See Under David Grossman (free ebook reader TXT) 📖

to start the play. “See,” said Bruno, standing with me at the window, “they’re all here.”

And it was so: all the townspeople, our acquaintances, all of Bruno’s family, his classmates and teachers from the Gymnasium, were there, conspicuous among them his two drawing teachers—Chashunstovsky, the “long fellow,” and the diminutive Adolf Arendt, smiling esoterically in all directions. We also saw mad Tuoya: Tuoya who lives in the nettle field and sleeps on a three-legged bed among the rubbish heaps; and there was Uncle Hieronymus: tall, with a hawklike nose and terrifying eyes, who hadn’t stepped out of his bedroom since the day he lost his mind; he sat there, grim and furious, growing more fantastically furry by the day, engaged in silent, deadly combat with the powerful lion, earnest as a patriarch, who was concealed behind the palm trees on the tremendous tapestry that covered the wall of the room where he lived with wrinkled Aunt Retitia. Everyone but everyone was there: the neighbors with their children and their dogs, bedecked with ribbons, and a small, noisy crowd of apprentices from the family dry-goods store, Henrietta, who trailed the lovely Adela, fast asleep even as she minced on patent-leather shoes, her lips parted in an errant kiss, her robe loose …

“What is this?” I asked Bruno. “What are they all celebrating?”

“The Messiah,” the child answered, making a magical sign at the window.

The square glowed brighter, and it was now impossible to look without being blinded. People seemed to be illuminated from within, glowing and dimming in turn, as if connected to a single power source which had not yet been properly adjusted.

And when I looked at Bruno I had no doubt that he was the source of this power: the veins stood out on his precociously broad forehead, like the wires of an overheated oven. For a moment his face burned with a strong red light, then turned pale. But another difference was marked in him, which I could not evaluate at first glance: in the midst of all the glowing and dimming, Bruno was galloping backward and forward in “time” as well: one moment he was a mature man burningwith tremendous force, and the next moment, an alert and lively child straining to contain his fullness in the hoops of his frail body, and later—but what’s this?—he is regressing further still, to the plumpness of babyhood, the downiness of—

“Bruno!” I cried, “control yourself!”

He looked at me, iridescent and dizzy with changing time, and shrugged his shoulders, smiling as if to say that there was no longer anything he could do about it.

And at that moment the Messiah strode into the square. He came from the direction of Samburska Street, to the left, the narrow street between the church and Bruno’s house. He came riding a small gray donkey, dusty with endless wandering. On the threshold of the square they stopped, and the Messiah dismounted. He flashed a look at Bruno, who answered with a small nod of assent. These exchanges were so intimate that even I, standing at Bruno’s side, could not make out the face of the Messiah. But I did see him spank his donkey affectionately with an open hand, to send it on its way. And then a strange thing happened: the Messiah himself stepped back and disappeared!

With indescribable disappointment I looked at Bruno, but he smiled, indicating with his eyes that I should watch the square: the donkey mingled with the people, and no one paid any attention to it. Donkeys were a common enough sight in the square. But wherever the donkey wagged its short tail, people froze for a moment, and then shook themselves and continued to walk and chat with their friends. But their strings had been visibly cut: expressions of bewilderment and shame lighted on the faces of those at whom the donkey had wagged its tail. They seemed dumbfounded, as though seeing each other for the first time. They stammered. They appeared to be choking, as if they could not remember how to breathe. And they slowed their pace: everywhere feet tripped and knees buckled. Movements were hesitant, angular. They tried to cry for help, but the only sound they could make was a muffled, throaty animal sound. The little donkey continued at a steady pace. Half the square was already under the spell of its pendulum tail, and the other half did not yet feel anything. On one side there was only silence and slow, confused awakening, and on the other side life went on with loud gaiety. The square looked like a man with half his face paralyzed, the other half exhausting itself with mimicry.

“They’re forgetting,” Bruno beamed. “They’re forgetting!”

“Forgetting what?” I asked anxiously, but I had already begun to guess.

“Everything,” answered the boy, sucking his cheeks with emotion. “Everything: the language they spoke, their loves, the passing moment, look!”

Now the square was in the midst of a slow, tame dance. The donkey, whose work was done, left the gleaming tank, tarried for a moment on the threshold, and disappeared down the street between two rows of crowded houses, braying with strange donkey glee.

The braying seemed to be a signal: people returned to life, and I sighed with relief. The square looked like a newborn baby and the braying was its first cry. But before long I stopped rejoicing. I looked and knew I didn’t understand what I beheld; the scene taking place before me was sleight-of-hand. But whose hand? And for what purpose?

“Mother and Father,” Bruno whispered to me. “Look at my mother and father.”

His dead father and his mother. His father with the somber prophet’s head, lost in reverie, suddenly shook himself awake and looked at his wife, plumpish Henrietta, or Ponchik, as she was affectionately called. He wanted to say something to her, but like all the others in the square, he couldn’t find the words.

“No, not like that,” Bruno whispered from afar. “Not in words, because—”

They also felt it. And not only they. Words