Authors: David Grossman
Be My Knife (28 page)
I asked, How much?
And she said thirty.
And I, paralyzed, handed her all the bills rolled up in my hand and heard my father’s voice as he blew up about how terrible a merchant is the son he raised.
Miriam—you’re allowed to skip the next chapter of this tale, but I have to tell it to you.
I want to be clean.
And she said thirty.
And I, paralyzed, handed her all the bills rolled up in my hand and heard my father’s voice as he blew up about how terrible a merchant is the son he raised.
Miriam—you’re allowed to skip the next chapter of this tale, but I have to tell it to you.
I want to be clean.
Tall buildings surrounded the yard, the walls covered with huge tar stains, long tongues of tar—and in the dark garden itself in the back, I remember piles of old wood planks from construction sites, piles of garbage, and, here and there the red glow of cigarettes.
From every corner crept whistles and breathing and the indifferent voices of the prostitutes talking among themselves as they did it.
I remember how she pulled her skirt up in one rough motion, and I, who at the time saw the peak of my achievements as learning to flick open a bra strap with one hand—my sister Aviva’s bra, which I would stretch for practice on the old armchair—suddenly saw, in front of my eyes, the very thing.
I got cold and sick, and I felt my soul shrinking, felt myself losing it for good, and I was thinking, That’s it—just see how low you have sunk.
From every corner crept whistles and breathing and the indifferent voices of the prostitutes talking among themselves as they did it.
I remember how she pulled her skirt up in one rough motion, and I, who at the time saw the peak of my achievements as learning to flick open a bra strap with one hand—my sister Aviva’s bra, which I would stretch for practice on the old armchair—suddenly saw, in front of my eyes, the very thing.
I got cold and sick, and I felt my soul shrinking, felt myself losing it for good, and I was thinking, That’s it—just see how low you have sunk.
(No, I was a much more dramatic boy than that—I remember these very words echoing in my heart: Now you are truly outside human society …)
She asked me why I didn’t take it out, and reached a brute’s hand to my little dick, which was trying to escape, screaming and retreating into the
depths of my underwear.
She pulled it and shook it with all her strength, she rubbed and moved and squeezed it in her unpleasantly tough palm, and sadly, I left my body and watched myself from above and thought, It is impossible.
You will never be mended.
depths of my underwear.
She pulled it and shook it with all her strength, she rubbed and moved and squeezed it in her unpleasantly tough palm, and sadly, I left my body and watched myself from above and thought, It is impossible.
You will never be mended.
Just a moment.
Cigarette.
I have to breathe.
Why am I making such a big deal out of a visit to a whore?
The whole thing was 50 lirot, big deal!
Where were we?
Cigarette.
I have to breathe.
Why am I making such a big deal out of a visit to a whore?
The whole thing was 50 lirot, big deal!
Where were we?
We were with her, and she got angry and asked through her gum how long I thought she was going to wait for me, and then—listen to this—the rude geek asked her in a shaking voice if he would be allowed to kiss her once, there, on her breast … Skip it, Miriam, skip it, because it’s going to contaminate you now.
Why am I even bringing you into this?
Why do I have to pollute you with this?
“He wanted to sin with another of his kind, to force another being to sin with him and to exult with her in sin.”
But I hadn’t the luck of the young Stephen Dedalus.
How I envied him when I read that her lips “pressed upon his brain as upon his lips.”
Mine only made some kind of contemptuous snort and pulled her bra down a little.
I didn’t see anything—I felt warm, sweaty flesh being pushed in my face—my tongue was looking around and searching the surface of it—I remember how amazed I was when I felt a big, soft nipple, which I immediately clung to with all my being.
A surge of warm love washed over me—because in that entire yard, full of hookers, I found one thing that deserved love, that was all love and purity, to which I couldn’t resist surrendering the whole of me …
Why am I even bringing you into this?
Why do I have to pollute you with this?
“He wanted to sin with another of his kind, to force another being to sin with him and to exult with her in sin.”
But I hadn’t the luck of the young Stephen Dedalus.
How I envied him when I read that her lips “pressed upon his brain as upon his lips.”
Mine only made some kind of contemptuous snort and pulled her bra down a little.
I didn’t see anything—I felt warm, sweaty flesh being pushed in my face—my tongue was looking around and searching the surface of it—I remember how amazed I was when I felt a big, soft nipple, which I immediately clung to with all my being.
