Everything Is Illuminated Read online

  And they screamed now, never allowing the baby a moment of rest, and hung—with one hand on prayer book and one on rope—from the pulleys that clipped to their belts, and kept the crowns of their black hats brushing against the ceiling. AND IF WE ASPIRE TO BE CLOSER TO GOD, the Venerable Rabbi had enlightened, SHOULD WE NOT ACT LIKE IT? AND SHOULD WE NOT MAKE OURSELVES CLOSER? Which made enough sense. It was on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest of holy days, that a fly flew under the door of the synagogue and began to pester the hanging congregants. It flew from face to face, buzzing, landing on long noses, going in and out of hairy ears. AND IF THIS IS A TEST, the Venerable Rabbi enlightened, trying to keep his congregation together, SHOULD WE NOT RISE TO ITS CHALLENGE? AND I URGE YOU: CRASH TO THE GROUND BEFORE YOU RELEASE THE GREAT BOOK!

  But how pestering that fly was, tickling some of the most ticklish places. AND AS GOD ASKED ABRAHAM TO SHOW ISAAC THE KNIFE'S POINT, SO IS HE ASKING US NOT TO SCRATCH OUR ASSES! AND IF WE MUST, BY ALL MEANS WITH THE LEFT HAND! Half did as the Venerable Rabbi enlightened, and released the rope before the Great Book. These were the ancestors of the Upright Synagogue's congregants, who continued for two hundred years to walk with an affected limp to remind themselves—or, more importantly, to remind others—of their response to The Test: that the Holy Word prevailed. (EXCUSE ME, RABBI, BUT JUST WHICH WORD IS IT EXACTLY? The Venerable Rabbi knocked his disciple with the business end of a Torah pointer: AND IF YOU HAVE TO ASK!...) Some Uprighters went so far as to refuse to walk at all, signifying an even more dramatic fall. Which meant they couldn't get to synagogue, of course. WE PRAY BY NOT PRAYING, they said. WE FULFILL THE LAW BY TRANSGRESSING IT.

  Those who dropped the prayer book rather than fall were the ancestors of the Slouching Synagogue's congregants—so named by the Uprighters. They twiddled with the fringes sewn to the ends of their shirtsleeves, which they put there to remind themselves—or, more importantly, to remind others—of their response to The Test: that the strings are carried around with you, that the spirit of the Holy Word should always prevail. (Excuse me, but does anyone know what that thing about the Holy Word means? The others shrugged and went back to their argument about how best to divide thirteen knishes among forty-three people.) It was the Slouchers' customs that changed: the pulleys were traded in for pillows, the Hebrew prayer book for a more understandable Yiddish one, and the Rabbi for a group-led service and discussion, followed, but more often interrupted, by food, drink, and gossip. The Upright congregants looked down on the Slouchers, who seemed willing to sacrifice any Jewish law for the sake of what they feebly termed the great and necessary reconciliation of religion with life. The Uprighters called them names and promised them an eternity of agony in the next world for their eagerness to be comfortable in this one. But like Shmul S, the intestine-tied milkman, the Slouchers couldn't give a shit. Save for those rare occasions when Uprighters and Slouchers pushed at the synagogue from opposite sides, trying to make the shtetl more sacred or secular, they learned to ignore each other.

  For six days the citizens of the shtetl, Uprighters and Slouchers alike, stood in lines outside the Upright Synagogue to get their chance to view my very-great-grandmother. Many returned many times. Men could examine the baby, touch it, talk to it, even hold it. Women were not allowed inside the Upright Synagogue, of course, for as the Venerable Rabbi so long ago enlightened, AND HOW CAN WE BE EXPECTED TO KEEP OUR MINDS AND HEARTS WITH GOD WHEN THAT OTHER PART IS POINTING US TOWARD IMPURE THOUGHTS OF YOU KNOW WHAT?

  What seemed like a reasonable compromise was reached when, in 1763, the women were allowed to pray in a dank and cramped room beneath a specially installed glass floor. But it wasn't long before the dangling men took their eyes from the Great Book to partake in the chorus of cleavages below. Black pants became form-fitting, there was more bumping and swaying than ever as those other parts protruded in fantasies of you know what, and an extra hole was unknowingly inserted in the holiest of prayers: HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, HOLEY IS THE LORD OF HOSTS! THE WHOLE WORLD IS FILLED WITH HIS GLORY!

