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

served alsoas a military hospital. Otto: “And there were women in labor, and ordinary Poles, and German soldiers wounded from their battles with the Jews in the ghetto, and the screams of men and women were exactly alike, and every minute someone else was born and someone else died, it was like some kind of crazy marathon, and Fried came with us, sure he came, even though his permit was only good for the zoo and they could have shot him, but he didn’t care about anything, he came, and we stood together and saw our lovely Paulinka lying there in a clean white bed, sweating and smiling.” And later the doctors sent them both out, and three hours later Dr. Wertzler called them in again and showed them Paula, and left with a frown—he considered them both responsible for her death—and Fried stepped in and did something Otto would never have believed: he slid his hand gently under the white sheet, and gallantly delivered Paula’s imaginary baby, which he put on her still heart, and poor sentimental Otto began to cry, and through his tears saw the birth of the protest against what life does to dreamers, and also—Otto: “Fried’s forehead was split by a vertical line, as though grief had cut him open from the inside with a single stroke.” And the next morning, after they buried Paula in the zoo graveyard near the bird cages, Otto saw the doctor draw a line in the dirt with the tip of his shoe for the very first time, and it was the same vertical line. Then Otto understood that someone was marking Fried from the inside to identify him later on if need be. Otto saw Fried’s fate etched in his face, and this is why he made such an effort to bring him back to life, so that eventually Fried would be able to fight back. Fried himself knew nothing about the new scar on his forehead: there were no mirrors in the zoo, except for those in the PROMETHEUS machine [q.v.], which could be used only at one’s peril.

MUNIN, YEDIDYA

To quote Wasserman: “A man of longing more devout than anyone has ever known … a man of flourishing dreams, winged as angels

… champion of unspilled seed, artist of suppressed ejaculation, arch-copulator who never knew the touch of woman, Casanova of vain imaginings, Don Juan of illusions …”

According to his own (dubious) testimony, Munin, scion of Mazeritz Hasids in Pshemishal (“Vinegar begot of wine,” he told Otto the firsttime they met outside the Paviak), had since earliest childhood been unable to control his powerful urges (“Satan danced in my skillet”), and after a disastrous marriage, he fled to Warsaw, where he tried his hand at a thousand and one ill-defined businesses, failed at them all, and spent his free time and energy on an activity which only someone as magnanimous as Otto could dignify as ART [q.v.]. The first time they met, Otto saw before him a tall, bowed, lean old man wearing a filthy tailcoat and a pair of dark sunglasses on top of his regular eyeglasses. The two pairs of glasses were tied together by a yellow rubber band. His short, rather dandyish mustache was also dirty and yellow. He emitted a powerful stench, like the smell of carob fruit. He came flying out of the prison yard, stood up on his feet, and with stoic calm asked Otto for a cigarette. Otto had no cigarettes and suggested that the two of them go buy one together. On the way, Otto noticed his bizarre walk: thighs curving inward as if—Marcus: “To chum the testicles.” Otto: “Something like that. And he whispered and giggled to himself all the time, and touched himself all over, and I didn’t know how to start talking to him, I thought he was some poor lunatic, and I knew right away we’d be friends, and in the end I dared ask if he worked there, at the Paviak”-Marcus: “Otto and his exquisite manners.” Yedidya Munin stopped in amazement and let out an ugly guffaw full of spit and phlegm, and then he stuck a sharp finger in Otto’s chest and said, “I am Yedidya Munin. I will multiply your seed like grains of sand, morals charge, your honor.” And he proudly hiked his trousers up to his chest and announced clandestinely, “One thousand one hundred and twenty-six as of last night, when they arrested me. They always arrest me at night and release me the next morning.” Otto: “I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but I had the feeling it might be better not to ask.” On Novolipky Street they bought two Maachorkowa cigarettes from a peddler, and found an empty bench on the sidewalk where they sat down to smoke. Otto: “The street was full of people. Crowds of them. But it was also very quiet. If I had wanted to hail a friend up the street, it would have been enough to whisper his name. The gentleman with me puffed energetically, and when he’d smoked the cigarette halfway down, he stubbed it out with two fingers and left it dangling from his upper lip. Only then did I allow myself to start a conversation with him, and I was glad to see he trusted me and wasn’t afraid!” Wasserman: “The truth is, Herr Neigel, Mr. Muninwas highly suspicious and cautious in those days of informers and whistle-blowers, and it was only when Otto began to converse with him that Munin discarded his suspicions and furtiveness and crudity, yes, and admitted that-Munin: “I had never spoken to anyone like that about … my art before, well, who but Otto would even have guessed it was an art? And the truth is that the words flooded out of me there on the bench on Novolipky Street, and I was frightened, it was as if the little Pole had magic powers, tfu tfu tfu!” Otto: “And