Everything Is Illuminated (9 page)

She could have been so old as the hero and me, as could have been the hero’s grandfather. I looked at the girl for many minutes. She was so so beautiful. Her hair was brown, and rested only on her shoulders. Her eyes appeared sad, and full of intelligence.

“I want to see Trachimbrod,” the hero said. “To see what it’s like, how my grandfather grew up, where I would be now if it weren’t for the war.” “You would be Ukrainian.” “That’s right.” “Like me.” “I guess.”

“Only not like me because you would be a farmer in an unimpressive town, and I live in Odessa, which is very much like Miami.” “And I want to see what it’s like now. I don’t think there are any Jews left, but maybe there are. And the shtetls weren’t only Jews, so there should be others to talk to.” “The whats?” “Shtetls. A shtetl is like a village.” “Why don’t you merely dub it a village?” “It’s a Jewish word.” “A Jewish word?” “Yiddish.

Like schmuck.” “What does it mean schmuck?” “Someone who does something that you don’t agree with is a schmuck.” “Teach me another.”

“Putz.” “What does that mean?” “It’s like schmuck.” “Teach me another.” “Schmendrik.” “What does that mean?” “It’s also like schmuck.”

“Do you know any words that are not like schmuck?” He pondered for a moment. “Shalom,” he said, “which is actually three words, but that’s Hebrew, not Yiddish. Everything I can think of is basically schmuck. The Eskimos have four hundred words for snow, and the Jews have four hundred for schmuck.” I wondered, What is an Eskimo?

“So, we will sightsee the shtetl?” I asked the hero. “I figured it would be a good place to begin our search.” “Search?” “For Augustine.” “Who is Augustine?” “The girl in the photograph. She’s the only one who would still be alive.” “Ah. We will search for Augustine, who you think saved your grandfather from the Nazis.” “Yes.” It was very silent for a moment. “I would like to find her,” I said. I perceived that this appeased the hero, but I did not say it to appease him. I said it because it was faithful. “And then,” I said, “if we find her?” The hero was a pensive person.

“I don’t know what then. I suppose I’d thank her.” “For saving your grandfather.” “Yes.” “That will be very queer, yes?” “What?” “When we find her.” “If we find her.” “We will find her.” “Probably not,” he said.

“Then why do we search?” I queried, but before he could answer, I interrupted myself with another query. “And how do you know that her name is Augustine?” “I guess I don’t, really. On the back, see, here, are written a few words, in my grandfather’s writing, I think. Maybe not. It’s in Yiddish. It says: ‘This is me with Augustine, February 21, 1943.’ ” “It’s very difficult to read.” “Yes.” “Why do you think he remarks only about Augustine and not the other two people in the photograph?” “I don’t know.” “It is queer, yes? It is queer that he remarks only her. Do you think he loved her?” “What?” “Because he remarks only her.” “So?” “So perhaps he loved her.” “It’s funny that you should think that. We must think alike.” (Thank you, Jonathan.) “I’ve actually thought a lot about it, without having any good reason to. He was eighteen, and she was, what, about fifteen? He had just lost a wife and daughter when the Nazis raided his shtetl.” “Trachimbrod?” “Right. For all I know the writing doesn’t have anything to do with the picture. It could be that he used this for scrap paper.” “Scrap?” “Paper that’s unimportant. Just something to write on.” “Oh.” “So I don’t really have any idea. It seems so improbable that he could have loved her. But isn’t there something strange about the picture, the closeness between them, even though they’re not looking at each other? The way that they aren’t looking at each other. The distance.

It’s very powerful, don’t you think? And his words on the back.” “Yes.”

“And that we should both think about the possibility of his loving her is also strange.” “Yes,” I said. “Part of me wants him to have loved her, and part of me hates to think it.” “What is the part of you that hates it if he loved her?” “Well, it’s nice to think of some things as irreplaceable.” “I do not understand. He married your present grandmother, so something must have been replaced.” “But that’s different.” “Why?” “Because she’s my grandmother.” “Augustine could have been your grandmother.”

“No, she could have been someone else’s grandmother. For all I know she is. Maybe he had children with her.” “Do not say this about your grandfather.” “Well, I know he had other children before, so why would that be so different?” “What if we reveal a brother of yours?” “We won’t.” “And how did you obtain this photograph?” I asked, holding it to the window. “My grandmother gave it to my mother two years ago, and she said that this was the family that saved my grandfather from the Nazis.” “Why merely two years?” “What do you mean?” “Why was it so newly that she gave it to your mother?” “Oh, I see what you’re asking.

