Read Online The Book of Intimate Grammar by David Grossman - Free Book Online

and the manager rushes over shouting, Shhhhh! And the chorus of children answers, Shhhhhine my shhhhhoes! and go rollicking out the automatic door, and Aron vows he’ll make it through alone at least once before his bar mitzvah. Outside he sees Binyumin the gimp standing in the doorway of his father’s barbershop. A year ago they had a fight. Aron beat him up and walked over him to make him stop growing, and in revenge Binyumin cursed him, well, sticks and stones can break my bones; now they file past Morduch, the crazy blind beggar, who either blesses you or curses you, depending on your charity, and as usual, Zacky finds a nail or screw in the street and sneaks up on Morduch and says in a husky voice, “Here you go, Mr. Morduch!” And the beggar stirs hopefully, groping in his direction with trembling hands, and Zacky tosses a screw into the rusty cup, and it lands with a ring. The blind man beams: “May the Holy One bless your household! May He doubly reward you, and grant you health and prosperity!” And they laugh their heads off. Gideon has given up lecturing Zacky about this daily prank, and Aron, who used to stifle his laughter for Gideon’s sake, imagines Morduch coming home at night, if he has a home, spilling the coins out on his little table, and counting the day’s take with his crooked fingers, and the way he must feel when he touches Zacky’s screw. He can picture it vividly, as though he were actually there: the dirty room, the bare walls, the hungry children, Morduch’s lips trembling with disappointment … Come on, y’alla, Aron shouts to the others, and starts walking faster, his head held high, and then someone makes a wisecrack behind his back, and someone else, or maybe several children, splutter with laughter.
    Roxana’s different, he feels, striding briskly ahead, she has a serious air about her that sets her apart. On her cheek there is a mole, which doesn’t make her any less pretty as far as he’s concerned; in fact, it makes her even prettier. As if the little blemish brought them closer together. And there’s one picture that shows Roxana in a nurse’s uniform suckling Fritz and Alfonso the dwarf. No matter how many times he looks at this picture, he always sees it differently. One thing is certain, though: there’s nothing cheap or disgusting about Roxana’s face. Yesterday as he shyly kissed her picture and watched his lip prints melt away, it suddenly occurred to him that even if the circus didn’t exist in real life, even if it was just a filthy sham, there was still a Roxana in this world, a living girl who had her picture taken to earn money because
she was poor, and had innocently fallen into the clutches of that bastard Alfonso; if only he were older, if only he had power and money, he would dedicate his life to saving Roxana from Alfonso, because how long would she remain virtuous with so much corruption around her? And again he thumbed through the pictures, maybe he would understand this time, maybe he would figure them out and stop suffering.
    Once every three days—he’s a stickler about this—he shuts himself in the bathroom with the cards and uses Mama’s 70 percent alcohol to wipe off the big, greasy fingerprints that soil Roxana in particular. Tenderly he cleanses her from head to toe. For almost two weeks now he has been watching over Roxana like this, and he wonders whether maybe he should rub himself, the way you’re probably supposed to with these pictures. But reaching down to touch himself, he knows he’s only bluffing. He doesn’t need to. He’s empty still.
    He stopped, turned around, and saw he was alone. His friends had stranded him. Or maybe they’d taken a different route home. Let them, who cares. Still, his feelings were hurt. Gideon had gone along with the others. Then he shrugged his shoulders: he had more important things to think about just now.
    But later that afternoon, while Papa was working high in the fig tree, and Mama and Yochi