  The Venerable Rabbi addressed the disconcerting matter in one of his many midafternoon sermons. AND WE MUST ALL BE FAMILIAR WITH THAT MOST PORTENTOUS OF BIBLICAL PARABLES, THE PERFECTION OF HEAVEN AND HELL. AND AS WE ALL DO OR SHOULD KNOW, IT WAS ON THE SECOND DAY THAT THE LORD OUR GOD CREATED THE OPPOSING REGIONS OF HEAVEN AND HELL, TO WHICH WE AND THE SLOUCHERS, MAY THEY PACK ONLY SWEATERS, WILL BE SENT, RESPECTIVELY. AND BUT WE MUST NOT FORGET THAT THIRD AND NEXT DAY, WHEN GOD SAW THAT HEAVEN WAS NOT AS MUCH LIKE HEAVEN AS HE WOULD HAVE PRAYED, AND HELL NOT AS MUCH LIKE HELL. AND SO, THE LESSER AND HARDER-TO-FIND TEXTS TELL US, HE, FATHER OF FATHER OF FATHERS, RAISED THE SHADE BETWEEN THE OPPOSING REGIONS, ALLOWING THE BLESSED AND THE CONDEMNED TO SEE ONE ANOTHER. AND AS WAS HIS HOPE, THE BLESSED REJOICED IN THE PAIN OF THE CONDEMNED, AND THEIR JOY BECAME THAT MUCH GREATER IN THE FACE OF SORROW AND THE CONDEMNED SAW THE BLESSED, SAW THEIR LOBSTER TAILS AND PROSCIUTTO, SAW WHAT THEY PUT IN THE TUCHESES OF MENSTRUATING SHIKSAS, AND FELT THAT MUCH WORSE FOR THEMSELVES. AND GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOODER. AND BUT THE APPEAL OF THE WINDOW BECAME TOO STRONG. AND RATHER THAN ENJOY THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, THE BLESSED WERE FASCINATED BY THE CRUELTIES OF HELL. AND RATHER THAN SUFFER THOSE CRUELTIES, THE CONDEMNED ENJOYED THE VICARIOUS PLEASURES OF HEAVEN. AND OVER TIME, THE TWO REACHED AN EQUILIBRIUM, STARING AT THE OTHER, STARING AT THEMSELVES. AND THE WINDOW BECAME A MIRROR, FROM WHICH NEITHER THE BLESSED NOR THE CONDEMNED COULD, OR WOULD, LEAVE. AND SO GOD DROPPED THE SHADE, FOREVER CLOSING OFF THE PORTAL BETWEEN KINGDOMS, AND SO MUST WE, IN THE FACE OF OUR TOO TEMPTING WINDOW, DROP THE SHADE BETWEEN THE KINGDOMS OF MAN AND WOMAN.

  The cellar was filled with runoff from the Brod, and an egg-sized hole was cut out of the synagogue's back wall, through which one woman at a time could see only the ark and the feet of the dangling men, some of which, to add insult to insult, were caked with shit.

  It was through this hole that the women of the shtetl took turns viewing my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. Many were convinced, perhaps because of the new baby's perfectly adult features, that she was of an evil nature—a sign from the devil himself. But more likely their mixed feelings were inspired by the hole. From such a distance—palms pressed against the partition, an eye in an absent egg—they couldn't satisfy any of their mothering instincts. The hole wasn't even large enough to show all of the baby at once, and they had to piece together mental collages of her from each of the fragmented views—the fingers connected to the palm, which was attached to the wrist, which was at the end of the arm, which fit into the shoulder socket ... They learned to hate her unknowability her untouchability, the collage of her.

  On the seventh day, the Well-Regarded Rabbi paid four quarter-chickens and a handful of blue cat's-eye marbles for the following announcement to be printed in Shimon T's weekly newsletter: that without precise knowledge of the cause, a baby was delivered to the shtetl, that it was quite beautiful, well behaved, and not at all stinky, and that he was resolved, out of consideration for the baby and himself, to give it to any righteous man who would be willing to call it daughter.

  The next morning, he found fifty-two notes fanned like a peacock's plumage under the Upright Synagogue's front door.

  From the maker of copper-wire knickknacks Peshel S, who had lost a wife of only two months in the Pogrom of Torn Garments: If not for the girl, then for me. I am a righteous person, and there are things that I deserve.

  From the lonely candle dipper Mordechai C, whose hands were encased in gloves of wax that could never be washed off: I am so alone in my workshop all day. There will be no candle dippers after me. Doesn't it make a kind of sense?

  From the unemployed Sloucher Lumpl W, who reclined on Passover not because it was religious custom but because why should that night be different from all others?: I'm not the greatest person that ever lived, but I would be a good father, and you know it.

  From the deceased philosopher Pinchas T, who was struck on the head by a falling beam at the flour mill: Put her back in th
e water and let her be with me.

