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

an incredibly slow pace (it took thirty-four minutes), because there were certain places where they had to stop to explain something or to answer Kazik’s many questions. On this voyage Kazik passed THE SCREAM [q.v.], stolen time [see under: PROMETHEUS], Paula’s grave, the tortured face of GINZBURG [q.v.], and other such focal points. Almost two years of Kazik’s life went by on the voyage, decisive years in terms of character integration.For a few moments of the voyage, Kazik discovered the world, a time of sublime happiness [see under: LIFE, THE JOY OF], but for the most part he experienced a painful awakening to life and what it portends [see under: SUFFERING]. Wasserman: “And as we walked behind him, Herr Neigel, as we walked behind him, bowed and weary, a band of dying lunatics, we felt we needed him, we needed him sorely

… our fate and our war were entwined with his … and how cruel it was of us to make demands on so small a youth, but that’s war, is it not, and what choice had we?” It was a warm night in early April 1943. The horizon blazed red, and the smell of scorched flesh assailed them from afar. At 1501 hours the band reached Otto’s pavilion. He was waiting for them at the door.

CIGARIA

CIGARETTE

A small paper tube filled with tobacco intended for smoking.

When Neigel returned from his final LEAVE [q.v.] in Munich, he began to chain-smoke. One night, in a burst of generosity, he offered Wasserman a cigarette. The author, who had never smoked in his life, took one—for the sake of his friend Zalmanson, who missed his little cigars to the bitter end. Wasserman inhaled, therefore, and nearly fainted. Wasserman: “Like a wheel my head was spinning! And who was wise enough to know that a cigarette has such a bite? May it burn!” Again he bravely took a small puff, and threw the cigarette away. “A black year upon him, that Zalmanson! I have to choke for his sake?”

SERGEI, SEMION YAPIMOWITZ

Russian physicist. In his youth, member of the Children of the Heart. After leaving the band, he achieved worldwide fame with his research into the laws of light. An introverted recluse by nature, he preferred to stay in his laboratory with his paraphernalia and calculations than to mingle with people. He had been like this since childhood: golden hands and a closed heart. Wasserman’s mixed feelings toward him can be gauged by the fact that in seven out of sixteen tales of the Children of the Heart, he “forgot” to send Sergei along with the rest of the band. Wasserman admitted freely to the editorial staff that there is “somethingabout our good Sergei … he seems to understand gears and mechanisms from the ‘inside,’ as though he were one of them … I was never able to put a humorous or tender word into his mouth …” Wasserman always had a vague suspicion that Sergei was not really interested in humanitarian missions, and his only contribution was the machinery he constructed for the band’s use. Since Sergei himself spoke little and Wasserman was reticent about him, it is not at all clear how Sergei wound up with the band a second time. What is known about him is that during the war he was drafted by the Red Army for his knowledge of the laws of light. He was in one of the Budyonny divisions, which must certainly have been on the southwestern front, where he assisted in the improvement of a range-finding mechanism for long-range artillery. He was captured by the Germans and sent to Berlin, and later to a Russian POW camp before arriving in Warsaw as a worker in a factory that manufactured eyeglasses for the soldiers of the Wehrmacht. The Germans never found out who Sergei was and the extent of his knowledgeability in his field. After this, his story becomes unclear. Toward the end of ‘43, Otto arrived at the military factory on the outskirts of Warsaw. He spotted Sergei in his prisoner’s uniform and recognized him immediately. Sergei did not recognize Otto. He was already in the realm “beyond his life” (Marcus). Otto bribed the man in charge of prisoners (Fried: “Half our monthly budget for the zoo!”), and led Sergei to the zoo. Bathed, dressed, and properly fed, Sergei began to recuperate, although he was never completely himself again. He was sickly-looking and had a strange walk (“Craning his neck, like it was made of glass!”) and a body that seemed to have been put together piece by piece out of some sort of delicate material. Timid in the extreme, he used to run into the bushes whenever anyone approached. Otto was the only person he ever exchanged words with, and when he did he always blushed, one eye tearing. A few weeks after his arrival at the zoo, he began to conduct his baseless scientific experiments. But when Otto told him gently about what the other artists were doing at the zoo, his eyes flashed. This is how Otto had always kindled new ideas in Sergei. Otto: “But this time, what can I tell you, this time the fire in him frightened me a little. I don’t know why. I thought maybe I’d made a mistake bringing a man like him back to the band. Just because he was one of us once didn’t mean he’d never change and become ‘different’?” Among the experiments Sergei conducted at the zoo, two are worthy of mention: THE SCREAM system [q.v.] and theparallel mirror system for stealing time [see under: PROMETHEUS]. His experiments were generally clumsy and required complicated technical equipment which the zoo was not always able to obtain. Sergei was unpopular among the ARTISTS [q.v.], not just because of his reclusivencss, but because he was the only one of them who used equipment other than his own body and soul as a weapon, as a battle