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

word “barren,” he notices Neigel’s eyes widening just as Zalmanson’s had whenever Wasserman said “My wife, Sarah.” (“Zalmanson was always suspicious that I knew everything about him and my Sarah, but I made things difficult for him too and said not a word about it. I was silent as a fish and let him stew in his own juice.”) Wasserman does not understand the meaning of Neigel’s sudden vigilance at the sound of the word. For a moment he amuses himself with the idea that the two children in the photograph are adopted, which would explain their tender age compared to Neigel’s forty-five years. But the boy resembles Neigel, and the girl resembles Neigel’s wife. So what is it? Wasserman is perplexed. He stops reading and stares into space. All at once, even without a shot in the head, he has an idea, and now he knows or, rather, remembers the cause of Paula’s death. Those hints he scattered for himself have now come together and he is more certain than ever that someday “I will have Neigel eating out of the palm of my hand.”

Fried goes out to bring a spoon from the nook that serves as kitchen for the band, and from a distance hears Otto announce that the baby has two teeth. From the kitchen he roars in reply that he has heard of such cases before, that babies are sometimes also covered with down at birth, and Otto unties the blanket anxiously and announces: “There’s no down! Only butterfly dust, and—Fried! Our babykin is a manchild!” Fried hears this and is overcome with fatigue. He leans against the cooling chest as though it were the shoulder of a friend. He wonders why he does not hear a voice offering him a bargain: his remaining years in exchange for a single day with this child and Paula. And he slowly straightens himself up and clenches his fists. Or could it be that the child is the very sign Fried has awaited for three years? For seventy years? Could it be that life has made an extraordinary concession and deigned at last to answer his plea, his despair, his impertinence, by crossing the line he draws in the dust every morning? And Otto, from a distance, laughing: “Hey, boy! Not on my shirt!”

Afterward, when Fried brings Otto a clean spoon and stands beside him, he edges closer to the tiny head covered with whitish down and sniffs. “Ai,” murmurs Wasserman, in a voice full of longing. “And the doctor breathes in the sweet fragrance, unique in all the world.” Neigel indicates with a nod that he, too, knows this inimitable smell, andWasserman wails: “Like scorching is that smell in his heart. The bandage is torn from an old wound, still oozing blood.” And Neigel, after a moment’s silence: “Don’t look at me like that. I want to tell you something. I know you’ll use this against me, but I don’t care. When my Karl was born and I came home on leave, I used to go to his crib at night and stand there smelling him. It sent chills up my spine.” And Anshel Wasserman says, “I knew it.”

The baby drank and drank, then gurgled “Ah” contentedly, and spat up a little milk on the doctor’s trousers. Fried screamed, “Call somebody! Report it to the authorities!” Yes, Fried was frightened. He paced the room like a camel, howling with rage. Otto, with awkward cunning, handed Fried the contented baby. Fried threw him an angry look. He knew perfectly well that Otto was trying to tempt him to love life. (“Or, if you prefer, Shleimeleh, to walk him back to Chelm.”) The two had been disputing this wordlessly ever since Paula’s death. Or perhaps since the first time they met in the distant past of their childhood. Suddenly, with firm resolve, Otto pushed the baby into Fried’s arms.

But who is this peeking into the darkened hall, dressed in filthy gabardine, so haggard and worn, her face wrinkled, caked with dirt and strangely blotched, a frumpy blond wig on her head? She peeks into the hall for only a moment and says—she says nothing, because Neigel interrupts and asks, “Please introduce me to our new friend, Wasserman!” And the writer replies, “Gladly, Herr Neigel. She is another new member of our band, and her name is Hannah Zeitrin, the bewitched and lovesick Hannah, the daring, despairing fighter; she is, um, indeed, the most beautiful woman in the world.”

And he ignores Neigel’s protests (“The most beautiful woman in the—? But you said she was wrinkled!”) and again declares that no woman in the world is as beautiful as Hannah Zeitrin, though she is also miserable, it is true, sick with love and longing, and when Hannah hears from Otto that “we have a new baby, Hannah,” she flinches and hurries away. These people have their caprices, Herr Neigel, each one, and his pack of woes, as they say, and Hannah cannot yet look at babies. The memories are too fresh, and you will have to understand this, Herr Neigel.

But, scolds Wasserman, while we were heeding Hannah, we nearly missed the main thing! Fried, daring at last to approach the baby, lays a tentative finger on the soft part of the skull, strokes it, and lingersanxiously for a moment above the forehead. Neigel: “The membrane over the hole between the bones? Yes, I know. I never dared touch him there.” And soon they are deep in conversation about that spot, the soft spot where (Neigel:) “you can almost feel the brain breathe. There’s a pulse there, too, like a heartbeat.” And also (Wasserman:) “you can feel the throbbing of life at your fingertips.” And Wasserman takes this opportunity to mention a bird he once read about, a tiny bird that lives at the South Pole (or is it the North Pole?), so delicate that if you touch it lightly on the chest, its heart stops beating. “I do not wish to hold