See Under David Grossman (free ebook reader TXT) 📖

special baby book. You should have seen it—very nice. Like a children’s story. I couldn’t write like that. I mean, if we ever have another child, I might give it a try. After all, you and I have tried our hand at more complicated things than that, haven’t we, Wasserman?”

“Most assuredly!” answers Wasserman, and the story continues. The doctor, he recounts, decided to find out what caused the unusual smiling and laughter. He conducted a small scientific experiment. He chuckled in a thick, exaggerated voice to make the baby laugh, but the little fellow sensed the trick immediately and grimaced. The doctor smiled despite himself, a real smile this time, and the baby beamed at him. This was so comic that Fried roared with laughter. The baby responded. Marcus: “Primordial smiles searched the baby’s body for the happy bolt hole. First his knee tried to smile. Then his elbow essayed it, disclosing a magnificent dimple.” Neigel: “Ah … why does it have to be on his elbow?” Wasserman: “Would you prefer it elsewhere, Herr Neigel?” Neigel: “Well … it’s a little silly, I know … but would you mind putting it on the right knee instead? Just above the knee? Liselotte hasone there. I don’t know, I just thought …” “But of course, Herr Neigel; you see, it is there already!” “Thank you, Herr Wasserman.”

Wasserman shuts his eyes with a long flutter of pain and pleasure. It was the first time in years that a German had called him “Herr.”

The baby shook all over as he tried to find the seat of the smile. His face quivered and turned red. His bright hair glistened. Fried: “I started thinking maybe he just needed a burp, so I picked him up and gave him a little pat on the back. Marcus:”And the smile just slid into place. Then, as the baby was gaily opening his mouth, laughing and gurgling with pleasure, Fried glimpsed six white teeth in the pink gums.”

Neigel: “Six? You said four.”

Death to this baby. Death to everyone. A certain person’s powers are utterly drained. There is strength left for one last spasm of resistance to Wasserman. Only when the activity of writing takes place is there any “vitality.” In the fingertips. The rest—numb. The written pages in his hand are like a fresh leaf sprouting from a withered tree. But at least this: Wasserman’s hidden, malicious intent has been revealed, and all the necessary operational plans to frustrate it have been made. The situation is still under partial control of the writing authority. The situation is as follows: Wasserman is aiming his efforts at a certain person, trying to “provoke” him—using unbelievably cheap tactics to bring him back to “life.” But Wasserman will be assailed. Wasserman will be soundly combated!

That night, on a narrow bed in a rented room in a strange city, a dream was dreamed. Neigel was dreamed in the guise of a certain person. Neigel’s children were also in the dream, and were encountered without enmity. They were even deemed “sweet.” They were cared for gently and with devotion by Neigel (who was a certain person). In the aftermath of the dream, the dreamer awakened with the following thought: A certain person has been dreamed of as a Nazi, and all this evoked was a mild depression, which soon lifted, having nothing much to hang on to. The strange thought occurred that they always say the little Nazi in you (henceforth LNIY) with reference to the wrong things, the obvious things like bestial cruelty, for instance, or racism of one sort or another, and xenophobia, and murderousness. But these are only the superficial symptoms of the disease. The chair at the writing desk in the rented room was oppressed by a certain ambiguous load. A pen was raised in the hand and chewed by the teeth. The rented atticroom in which the aforementioned activities took place had a view of the sea. Oh, sea. They always say the LNIY and they’re so wrong. They put vigilance to sleep, and pave the way for the next disaster. Yes, such thoughts revolved with astounding clarity. Total wakefulness and an acute understanding of his situation were detected, together with the inability to change what had already been fixed and determined. The broken closet mirror reflected his self. A bird face. Bright red eyes. An ugly shaving cut under ugly stubble. But the real problem, the disease, lies much deeper. And it may be incurable. And it could be that we are all no more than germs. And when here and there the LNIY is signaled, could it be that this is only a sly and cowardly act of blackmail, the goal of which is to reach a general consensus about the things it is convenient and easy to agree upon? That is, to fight whatever can be fought? But what, then, is the proper treatment? Or should we eradicate everything and start all over again? And do we have the strength?

That night things were examined: Could a certain child (who will henceforth be called Yariv) be destroyed by a certain person who also serves as his father? What about a certain person’s wife, and what about his mother?

At 0445 hours, a pair of trousers and a gray sweater were donned. The door leading out to the roof was opened. The roof was paced briskly. The feeling of awakening and recovery was experienced by a certain person. Beyond the roof, with its antennas and solar heaters, lay the blue borders of the great water reservoir. At exactly 0449 hours it became a certainty that these were not the right questions to ask, and that the mistakes, it may be ventured, had come with the questions. At this point certain questions which one had been taught to ask by a certain B. Schulz were recollected, and it became regrettably clear that they had been too much feared to be asked. They had always been feared. Now again it was recollected that