A surge of warm love washed over me—because in that entire yard, full of hookers, I found one thing that deserved love, that was all love and purity, to which I couldn’t resist surrendering the whole of me …
Yes, I know.
It’s really funny.
I sucked it, hailing it in my breath and moaning with gratitude—that amazing softness filling my mouth—even now, in this moment, I can remember how it felt, and how, in a half-faint, I imagined the nipple was like a little, round, juicy woman who had nothing to do with the prostitute.
Just a soft, mature, solid little woman who may be, by occupation, a prostitute but initiates boys like myself in the mysteries of sex in a pleasant, homey way—and then the shock, when that pleasant lady suddenly hardened and shrank in my mouth like a piece of rough rubber, like a little night watchman, closed off and protected from everything around (you may laugh at me).
The repulsion, and the complete despair—because if even this becomes closed off and clots and becomes a stranger—what is left to believe in?
… And by then, slaps and fists were descending on me from above, and I will never forget her surprised shout of pain, echoing all around that enclosed,
stinking world: Did you see the little asshole?
Do you think I’m your mother?!
It’s really funny.
I sucked it, hailing it in my breath and moaning with gratitude—that amazing softness filling my mouth—even now, in this moment, I can remember how it felt, and how, in a half-faint, I imagined the nipple was like a little, round, juicy woman who had nothing to do with the prostitute.
Just a soft, mature, solid little woman who may be, by occupation, a prostitute but initiates boys like myself in the mysteries of sex in a pleasant, homey way—and then the shock, when that pleasant lady suddenly hardened and shrank in my mouth like a piece of rough rubber, like a little night watchman, closed off and protected from everything around (you may laugh at me).
The repulsion, and the complete despair—because if even this becomes closed off and clots and becomes a stranger—what is left to believe in?
… And by then, slaps and fists were descending on me from above, and I will never forget her surprised shout of pain, echoing all around that enclosed,
stinking world: Did you see the little asshole?
Do you think I’m your mother?!
When I walked out of that alley, no one would have been able to guess what I had just gone through.
If they had attached me to a polygraph test, it would have written out “Best Boy in Jerusalem,” as if some sharp surgeon’s scalpel had in one wave cut the filth of that moment out of me, the cruel kick that someone—probably the pimp—gave me from behind, who grabbed me by my shoulders and then threw me out as choked laughter crawled after me from every corner of the dark yard.
I stumbled away from there, running, falling, stained.
But five minutes later I was sitting on the bus home, under the lights of the city, among people who could not guess what had happened so close to them, how heavy the fee was that I had left there.
I wore my face again, I was myself again, to the point of exaggeration and ridiculousness.
I dressed my face with the tale everybody knows—I must have also blinked a lot, so my eyes would look myopic and helpless.
So people would look at me and mock me in their hearts—and, in that way, things would go back to what they used to be, to the normal course of events between the world and me.
That child popped out at me again a week ago, when I shaved off my beard.
I shaved just to meet him—don’t ask.
From the silly yearnings for him you aroused in me—I almost exploded from the insult of the weak face I saw staring back at me from the mirror.
Still, I will make myself stay loyal to you.
Not to myself: to you.
And I promise never to cover it again with a hairy layer of epidermis.
If they had attached me to a polygraph test, it would have written out “Best Boy in Jerusalem,” as if some sharp surgeon’s scalpel had in one wave cut the filth of that moment out of me, the cruel kick that someone—probably the pimp—gave me from behind, who grabbed me by my shoulders and then threw me out as choked laughter crawled after me from every corner of the dark yard.
I stumbled away from there, running, falling, stained.
But five minutes later I was sitting on the bus home, under the lights of the city, among people who could not guess what had happened so close to them, how heavy the fee was that I had left there.
I wore my face again, I was myself again, to the point of exaggeration and ridiculousness.
I dressed my face with the tale everybody knows—I must have also blinked a lot, so my eyes would look myopic and helpless.
So people would look at me and mock me in their hearts—and, in that way, things would go back to what they used to be, to the normal course of events between the world and me.
That child popped out at me again a week ago, when I shaved off my beard.
I shaved just to meet him—don’t ask.
From the silly yearnings for him you aroused in me—I almost exploded from the insult of the weak face I saw staring back at me from the mirror.
