Everything Is Illuminated (4 page)

ALL A LITTLE BELOW AVERAGE, PERHAPS, BUT TOLERABLE AT HEART. WHO IS LEAST UNDESERVING?

THE BEST DECISION IS NO DECISION, he decided, and put the letters in her crib, vowing to give my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother — and, in a certain sense, me — to the author of the first note she grabbed for. But she didn’t grab for any of them. She paid them no notice at all. For two days she didn’t move a muscle, never crying or opening her mouth for food. The black-hatted men continued to holler prayers from their pulleys ( HOLY, HOLY, HOLY. . . ), continued to sway above the transplanted Brod, continued to hold more tightly to the Great Book than the rope, praying that someone was listening to their prayers, until in the middle of one early late-evening service, the good gefiltefishmonger Bitzl Bitzl R hollered what every man in the congregation had been thinking: THE SMELL IS INTOLERABLE! HOW CAN I ACT CLOSE TO GOD WHEN I FEEL SO CLOSE TO THE SHITTER!

The Well-Regarded Rabbi, who didn’t disagree, put a halt to the prayers. He lowered himself to the glass floor and opened the ark. A most terrible stench poured forth, an all-encompassing, impossible to overlook, inhuman and inexcusable stink of supreme repugnance. It flooded from the ark, swept through the synagogue, streamed down every street, every alleyway of the shtetl, flowed under every pillow in every bedroom — entering the nostrils of the sleeping for long enough to misdirect their dreams before exiting with the next snore — and drained, finally, into the Brod.

The baby was still perfectly silent and unmoving. The Well-Regarded Rabbi placed the crib on the floor, removed a single sopping slip of paper, and hollered, IT APPEARS THAT THE BABY HAS CHOSEN YANKEL AS HER FATHER!

We were to be in good hands.

20 July 1997

Dear Jonathan,

I hanker for this letter to be good. Like you know, I am not first rate with English. In Russian my ideas are asserted abnormally well, but my second tongue is not so premium. I undertaked to input the things you counseled me to, and I fatigued the thesaurus you presented me, as you counseled me to, when my words appeared too petite, or not befitting. If you are not happy with what I have performed, I command you to return it back to me. I will persevere to toil on it until you are appeased.

I have girdled in the envelope the items you inquired, not withholding postcards of Lutsk, the census ledgers of the six villages from before the war, and the photographs you had me keep for cautious purposes. It was a very, very, very good thing, no? I must eat a slice of humble pie for what occurred to you on the train. I know how momentous the box was for you, for both of us, and how its ingredients were not exchangeable. Stealing is an ignomin-ious thing, but a thing that occurs very repeatedly to people on the train from Ukraine. Since you do not have at the tips of your finger the name of the guard who stole the box, it will be impossible to have it recouped, so you must confess that it is lost to you forever. But please do not let your experience in Ukraine injure the way you perceive Ukraine, which must be as a totally awesome former Soviet republic.

This is my occasion to utter thank you for being so long-suffering and stoical with me on our voyage. You were perhaps accounting upon a translator with more faculties, but I am certain that I did a mediocre job. I must eat a slice of humble pie for not finding Augustine, but you clutch how rigid it was. Perhaps if we had more days we could have discovered her. We could have investigated the six villages and interrogated many people. We could have lifted every boulder. But we have uttered all of these things so many times.

Thank you for the reproduction of the photograph of Augustine with her family. I have thought without end of what you said about falling in love with her. In truth, I never fathomed it when you uttered it in Ukraine. But I am certain that I fathom it now. I examine her once when it is morning, and once before I manufacture Z’s, and on every instance I see something new, some manner in which her hairs produce shadows, or her lips summa-rize angles.

I am so so happy because you were appeased by the first division that I posted to you. You must know that I have performed the corrections you demanded. I apologize for the last line, about how you are a very spoiled Jew. It has been changed, and is now written, “I do not want to drive ten hours to an ugly city to attend to a spoiled Jew.” I made more protracted the first part about me, and jettisoned out the word “Negroes,” as you ordered me to, even though it is true that I am so fond of them. It makes me happy that you relished the sentence “One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be a family.” I must inquire you, however, what is a truism?

