Everything Is Illuminated (30 page)

You’d better believe it.

The Animals

The animals are those things that God likes but doesn’t love.

Objects That Exist

Objects that exist are those things that God doesn’t even like.

Objects That Don’t Exist

Objects that don’t exist don’t exist. If we were to imagine such a thing as an object that didn’t exist, it would be that thing that God hated. This is the strongest argument against the nonbeliever. If God didn’t exist, he would have to hate himself, and that is obviously nonsense.

The 120 Marriages of Joseph and Sarah L

The young couple first married on August 5, 1744, when Joseph was eight, and Sarah six, and first ended their marriage six days later, when 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 twenty-eight. 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 shalom 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 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.

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 accumula-tions 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?

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 fini[shi]ng a book; Sadness of remembering; Sadness of forgetting; Anxiety sadness . . .

I N T E R P E R S O NA L S A D N E S S E S : 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 . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing

. . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . . We are writing . . .

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 re-proach. 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.