he know about her, though, not much. That her father has a stall at the Machaneh Yehuda market where he displays his homemade mechanical diver toys in a tank of water. Maybe their house is full of diver toys. Aron feels like scribbling on her picture. He has an urge to rip it up. What would happen if he lit a match and burned it? She’d only draw another one. And someday she’ll forget Aron Kleinfeld and the millions of hours they sat together. Oops, his foot slips, he kicks the desk. At least her hand moves and she frowns at him. Maybe she will remember him after all.
Ten minutes.
Last year in English class they learned the present continuous. Aron was thrilled: I em go—eeng, I em sleep—eeng. You don’t have that eeng tense in Hebrew. Gideon didn’t understand why he was so excited. Well, Gideon was like that, dead set against anything non-Israeli, non-Zionist, especially anything English, because the British loused up our country under the Mandate, and if we had one drop of pride we wouldn’t be learning their stupid language. Aron wanted to point out that the Hebrew language has just as many exceptions to the rule, but he held his tongue and reveled in “I em jum—peeng …” Jumping far, far out in space, halfway to infinity, and soon he was utterly absorbed and utterly alone; jum—peeng; it was like being in a glass bubble, and someone watching from the outside might think Aron ees only jum—peeng, but inside the bubble, there was so much happening, every second
lasted an hour, and the secrets of time were revealed to him and the others who experienced time the way he did, under a magnifying glass, and inside you feel private, intimate, and the people watching you, pressing their faces against the bubble, wonder what’s going on; they stand on the outside looking in, puzzled and sweaty and filthy, and again he asks himself what it will be like when his bar mitzvah comes around in a year and a half, will he start growing those stiff black hairs all over, his might be blond, though; what happens, does some mysterious force squeeze the hairs out through the epidermis, and does it hurt, and he vows that even when he’s big and hairy someday, with coarse skin like Papa and other men have, he will always remember the boy he used to be, and engrave him deep in his memory, because otherwise certain things might vanish in the course of growing up, it’s hard to say what, there’s a quality that makes all adults seem similar, not in looks so much, or even in personality, it’s this thing they have in common that makes them belong, that makes them law-abiding citizens, and when Aron grows up to be like them, he will still whisper, at least once a day, I em go—eeng; I em play—eeng; I em Aron—eeng; and that way he will always remember the individual Aron beneath the generalities. Eight minutes to go. Whew! He got so wrapped up he skipped two minutes.
There are kids in this class he’s been with since kindergarten, yet he hardly knows them. Some of them are clods, some are probably smarter than he is. Take Shalom Sharabani, for instance. Now, there’s one kid who knows how to avoid calling attention to himself. He’s a real pro at that. He never ever gets called on in class. But when you talk to him in the yard you find out he’s not a bit stupid: he has everything planned out. He will not go to high school. His father runs a stonecutter’s shop near the cemetery, and in a few years Shalom will start working there too and make good money. Compared to his type, Aron feels silly, like he’s wasting his time. And whenever Aron does his hilarious impersonations or his fabulous Houdini act at school parties, and the kids go wild, there in the audience sits Shalom Sharabani, scorning Aron for playing up to them, for craving their cheap, fickle love, in his ignorance about real life.
Aron looks up and down the aisles. So this is what will be left someday to turn into memories. Eli Ben-Zikri, for instance.
Ten minutes.
Last year in English class they learned the present continuous. Aron was thrilled: I em go—eeng, I em sleep—eeng. You don’t have that eeng tense in Hebrew. Gideon didn’t understand why he was so excited. Well, Gideon was like that, dead set against anything non-Israeli, non-Zionist, especially anything English, because the British loused up our country under the Mandate, and if we had one drop of pride we wouldn’t be learning their stupid language. Aron wanted to point out that the Hebrew language has just as many exceptions to the rule, but he held his tongue and reveled in “I em jum—peeng …” Jumping far, far out in space, halfway to infinity, and soon he was utterly absorbed and utterly alone; jum—peeng; it was like being in a glass bubble, and someone watching from the outside might think Aron ees only jum—peeng, but inside the bubble, there was so much happening, every second
lasted an hour, and the secrets of time were revealed to him and the others who experienced time the way he did, under a magnifying glass, and inside you feel private, intimate, and the people watching you, pressing their faces against the bubble, wonder what’s going on; they stand on the outside looking in, puzzled and sweaty and filthy, and again he asks himself what it will be like when his bar mitzvah comes around in a year and a half, will he start growing those stiff black hairs all over, his might be blond, though; what happens, does some mysterious force squeeze the hairs out through the epidermis, and does it hurt, and he vows that even when he’s big and hairy someday, with coarse skin like Papa and other men have, he will always remember the boy he used to be, and engrave him deep in his memory, because otherwise certain things might vanish in the course of growing up, it’s hard to say what, there’s a quality that makes all adults seem similar, not in looks so much, or even in personality, it’s this thing they have in common that makes them belong, that makes them law-abiding citizens, and when Aron grows up to be like them, he will still whisper, at least once a day, I em go—eeng; I em play—eeng; I em Aron—eeng; and that way he will always remember the individual Aron beneath the generalities. Eight minutes to go. Whew! He got so wrapped up he skipped two minutes.
There are kids in this class he’s been with since kindergarten, yet he hardly knows them. Some of them are clods, some are probably smarter than he is. Take Shalom Sharabani, for instance. Now, there’s one kid who knows how to avoid calling attention to himself. He’s a real pro at that. He never ever gets called on in class. But when you talk to him in the yard you find out he’s not a bit stupid: he has everything planned out. He will not go to high school. His father runs a stonecutter’s shop near the cemetery, and in a few years Shalom will start working there too and make good money. Compared to his type, Aron feels silly, like he’s wasting his time. And whenever Aron does his hilarious impersonations or his fabulous Houdini act at school parties, and the kids go wild, there in the audience sits Shalom Sharabani, scorning Aron for playing up to them, for craving their cheap, fickle love, in his ignorance about real life.
Aron looks up and down the aisles. So this is what will be left someday to turn into memories. Eli Ben-Zikri, for instance.
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