Excerpt of Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
(Page 2 of 4)
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Father toils for a travel agency, denominated Heritage
Touring. It is for Jewish people, like the hero, who have cravings to
leave that ennobled country America and visit humble towns in Poland
and Ukraine. Father's agency scores a translator, guide, and driver
for the Jews, who try to unearth places where their families once
existed. OK, I had never met a Jewish person until the voyage. But
this was their fault, not mine, as I had always been willing, and one
might even write lukewarm, to meet one. I will be truthful again and
mention that before the voyage I had the opinion that Jewish people
were having shit between their brains. This is because all I knew of
Jewish people was that they paid Father very much currency in order
to make vacations from America to Ukraine. But then I met Jonathan Safran Foer, and I will tell you, he is not having shit between his
brains. He is an ingenious Jew.
So as for the Clumsy One, who I never ever dub the Clumsy One
but always Little Igor, he is a first-rate boy. It is now evident to
me that he will become a very potent and generative man, and that his
brain will have many muscles. We do not speak in volumes, because he
is such a silent person, but I am certain that we are friends, and I
do not think I would be lying if I wrote that we are paramount
friends. I have tutored Little Igor to be a man of this world. For an
example, I exhibited him a smutty magazine three days yore, so that
he should be appraised of the many positions in which I am
carnal. "This is the sixty-nine," I told him, presenting the magazine
in front of him. I put my fingers—two of them—on the action, so that
he would not overlook it. "Why is it dubbed sixty-nine?" he asked,
because he is a person hot on fire with curiosity. "It was invented in 1969. My
friend Gregory knows a friend of the nephew of the inventor." "What did people
do before 1969?" "Merely blowjobs and
masticating box, but never in chorus." He will be made a VIP if I
have a thing to do with it.
This is where the story begins.
But first I am burdened to recite my good appearance. I am unequivocally
tall. I do not know any women who are taller than me. The women I know who are
taller than me are lesbians, for whom 1969 was a very momentous year. I have
handsome hairs, which are split in the middle. This is because Mother used to
split them on the side when I was a boy, and to spleen her I split them in the
middle. "Alexi-stop-spleening-me!," she said, "you appear mentally
unbalanced with your hairs split like that." She did not intend it, I
know. Very often Mother utters things that I know she does not
intend. I have an aristocratic smile and like to punch people. My
stomach is very strong, although it presently lacks muscles. Father
is a fat man, and Mother is also. This does not disquiet me, because
my stomach is very strong, even if it appears very fat. I will
describe my eyes and then begin the story. My eyes are blue and
resplendent. Now I will begin the story.
Father obtained a telephone call from the American office of
Heritage Touring. They required a driver, guide, and translator for a
young man who would be in Lutsk at the dawn of the month of July. This was a
troublesome supplication, because at the dawn of July, Ukraine was to celebrate
the first birthday of its ultramodern constitution, which makes us feel very
nationalistic, and so many people would be on vacation in foreign places. It was
an impossible situation, like the 1984 Olympics. But Father is an overawing man
who always obtains what he desires. "Shapka," he said on the phone to me,
who was at home enjoying the greatest of all documentary movies, The
Making of "Thriller," "what was the language you studied this year at school?" "Do not dub me Shapka," I said.
"Alex," he said, "what was the language you studied this year at school?" "The language of
English," I told him. "Are you good and fine at it?" he asked me. "I
am fluid," I told him, hoping I might make him proud enough to buy me
the zebra-skin seat coverings of my dreams. "Excellent, Shapka," he
said. "Do not dub me that," I said. "Excellent, Alex. Excellent. You must
nullify any plans you possess for the first week of the month of July." "I do not possess any plans," I said to him.
"Yes you do," he
said.
Copyright © 2002 by Jonathan Safran Foer. Reprinted by permission of
Houghton Mifflin Company.
