See Under David Grossman (free ebook reader TXT) 📖

and pitiful expression on his face, Momik just got up and walked out, leaving Grandfather all alone in the dark, and he went back to the house and locked himself in and listened to the radio and heard how our team lost the game against the Poles in Yaroslav 7 to 2, while the Poles jeered at our boys, and Nechemia Ben-Avrahamthe sportscaster described how Yanush Achurak and Liberda and Shershinsky are walking all over our boys Goldstein and Stelmach, so Momik could see he was losing right down the line, as they say, though on the other hand, as everyone knows, Momik isn’t the kind of boy who cares about losing or jeering or harassment or extortion, but there is one thing he will never allow himself to lose at, because there is no other way, and that’s why he had a new plan, more daring than anything up to now, which he worked out because Grandfather Anshel was apparently too small to bring out the Beast wherever it was, and as always, Momik had to think this through like a good shopkeeper (Bella was the one who taught him this even though she herself was a regular shlimazel when it comes to business things), and get some more Jews in, enough to make the Beast think it was worth coming out, and this seemed so funny to him that he laughed a weird laugh which startled him and he shut up and listened to the game on the radio, and thought about Grandfather who might be gobbled up any moment down there, and in his mind, which he could no longer control, Momik planned to ask his classmates to lend him their grandmothers and grandfathers for a little while and bring them down to the Beast in a big group, and he let out another laugh like a high-pitched squeak on the radio, and then stifled it and looked around to see if anyone had heard.

And he didn’t even wait to hear the end of the game because he stopped believing a miracle would happen and some wonder boy of a soccer player would leap down from the stands past the jeering crowds and join our eleven-man team on the field and show those Poles a thing or two, and run circles around them and save the day and clobber them 8 to 7 (the last goal with the final whistle), and he stomped out of the house and locked the bottom lock and went down the stairs and waited at the door for a second, listening for the victim’s screams, but all he heard was Grandfather’s tune, and then Momik went in and sat down facing Grandfather, feeling all tired out; he must really have been tired out because sometime later he found himself stretched out at Grandfather’s feet, and decided that maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea to bring any more Jewish grandfathers in, because it sure was getting harder to put up with people lately, they were simply impossible, with their secrets and ideas and the craziness darting out of their eyes, and how come there’s the other type of people, like the kids in his class, everything seems so simple to, only Momik knows how not simple itis, because once is enough; once you know how not simple it is and how frightening it is, you can never believe in anything again, oh what an act it is, but even though he was asleep now he couldn’t stop fighting, and he heard someone calling, Get up, get up, if you fall asleep now, you’re done for, and maybe it was this voice that kept him from falling asleep, no, it was something else too, hard to remember what exactly, maybe he got up, yes, and he walked out of the cellar, and wandered around in a fog, dragging his feet, till he got to the green bench where he stopped a while; he just sat there and waited, thinking of nothing, watching a big brown autumn leaf that had fallen from some tree long ago, and he saw the veins sticking out of the leaf like the veins on Mama’s legs, and down the middle there was a long line that split the leaf in two, and he thought what would happen now if he tore the leaf in two and threw each half in a different direction, would they miss each other or what, and as he sat there his old people approached, and they didn’t have to ask any questions, they knew, they looked at his face and saw it was time to do what they’d planned all along, and Momik waited another minute till they all had the same smell, and then he said, Ah well, nu, and they all followed him, Hannah and Munin and Marcus and Ginzburg and Zeidman, like sheep they followed wherever he led, they traipsed down the street forever along the paths with the snowdrifts and the black forests and the churches and haystacks with the fresh smell, and someone who saw them on their way asked Momik, Where to? but Momik didn’t look up to see who it was, and he didn’t answer, he led his Jews onward to the cellar, and heard Grandfather talking to himself inside, and Momik opened the door for them and beckoned them in and shut the door.

They waited patiently inside for their eyes to get used to the dark, till gradually they could make Grandfather out on his benkaleh, and the white pages on the walls, and Mr. Munin was the first who had enough nerve to go to the wall and look at one of the pictures up close, and it took him a while to figure out what he was looking at but when he did understand he stiffened and backed away and he must have been frightened because you could feel his fear run through them like an electric current, and they huddled together,