See Under David Grossman (free ebook reader TXT) 📖

calm and self-assured even now, saves me from my terrible embarrassment and scolds (“I thought you were a cultured man, Wasserman”) this terrible old man with a look of amusement. But Wasserman doesn’t react. He continues to read, and I can only wait for more of his follies.

“And even when you pass wind, Pan Doctor, says Mr. Marcus, and indeed, Herr Neigel, sir, while Paula was alive Fried discovered a secret law: that whenever he thought he was alone and allowed himself to pass wind modestly, to twitter down under, as it were, Paula would appear out of nowhere, and though Fried wished to bury himself alive, Paula only smiled secretly, and the same intimate happening repeated itself many times each day, as fixed as the laws of heaven, till even now, three years after Paula’s death, our beloved doctor passes wind and shuts his eyes, waiting like an innocent child for the sound of her approaching footsteps, ai, and on days when misery and sorrow fill hislife, Fried leaves the mine and strolls through the forest alone, tooting and honking, the sounds rolling down through the tunnels like the bitter cry of wild geese …”

Neigel can no longer control himself and again he laughs out loud. Who would have believed that this tense and suspicious man had such merry laughter hidden inside him? “Not bad, Wasserman, not bad,” he groans. “That’s what I call entertainment. It’s not at all what I meant when I asked you for a story, but it’s getting interesting now, although” —he admits and wipes his eyes and cheeks—“it is a little difficult to think of my childhood heroes as a bunch of old farts.” “I hope you will become accustomed to this in time,” says Wasserman dryly, disappointment and deep humiliation filling his eyes. (“Nu? Have you ever seen the like of this yekke? Nothing could ever touch his heart, for he sees only the outward manifestation of things! Feh! The way he opened his mouth and bared his ox teeth with a bellow of laughter! And here I am, telling him a story about true love between a man and a woman, a love that overcomes the barriers of time! And about the agony of saying words of love when there is no longer anyone there to tell them to, and no more words to tell … and he—ai … a bull, I tell you, A bull even if you send him to Yahoupitz returns a bull!”), and Neigel continues, “And I hope, Scheherazade, that we’ll soon have more serious action than farting, pardon the expression.” And Wasserman: “But of course, your honor! Extremely serious! Yes indeed, ‘action,’ as you say!” (“And God only knows how I had the audacity to lie like this. Nothing in particular was in my mind at the time, Shleimeleh. And I knew not why my Children of the Heart had banded together again, or against whom they would wage war this time, or how I would infect Neigel with the Chelm disease, as I call it … but for the first time in my life I knew I had the chance to succeed as a real writer. And I only hoped I would have the strength to conquer the unknown and to overcome the forgotten and to tell the story as it should be told, from birth to death, and in all my old bones now the new fire burned and filled me with heat and pleasure, till I could hardly contain myself. It was as if an invisible presence on the other side of the page were tugging at my pen and my heart.”)

Neigel now stifles a broad yawn. He announces that if Wasserman has finished he is free to go to sleep now, because Neigel has a lot of work before him, adding generously, “That wasn’t too bad today fora start.” Wasserman gazes deeply into his empty notebook. Over and over he reads the single word written there, and says that if Herr Neigel wishes, they can stop here. It makes no difference to him. For his part, he could go on reading till dawn.

They are about to separate. Something strange is taking place here. I don’t understand what Anshel Wasserman is getting at with his grotesque and vulgar story. These vagaries of his are pretty embarrassing. They even make me angry. He’s bringing a dimension of low cunning into a story which in my eyes is too momentous to be turned into cheap comedy. But he’ll stoop to anything to get what he wants. It’s not easy with him sometimes.

And then there’s Neigel: I find him strange, too. That doesn’t surprise me, because we’re so different. And yet, my responsibility as a writer, and my curiosity: Where will Neigel burst forth for me? Is it possible to bridge the gap between us for the sake of art? I wait patiently. “Good night,” says Neigel, the character I don’t yet know. “Please, begging your pardon,” says Wasserman, “if I may remind you, sir, you owe me something.” And when Neigel arches an eyebrow in wonder (“I? Owe you?”), the old man calmly replies, “Our contract, your honor.”

I do not understand him. Why does he still want the—Neigel, too, is surprised. Even alarmed. His hand touches the revolver in his belt and recoils from it, as if it were boiling hot. And when Wasserman stubbornly refuses to yield (“You promised, sir!”), Neigel takes his gun out of the holster.

It’s a medium-sized weapon, of a type I’m not familiar with (could it be an Austrian Steyr?), highly polished. (It must be a Steyr. Or maybe—of course! The Parabellum. How could I have made such a mistake! It’s definitely that, the Lüger Parabellum, with an eight-shot barrel—let’s see if I can still remember those army quizzes we used to have fun with—9 mm caliber). Neigel shifts his position again and again. He tries steadying his right wrist with his left hand. (Definitely a 9 mm … Like a