She has her reasons.” “What are these reasons?” “I don’t know.” “Did you inquire her about the writing on the back?” “No. We couldn’t ask her anything about it.” “Why not?” “She held on to the photograph for fifty years. If she had wanted to tell us anything about it, she would have.” “Now I understand what you are saying.” “I couldn’t even tell her I was coming to the Ukraine. She thinks I’m still in Prague.” “Why is this?” “Her memories of the Ukraine aren’t good. Her shtetl, Kolki, is only a few kilometers from Trachimbrod. I figure we’d go there too. But all of her family was killed, everyone, mother, father, sisters, grandparents.” “Did a Ukrainian save her?” “No, she fled before the war. She was young, and left her family behind.” She left her family behind. I wrote this on my brain. “It surprises me that no one saved her family,” I said.

“It shouldn’t be surprising. The Ukrainians, back then, were terrible to the Jews. They were almost as bad as the Nazis. It was a different world.

At the beginning of the war, a lot of Jews wanted to go to the Nazis to be protected from the Ukrainians.” “This is not true.” “It is.” “I cannot believe what you are saying.” “Look it up in the history books.” “It does not say this in the history books.” “Well, that’s the way it was. Ukrainians were known for being terrible to the Jews. So were the Poles. Listen, I don’t mean to offend you. It’s got nothing to do with you. We’re talking about fifty years ago.” “I think you are mistaken,” I told the hero. “I don’t know what to say.” “Say that you are mistaken.” “I can’t.” “You must.”

“Here are my maps,” he said, excavating a few pieces of paper from his bag. He pointed to one that was wet from Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior. Her tongue, I hoped. “This is Trachimbrod,” he said. “It’s also called Sofiowka on certain maps. This is Lutsk. This is Kolki. It’s an old map. Most of the places we’re looking for aren’t on new maps. Here,” he said, and presented it to me. “You can see where we have to go. This is all I have, these maps and the photograph. It’s not much.” “I can promise you that we will find this Augustine,” I said. I could perceive that this made the hero appeased. It also made me appeased. “Grandfather,” I said, rotating to the front again. I explained everything that the hero had just uttered to me. I informed him about Augustine, and the maps, and the hero’s grandmother. “Kolki?” he asked. “Kolki,” I said. I made certain to involve every detail, and I also invented several new details, so that Grandfather would understand the story more. I could perceive that this story made Grandfather very melancholy. “Augustine,” he said, and pushed Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior onto me. He scrutinized at the photograph while I fastened the wheel. He put it close to his face, like he wanted to smell it, or touch it with his eyes. “Augustine.” “She is the one we are looking for,” I said. He moved his head this and that. “We will find her,” he said. “I know,” I said. But I did not know, and nor did Grandfather.

When we reached the hotel, it was already commencing darkness.

“You must remain in the car,” I told the hero, because the proprietor of the hotel would know that the hero is American, and Father told me that they charge Americans in surplus. “Why?” he asked. I told him why.

“How will they know I am American?” “Tell him to remain in the car,”

Grandfather said, “or they will charge him twice.” “I am making efforts,”

I told him. “I’d like to go in with you,” the hero said, “to check the place out.” “Why?” “Just to check things out. See what it’s like.” “You can see what it is like after I get the rooms.” “I’d prefer to do it now,” he said, and I must confess that he was beginning to be on my nerves. “What the fucking hell is he still talking about?” Grandfather asked. “He wants to go in with me.” “Why?” “Because he is an American.” “Is it OK if I go in?” he asked again. Grandfather turned to him, and said to me, “He is paying. If he wants to pay surplus, let him pay surplus.” So I took him with me when I entered the hotel to pay for two rooms. If you want to know why two rooms, one was for Grandfather and me, and one was for the hero. Father said it should be this manner.

When we entered the hotel, I told the hero not to speak. “Do not speak,” I said. “Why?” he asked. “Do not speak,” I said without much volume. “Why?” he asked. “I will tutor you later. Shhh.” But he kept inquiring why he should not speak, and as I was certain, he was heard by the owner of the hotel. “I will need to view your documents,” the owner said. “He needs to view your documents,” I said to the hero. “Why?”

“Give them to me.” “Why?” “If we are going to have a room, he needs to view your documents.” “I don’t understand.” “There is nothing to understand.” “Is there a problem?” the owner inquired me. “Because this is the only hotel in Lutsk that is still possessing rooms at this time of the night. Do you desire to attempt your luck on the street?”

