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

he even swam backward when the shoal took off, and only then, when my Bruno suddenly felt himself moving faster in the water than before, did everything become clear to him too, and he rolled over on his back and stared in open-mouthed amazement, and you can imagine how happy I was …

So let me in on it, why don’t you? I’m not a mind reader like you, and I don’t have waveling spies. What did Bruno see?

You don’t get it? You really don’t? Ha! Okay, I’ll tell you. I don’t want you to think I’m hiding things. Listen: there, on either side of his ribs waved two perfect little side fins newly sprouted. So help me,it was the best work I’ve done since I learned to make seaweed: two fins fluttered in the water like sea butterflies, fanning my Bruno with a happiness he’d never known … he was so … hic! Excuse me … so … happy … I’m so excited … excuse me … oops!

Late that night she took me back to shore. According to my watch (a waterproof watch I never take off) I had spent three hours safe inside a little water nest in the middle of a sudden squall which hit the region. Yes, she really was excited that evening; over and over she savored the memory of Bruno learning to use his fins and navigate with their help, like a baby learning to crawl. Again he throbbed with life. Only the experience with the dolphins came close to this feeling. Never more was Bruno parted from Yorick, even during the gyoya. He always needed him around. She chattered on and on about it. It made her deliriously happy to remember, but also very soft. Her fringe of foam glistened, and again I was just a stranger grateful for a few crumbs. Arms bearer of the great love, chronicler of the lover.

Ah, you’re angry again. Disgusted with me for being such a crybaby. I see the poor Tel Aviv fishermen out on the pier: their pails have been empty all evening. You steal the bait on the tips of their rods and tic their hooks together. I know your style. That childish temper. They don’t understand, of course. They’re amazed and furious. I see them looking at each other in disbelief, hear their curses carried on the wind. Most of them gave up and went home. But those who stayed cast their rods more and more obstinately, as if to provoke you. They search everywhere for the culprit: the moon? The noise of passing planes? Now they’re looking at me. They don’t know the storm was all my fault …

Listen. You still don’t know what happened to me that night, the night of the fins—

Back on shore in Narvia, the widow Dombursky awaited me with the village policeman. The policeman was holding a bicycle in his muscular arms, and the widow was turning the pedals to make the lamp shine. They beamed it out at the stormy sea, calling my name in all directions. When I suddenly appeared soaking wet out of the waves, they crossed themselves and began to scream at me for giving them such a fright. I paid them five zloty each, and asked to be left alone. They went away, and I sat down on the rough sand in the cold wind, my head in my hands. I felt hollow and defeated. Now I understoodhow far I was from real talent and courage. I dressed wearily and dragged myself back to the cottage. The widow served me fish and potatoes, cold by now, and grumbled incessantly. I looked at the fish, and for the first time since my arrival in Narvia, I pushed my plate away. Later on, in the parlor, by the light of a smelly oil lamp (there had been another power failure), I briefly recorded the rest of her story: Before dawn the shoal learned what had happened to those who went with Guruk. While the remaining salmon swam in their sleep with Laprik, they had received a shock, as if their muscles and ligaments were being torn. Beyond the horizon just then, to the east, the drunk, seceding shoal had run amok on the rocky reefs of the Shetland Islands. Bruno’s shoal came to a sudden halt, and floated quietly, perceiving with a thousand senses what had happened in the distance. Suddenly they were all seized with convulsions: threads of blood went out to the distant waters. Bruno looked at Yorick out of the corner of his eye. In his heart again he thanked him for being who he was. For suffering his difference like a humpback that kept him from passing through with everyone else.

When day broke, the waves were strewn with thousands of corpses borne south and west. The shoal passed through them. Their smell was fiercer than usual, and the expressions on their faces made them look as if they were in shock. In the distance small fishing boats sailed out from the islands. Bruno felt no grief over the dead. He had to save his grief for Yorick, or the one or two other fish he was somewhat acquainted with in the crowd. He finned vigorously with his new fins. He was as proud as a boy with the beginnings of a mustache. Dimly he felt he had earned them: that for one moment he had been worthy of the life he sought.

[ 7 ]

YOU STILL WON’T TALK TO ME. You’re ignoring me, but I know you’re out here by the pier, listening to my every word. I’m talking to you because I have no one else to talk to. Ruth and Yariv are in Jerusalem, and I need to get away from them, both of them, every few days till I finish straightening myself out. I may never straighten myself out. Things used to seem so clear-cut and predictable to me. I wasconvinced that with enough information you could always