war that tragically took the life of his twenty-one-year-old son, Uri. Moving, brave and clear-sighted, these essays on literature, political ethics and the morality of the imagination are a cri de coeur from a calm voice of reason at a time of doubt and despair.

‘The bravest and most clear-headed interpreter of the Israeli-Palestinian divide'
Observer

Order your copy:

www.bloomsbury.com/DavidGrossman

Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney

Copyright © 1994 by David Grossman
Translation copyright © 1997 by Betsy Rosenberg

First published in Great Britain 1997

This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Orginally published in Hebrew in 1994 by
HaSifriya HaHadash/HaKibbutz HaMeuchad Publishing House (Tel Aviv) as
Yesh yeladim zigzag

The moral right of the author and translator has been asserted

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

eISBN: 978-1-4088-4778-7

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