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

as well as the number of bars of gold teeth extracted and the amounts of hair shorn, and though I did not know this at the time, I shivered as the first anchor of my fiction was cast in the firm ground of his life.”)

Despite the lateness of the hour, they remain together a little while longer, at Neigel’s instigation, it seems. Neigel presses the writer to describe “in a word or two” the old-new members of the band, by way of introduction, he says, to what is to come. “What is to come,” he says, but his face expresses “the pleasure to come.” And Wasserman consents, and tells him about the thick forest and the deep mine, and about the tunnels in the mine, and in the tunnels—“Humph,” observes Neigel, troubled. “Sounds like a partisans’ hideout; watch out, Wasserman.” And the writer makes no reply, but I feel a burning sensation suddenly running along the umbilical cord that stretches between him and me. An old memory we share leaps briefly into consciousness, and sinks before we are able to grasp it. Wasserman answers the German, but his words are aimed at me: “No, Herr Neigel, that is, not partisans in the ordinary sense of the word but, shall we say—”

Neigel bellows something that sounds like grudging approval. Then he glances at his watch, expresses amazement, and stands up. Wasserman also stands up, facing him. It isn’t easy for them to part now. They look like two comrades who, after planning a long journey, are still unsure of themselves and have to draw courage from each other. Neigel switches the big light off, so the only light now comes from his desk lamp. In the dimness where his face cannot be seen he hesitantly asks Wasserman for his opinion of their experiment, and whether he thinks it will be possible to tell a good story. Wasserman confesses that he is worried, but also rather curious. Inwardly he thanks Neigel for bringing his creative passion back to life, “and my most cherished and secret longing.”

Neigel unlocks the door that separates the two wings of the barracks. With face averted he suddenly asks why Wasserman has not written anything in all the years since “The Children of the Heart.” Wasserman replies, and Neigel says, “I didn’t know talent was something you could run out of. Interesting … and … I just wanted to ask, how did you feel without your writing?” And Wasserman, bluntly: “May you never know, Herr Neigel!”

(“Yes, Shleimeleh, I would not wish it on my worst enemy! More dead than alive, heaven forbid, you become your own tombstone. And all the while young children from all over Europe, ours and theirs, were dispatching letters of appreciation and innocent love. They read the stories reprinted in their magazines—not a mite did I ever receive!—and when they proceeded to ask why Scheherazade-Wasserman had not written in all these years, ai … I had to grit my teeth and answer them as amiably and affectionately as I could. And as the years went by, nu, well, the way of the world and the way of all flesh … In any case, I grew farther and farther from the young man who had written those stories. At first I envied him, as one envies a stranger, because of the happy days he had known, but eventually I began to hate him for not having dared more. And worst of all, my wife. My Sarah. She had met me as the writer Scheherazade, beloved author of ‘The Children of the Heart,’ not Anshel Wasserman the cranky proofreader, chronic sufferer from flatulence … and my Sarah, my soul, you understand, said not a word about it, but in my ears her silence rang, ai, may you never know such evil days and thoughts.”)

I escorted him to his attic. There he sat among the piles of paper,crates of steel and wood, and scurrying mice. He put his notebook down and leaned his head against the wall. His eyes were shut. A small, frail man in an absurdly gorgeous gown there in the wretched attic. He was waiting for something, I didn’t know what, and I asked him, Grandfather, what are we waiting for? but he was silent, and I asked him, What should we do now? and with eyes still shut he replied, “There is nothing to do now, Shleimeleh. I have noticed that you always want to be doing something. Waiting seems to frighten you. Only now be patient, surrender body and soul, for even if you become frightened and run away, I will not stir this time, because I have nowhere left to run, history is my life, my purpose, it is the mark God left on my flesh, and perhaps you are now beginning to glimpse the hidden side, nu, well, enough said …”

The next moment we were no longer alone. The air was all aquiver. My hand began to tremble as though it had a life of its own. My fingers pulled and pressed together. I looked at them in astonishment: they started to pull, but there was nothing there. They didn’t stop moving. They groped. They prodded the air to make it flow toward them in a certain pattern, they propelled it wisely, stubbornly, churned it into a thicker substance, and suddenly there was moisture on my fingertips, and I understood that I was drawing the story out of nothingness, the sensations and words and fattened images, embryonic creatures, still wet, blinking in the light with remnants of the nourishing placenta of memory, trying to stand up on their wobbly legs, and tottering like day-old deer, till they were strong enough to stand before me with a measure of confidence, these creatures of Grandfather Anshel’s spirit, the ones whose stories I had read and searched for and sensed so ardently, like stocky Otto Brig, always dressed in short, stained blue trousers, Otto whose movements are full and broad and infinitely generous;