Everything_is_Illuminated
.pdfwhen Joseph refused to believe, to Sarah’s frustration, that the stars were silver nails in the sky, pinning up the black nightscape. They remarried four days later, when Joseph left a note under the door of Sarah’s parents’ house: I have considered everything you told me, and I do believe that the stars are silver nails. They ended their marriage again a year later, when Joseph was nine and Sarah seven, over a quarrel about the nature of the bottom of the Brod. A week later, they were remarried, including this time in their vows that they should love each other until death, regardless of the existence of a bottom of the Brod, the temperature of this bottom (should it exist), and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed. They ended their marriage thirty-seven times in the next seven years, and each time remarried with a longer list of vows. They divorced twice when Joseph was twenty-two and Sarah twenty, four times when they were twenty-five and twenty-three, respectively, and eight times, the most for one year, when they were thirty and twentyeight. They were sixty and fifty-eight at their last marriage, only three weeks before Sarah died of heart failure and Joseph drowned himself in the bath. Their marriage contract still hangs over the door of the house they on-and-off shared — nailed to the top post and brushing against the welcome mat:
It is with everlasting devotion that we, Joseph and Sarah L, reunite in the indestructible union of matrimony, promising love until death, with the understanding that the stars are silver nails in the sky, regardless of the existence of a bottom of the Brod, the temperature of this bottom (should it exist), and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed, overlooking what may or may not have been accidental grape juice spills, agreeing to forget that Joseph played sticks and balls with his friends when he promised he would help Sarah
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thread the needle for the quilt she was sewing, and that Sarah was supposed to give the quilt to Joseph, not his buddy, deeming irrelevant certain details about the story of Trachim’s wagon, such as whether it was Chana or Hannah who first saw the curious flotsam, ignoring the simple fact that Joseph snores like a pig, and that Sarah is no great treat to sleep with either, letting slide certain tendencies of both parties to look too long at members of the opposite sex, not making a fuss over why Joseph is such a slob, leaving his clothes wherever he feels like taking them off, expecting Sarah to pick them up, clean them, and put them in their proper place as he should have, or why Sarah has to be such a fucking pain in the ass about the smallest things, such as which way the toilet paper unrolls, or when dinner is five minutes later than she was planning, because, let’s face it, it’s Joseph who’s putting that paper on the roll and dinner on the table, disregarding whether the beet is a better vegetable than the cabbage, putting aside the problems of being fat-headed and chronically unreasonable, trying to erase the memory of a long since expired rose bush that a certain someone was supposed to remember to water when his wife was visiting family in Rovno, accepting the compromise of the way we have been, the way we are, and the way we will likely be . . . may we live together in unwavering love and good health, amen.
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THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS
(For a complete listing of revelations, see APPENDIX Z32. For a complete listing of genesises, see APPENDIX Z33.)
The end of the world has come often, and continues to often come. Unforgiving, unrelenting, bringing darkness upon darkness, the end of the world is something we have become well acquainted with, habitualized, made into a ritual. It is our religion to try to forget it in its absence, make peace with it when it is undeniable, and return its embrace when it finally comes for us, as it always does.
There has yet to be a human to survive a span of history without at least one end of the world. It is the subject of extensive scholarly debate whether stillborn babies are subject to the same revelations — if we could say that they have lived without endings. This debate, of course, demands a close examination of that more profound question: Was the world first created or ended? When the Lord our God breathed on the universe, was that a genesis or a revelation? Should we count those seven days forward or backward? How did the apple taste, Adam? And the half a worm you discovered in that sweet and bitter pulp: was that the head or the tail?
JUST WHAT IT WAS, EXACTLY, THAT YANKEL D DID
(See YANKEL D’S SHAMEFUL BEAD)
THE FIVE GENERATIONS BETWEEN BROD AND SAFRAN
Brod had three sons with the Kolker, all named Yankel. The first two died in the flour mill, victims, like their father, of the disk saw. (See
APPENDIX G: UNTIMELY DEATHS.) The third Yankel, conceived through the hole after the Kolker’s exile, lived a long and productive life, which included many experiences, feelings, and small accumulations of wisdom, about which none of us will ever know. This Yankel begot Trachimkolker. Trachimkolker begot Safranbrod. Safranbrod begot Trachimyankel. Trachimyankel begot Kolkerbrod. Kolkerbrod begot Safran. For so it is written: AND IF WE ARE TO STRIVE FOR A BETTER FUTURE, MUSTN’T WE BE FAMILIAR AND RECONCILED WITH OUR PAST?
