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

would eventually give himself away. And I was willing to wait. Not because of my Solveg syndrome, as you call it, but out of pure simple egoism, in fact.” “And what if another woman pulls out the plum in the end, excuse the expression?” “Well, maybe another woman will pull it out. But only for a little while. I know.” “What do you know?” “That we need each other, even if you won’t admit it, you immature male chauvinist pig. You really are immature, you know, a real adolescent. We’re two such different people, yet we want the same things. Only we have different ways of getting there. We’re like two different keys to the same lock. But forgive me for waxing poetic. My husband is the poet around here, and now he’s something of a novelist, too.” “By the way, did you lock the door?” “The bottom lock, too, you can relax.” I say nothing (I forgot to ask about the gas!). Love conquers nothing, I tell her in my heart. Only in fiction do writers compulsively have love conquering in the end. But it isn’t like that in real life. A lover coolly leaves the deathbed of his contagious sweetheart. People rarely commit suicide with their dying partners. The mighty, tyrannical stream of life keeps us apart. Carries us forward slowly and selfishly like animals. Love conquers nothing. Ruth nestles closer to me. She caresses me gently, but I’m reserved. I need to talk a little more, all right? “All right.” Ruth sighs and smiles. “I should have married that wild Circassian who wanted to buy me for seven camels: he wouldn’t need to talk a little more.”

“You know, the horrible thing for me about the Holocaust is the way every trace of individuality was obliterated. A person’s uniqueness, his thoughts, his past, his characteristics, loves, defects, and secrets—all meant nothing. You were debased to the lowest level of existence. You were nothing but flesh and blood. It drives me mad. That’s why I wrote ‘Bruno.’” “And Bruno taught you how to fight the obliterators?” “Yes. In a hypothetical way, though Bruno doesn’t solve a thing for me in the day-to-day. Bruno is a nice dream. But he’s more than that, too. What he revealed to me was very frightening, and I felt a tremendous resistance to it. I can feel it even now, when I get stuck inthe story of Wasserman and the German. I feel I have to defend myself against what Bruno showed me. I’m fighting it a little even now.” “You’re fighting yourself.”

“Maybe. Maybe. But when I can’t stop. Listen. Don’t smile. I can hear you smiling in the dark. I want to be ready next time it happens. Not just so I’ll be able to break away with a minimum of pain from others, but so I’ll be able to break away from myself. I’d like to be able to erase everything inside that could bring me excruciating pain if it were obliterated or degraded. It’s impossible, I know that, but sometimes I plan it step by step. I’ll cancel out all my traits, desires and passions, and my talents, too—just think what a superhuman feat that would be: I’ll get the Nobel Prize for human physics, huh?” “How horrifying.” “No, seriously: I’ll simply sink into death without suffering. Without pain or humiliation. And without disappointment. I’ll—” “Then you might as well have been dead to begin with. With so many defenses up against people you’ll never be able to enjoy them. You’ll never know a moment’s relief from hatred and suspicion. You’ll live by the sword. And the more you continue, the more convinced you’ll be that everyone else is like you are, because that’s all you’ll know. And people who think like you will kill each other without remorse, because there won’t be any value left to life or death. Like the land of the dead, Momik.” “You’re exaggerating as usual. But I might try living there. The alternative isn’t always easy for me either.” “You mean life here? Ordinary, simple love?” “Simple, yes. Very simple.” “Doesn’t your writing help? You always say that’s what saves you.” “No. I’m stuck. Wasserman tricked me. He brought baby Kazik into the story.” “Maybe you should take the baby out, then.” “No no. If the baby’s there, there must be some good reason for its being there. You know how I write. I always feel as if I’m quoting. But this time I don’t know. I don’t understand what the baby wants from me. It’s hard enough with my first baby. Terrible things have been happening to me lately. I’m afraid to talk about them. Sometimes I don’t have the strength to go on from one minute to the next. People disgust me. It’s not my usual disgust: it’s real hatefulness. I don’t have the guts to face their lives. I walk down the street and feel powerful forces at work drowning me. Like tears, for instance.” “What?” “I look at people’s faces, and I know that a tenth of a millimeter down in the tear ducts there are tears.” “People don’t cry so easily.” “But the tears are there. Sometimes, when the bus stopssuddenly in the street, I can almost hear the tears rattling. But the crying stays inside. And the pain, too. We’re so frighteningly frail. And all our desires, yes, desires that have to be consummated. That’s a lot of dangerous baggage for one little body to carry around. How do you face it? Do you understand what I’m saying? Don’t answer me. I haven’t got the stamina to understand the life of a single human being anymore. If it weren’t for the story of Grandfather Anshel, I would go back to my object poems.” “As long as you know that I love you very much.” “In spite of all this?” I ask her ruefully. “Maybe even because of all this.” “And I love you, too. Even though sometimes you drive