Authors: David Grossman
Be My Knife (56 page)
He didn’t answer me.
Perhaps he could feel how he was breaking me even more, I asked him if he understood what I was saying, if he was strong enough to walk from the chair to the door to knock on it, because all of a sudden it seemed a huge distance
Perhaps he could feel how he was breaking me even more, I asked him if he understood what I was saying, if he was strong enough to walk from the chair to the door to knock on it, because all of a sudden it seemed a huge distance
Perhaps only after I started copying down his letters, and our words mixed together, or when I started writing my own diary
I slowly slid down the door and sat on the ground, and explained to him, quietly and considerately, that we has to help each other now, because something has happened here, a complication has come up; I will explain to you how such a thing can happen in life later, someday I will explain to you, someday you will understand, you will even thank me for not giving in to you
I saw a flash of myself in the rearview mirror, like a plucked chicken, wet; my nose was red like it always is when I’m cold, and I thought, What will he think of me, and I thought that he is still so very young
He got off the chair and lay at my feet on the ground, purposely laid himself down in the water, purposely turned his back on me and curled up again and didn’t move, and I wasn’t cold anymore, I thought it was strange how you stop feeling anything, I was left only with the hope that he wouldn’t die on me, in front of my eyes
I pitied the child who is reneging on a debt he doesn’t even know about, the way children usually do
As much as I tried, I couldn’t grasp how such a horror was happening to our family, that no one could hear or see what was going on
here, where were all the neighbors, and just people, the witnesses, where
here, where were all the neighbors, and just people, the witnesses, where
I ran, steps going down into the yard
So strange, I could see drops hitting my body, but didn’t feel them, the rain washed down and got into the house, inside blurred into outside and became one, I saw that I wasn’t understanding anything, and closed my eyes and just stopped
As I ran down the steps, I saw both of them in one glance, Yair and the child, separated by maybe three steps; they were lying in that little yard, lying in water, twisted at a horrible angle to each other like two bent nails.
Yair was naked and blue from the cold, his ribs were poking out and he hardly moved, his eyes were squeezed shut.
Ido lay beside a wicker chair, covered with a blanket, and I remember how surprised I was to see him wrapped up, protected—rain hit the wall of the house, splashing hard on Yair, and me.
I thought: We meet in water, we meet at the end as we did in the beginning, inside a story he wrote for us.
He opened his eyes and looked at me for a moment, and closed them again in pain.
I saw his lashes tremble, and he bawled out, a cry I have never heard from a grown-up, and he said my name again and again and again.
I also remember that, before I hurried to his child, before I touched Yair, my eyes were drawn briefly to their hands, Yair’s and Ido’s; they were bluish, transparent from the cold, and resembled each other marvelously; they both had long, beautiful fingers, long and thin and fragile
Yair was naked and blue from the cold, his ribs were poking out and he hardly moved, his eyes were squeezed shut.
Ido lay beside a wicker chair, covered with a blanket, and I remember how surprised I was to see him wrapped up, protected—rain hit the wall of the house, splashing hard on Yair, and me.
I thought: We meet in water, we meet at the end as we did in the beginning, inside a story he wrote for us.
He opened his eyes and looked at me for a moment, and closed them again in pain.
I saw his lashes tremble, and he bawled out, a cry I have never heard from a grown-up, and he said my name again and again and again.
I also remember that, before I hurried to his child, before I touched Yair, my eyes were drawn briefly to their hands, Yair’s and Ido’s; they were bluish, transparent from the cold, and resembled each other marvelously; they both had long, beautiful fingers, long and thin and fragile
February 1998
NOVELS
The Smile of the Lamb
See Under: LOVE
The Book of Intimate Grammar
The Zigzag Kid
The Smile of the Lamb
See Under: LOVE
The Book of Intimate Grammar
The Zigzag Kid
NONFICTION
Yellow Wind
Sleeping on a Wire
Death as a Way of Life
Yellow Wind
Sleeping on a Wire
Death as a Way of Life
BE MY KNIFE.
Copyright © 1998 by David Grossman.
Translation copyright © 2001 by Vered Almog and Maya Gurantz.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.
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Copyright © 1998 by David Grossman.
Translation copyright © 2001 by Vered Almog and Maya Gurantz.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.
10010.
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First published in Israel under the title
She-tehi li ha-sakin
by Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, Ltd.
She-tehi li ha-sakin
by Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, Ltd.
eISBN 9781466803718
First eBook Edition : November 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grossman, David.
[She-tehi li ha-sakin.
English]
English]
Be my knife / David Grossman.
p.
cm.
p.
cm.
ISBN 0-312-42147-8
I.
Title.
Title.
PJ5054.G728 S5413 2002
892.4’36—dc21
892.4’36—dc21
2001033645
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