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BROD’S 613 SADNESSES
The following encyclopedia of sadness was found on the body of Brod D. The original 613 sadnesses, written in her diary, corresponded to the 613 commandments of our (not their) Torah. Shown below is what was salvageable after Brod was recovered. (Her diary’s wet pages printed the sadnesses onto her body. Only a small fraction [55] were legible. The other 558 sadnesses are lost forever, and it is hoped that, without knowing what they are, no one will have to experience them.) The diary from which they came was never found.
SADNESSES OF THE BODY: Mirror sadness; Sadness of [looking] like or unlike one’s parent; Sadness of not knowing if your body is normal; Sadness of knowing your [body is] not normal; Sadness of knowing your body is normal; Beauty sadness; Sadness of m[ak]eup; Sadness of physical pain; Pins-and-[needles sadness]; Sadness of clothes [sic]; Sadness of the quavering eyelid; Sadness of a missing rib; Noticeable sad[ness]; Sadness of going unnoticed; The sadness of having genitals that are not like those of your lover; The sadness of having genitals that are like those of your lover; Sadness of hands . . .
SADNESSES OF THE COVENANT: Sadness of God’s love; Sadness of God’s back [sic]; Favorite-child sadness; Sadness of b[ein]g sad in front of one’s God; Sadness of the opposite of belief [sic]; What if? sadness; Sadness of God alone in heaven; Sadness of a God who would need people to pray to Him . . .
SADNESSES OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood [sic]; Humor sadness; Sadness of love wit[hou]t release; Sadne[ss of be]ing smart; Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean]; Sadness of having options; Sadness of wanting sadness; Sadness of confusion; Sadness of domes[tic]ated birds; Sadness of
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fini[shi]ng a book; Sadness of remembering; Sadness of forgetting; Anxiety sadness . . .
INTERPERSONAL SADNESSES: Sadness of being sad in front of one’s parent; Sa[dn]ess of false love; Sadness of love [sic]; Friendship sadness; Sadness of a bad convers[at]ion; Sadness of the could-have-been; Secret sadness . . .
SADNESSES OF SEX AND ART: Sadness of arousal being an unordinary physical state; Sadness of feeling the need to create beautiful things; Sadness of the anus; Sadness of eye contact during fellatio and cunnilingus; Kissing sadness; Sadness of moving too quickly; Sadness of not mo[vi]ng; Nude model sadness; Sadness of portraiture; Sadness of Pinchas T’s only notable paper, “To the Dust: From Man You Came and to Man You Shall Return,” in which he argued it would be possible, in theory, for life and art to be reversed . . .
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24 December 1997
Dear Jonathan,
Let us not mention each other’s writing ever again. I will post you my story, and I beg of you (as does Little Igor) that you continue to post yours, but let us not make corrections or even observations. Let us not praise or reproach. Let us not judge at all. We are outside of that already.
We are talking now, Jonathan, together, and not apart. We are with each other, working on the same story, and I am certain that you can also feel it. Do you know that I am the Gypsy girl and you are Safran, and that I am Kolker and you are Brod, and that I am your grandmother and you are Grandfather, and that I am Alex and you are you, and that I am you and you are me? Do you not comprehend that we can bring each other safety and peace? When we were under the stars in Trachimbrod, did you not feel it then? Do not present not-truths to me. Not to me.
And here, Jonathan, is a story for you. A faithful story. I informed Father that I was to go to a famous nightclub last night. He said, “I am certain that you will return home with a comrade?” If you want to know what was on his mouth, vodka was. “I do not intend to,” I said. “You will be so so carnal,” he said, laughing. He touched me on the shoulder, and I will tell you that it felt like a touch from the devil. I was most ashamed of us. “No,” I said. “I am only going to dance and be amid my friends.” “Shapka, Shapka.” “Shut up!” I told him, and I seized his wrist. I will inform you that this was the first occasion that I have ever uttered anything like this to him, and the first occasion that I have ever moved at him with violence. “I am sorry,” I said, and let his wrist free. “I will make you sorry,” he said. I was a lucky person because he had so much vodka in him that he did not have regard enough to punch me.
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I did not go to a famous nightclub, of course. As I have mentioned, I often inform Father that I will go to a famous nightclub, but then I go to the beach. I do not go to a famous nightclub so that I can deposit my currency in the cookie box for moving to America with Little Igor. But I must inform you that it is also because I do not love famous nightclubs. They make me feel very cheerless and abandoned. Am I applying that word correctly? Abandoned?
