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

and the glint of glasses, and a minute later Munin landed next to Momik who couldn’t drag himself any farther, and glanced cautiously around (because he isn’t allowed to come close to children for some reason) and put his hand on Momik’s shoulder and walked that strange walk of his (because of the hernia) and whispered things in his car about the stars and God and thrust and where the happy life awaits us, not here not here, and the burned-out cigarette danced from his upper lip, while he muttered words from the Bible and synagogue prayers, and he laughed and laughed the weird laughter of someone who’s about to hoodwink the world, and Momik didn’t have the patience for him anymore.

All day long Momik’s head burned, but the thermometer showed nothing. He felt as if his mind were doing an oftzeluchus on him andmaking him think thoughts that weren’t good. Momik had been starting with the nightmares himself lately and crying out in his sleep at night, and Mama and Papa would come running, and beg him with their eyes to stop this please, to go back to being what he was before only a few short months ago, but enough, he hasn’t got the strength to pretend to be happy in his sleep for them anymore, aililuliii, what’s happening to him, what’s happening, everything is breaking down, the Beast is beating him, beating him before ever coming out of its disguise, and he punched his pillow which was wet all over and saw that his fingers were cramped and crooked with fear or whatever, and again and again he punched his pillow and screamed at his parents who huddled together and cried, and then he fell asleep but he woke up right away with a new nightmare: Motl was walking down the street of a city Momik didn’t know, Motl was small and scrawny and he walked funny, and Momik was glad to see him and screamed, Motl! But Motl didn’t hear him or pretended not to, and Momik saw a booth in the corner like the lottery booth, and in it sat Mama and Papa crowded together and sad, right in the corner where the Golden Ray of Fortune is painted on the lottery sign, and then he saw that it wasn’t a street at all, it was a river, maybe the San, and maybe not, and the lottery booth was floating in it like a little boat, and Mod was walking toward this boat, he was walking in the water but he wasn’t getting wet and he never reached the boat, because the closer he came, the farther away it moved, and suddenly a couple of boys were there, and a grown-up man was walking with them, and they were walking in circles around Motl, and suddenly for no reason at all one of them boxed him in the face, and they all jumped on him and started kicking him and punching him and yelling at each other, Bash him in the teeth, Emil, Punch him in the belly, Gustav, and Momik almost fainted when he realized it was Emil and the detectives, grown up now in Germany, and the man watching them and laughing to himself must have been Yashkeh the policeman who sometimes went to Emil’s mother’s house for a cup of tea, and Mod lay there bloody and half dead, and Momik looked up and saw Mama and Papa in the booth rowing their boat away, and Mama looked at Momik and said, God will help him, there’s nothing I can do to help him now, and Bella suddenly slipped out of her window (how did she get there anyway?) and screamed at his parents, Brutes, at least someone should stay home with him in the afternoon, if youknew the company he keeps, and Mama shrugged her shoulders and said, We don’t have the strength anymore, Mrs. Bella, we ran out a long time ago, that’s life, and everyone is alone in the end, and on they rowed till finally they were gone, and when Momik looked at Motl again, he saw that the river wasn’t really a river but a crowd of people streaming in from the side streets, and when he looked again he saw some people and children he recognized, from the famous Fives and secret Sixes, and Captain Nemo’s children, and Sherlock Holmes was there with Watson, and they were all yelling and laughing and rolling these strange little bundles, and when they came dose to him he saw that all the bundles were his good friends, Yotam the Sorcerer, and My Brother Elijah, and Anne Frank, and the Children of the Heart from Grandfather’s story, and even baby Kazik was there, and Momik started to scream and he woke up, and this kept happening all night long, and next morning as Momik lay more dead than alive in his bed which stank of sweat, he realized he’d been making a huge mistake, that he’d been wasting his efforts, because obviously the Beast knew he wasn’t Jewish enough, so all he had to do now was to get hold of a real Jew, someone who actually came from Over There who’d be able to taunt the Beast till it showed itself, and then we’ll see, and Momik knew of just the person.

Grandfather Anshel wasn’t at all surprised when Momik shared his secret and asked him to help. Momik of course knew Grandfather didn’t understand any of this, but he wanted to be completely fair so he frankly explained the pitfalls and dangers, while also pointing out that his parents had to be rescued from their fears once and for all, and when he said this, he didn’t quite believe it himself anymore because it wasn’t his parents he had to save, and who needs that Beast anyhow, let it go to sleep and leave us alone, but there was no choice, and he had to keep talking and arguing.