Still, I will make myself stay loyal to you.
Not to myself: to you.
And I promise never to cover it again with a hairy layer of epidermis.
When I reached my neighborhood, I was already, of course, concentrating intensely on the beautiful, reconciling things flooding my vision.
I remember, for example, thinking that I would be a sailor someday and sail to distant lands, blue and green and full of light—and I would see only beautiful landscapes—and there wouldn’t be anything around me, just the wide expanse of the sea, wide and clear.
And while I was deep in my hallucination, two women passed by me, one young, one old.
And they said what they said, that I wasn’t sure they said.
Perhaps they only mumbled, “What a villainous boy.”
I don’t know.
I remember, for example, thinking that I would be a sailor someday and sail to distant lands, blue and green and full of light—and I would see only beautiful landscapes—and there wouldn’t be anything around me, just the wide expanse of the sea, wide and clear.
And while I was deep in my hallucination, two women passed by me, one young, one old.
And they said what they said, that I wasn’t sure they said.
Perhaps they only mumbled, “What a villainous boy.”
I don’t know.
And it wasn’t you, Miriam.
Not you, and not your mother.
Thank you for your tremendous efforts, for reliving that horrible week with her for my sake, without your father to protect you and separate her from you.
I know how difficult it was for you to go back there.
I was with you
during those endless nights, in the double bed in the pension.
You were crying on one side of the bed—she was silent on the other—and incapable of offering even a hand to comfort you.
Not you, and not your mother.
Thank you for your tremendous efforts, for reliving that horrible week with her for my sake, without your father to protect you and separate her from you.
I know how difficult it was for you to go back there.
I was with you
during those endless nights, in the double bed in the pension.
You were crying on one side of the bed—she was silent on the other—and incapable of offering even a hand to comfort you.
Without your even saying it, I know you brought me, in the last night of your story, to the only moment, probably, in those years, when the sky actually opened up for you.
I am amazed again—how could you be so generous and wise and unreserved at such a young age?
How did you understand exactly how miserable and humiliated she was to have to make such a request to you?
When Father asks—and how much strength did it take you to reach your hand out to her, over the mountains of darkness, and to tell her, “Mother, let’s go.”
I am amazed again—how could you be so generous and wise and unreserved at such a young age?
How did you understand exactly how miserable and humiliated she was to have to make such a request to you?
When Father asks—and how much strength did it take you to reach your hand out to her, over the mountains of darkness, and to tell her, “Mother, let’s go.”
The movie of this keeps playing in my mind: you and she, in that empty street in the middle of the night, your arms linked (I only now grasp—that hand, the pregnancy, paralysis, her right arm …)—terrified by the sudden intimacy, and excited and mute and appalled, clutching each other’s arm and shaking all over.
What touched me more than anything—in the middle of that storm of emotions that shook you as you wrote, you remembered how important it was to me that it will be the young one, “the modern one,” who tells me (what she might not have said in the first place).
But no—you would have given me one look and known exactly where I was returning from in that moment, and how lost I already was.
Just explain it to me—because I don’t completely understand—how is it possible that I was such a child?
Just explain it to me—because I don’t completely understand—how is it possible that I was such a child?
I feel terribly murky inside myself right now.
Y.
September 22
Did you happen to watch TV this evening?
I saw a program I really thought was made for you.
It was the kind of show you like to watch.
And it also reminded me of my “wide expanse of the sea.”
They showed a tribe living on an island in the Pacific—and all the nouns in their language are divided, not into male and female, but into “that which comes from the air” and “that which comes from the yam, sea.”
It was the kind of show you like to watch.
And it also reminded me of my “wide expanse of the sea.”
They showed a tribe living on an island in the Pacific—and all the nouns in their language are divided, not into male and female, but into “that which comes from the air” and “that which comes from the yam, sea.”
(And I was thinking about another island, where words also are divided
into “that which comes from Y-air” and “that coming from Miryam.”)
into “that which comes from Y-air” and “that coming from Miryam.”)
September 24
You turned the kaleidoscope only slightly—and the whole picture rotated.
But the mighty force it takes for just this slight turn!
But the mighty force it takes for just this slight turn!
Your letter arrived on a hard, annoying day.
The horrible, despairing news combined with some ambiguous internal bad mood.
Anyone who passed by me irritated me.
