Everything Is Illuminated (31 page)

B
Y THE TIME
we returned to the hotel, it was very late, and almost very early. The owner was heavy with sleep at the front desk. "Vodka," Grandfather said. "We should have a drink, the three of us." "The four of us," I counseled, pointing to Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, who had been such a benign tumor all day. So the four of us went forth to the hotel bar. "You are returned," said the waitress when she witnessed us. "Back with the Jew," she said. "Shut your mouth," Grandfather said, and he did not say it in an earsplitting voice, but quietly, as if it were a fact that she should shut her mouth. "I am apologizing," she said. "It is not a thing," I told her, because I did not want her to feel inferior for a small mistake, and also I could see her bosom when she bent forward. (For whom did I write that, Jonathan? I do not want to be disgusting anymore. And I do not want to be funny, either.) "It is a thing," Grandfather said, "and you must now ask leniency of the Jew." "What's going on?" the hero asked. "Why aren't we going in?" "Make apologies," Grandfather told the waitress, who was only a girl, even more young than me. "I am apologizing for calling you a Jew," she said. "She is apologizing for calling you a Jew," I told the hero. "How did she know?" "She knows because I told her before, at breakfast." "You told her I was a Jew?" "It was an appropriate fact at the time." "I was drinking mochaccino." "I must correct you. It was coffee." "What is he saying?" Grandfather asked. "Perhaps it would be best," I said, "if we acquire a table and order a large amount of drinks and also food." "What else did she say about me?" the hero asked. "Did she say anything else? You can see her tits when she leans over." (This was yours, you will remember. I did not invent this, and so cannot be blamed.)

We pursued the waitress to our table, which was in the corner. We could have had any table, because we were the exclusive people there. I do not know why she put us in the corner, but I have a notion. "What can I obtain for you?" she asked. "Four vodkas," Grandfather said. "One of them in a bowl. And do you have anything to eat that does not have meat?" "Peanuts," she said. "This is excellent," Grandfather responded, "but none for Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior because it makes her very ill. It is a terrible thing for even one to touch her lips." I informed this to the hero because I thought he might find it humorous. He merely smiled.

When the waitress returned with our drinks and a bowl of peanuts, we were already conversing about our day, and also our schemes for tomorrow. "He must be present at the train by 19:00 of the evening, yes?" "Yes," I said, "so we will desire to depart the hotel at lunch, to be on the side of safety." "Perhaps we will have time for more searching." "I am not so certain," I said. "And where would we search? There is nothing. There is no one to inquire. You remember what she said." The hero was not giving any attention to us, and never asked even one time what we were conversing about. He was being sociable only with the peanuts. "This would be more easy without him," Grandfather said, moving his eyes at the hero. "But it is his search," I said. "Why?" "Because it is his grandfather." "We are not looking for his grandfather. We are looking for Augustine. She is not any more his than ours." I had not thought of it in this way, but it was true. "What are you talking about?" Jonathan asked me. "And could you ask the waitress for some more of these peanuts?"

I told the waitress to retrieve us more peanuts, and she said, "I will do this, even though the owner commands that no one should ever receive more than one bowl of peanuts. I will except you because I feel so wretched about calling the Jew a Jew." "Thank you," I said, "but there is no reason to feel wretched." "And what about tomorrow, then?" Jonathan asked. "I have to be at the train at 7:00, right?" "Correct." "What will we do until then?" "I am not a certain person. We must depart very early, because you must be at the train station two hours before your train goes forth, and it is a three-hour drive, and it is likely that we will become lost people." "It sounds like we should leave now," he said,
and laughed. I did not laugh, because I knew that the reason we would depart early is not in truth because of the justifications I said to him, but because there was nothing more to search for. We had failed.