  The Well-Regarded Rabbi was exceedingly knowledgeable about the large, extra-large, and extra-extra-large matters of the Jewish faith, and was able to draw upon the most obscure and indecipherable texts to reason seemingly impossible religious quandaries, but he knew hardly anything about life itself, and for this reason, because the baby's birth had no textual precedents, because he couldn't ask for anyone's advice—because how would it look for the very source of all advice to be an advice seeker?—because the baby was about life, and was life, he found himself to be quite stuck. THEY'RE ALL DECENT MEN, he thought. ALL A LITTLE BELOW AVERAGE, PERHAPS, BUT TOLERABLE AT HEART. WHO IS LEAST UNDESERVING?

  THE BEST DECISION IS NO DECISION, he decided, and put the letters in her crib, vowing to give my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother—and, in a certain sense, me—to the author of the first note she grabbed for. But she didn't grab for any of them. She paid them no notice at all. For two days she didn't move a muscle, never crying or opening her mouth for food. The black-hatted men continued to holler prayers from their pulleys (HOLY, HOLY, HOLY...), continued to sway above the transplanted Brod, continued to hold more tightly to the Great Book than the rope, praying that someone was listening to their prayers, until in the middle of one early late-evening service, the good gefiltefishmonger Bitzl Bitzl R hollered what every man in the congregation had been thinking: THE SMELL IS INTOLERABLE! HOW CAN I ACT CLOSE TO GOD WHEN I FEEL SO CLOSE TO THE SHITTER!

  The Well-Regarded Rabbi, who didn't disagree, put a halt to the prayers. He lowered himself to the glass floor and opened the ark. A most terrible stench poured forth, an all-encompassing, impossible to overlook, inhuman and inexcusable stink of supreme repugnance. It flooded from the ark, swept through the synagogue, streamed down every street, every alleyway of the shtetl, flowed under every pillow in every bedroom—entering the nostrils of the sleeping for long enough to misdirect their dreams before exiting with the next snore—and drained, finally, into the Brod.

  The baby was still perfectly silent and unmoving. The Well-Regarded Rabbi placed the crib on the floor, removed a single sopping slip of paper, and hollered, IT APPEARS THAT THE BABY HAS CHOSEN YANKEL AS HER FATHER!

  We were to be in good hands.

  20 July 1997

  Dear Jonathan,

  I hanker for this letter to be good. Like you know, I am not first rate with English. In Russian my ideas are asserted abnormally well, but my second tongue is not so premium. I undertaked to input the things you counseled me to, and I fatigued the thesaurus you presented me, as you counseled me to, when my words appeared too petite, or not befitting. If you are not happy with what I have performed, I command you to return it back to me. I will persevere to toil on it until you are appeased.

  I have girdled in the envelope the items you inquired, not withholding postcards of Lutsk, the census ledgers of the six villages from before the war, and the photographs you had me keep for cautious purposes. It was a very, very, very good thing, no? I must eat a slice of humble pie for what occurred to you on the train. I know how momentous the box was for you, for both of us, and how its ingredients were not exchangeable. Stealing is an ignominious thing, but a thing that occurs very repeatedly to people on the train from Ukraine. Since you do not have at the tips of your finger the name of the guard who stole the box, it will be impossible to have it recouped, so you must confess that it is lost to you forever. But please do not let your experience in Ukraine injure the way you perceive Ukraine, which must be as a totally awesome former Soviet republic.

  This is my occasion to utter thank you for being so long-suffering and stoical with me on our voyage. You were perhaps accounting upon a translator with more faculties, but I am certain that I did a mediocre job. I must eat a slice of humble pie for not finding Augustine, but you clutch how rigid it was. Perhaps if we had more days we could have discovered her. We could have investigated the six villages and interrogated many people. We could have lifted every boulder. But we have uttered all of these things so many times.

  Thank you for the reproduction of the photograph of Augustine with her family. I have thought without end of what you said about falling in love with her. In truth, I never fathomed it when you uttered it in Ukraine. But I am certain that I fathom it now. I examine her once when it is morning, and once before I manufacture Z's, and on every instance I see something new, some manner in which her hairs produce shadows, or her lips summarize angles.

  I am so so happy because you were appeased by the first division that I posted to you. You must know that I have performed the corrections you demanded. I apologize for the last line, about how you are a very spoiled Jew. It has been changed, and is now written, "I do not want to drive ten hours to an ugly city to attend to a spoiled Jew." I made more protracted the first part about me, and jettisoned out the word "Negroes" as you ordered me to, even though it is true that I am so fond of them. It makes me happy that you relished the sentence "One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be a family" I must inquire you, however, what is a truism?

