See Under by David Grossman (famous ebook reader TXT) 📕

Afterward, when the naked prisoners are running through the Heavenly Way, he bends down and sticks his face into a hole in the flower bed.

And after the run through the Heavenly Way, when the bloody mouths of the dogs are silent once more, Wasserman stands up, sniffs his fingers, and rubs away the damp black soil sticking to them. His body smells strongly of sweat. Wasserman: “Nu, in my mind’s eye I see Sarah sniff the armpits of my shirts and wrinkle her nose. My wife, may I not be mistaken, was an unsurpassed sniffer.”

[ 5 ]

OTTO: “We had been in the forest for a year. I returned from Borislav one night and found, near entrance #1 to the mine, a wee babykin wrapped in a tattered blanket. It lay there without a peep, and lookedstraight at me with the open eyes of a grown man, and you should have seen our Fried when I walked in and gave him the present. Oho! He peeked at the bundle, and his face slammed shut like a door in the wind. And all he could say was ‘What is this? What is this?’ like some kind of parrot, though he could see very well what it was, and then he asked, ‘Is it alive?’ so, naturally I shoved the bundle into his arms and said, ‘Have a look, have a look, you are the doctor around here, aren’t you?’”

For a moment they looked at each other. The doctor wearily and suspiciously, and Otto with emotion, shifting his weight. Dr. Fried put the baby on the wooden crate they used as a table and went to wash his hands in the basin. His scrubbing movements stirred memories of bygone days when he had had many patients. Fried was a devoted doctor, though he would have been annoyed to hear himself so described. He never admitted to himself that he gave his fellow beings medical treatment out of concern for their well-being. He always preferred to view himself as a fighter of the enemies of mankind. Now he returned, waved his hands in the air to dry them, pulled a corner of the baby’s blanket down, and gazed at it. The baby appeared to be quite premature. It was like a tiny fetus, with gray eyes that seemed covered by a thin membrane, and its wrinkly skin made it look as though it had been soaked too long in the tub. Its little red fists swam blindly in the air, and the wee forehead was furrowed with strain. Fried: “What is this! In the middle of the forest! For God’s sake, who could have—” And Otto says, “Some poor woman. She probably hoped it would die quickly and painlessly.” Fried says, “But the bears might have eaten it, choleria!” And Otto: “You’ll help it, eh, Fried?” Fried: “What? Me? What can I do with it in a place like this? You’d do better to put it back where you found it.” Wasserman: “Only, unconsciously the old doctor stroked the baby’s soft, tender chest with his finger, and drew back with an overwhelming ache in his throat. And when he looked up, he saw that his fingertips were coated with a soft, white, fatty substance. Otto, too, reached out and touched the baby’s tummy. Then he sniffed his fingers and tasted them. Otto: ‘Like the dust on a butterfly’s wing, right?’”

But here suddenly Neigel leans across the desk, and for the first time since Wasserman began reading to him this evening, he speaks: “No, Wasserman, not butterfly dust, that I can tell you from personal experience,if you don’t mind.” And since Neigel has two children, he is able to explain to Wasserman that babies are sometimes born with a “kind of fatty coating that helps them in some way, I don’t remember how exactly anymore.” But Anshel Wasserman, making no effort to sound patient (“Ai, how sick I am of his thickheaded pedantry! For one instant I stray to realms of far-flung fancy and he stands aghast. He will just have to become accustomed to the errors in this story”), explains to Neigel that if he, Wasserman, decides that this is butterfly dust, then butterfly dust it is, and Neigel, chided, says more softly, “But there really is a kind of dust on newborn babies.” And Wasserman, fiercely: “And with regards to Otto’s falling sickness, have you caught anything on your line yet?” And Neigel: “Yes, yes. And don’t be impudent. Staukeh told me a couple of things. I don’t see what Otto will be able to do if he has an attack out there, though.” And he leafs through his notebook and tears out a page in his own handwriting. “By the way, what did you tell him, Staukeh, I mean?” asks Wasserman, and Neigel replies, “Ah, I made up some story about a sick aunt in Fissan. He was actually glad to help. Incidentally, about the rabbits and foxes, you made some glaring errors. Rabbits don’t migrate, and foxes don’t hibernate. What nonsense! I thought you might be wrong at the time. I happen to know something about rabbits and foxes, but I trusted you more than I trusted myself. I expected writers knew more than other people, and Staukeh was laughing up his sleeve. He laughed in my face when I asked him. Try to be more accurate next time you make a guess.”

“The baby is cooing,” says Wasserman. “What? What did you say?” “The baby is cooing. We are back in our story now. Where were we?” (Wasserman: “There in Neigel’s wastepaper basket I spied a blue, not-at-all-military envelope, and even without my spectacles I could distinguish the small feminine script. Before I knew what I beheld, I felt the sharp bite of my flesh: it was she! The soft writing, and a kind of mist around the envelope, ai, a woman’s hand …”)

Neigel clears his