"Let us investigate
IN CASE
," Grandfather said. "What?" I asked. "The box, let us see what is inside of it." "Is this a bad idea?" "Of course it is not," he said. "Why would it be?" "Perhaps we should allow Jonathan to investigate it confidentially, or perhaps no one should investigate it." "She presented it to him for a purpose." "I know," I said, "but perhaps that purpose had nothing to do with investigating it. Perhaps the purpose is that it should never be opened." "You are not a curious person?" he asked me. "I am a very curious person." "What are you guys talking about?" "Would you be content to investigate
IN CASE?
" "What do you mean?" "The box that Augustine presented you today. We could search it." "Is that a good idea?" "I am not certain. I asked the identical thing." "I don't see why it's a bad idea. I mean, she did give it to me for a reason." "This is what Grandfather uttered." "You don't think there's any good reason not to?" "I cannot forecast one." "Neither can I." "But." "But?" "But nothing," I uttered. "But what?" "But nothing. It is your decision." "And yours." "Unclose the lucking box," Grandfather said. "He says unclose the fucking box." Jonathan removed the box from under his seat and placed it on the table.
IN CASE
was written on the side, and from more proximal, I could perceive that the words had been written and erased many times, written, erased, and written again. "Mmmm," he said, and made gestures to a red ribbon that was fastened around the box. "It is only to keep it closed," Grandfather said. "It is only to keep it closed," I told him. "Probably," he said. "Or," I said, "to forestall us from examining it." "She didn't say anything about not examining it. She would have said something, don't you think?" "I would think so." "Your grandfather thinks we should open it?" "Yes." "And you?" "I am not certain." "What do you mean you're not certain?" "I think it would not be such a wretched thing to open it. She would have uttered something if she desired it to remain uninvestigated." "Open the fucking box," Grandfather said. "He says open the fucking box."

Jonathan dislodged the ribbon, which was wrapped many times around
IN CASE
, and opened it. Perhaps we were anticipating it to be a
bomb, because when it did not explode, we were all flabbergasted. "That wasn't so bad," Jonathan said. "That was not so bad," I told Grandfather. "This is what I said," he told me. "I said it would not be so bad." We looked into the box. Its ingredients appeared very much similar to those in the
REMAINS
box, except there were perhaps more. "Of course we were supposed to open it," Jonathan said. He looked at me and laughed, and then I laughed, and then Grandfather laughed. We laughed because we knew how witless we had been when we were shitting bricks about opening the box. And we laughed because there was so much that we did not know, and we knew that there was so much we did not know.

"Let us search," Grandfather said, and he moved his hand through the box marked
IN CASE
like a child reaching into a box of gifts. He excavated a necklace. "Look," he said. "It's pearl, I think," Jonathan said. "Real pearl." The pearls, if they were real pearls, were very dirty, and yellow, and there were pieces of dirt stranded amid them, like food amid teeth. "It appears very aged," Grandfather said. I told this to Jonathan. "Yes," he harmonized. "And dirty. I bet it was buried." "What does it mean buried?" "Put in the ground, like a dead body." "Yes, I know this thing. It could be similar like the ring in the
REMAINS
box." "Right." Grandfather held the necklace to the candle on our table. The pearls, if they were real pearls, had many taints, and were no longer resplendent. He tried to clean them with his thumb, but they remained dirty. "It is a beautiful necklace," he said. "I purchased one very much similar to this for your grandmother when we first became in love. This was many years ago, but I remember what it looked like. It obligated all of my currency to purchase it, so how could I forget?" "Where is it now?" I asked. "At home?" "No," he said, "she is still wearing it. It is not a thing. Just how she desired it to be." He put the necklace on the table, and I could perceive that the necklace did not make him melancholy, as it might be anticipated, but it made him a very contented person. "Now you," he told me, and punched my back in a manner that was not intended to hurt me, but did nonetheless. "He says I should choose something," I told Jonathan, because I desired to discover how he would answer to the notion that Grandfather and I had the same privilege as he did to investigate the box. "Go ahead," he said. So I inserted my hand into
IN CASE.

