See Under David Grossman (free ebook reader TXT) 📖

body he would be made to experience sufferings he never knew. Wasserman: “Oy, Fried, you might have guessed this is how life would answer the challenge you drew in the dirt.” Fried: “Don’t worry about me. Old Fried knows a trick or two.” Neigel unexpectedly, clearly contradicting Wasserman: “Hurrah, Fried! In war as in war!” Marcus: “For a minute our Fried was so filled with the lust for war that he almost reared and neighed. But then he realized how meager his chances were and grew sad at heart.”

He reviewed his calculations once more, as proof against the second wave of terror which even then was sweeping over him. There had to be some mistake. Perhaps this was not progeria in its acute form. And perhaps the rapid development would soon slow to normal. Yes. Fried reckoned in his head, moving his big bloodless lips. Then he wrote outa list of numbers and studied it. The itch on his stomach was becoming more intense, and he furiously scratched the stupid rash.

One last time he attacked the paper. A moment later he cooled off, looking very pale. Gone was the small hope that life would be merciful, after all, if only because of their long acquaintanceship. Carelessly he sniffed his fingers. Where did this fresh smell of rosemary come from? He gritted his teeth and stared at the page. There, under the bottom line, were two numbers.

Wasserman stops reading. Neigel’s eyes are fixed on his lips. Wasserman’s eyes are fixed on his empty notebook. For a moment he beams with a wild look of love, like an animal defending its young. And though he is no lion or panther, and more like a rabbit or an angry sheep, the wildness and love in his eyes are undiminished. I could have peeked in his notebook just then and finally seen the word written in his empty notebook, but I was afraid to. Wasserman nodded his head at the word, and inhaled deeply, about to continue.

“One minute, please, Herr Wasserman—let me try to persuade you—you mustn’t!” But Fried, obstinately, cruelly ignoring Neigel’s plea: “It’s like this, if the baby continues to develop at this rate, he’ll complete the life cycle of an average man in exactly twenty-four hours. Yes.”

Neigel is silent, brimming with bitterness and anger. But even now, he is trapped in the magic of the biological formula “twenty-four hours.” He starts to say something and thinks better of it. A few seconds go by. Neigel is calmer. Now I know what I must do. I have no choice. Poor Wasserman. But I, too, have a story writing me, and wherever it leads, I follow. And perhaps my way is the right way.

“This story of yours,” says Neigel bitterly, “I can’t decide what to make of it.” Wasserman, with tremendous relief: “You will approve it by and by, Herr Neigel.” And Neigel: “Ach, you’re just ruining a good story with all these strange ideas. Twenty-four hours, really!” And Wasserman: “A magnificent twenty-four hours, I assure you!” And then he turns to me and says, “Nu? I have trapped him now—What is it, Shleimeleh? How your face has changed! But—”

The baby toddled across the carpet, his hands held high, his eyes aglow with joy and triumph. When he reached Fried he stopped and looked up at him. “Pa-pa,” he said to the weeping doctor. “Pa-pa.”

The Complete Encyclopedia of Kazik’s Life

FIRST EDITION

READER’S PREFACE:

1. The following pages represent a unique attempt to compile an encyclopedia embracing most of the events in the life of a single individual, as well as his distinctive psychosomatic functions, orientation to his surroundings, desires, dreams, etc. Those normally “resistant” to analysis manifested their unfamiliar aspects and capitulated to the objective demands of an exhaustive study with their first introduction to this rigorous and (seemingly!) secure framework of arbitrary classification. Perhaps it is this very arbitrariness—i.e., the alphabetization of the entries—that transformed various illusive and equivocal figures into wieldy and effective raw material, and helped to reveal the simplicity of basic mechanisms animating all members of the human race.

2. Consequently the following pages will provide the reader with the most comprehensive biography available of Kazik, hero of Anshel Wasserman’s story, as told to Obersturmbannführer Neigel, during their stay in a Nazi extermination camp, on Polish soil, in 1943.

3. Since it was not always possible to sever Kazik’s biography from the circumstances under which it was recounted, the reader will find that Neigel, Wasserman, and their miscellaneous biographical accretions have left a mark here and there in the pages of this volume. The reader, of course, is free to skip these entries.

4. In an effort to preserve the authenticity of those characters who influenced the life of the subject of our study (Kazik), the monologues and fragmentary conversations of said characters are cited herewith.Admittedly such a procedure impairs the academic objectivity of the project and “popularizes” it to a certain extent, perhaps unavoidably so at the present time. We shall do our best to amend this in future editions of the encyclopedia.

5. In order to dispense with literary tension wherever possible and to avoid diverting interest from essentials, we shall do our utmost to remove any burden of knowledge likely to create this tension, this extraneous illusion of a purpose, as it were, at the root of things, toward which all “life” is supposed to flow. Accordingly we hasten to report that Kazik died at 1827 hours, twenty-two hours and twenty-two minutes after he was brought to the zoo as a newborn infant. He was sixty-five years old at the time, according to his own chronological frame of reference, that he killed himself. Unquestionably it is the fact that Kazik lived a full life in so short a span which justifies and motivates this modest scientific project, inasmuch as it offers a unique opportunity for a full encyclopedic transcription of one man’s life, from birth to death.

6. In view of the aforesaid, the reader should feel free to