I have ruminated what you told me about making the part about my grandmother more protracted. Because you felt with so much gravity about this, I thought OK to include the parts that you posted me. I cannot say that I brooded those things, but I can say that I would covet to be the variety of person to have brooded those things. They were very beautiful, Jonathan, and I felt them as true.

And thank you, I feel indebted to utter, for not mentioning the not-truth about how I am tall. I thought it might appear superior if I was tall.

I strived to perform the next section as you ordered me, placing primary in my thoughts all that you tutored. I also attempted to be not obvious, or un-duly subtle, as you demonstrated. Per the currency that you sent along, you must be informed that I would write this even in the absence of it. It is a mammoth honor for me to write for a writer, especially when he is an American writer, like Ernest Hemingway or you.

And mentioning your writing, “The Beginning of the World Often Comes” was a very exalted beginning. There were parts that I did not understand, but I conjecture that this is because they were very Jewish, and only a Jewish person could understand something so Jewish. Is this why you think you are chosen by God, because only you can understand the funnies that you make about yourself? I have one small query about this section, which is do you know that many of the names you exploit are not truthful names for Ukraine? Yankel is a name I have heard of, and so is Hannah, but the rest are very strange. Did you invent them? There were many mishaps like this, I will inform you. Are you being a humorous writer here, or an uninformed one?

I do not have any additional luminous remarks, because I must possess more of the novel in order to lumin. For present, be aware that I am ravished. I will counsel you that even after you have presented me more, I may not possess many intelligent things to utter, but I could be perhaps of some nonetheless use. Perhaps if I think something is very half-witted, I could tell you, and you could make it whole-witted. You have informed me so much about it that I am certain I will love very much to read the remnants, and think loftier of you, if that is a possibility. Oh yes, what is cunnilingus?

And now for a little private business. (You may decide not to read this part, if it makes you a boring person. I would understand, although please do not inform me.) Grandfather has not been healthful. He has altered to our residence for permanent. He reposed on Little Igor’s bed with Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and Little Igor reposed on the sofa. This does not spleen Little Igor, because he is such a good boy, who understands many more things than anyone thinks he does. I have the opinion that the melancholy is what makes Grandfather unhealthful, and it is what makes him blind, although he is not truly blind, of course. It has become tremendously worse since we returned from Lutsk. As you know, he was very defeated about Augustine, more than even you or I were defeated. It is rigid not to talk about Grandfather’s melancholy with Father, because we have both encountered him crying. Last night we were roosting at the table in the kitchen. We were eating black bread and conversing about athletics. There was a sound from above us. Little Igor’s room is above us. I was certain that it was the crying of Grandfather, and Father was also certain of this. There was also a quiet rapping against the ceiling. (Of normal, rapping is excellent, like the Dnipropetrovsk Crew, who are totally deaf, but this kind I was not amorous of.) We tried so rigidly to neglect it. The sound moved Little Igor from his repose, and he came into the kitchen. “Hello, Clumsy One,” Father said, because Little Igor had fallen again, and made his eye blue again, this time his left eye. “I would also like to eat black bread,” Little Igor said, not looking at Father. Even though he is only thirteen almost fourteen, he is very smart. (You are the only person I have remarked this to. Please do not remark it to any other person.) I hope that you are happy, and that your family is healthful and pros-perous. We became like friends while you were in Ukraine, yes? In a different world, we could have been real friends. I will be in suspense for your next letter, and I will also be in suspense for the coming division of your novel. I feel oblongated to again eat a slice of humble pie (my stomach is becoming chock-full) for the new section that I am bestowing you, but understand that I tried bestly, and did the best I could, which was the best that I could do. It is so rigid for me. Please be truthful, but also please be benevolent, please.

Guilelessly,

Alexander

How I anticipated, it made my girls very sad that I should not be with them for the celebration of the first birthday of the new constitution. “All Night,” one of my girls said to me, “how am I expected to pleasure myself in your void?” I had a notion. “Baby,” another one of my girls said to me, “it is not good.” I told them all, “If possible, I would be here with only you, forever. But I am a man who toils, and I must go where I must. We need currency for famous nightclubs, yes? I am doing something I hate for you. This is what it means to be in love. So do not spleen me.” But to be truthful, I was not even the smallest portion sad to go to Lutsk to translate for Jonathan Safran Foer. As I mentioned before, my life is ordinary. But I had never been to Lutsk, or any of the multitudinous petite villages that still endure after the war. I desired to see new things. I desired to experience volumes. And I would be electrical to meet an American.