  I have ruminated what you told me about making the part about my grandmother more protracted. Because you felt with so much gravity about this, I thought OK to include the parts that you posted me. I cannot say that I brooded those things, but I can say that I would covet to be the variety of person to have brooded those things. They were very beautiful, Jonathan, and I felt them as true.

  And thank you, I feel indebted to utter, for not mentioning the not-truth about how I am tall. I thought it might appear superior if I was tall.

  I strived to perform the next section as you ordered me, placing primary in my thoughts all that you tutored. I also attempted to be not obvious, or unduly subtle, as you demonstrated. Per the currency that you sent along, you must be informed that I would write this even in the absence of it. It is a mammoth honor for me to write for a writer, especially when he is an American writer, like Ernest Hemingway or you.

  And mentioning your writing, "The Beginning of the World Often Comes" was a very exalted beginning. There were parts that I did not understand, but I conjecture that this is because they were very Jewish, and only a Jewish person could understand something so Jewish. Is this why you think you are chosen by God, because only you can understand the funnies that you make about yourself? I have one small query about this section, which is do you know that many of the names you exploit are not truthful names for Ukraine? Yankel is a name I have heard of, and so is Hannah, but the rest are very strange. Did you invent them? There were many mishaps like this, I will inform you. Are you being a humorous writer here, or an uninformed one?

  I do not have any additional luminous remarks, because I must possess more of the novel in order to lumin. For present, be aware that I am ravished. I will counsel you that even after you have presented me more, I may not possess many intelligent things to utter, but I could be perhaps of some nonetheless use. Perhaps if I think something is very half-witted, I could tell you, and you could make it whole-witted. You have informed me so much about it that I am certain I will love very much to read the remnants, and think loftier of you, if that is a possibility. Oh yes, what is cunnilingus?

  And now for a little private business. (You may decide not to read this part, if it makes you a boring person. I would understand, although please do not inform me.) Grandfather has not been healthful. He has altered to our residence for permanent. He reposed on Little Igor's bed with Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and Little Igor reposed on the sofa. This does not spleen Little Igor, because he is such a good boy, who understands many more things than anyone thinks he does. I have the opinion that the melancholy is what makes Grandfather unhealthful, and it is what makes him blind, although he is not truly blind, of course. It has become tremendously worse since we returned from Lutsk. As you know, he was very defeated about Augustine, more than even you or I were defeated. It is rigid not to talk about Grandfather's melancholy with Father, because we
have both encountered him crying. Last night we were roosting at the table in the kitchen. We were eating black bread and conversing about athletics. There was a sound from above us. Little Igor's room is above us. I was certain that it was the crying of Grandfather, and Father was also certain of this. There was also a quiet rapping against the ceiling. (Of normal, rapping is excellent, like the Dnipropetrovsk Crew, who are totally deaf, but this kind I was not amorous of.) We tried so rigidly to neglect it. The sound moved Little Igor from his repose, and he came into the kitchen. "Hello, Clumsy One," Father said, because Little Igor had fallen again, and made his eye blue again, this time his left eye. "I would also like to eat black bread," Little Igor said, not looking at Father. Even though he is only thirteen almost fourteen, he is very smart. (You are the only person I have remarked this to. Please do not remark it to any other person.)

  I hope that you are happy, and that your family is healthful and prosperous. We became like friends while you were in Ukraine, yes? In a different world, we could have been real friends. I will be in suspense for your next letter, and I will also be in suspense for the coming division of your novel. I feel oblongated to again eat a slice of humble pie (my stomach is becoming chock-full) for the new section that I am bestowing you, but understand that I tried bestly, and did the best I could, which was the best that I could do. It is so rigid for me. Please be truthful, but also please be benevolent, please.

  Guilelessly,

  Alexander

  AN OVERTURE TO ENCOUNTERING THE HERO, AND THEN ENCOUNTERING THE HERO

  HOW I ANTICIPATED, it made my girls very sad that I should not be with them for the celebration of the first birthday of the new constitution. "All Night," one of my girls said to me, "how am I expected to pleasure myself in your void?" I had a notion. "Baby," another one of my girls said to me, "it is not good." I told them all, "If possible, I would be here with only you, forever. But I am a man who toils, and I must go where I must. We need currency for famous nightclubs, yes? I am doing something I hate for you. This is what it means to be in love. So do not spleen me." But to be truthful, I was not even the smallest portion sad to go to Lutsk to translate for Jonathan Safran Foer. As I mentioned before, my life is ordinary. But I had never been to Lutsk, or any of the multitudinous petite villages that still endure after the war. I desired to see new things. I desired to experience volumes. And I would be electrical to meet an American.