In the middle of the day, I left everything.
I raced to the post office and prayed for your white envelope in my box.
And then, all of a sudden—how did you describe it, when you were telling me about falling in love with Amos—“For me, the sunshine was healed.”
The horrible, despairing news combined with some ambiguous internal bad mood.
Anyone who passed by me irritated me.
In the middle of the day, I left everything.
I raced to the post office and prayed for your white envelope in my box.
And then, all of a sudden—how did you describe it, when you were telling me about falling in love with Amos—“For me, the sunshine was healed.”
What?
So, you didn’t save me that night on the street—exactly the opposite?
I saved you?
How?
With what?
What, in my miserable state, did I have to give you?
…
So, you didn’t save me that night on the street—exactly the opposite?
I saved you?
How?
With what?
What, in my miserable state, did I have to give you?
…
How do you do that?
How do you know how to give such grace, and with such delicacy and secret words.
I read it over and over—and this wave from within nearly takes me apart.
I apparently forgot, completely, even between me and myself; I didn’t let myself remember that the power of lusting, wanting this way—the power that twisted in me to the extent that it drove me to a prostitute—it is not a mutation, and it isn’t shameful.
You’re right.
It’s passion and heat and creation and life …
How do you know how to give such grace, and with such delicacy and secret words.
I read it over and over—and this wave from within nearly takes me apart.
I apparently forgot, completely, even between me and myself; I didn’t let myself remember that the power of lusting, wanting this way—the power that twisted in me to the extent that it drove me to a prostitute—it is not a mutation, and it isn’t shameful.
You’re right.
It’s passion and heat and creation and life …
You came down into my Josephan pit, you turned the pit, like a kaleidoscope, with ten sentences, no more—and deposited a little, fluttering ignominy of yours into my hand.
You close my five fingers around it and say, Take care of it And it is suddenly you, not me, who was the weak one there on the street, who betrayed himself.
You who agreed not to notice that exactly in this particular week he will return to the country, the beautiful Alexander—and you allowed them to smuggle you quickly out of Tel Aviv, bribe you with a weeklong vacation in Jerusalem?
You close my five fingers around it and say, Take care of it And it is suddenly you, not me, who was the weak one there on the street, who betrayed himself.
You who agreed not to notice that exactly in this particular week he will return to the country, the beautiful Alexander—and you allowed them to smuggle you quickly out of Tel Aviv, bribe you with a weeklong vacation in Jerusalem?
Well, I can imagine it was still a great temptation.
Your first time in a real hotel, and the first vacation in your life with your mother, just the two of you, and everything you were hoping would finally happen between the two of you.
Perhaps you are, as usual, too hard on yourself (what could have possibly developed between you and him?)—but when you wrote of the disgust that welled up in you, when you allowed yourself
to understand for what price you sold your passion—and how passionate you really were to have to make that deal—I thought, Maybe now we can seriously consider your proposal for the girl you were and the boy I was to “go steady.”
Your first time in a real hotel, and the first vacation in your life with your mother, just the two of you, and everything you were hoping would finally happen between the two of you.
Perhaps you are, as usual, too hard on yourself (what could have possibly developed between you and him?)—but when you wrote of the disgust that welled up in you, when you allowed yourself
to understand for what price you sold your passion—and how passionate you really were to have to make that deal—I thought, Maybe now we can seriously consider your proposal for the girl you were and the boy I was to “go steady.”
And if I had to choose only one moment from all your letters, I would pick the little word sketch you wrote at the bottom—how we passed each other in the street, one by the other, like a brother and sister chained in two lines of prisoners marching in opposite directions.
And how you sucked and vacuumed into yourself, from that distance, that one power of mine: the power to lust.
So you could have it for along the way, and for the whole life to come; and that because of it, I was, to you, a beautiful boy.
And how you sucked and vacuumed into yourself, from that distance, that one power of mine: the power to lust.
So you could have it for along the way, and for the whole life to come; and that because of it, I was, to you, a beautiful boy.
Yair
Don’t be frightened by the stain (it’s embarrassing, but sometimes happiness can burst out of my body in the form of a sudden nosebleed).
September 25
Miriam, I had a dream …
I swear I did—not just a fragment or vague memory—a complete, intricate dream.
It has been years since I’ve been able to remember a dream!
It has been years since I’ve been able to remember a dream!
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