I was finally able to prevail on the hero to give his documents. He stored them in a thing on his belt. Later he told me that this is called a fanny pack, and that fanny packs are not cool in America, and that he was only donning a fanny pack because a guidebook said he should don one to keep his documents close to his middle section. As I was certain, the owner of the hotel charged the hero a special foreigner tariff. I did not enlighten the hero this, because I knew he would have manufactured queries until he had to pay four times, and not only two, or until we received no room for the night at all, and had to repose in the car, as Grandfather had made an addiction of doing.

When we returned to the car, Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior was masticating her tail in the back seat, and Grandfather was again manufacturing Z’s. “Grandfather,” I said, adjusting his arm, “we obtained a room.” I had to move him with very much violence in order to wake him. When he unclosed his eyes, he did not know where he was. “Anna?” he asked.

“No, Grandfather,” I said, “it is me, Sasha.” He was very shamed, and hid his face from me. “We obtained a room,” I said. “Is he feeling OK?”

the hero asked me. “Yes, he is fatigued.” “Will he be OK for tomorrow?”

“Of course.” But in truth Grandfather was not his normal self. Or maybe he was his normal self. I did not know what his normal self was. I remembered a thing that Father told me. When I was a boy, Grandfather said I looked like a combination of Father, Mother, Brezhnev, and myself. I had always thought that story was very funny until at that moment at the car in front of the hotel in Lutsk.

I told the hero not to leave any of his bags in the car. It is a bad and popular habit for people in Ukraine to take things without asking. I have read that New York City is very dangerous, but I must say that Ukraine is more dangerous. If you want to know who protects you from the people that take without asking, it is the police. If you want to know who protects you from the police, it is the people who take without asking.

And very often they are the same people.

“Let us eat,” Grandfather said, and commenced to drive. “You are hungry?” I asked the hero, who was again the sexual object of Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior. “Get it off of me,” he said. “Are you hungry?” I repeated. “Please!” he implored. I called to her, and when she did not respond I punched her in the face. She moved to her side of the back seat, because now she understanded what it means to be stupid with the wrong person, and commenced to cry. Did I feel awful? “I’m famished,”

the hero said, lifting his head from his knees. “What?” “Yes, I’m hungry.”

“You are hungry, then.” “Yes.” “Good. Our driver —” “You can call him your grandfather. It doesn’t bother me.” “He is not your brother.”

“Bother, I said. Bother.” “What does it mean to bother me?” “To upset.”

“What does it mean to upset?” “To distress.” “I understand to distress.”

“So you can call him your grandfather, is what I’m saying.”

We became very busy talking. When I rotated back to Grandfather, I saw that he was examining Augustine again. There was a sadness amid him and the photograph, and nothing in the world frightened me more.

“We will eat,” I told him. “Good,” he said, holding the photograph very near to his face. Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior was persisting to cry. “One thing, though,” the hero said. “What?” “You should know . . .” “Yes?” “I am a . . . how to say this . . .” “What?” “I’m a . . .” “You are very hungry, yes?” “I’m a vegetarian.” “I do not understand.” “I don’t eat meat.”

“Why not?” “I just don’t.” “How can you not eat meat?” “I just don’t.”

“He does not eat meat,” I told Grandfather. “Yes he does,” he informed me. “Yes you do,” I likewise informed the hero. “No. I don’t.” “Why not?” I inquired him again. “I just don’t. No meat.” “Pork?” “No.”

“Meat?” “No meat.” “Steak?” “Nope.” “Chickens?” “No.” “Do you eat veal?” “Oh, God. Absolutely no veal.” “What about sausage?” “No sausage either.” I told Grandfather this, and he presented me a very bothered look. “What is wrong with him?” he asked. “What is wrong with you?” I asked him. “It’s just the way I am,” he said. “Hamburger?”

“No.” “Tongue?” “What did he say is wrong with him?” Grandfather asked. “It is just the way he is.” “Does he eat sausage?” “No.” “No sausage!” “No. He says he does not eat sausage.” “In truth?” “That is what he says.” “But sausage . . .” “I know.” “In truth you do not eat any sausage?” “No sausage.” “No sausage,” I told Grandfather. He closed his eyes and tried to put his arms around his stomach, but there was not room because of the wheel. It appeared like he was becoming sick because the hero would not eat sausage. “Well, let him deduce what he is going to eat. We will go to the most proximal restaurant.” “You are a schmuck,” I informed the hero. “You’re not using the word correctly,” he said. “Yes I am,” I said.