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

electric shock. All ten fingernails removed … sixteen teeth extracted … burns around genital area and nipples … 2/5/43: MALKIEL ZEIDMAN [q.v.]: Abscesses under the arms like two open wounds that do not respond to treatment. Recommendation: Reassign him immediately, far from the young flamingos, who are just beginning to fledge … 9/6/43: RICHTER [q.v.]: His blindness is total now. Both cataractscovered with a white, phosphorescent dust—source unknown. When wiped away, it reappears …” etc., etc.

YALDUT

CHILDHOOD

The period from infancy to the end of adolescence.

Kazik’s childhood lasted six hours, from 2100 hours, when the white butterfly hovered over his face, till approximately 0300, when he woke from ADOLESCENT DORMANCY [q.v.]. He was a lively, wild, and curious child. He climbed up on the chairs and tables, and jumped fearlessly down. Every so often the doctor would ask him nicely to stop, but—Fried: “I could sense it was wrong of me to restrict this child who had so little TIME [q.v.], and, in fact, his stubbornness even gave me pleasure—I liked the way he picked himself up each time he fell and threw himself back with all his might, with so much courage, so unswervingly, and, if I may boast a little, this courage and confidence was, I believe, the product of the EDUCATION [q.v.] I gave him. Yes.” Fried also noticed that Kazik used to blink every few moments, as though he were being whisked away somewhere. He hoped this was not a quirk of the disease, and later realized that it was merely Kazik’s way of snatching sleep, because one second of Kazik’s life corresponded to eight hours in the life of a normal person, and these intervals were the boy’s nights, which left him strong and vigorous again, to push chairs all over the room, throw thick books up in the air and tear out their dusty pages, rummage shamelessly through the drawers (Fried: “Touching my most personal things! Where did I get such a child?!”), and to scream with all his might just for the pleasure of screaming and delight in the sound of his own voice. Fried: “And asking questions all the time, why this, and why that, and what and how, little questions and big questions, never waiting for the answer!” Indeed, sounding out the words with their special interrogative inflection is what seemed to stimulate the child most, like a painful spring coiled up inside him in the shape of a question mark that popped out every moment and gave him temporary relief. With the same graphic movements—if one may say so—salmon leap the falls. Otto: “Poor Fried! At first he tried earnestly to answer all Kazik’s questions, and sometimes he would run to his books to make sure he had not misled the child.” Paula: “Thiswas exactly the kind of thing that made me afraid to ask Fried questions, even the simplest ones, because right away he would start lecturing …” At first the doctor was infuriated by the child’s superficiality, but he controlled himself and began to wonder about Kazik’s compulsive, wormlike way of thinking, because the questions reminded him of the contractions of a certain organism he had seen under the microscope in his student days, the type that completes a single life throb with every contraction and leaps on to the next. Marcus: “And you must admit, dear Fried, that his questions were always interesting and imaginative and full of hope, and far richer than the answers you were able to offer him …” Soon after, the old doctor sank into a depression, because the child was so strange to him [see under: STRANGENESS]. Fried: “It lasted only a short while. Really. I managed to get over it right away, and stopped thinking about myself. I thought only of how to make him happy, as every normal child deserves to be.”

Also see under: CHILDHOOD DELIGHTS

YALDUT, MACHALOT

CHILDHOOD DISEASES

Besides his other complaints, Kazik suffered chills and fevers all through the night. He whimpered like a puppy and the doctor’s heart melted. Fried surmised that the child was passing through a series of childhood diseases in rapid succession, the inception of the double file of cudgelers [see under: BIOGRAPHY]. Fried could see the arabesques of chicken pox, the strawberry fields of measles, and the scarred moon face of mumps, and so on and so forth, and he kissed the moist little brow and let Kazik drink from a tablespoon, and spent long nights at his bedside—nights which lasted however no more than the twinkling of an eye, though anxiety knows a time of its own, and it was through the sufferings of the child—more than through his joys and smiles—that Fried could feel his strong attachment to Kazik and how much he loved him.

YALDUT, MENAAMEI HA

CHILDHOOD DELIGHTS

Even when Kazik was being impossible [see under: CHILDHOOD], the old doctor tried his best to make his life more pleasant. He rackedhis brains to remember what he had enjoyed as a child, especially the things connected with his father, who was less harsh during Fried’s early years, and did more than merely try to prepare him for life. And so, at 2101, when Kazik was about three years and three months old, Fried put on a little shaving lotion and quickly shaved his face, just so Kazik could smell his smoothly pleasant and frightening cheeks; but the doctor was not content with this: he turned the lights out and threw a few silver coins on the floor. Fried: “That really was a little foolish, and I’m ashamed to admit it, but I had reason for doing this. You see, when my father came home from work at night and took off his trousers, the coins would spill out of his pockets and roll on the floor, and I would wait for the jingling sound every night.” Marcus: “And our much admired Fried put up a tender