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

Also see under: MASTURBATION

OMANIM

ARTISTS

Persons who express the creativity of mankind, in the pursuit of aesthetic and functional objectives.

Kazik’s sole acquaintances were the artists gathered by OTTO BRIG [q.v.] at the Warsaw Zoo between 1939 and 1943. These were: Paula Brig, Otto’s sister, whose art protested the narrowness and cruelty of nature; ILYA GINZBURG [q.v.], seeker of truth; HAROTIAN [q.v.], who waged war on the tyranny of sensory organs; MALKIEL ZEIDMAN [q.v.], artist of the frontiers of personality; AARON MARCUS [see under: FEELINGS], a man dedicated to enlarging the scope of human feeling; YEDIDYA MUNIN [q.v.], the great Orgasman, advocate of human transcendence, seeker of happiness, lover of the immanence of God; Albert Fried [see under: BIOGRAPHY], doctor: at first he resented Otto for collecting “these filthy maniacs” at the zoo instead of a reliable work force. Later, however, when Paula became pregnant with an imaginary child, Fried closed his eyes and allowed himself to believe. He, too, was awarded the title “artist.”

Otto calls his artists “fighters,” or “partisans,” as well.

EKDACH

REVOLVER

A lightweight handgun with a short barrel.

1. The weapon used by Neigel upon his return from leave in the bosom of his family in Munich.

2. The weapon used by Paula to kill Caesar the lion during the siege of Warsaw in 1939. The regular zoo employees had been drafted into the army by then, and the zoo itself had been almost destroyed by heavy bombing. Hungry animals roamed the paths, and according to the testimony of Fried’s DIARY [q.v.], there were a great many cases of depredation. On a single day (10/3/39) some seventy-four animals were killed in one bombing raid, among them a female lion and a female tiger from Rangoon shipped to the zoo only two months before, and two precious Grant zebras. Caesar the lion refused to eat the carcasses of the dead animals. Fried had foresees this: from the professional literature he knew that lions will eat only monkey carcasses. As it happened, no monkeys had been killed during the bombings. Otto and Fried therefore, decided to kill a monkey a week in order to keep the lion alive. Paula: “But of course I objected, what is this, anyway? Such SWINISHNESS [q.v.] in our zoo? Who gave you two the right, I’d like to know, who gave you the right?” According to Fried’s diary, Caesar could barely crawl and his ribs protruded sharply. Fried explained to Paula that one lion is worth fifty monkeys, but Paula, being a woman, said, “Even if it’s worth a million!” Fried: “Look, there’s only one lion and there are seventy monkeys, use your sense, Paula!” And she: “It’s a question of life and death, Fried, not a question of logic. Each one of those seventy equals one.” And in the end Paula took the zoo revolver, and—Otto: “With love, with deep love, we were there with her, you know, and we witnessed everything”—she shot Caesar the lion and killed him.

ECZEMA

ECZEMA

An inflammatory condition of the skin manifesting in a variety of ways.

The eczema around Fried’s navel developed most bizarrely throughout the twenty-two hours of Kazik’s existence. In the early-morninghours, when Fried and Kazik and the other artists approached Otto’s pavilion [see under: LUNATICS, VOYAGE OF THE], the doctor noticed to his great dismay that fresh green, rosemary-scented branches were jutting out of his shirt. For several hours he tried to hide his predicament from the others, but when he finally understood that his body was trying to talk to him, he stopped his painful pruning and allowed the branches to grow unchecked. By evening the doctor was covered all over, and resembled a large, ambulatory bush with bloodshot eyes.

BEGIDA

BETRAYAL

The sin of breaking trust.

A term Neigel used to describe the plot hatched against him by Wasserman. Neigel used this term more and more often as Wasserman’s story progressed, till ultimately he lost all control of himself and cruelly beat Wasserman. According to him, Wasserman’s betrayal came very late in the story—“after confusing me like that!”—when the writer had disclosed that this time the Children of the Heart were going to war against the Nazis. And it was indeed a strange war, this war of unarmed dreamers, but in its own peculiar and circuitous way, the war was being waged against him. [Editorial comment: Regarding Neigel’s accusation, Wasserman reflected, “I, too, have noticed of late that Esau uses the world ‘betrayal’ more and more often, and I remember that Zalmanson once pointed out to me that the most commonly found words in my writings are ‘fear’ and ‘pity.’ He confessed a certain predeliction for identifying the favorite words of real writers (not mine, heaven forbid). Every writer, Zalmanson informed me, has a certain pet word he reverts to unconsciously every few pages, the way one keeps touching a sore.”]

BEDIDUT

LONELINESS

Aloneness. The condition of being forlorn.

When the Germans entered Warsaw, Otto Brig and Albert Fried decided it would be better for Paula not to live with Fried, the Jew, in his pavilion anymore. And so, after four years with Fried, Paula returned—against her will (she didn’t really understand this businessabout Jews and non-Jews)—to live with her brother, Otto. That night Fried lay alone in his bed. Though he had regretted his bachelor days during his life with Paula, and spent most of their time together in ill-natured quarrels, he felt unbearably lonely now, like the last man in the world. He got out of his overlarge bed and went to sit on the stoop of three stairs in front of the pavilion. He inhaled the scorched air, in the aftermath of the bombings, and without warning, was deeply struck by the din of the silent zoo: the swishing, roaring, gurgling, and droning sounds, the smells of animals, the musty juices bubbling up inside them,