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

words of Rabbi Leib Melamed of Brody, while praying, imagine a female before you and you will attain the highest rung.” And Neigel: “More of your Jewish pornography, Scheissemeister?” And Munin: “Heaven forbid, Mr. Neigel, speak not abomination but only purity. Transcendence. And man must worship the Lord, blessed be He, with a fervor drawn from the evil inclination, so said the Magid of Mazeritz, whose own flesh may have taught him the power of the evil inclina—” And Neigel raises his arms, in jest orin despair, revealing two shameful perspiration stains. “Go on like this, Scheissemeister, and not even I will listen to you anymore. I have the feeling you’ve lost control over your characters.” And when Wasserman ignores the comment and describes how Fried and Paula made feverish love near the baby elephant’s cage, Neigel rubs his red eyes and makes a note in his black notebook. It isn’t the first time he’s done so this evening, and in fact he docs so every evening when Wasserman sits with him, and Wasserman has been planning to look offended and mention it to him. (“Because I am not a musician, you know, playing for diners at a cabaret.”) But he forbears and keeps his silence. He paints for Neigel the small, sweet are of Paula’s belly, which had begun to swell of late under her withered flesh. Paula stood before the mirror, smiling her quiet smile, without the faintest trace of humor or irony, a good and simple smile, because she had always believed in this baby and had chosen a name for the child already—Kazik she would call him—and when Neigel interrupts to point out without much hope that Paula is seventy years old, the writer agrees with him wholeheartedly: she is sixty-nine, to be exact, and we, too, he says, all of Otto’s artists, all of Otto’s fighters, were astonished. And he asks Neigel to imagine how excited they were, how they never ceased talking about little Kazik, and how they all hoped he would change everything, everything. “And someday give us the final proof we had sorely hoped to find when Otto gathered us together for our last adventure,” because this Kazik was meant to be the first victory of the band. Otto took Paula to a friend of his, a Dr. Wertzler. Otto: “A fellow you could count on not to talk too much.” And the honorable doctor examined Paula and then sent her behind the screen to dress. Otto: “And then he led me by the hand to the window and showed me the darkened city in the curfew, and said, Hard times are coming, Brig, some will be able to hold out and others will not, and he looked at me sourly and whispered, Surely you know what’s happening to our poor Paulina, that’s what he said, Our poor Paulina.” Aaron Marcus: “She smiles happily to herself behind the screen, weighing her swelling breasts in her hands.” Otto: “—and he told me that I, as her brother, would have to have a serious talk with her and warn her that at the age of sixty-nine the body is no longer fit for pregnancy, even an imaginary pregnancy, and he said it was my duty to protect her not only from physical injury but also from the disappointment which would be sure to follow, and of course I did nosuch thing, leaving it to Fried to decide what to do; it was his, after all, this imaginary pregnancy—”

But Fried didn’t want to tell Paula what Dr. Wertzler had said, because he’d already begun to understand, and wanted to believe—in direct contrast to his temperament and point of view—that her work of art was bigger than people like Wertzler, and he began to care for her in keeping with her special condition. Wasserman: “He would walk with her of an evening along the Lane of Eternal Youth, and place cool compresses on her forehead when her head hurt, and Otto went to great lengths to find the foods and sweetmeats she fancied on the black market, and once”—Wasserman smiles, remembering—“and once our Paula craved a fresh grapefruit, but go find grapefruits in Warsaw in ’41! Superhuman initiative was called for this time, but all the Children of the Heart together could not find a solution, and Paula almost sobbed with the intensity of her craving, ah, who could see this adorable woman without melting—”

“Just a minute,” says Neigel dryly. “I’m beginning to understand what you’re driving at now. Please write down: Officer Neigel was the one who brought Paula the grapefruit.” “From where, if I may be permitted to ask?” asks Wasserman, his clever little eyes smiling gratefully. “The Quartermaster Corps sent me a food package. A big grapefruit, direct from Spain. With greetings from General Franco.”

For a moment they are silent. Amused, but also a little disturbed by the thread of excitement suddenly quivering in the room. The invisible grapefruit looms between them and spreads its fragrance. Wasserman cannot understand why Neigel, despite his angry outbursts, will not let the story stop for a single moment, but he wastes no time and continues. Fried: “And at night I put my hand on her belly and felt the baby kicking. Boom! Boom! He kicked like a little Hercules.” Silence. And Neigel, swallowing his words: “You have children, too, eh, Wasserman?” Wasserman looks down at his notebook, a white whip lashing his face. (“Esau did not know what coals he was heaping on the tablets of my heart with this question.”) “One daughter, your honor,” he answers at length. “I ask, because only someone who has children knows this kind of thing.” “You have two, you said.” “Yes. Karl and Lise. Karl is three and a half. Liselotte is two. They’re both war babies.” And reflecting briefly: “I rarely have a chance to see them.” And Wasserman, with unsteady voice: “You are not a young father, ifI may say so, Herr Neigel.” And Neigel, inclined at