I felt many abnormal things, and could not tell what they were. We did not say it, but it was part of our game that you could not view in the box when you were selecting the thing to excavate. Some of the things that my hand touched were smooth, like marble or stones from the beach. Other things that my hand touched were cold, like metal, or warm, like fur. There were many pieces of paper. I could be certain of that without witnessing them. But I could not know if these papers were photographs or notes or pages from a book or magazine. I excavated what I excavated because it was the largest thing in the box. "Here," I said, and removed a piece of paper that was in a coil and fastened with white string. I removed the string and unrolled the paper on the table. Jonathan restrained one end, and I restrained the other. It was marked
MAP OF THE WORLD,
1791. Even though the shapes of the land were some amount different, it remained to appear very much like the world as we currently know it. "This is a premium thing," I said. A map such as that one is worth many hundreds, and as luck will have it, thousands of dollars. But more than this, it is a remembrance of that time before our planet was so small. When this map was made, I thought, you could live without knowing where you were not living. This made me think of Trachimbrod, and how Lista, the woman we desired so much to be Augustine, had not ever heard of America. It is possible that she is the last person on earth, I reasoned, who does not know about America. Or it is so nice to think so. "I love it," I told Jonathan, and I must confess that I had no notions when I told him this. It is only that I loved it. "You can have it," he said. "This is not a true thing." "Take it. Enjoy it." "You cannot give this to me. The items must remain together," I told him. "Go on," he said. "It's yours." "Are you certain?" I asked, because I did not desire him to feel burdened to present it to me. "I'm positive. It can be a memento of our trip." "Memento?" "Something to remind you." "No," I said. "I will give it to Little Igor, if that is acceptable with you," because I knew that the map was a thing that Little Igor would love also. "Tell him to enjoy it," Jonathan said. "It can be his memento."

"You," I told Jonathan, because it was now his opportunity to excavate from
IN CASE.
He turned his head away from the box and inserted his hand. He did not require a long amount of time. "Here," he said, and
removed a book. He placed it on the table. It appeared very old. "What is it?" he asked. I moved the dust off of the cover. I had never previous witnessed a book similar to it. The writing was on both covers, and when I unclosed it, I saw that the writing was also on the insides of both covers, and, of course, on every page. It was as if there was not sufficient room in the book for the book. Along the side was marked in Ukrainian,
The Book of Past Occurrences.
I told this to Jonathan. "Read me something from it," he said. "The beginning?" "Anywhere, it doesn't matter." I went to a page in the middle and selected a part from the middle of the page to read. It was very difficult, but I translated into English while I read. " 'The shtetl was colorful with the actions of its residents,'" I told him, " 'and because every color was used, it was impossible to perceive what had been handled by humans and what was of nature's hands. Getzel G, there were rumors, must have played everyone's fiddle—even though he did not know how to play the fiddle!—because the strings were the color like his fingers. People whispered that Gesha R was trying to be a gymnast. This is how the Jewish/Human fault line was yellow like her hands. And when the red of a schoolgirl's face was wronged for the red of a holy man's fingers, the schoolgirl was called names.' " He secured the book and examined it while I told Grandfather what I had read. "It's wonderful," Jonathan said, and I must confess that he examined it in a fashion similar to how Grandfather examined the photograph of Augustine.

(You may understand this as a gift from me to you, Jonathan. And just as I am saving you, so could you save Grandfather. We are merely two paragraphs away. Please, try to find some other option.)

"Now you," Jonathan said to Grandfather. "He says it is now you," I told him. He turned his head away from the box and inserted his hand. We were similar to three children. "There are so many things," he told me. "I do not know which thing to take." "He does not know which to take," I told Jonathan. "There's time for all of them," Jonathan said. "Perhaps this one," Grandfather said. "No, this one. It feels soft and nice. No, this one. This one has pieces that move." "There is time for all of them," I told him, because remember where we are in our story, Jonathan. We still thought we possessed time. "Here," Grandfather said, and excavated a photograph. "Ah, a simple one. Too unfortunate. I thought it felt like something different."

He placed the photograph on the table without examining it. Also I did not examine it, because why should I, I reasoned. Grandfather was correct, it appeared very simple, and ordinary. There were likely one hundred photographs of this manner in the box. The rapid view that I presented it showed me nothing abnormal. It was three men, or perhaps four. "Now you," he told me, and I turned my head and inserted my hand. Because my head was turned to not view in the box, I was witnessing Jonathan while my hand investigated. A soft thing. A rough thing. Jonathan moved the photograph to his face, not because he was an interested person, but because there was nothing else to do at the moment while I searched the box. This is what I remember. He ate a hand of peanuts, and let a handful descend to the floor for Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior. He made a petite drink from his vodka. He looked away from the photograph for a moment. I felt a feather and a bone. Then I remember this: he looked at the photograph again. I felt a smooth thing. A petite thing. He looked away from the photograph. He looked at it again. He looked away. A hard thing. A candle. A square thing. A prick from a pin.