“You will need to bring along with you food for your drive, Shapka,”

Father said to me. “Do not dub me that,” I said. “And also drink and maps,” he said. “It is near ten hours to Lvov, where you will pick up the Jew at the train station.” “How much currency will I receive for my toils?” I inquired, because that query had very much gravity on me. “Less than you think you deserve,” he said, “and more than you deserve.” This spleened me very much and I told Father, “Then maybe I do not want to do it.” “I do not care what you want,” he said, and extended to put his hand on my shoulder. In my family, Father is the world champion at ending conversations.

It was agreed that Grandfather and I would go forth at midnight of 1 July. This would present us with fifteen hours. It was agreed, by everyone except for Grandfather and I, that we should travel to the Lvov train station as soon as we entered the city of Lvov. It was agreed by Father that Grandfather should loiter with patience in the car, while I loitered on the tracks for the train of the hero. I did not know what his appearance would be, and he did not know how tall and aristocratic I would be.

This was something we made much repartee about after. He was very nervous, he said. He said he made shit of a brick. I said to him that I also made shit of a brick, but if you want to know why, it was not that I would not recognize him. An American in Ukraine is so flaccid to recognize. I made shit of a brick because he was an American, and I desired to show him that I too could be an American.

I have given abnormally many thoughts to altering residences to America when I am more aged. They have many superior schools for accounting, I know. I know this because a friend of mine, Gregory, who is sociable with a friend of the nephew of the person who invented the sixty-nine, told me that they have many superior schools for accounting in America, and he knows everything. My friends are appeased to stay in Odessa for their entire lives. They are appeased to age like their parents, and become parents like their parents. They do not desire anything more than everything they have known. OK, but this is not for me, and it will not be for Little Igor.

A few days before the hero was to arrive, I inquired Father if I could go forth to America when I made to graduate from university. “No,” he said. “But I want to,” I informed him. “I do not care what you want,” he said, and that is usually the end of the conversation, but it was not this time. “Why?” I asked. “Because what you want is not important to me, Shapka.” “No,” I said, “why is it that I cannot go forth to America after I graduate?” “If you want to know why you cannot go forth to America,”

he said, unclosing the refrigerator, investigating for food, “it is because Great-Grandfather was from Odessa, and Grandfather was from Odessa, and Father, me, was from Odessa, and your boys will be from Odessa. Also, you are going to toil at Heritage Touring when you are graduated. It is a necessary employment, premium enough for Grandfather, premium enough for me, and premium enough for you.” “But what if that is not what I desire?” I said. “What if I do not want to toil at Heritage Touring, but instead toil someplace where I can do something unordinary, and make very much currency instead of just a petite amount?

What if I do not want my boys to grow up here, but instead to grow up someplace superior, with superior things, and more things? What if I have girls?” Father removed three pieces of ice from the refrigerator, closed the refrigerator, and punched me. “Put these on your face,” he said, giving the ice to me, “so you do not look terrible and manufacture a disaster in Lvov.” This was the end of the conversation. I should have been smarter.

And I still haven’t mentioned that Grandfather demanded to bring Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior along. That was another thing. “You are being a fool,” Father informed him. “I need her to help me see the road,”

Grandfather said, pointing his finger at his eyes. “I am blind.” “You are not blind, and you are not bringing the bitch.” “I am blind, and the bitch is coming with us.” “No,” Father said. “It is not professional for the bitch to go along.” I would have uttered something on the half of Grandfather, but I did not want to be stupid again. “It is either I go with the bitch or I do not go.” Father was in a position. Not like the Latvian Home Stretch, but like amid a rock and a rigid place, which is, in truth, somewhat similar to the Latvian Home Stretch. There was fire amid them. I had seen this before, and nothing in the world frightened me more. Finally my father yielded, although it was agreed that Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior must don a special shirt that Father would have fabricated, which would say: officious seeing-eye bitch of heritage touring. This was so she would appear professional.