The beach was beautiful last night, but this did not surprise me. I love sitting on the edge of the land and feeling the water verge me, and then leave me. Sometimes I remove my shoes and put my feet where I think the water will approach to. I have attempted to think about America in regard to where I am on the beach. I imagine a line, a white line, painted on the sand and on the ocean, from me to you.
I was sitting on the edge of the water, thinking about you, and us, when I heard a thing. The thing was nor water, nor wind, nor insects. I turned my head to see what it was. Someone was walking to me. This scared me very much, because I never behold another person at the beach when I am there at night. There was nothing proximal to me, nothing to be walking to but me. I put on my shoes and began to walk away from this person. Was he a police? The police will often make advantages on people who are sitting alone. Was he a criminal? I was not very scared of a criminal, because they do not have premium weapons, and cannot inflict very much. Unless the criminal is a police. I could hear that the person was still coming to me. I made a more rapid walk. The person pursued me with speed. I did not look again to attempt to witness who it was, because I did not want the person to know that I was apprised of him. It sounded to my ears like he was getting closer, that he would soon reach me, so I began to run.
Then I heard, “Sasha!” I terminated my running. “Sasha, is that you?” I turned around. Grandfather was bended over with his hand on his stomach. I could see that he was manufacturing very large breaths. “I was looking for you,” he said. I could not understand how he knew to look for me at the beach. As I informed you, nobody is aware that I go to the beach at night. “I am here,” I said, which sounded queer, but I did not know what else
to say. He stood up and said, “I have a question.”
It was the first occasion that I could remember when Grandfather ad-
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dressed me without something amid us. There was no Father, no hero, no bitch, no television, no food. Merely us. “What is it?” I asked, because I could perceive that he would not be able to ask his question unless I aided him. “I have to ask you for something, but you must comprehend that I am only asking to borrow this thing, and you also must comprehend that you can deny me and I will not be injured or think anything bad of you.” “What is it?” I could not think of anything that I possessed that Grandfather would desire. I could not think of anything in the world that Grandfather would desire.
“I would like to borrow your currency,” he said. In truth I felt very shamed. He did not toil his whole life in order that he should have to ask his grandson for currency. “I will,” I said. And I should have uttered nothing more, and allowed my “I will” to speak for everything that I have ever had to say to Grandfather, for the “I will” to be all of my questions, and all of his answers to those questions, and all of my answers to those answers. But this was not possible. “Why?” I asked.
“Why what?”
“Why do you desire my currency?” “Because I do not have a sufficient sum.”
“For what? For what do you need currency?”
He turned his head to the water and did not say a thing. Was this his answer? He moved his foot in the sand and made a circle.
“I am unequivocal that I can find her,” he said. “Four days. Perhaps five. But it could not require more than a week. We were very near.”
I should have again said “I will,” and again not said anything more. I should have esteemed that Grandfather is much more aged than me, and because of this he is wiser, and if not that, then he deserves to have me not question him. But instead I said, “No. We were not near.”
“Yes,” he said, “we were.”
“No. We were not five days from finding her. We were fifty years from finding her.”
“It is a thing that I must do.” “Why?”
“You would not understand.” “But I would. I do.”
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“No, you could not.” “Herschel?”
He drew another circle with his foot.
“Then take me with you,” I said. I was not intending to say that. “No,” he said.
I desired to say it again, “Take me with you,” but I knew that he would have answered again, “No,” and I do not think I could have heard that without crying, and I know that I cannot cry in view of Grandfather.
“It is not necessary for you to decide now,” he said. “I did not think that you would decide rapidly. I anticipate that you will say no.”
“Why do you think I will say no?” “Because you do not understand.” “I do.”
“No, you do not.”
“It is possible that I will say yes.”
“I would give you any possession of mine that you desire. It can be yours until I restore the currency to you, which will be soon.”
“Take me with you,” I said, and again I did not intend to say it, but it released from my mouth, like the articles from Trachim’s wagon.
“No,” he said.
“Please,” I said. “It will be less rigid with me. I could assist very much.” “I need to find her alone,” he said, and at that moment I was certain that if I gave Grandfather the currency and allowed him to go, I would never see
him again.
“Take Little Igor.”
“No,” he said. “Alone.” No words. And then: “Do not inform Father.” “Of course,” I said, because of course I would not inform Father. “This must be our secret.”
It is this last thing that he said that left the most permanent mark on my brain. It had not occurred to me until he uttered it, but we have a secret. We have a thing amid us that no one else in the world knows, or could know. We have a secret together, and no longer asunder.
I informed him that I would rapidly present him with my answer.
I do not know what to do, Jonathan, and would desire for you to tell me
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