See Under David Grossman (free ebook reader TXT) 📖

At the end of the speech Momik told Grandfather that for such a major decision Grandfather was entitled to have three days to think it over, but he was only saying that of course.

Grandfather didn’t need three days, he made his mind up there and then. He shook his head so hard Momik was afraid his neck would snap, God forbid, and you’d have thought he understood something after all, that the whole time he’d only been waiting for Momik to ask him, and maybe this was the real reason he came to them in the first place, and Momik started to feel a little better.

As he was getting the cellar ready for Grandfather’s first visit, he felt almost cheerful. First he brought down the little duster with the colored feathers Mama had for dusting, and he used it to sweep the filthy floor. Then under a pile of junk he found the little bench they called a benkaleh and he put it in the middle of the room and decided this would be Grandfather’s benkaleh. He also hung Papa’s overcoat with the yellow stars from the nails that stuck out of the wall, and he ripped the empty sleeves, and then he tore out all the pictures he’d copied from library books into his fake Geography Notebook #3 and taped them to the wall, and when he looked around he said twice in Yiddish, Zer shoin, very pretty, and rubbed his palms together and said Whew over them as if he were blowing on a little fire, and then he went up to the house, and inside he locked the bottom lock too, and saw that Grandfather had fallen asleep after lunch with his head resting on the table next to the plate with the drumstick on it, and a fine thread of spit dribbling from his mouth. Momik woke him gently and they went outside and Momik locked the bottom lock too and they walked carefully down the stairs and Momik opened the cellar door and went in first to make sure everything was all right, and quickly, quietly he said, Here, I brought him to you, and then he stepped aside (his heart was pounding) and let Grandfather in, and only then did he dare open his eyes because nothing was happening as far as he could tell, and he led Grandfather to the middle of the room and turned him a little to the right and to the left so his smell would spread in all directions, and the whole time he kept watching the animals, thinking they seemed a little more alert than usual but nothing else, and Grandfather didn’t even notice the animals, he just wandered around muttering like a dodo.

Okay, Momik reminded himself that he couldn’t really expect anything to happen so fast. Maybe the Beast forgot what a real Jew smells like and Momik would just have to wait patiently for it to remember. He sat Grandfather down on the benkaleh in the middle of the floor. Grandfather did try to resist a little, to tell the truth, but Momik had lost patience with this kind of nonsense, so he put his hands around Grandfather’s neck and pressed slowly till he gave in and sat down. Momik sat before him on the floor and said, Now start talking, and Grandfather gave him a funny look as if he was afraid of him or something, and why should he be afraid now, all he had to do was to obey Momik with no nonsense, there was nothing to be afraid of, and suddenlyMomik shouted as loud as he could, Talk, you hear? Start talking or else, but he didn’t know why he was shouting or what he meant by “or else,” and Grandfather started talking very fast, and that disgusting spit squirted out of his mouth, which is exactly what Momik had hoped would happen, and he said, Wave your hands too! And Grandfather waved his hands the way he does, and Momik watched him closely to make sure he was really trying hard and doing what he was supposed to do, and he also glanced at the cages and the suitcases and the torn mattresses and silently cried, Jude! Jude! Here, I brought you the kind you like, a real Jude that looks like a Jude and talks like a Jude and smells like a Jude, a Jude grandfather with a Jude grandson, so come on out …

In the days that followed, Momik did some pretty desperate things. They would sit on the floor together, eating pieces of dry bread, as Momik softly sang partisan songs, in both Hebrew and Yiddish, and recited prayers from Papa’s High Holiday prayer book. He even covered the far wall of the cellar with pages torn out of Anne’s book, but the Beast would not come out. It simply would not come out.

The poor animals howled and shrieked and scratched, and the cat was dying now, but Momik wasn’t afraid of the animals, he was afraid of the Beast which was here in the cellar, you could really feel it flexing its huge muscles, ready to pounce, only how could you tell where it was going to pounce from, darn it, and Momik sat looking at Grandfather Anshel and didn’t know what to do. He was fed up with this stupid grandfather who did nothing but drawl out his crummy story in a whiny voice. Sometimes Momik felt like going over to him and snapping his mouth shut. Once when Grandfather made a sign that he had to pee, Momik didn’t get up to take him out but sat staring into his eyes instead, and he saw how confused Grandfather was, howling like some crazy cat and grabbing himself there and writhing desperately and then he wet his pants and they smelled revolting, but Momik wasn’t the least bit sorry for him anymore, on the contrary, when Grandfather looked up at him with a dazed