Read Online Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jonathan Safran Foer
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final piece of proof that all citizens who leave eventually return — and lived a quiet life like a Sloucher fringe, sewn to the sleeve of Trachimbrod, forced to wear that horrible bead around his neck as a mark of his shame. He changed his name to Yankel, the name of the bureaucrat who ran away with his wife, and asked that no one ever call him Safran again (although he thought he heard that name every now and then, muttered behind his back). Many of his old clients returned to him, and while they refused to pay the rates of his heyday, he was nevertheless able to reestablish himself in the shtetl of his birth — as all who are exiled eventually try to do.
When the black-hatted men gave him the baby, he felt that he too was only a baby, with a chance to live without shame, without need of consolation for a life lived wrong, a chance to be again innocent, simply and impossibly happy. He named her Brod, after the river of her curious birth, and gave her a string necklace of her own, with a tiny abacus bead of her own, so she would never feel out of place in what would be her family.
As my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother grew, she remembered, of course, nothing, and was told nothing. Yankel made up a story about her mother’s early death — painless, in childbirth — and answered the many questions that arose in the way he felt would cause her the least pain. It was her mother who gave her those beautiful big ears. It was her mother’s sense of humor that all of the boys admired so much in her. He told Brod of vacations he and his wife had taken (when she pulled a splinter from his heel in Venice, when he sketched a red-pencil portrait of her in front of a tall fountain in Paris), showed her love letters they had sent each other (writing with his left hand those from Brod’s mother), and put her to bed with stories of their romance.
Was it love at first sight, Yankel?
I loved your mother even before seeing her — it was her smell!
Tell me about what she looked like again.
She looked like you. She was beautiful, with those mismatched eyes, like you.
One blue, one brown, like yours. She had your strong cheekbones and also your soft skin.
What was her favorite book?
Genesis, of course.
Did she believe in God?
She would never tell me.
How long were her fingers?
This long.
And her legs?
Like this.
Tell me again about how she would blow on your face before she kissed you.
Well that’s just it, she would blow on my lips before she kissed me, like I was some very hot food and she was going to eat me!
Was she funny? Funnier than me?
She was the funniest person in the world. Exactly like you.
S he was beautiful?
It was inevitable: Yankel fell in love with his never-wife. He would wake from sleep to miss the weight that never depressed the bed next to him, remember in earnest the weight of gestures she never made, long for the un-weight of her un-arm slung over his too real chest, making his widower’s remembrances that much more convincing and his pain that much more real. He felt that he had lost her. He had lost her. At night he would reread the letters that she had never written him.
Dearest Yankel,
I’ll be home to you soon, so there’s no need for you to carry on with your missing me so much, however sweet it may be. You’re so silly. Do you know that? Do you know how silly you are? Maybe that’s why I love you so much, because I’m also silly.
Things are wonderful here. It’s very beautiful, just as you promised it would be. The people have been kind, and I’m eating well, which I only mention because I know that you’re always wor-ried about me taking good enough care of myself. Well I am, so don’t worry.
I really miss you. It’s just about unbearable. Every moment of every day I think about your absence, and it almost kills me. But of course I’ll be back with you soon, and will not have to miss you, and will not have to know that something, everything, is missing, that what
When the black-hatted men gave him the baby, he felt that he too was only a baby, with a chance to live without shame, without need of consolation for a life lived wrong, a chance to be again innocent, simply and impossibly happy. He named her Brod, after the river of her curious birth, and gave her a string necklace of her own, with a tiny abacus bead of her own, so she would never feel out of place in what would be her family.
As my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother grew, she remembered, of course, nothing, and was told nothing. Yankel made up a story about her mother’s early death — painless, in childbirth — and answered the many questions that arose in the way he felt would cause her the least pain. It was her mother who gave her those beautiful big ears. It was her mother’s sense of humor that all of the boys admired so much in her. He told Brod of vacations he and his wife had taken (when she pulled a splinter from his heel in Venice, when he sketched a red-pencil portrait of her in front of a tall fountain in Paris), showed her love letters they had sent each other (writing with his left hand those from Brod’s mother), and put her to bed with stories of their romance.
Was it love at first sight, Yankel?
I loved your mother even before seeing her — it was her smell!
Tell me about what she looked like again.
She looked like you. She was beautiful, with those mismatched eyes, like you.
One blue, one brown, like yours. She had your strong cheekbones and also your soft skin.
What was her favorite book?
Genesis, of course.
Did she believe in God?
She would never tell me.
How long were her fingers?
This long.
And her legs?
Like this.
Tell me again about how she would blow on your face before she kissed you.
Well that’s just it, she would blow on my lips before she kissed me, like I was some very hot food and she was going to eat me!
Was she funny? Funnier than me?
She was the funniest person in the world. Exactly like you.
S he was beautiful?
It was inevitable: Yankel fell in love with his never-wife. He would wake from sleep to miss the weight that never depressed the bed next to him, remember in earnest the weight of gestures she never made, long for the un-weight of her un-arm slung over his too real chest, making his widower’s remembrances that much more convincing and his pain that much more real. He felt that he had lost her. He had lost her. At night he would reread the letters that she had never written him.
Dearest Yankel,
I’ll be home to you soon, so there’s no need for you to carry on with your missing me so much, however sweet it may be. You’re so silly. Do you know that? Do you know how silly you are? Maybe that’s why I love you so much, because I’m also silly.
Things are wonderful here. It’s very beautiful, just as you promised it would be. The people have been kind, and I’m eating well, which I only mention because I know that you’re always wor-ried about me taking good enough care of myself. Well I am, so don’t worry.
I really miss you. It’s just about unbearable. Every moment of every day I think about your absence, and it almost kills me. But of course I’ll be back with you soon, and will not have to miss you, and will not have to know that something, everything, is missing, that what
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