The Zigzag Kid

by David Grossman

  Farther along the corridor I had to struggle with the door, a heavy iron door that stubbornly resisted me. I had to push with my hands and feet. When I finally forced it open a crack and squeezed through, I found myself in the passage to the next car, where I was suddenly knocked over by a terrible booming, clanging, creaking, and screeching, and under my feet there were two black plates that locked into each other like wrestlers in a stranglehold. I didn’t dare step over them, so I jumped with my eyes shut and nearly fell, because they tried to throw me, bucking under my feet, because maybe I’d made a mistake, maybe passengers weren’t allowed to pass from one car to another while the train was in motion, so I hopped from foot to foot to avoid staying on either plate for longer than a second. Who would have believed such perils lurked so close to where the passengers were talking peacefully? The wind whistled all around me, and through the cracks I could see the ground speeding by and hear the noisy rumbling of the wheels and the creaking and shrieking of iron and steel: one wrong move and down I’d go.

  I couldn’t think straight. Noise confuses me. And such awful noise from every direction, it was enough to drive me crazy. I didn’t have enough protective skin suddenly to keep out the world, and I might be sucked into the whirlpool of noise and burst down the middle, and I’d never even realize that I was the one who was screaming.

  Let me through, I screamed at the heavy door, damn you, let me through, and I pounded and kicked and butted with my head. There were times when I could butt at an iron door without getting hurt. At school they had a special name for that, but on the train it actually worked, Mount Feuerberg erupted and the iron door opened a crack, but even that was enough. I was light as a scream, so I managed to squeeze through and close the door, leaving the whirlpool behind me, good riddance.

  I took a deep breath. The din subsided. It was a “comin’ round the mountain” train again, though from that moment on I would look at it differently.

  And so—

  Who am I?

  I began to mutter, rehearsing my line.

  Who am I? Who am I? Who?

  First compartment. I walked by without a glance. Second compartment—without a glance. Third compartment. I paused outside the door.

  This, I believe, was when I became aware of a small problem.

  Suppose I went in. Suppose seat number 3 was empty, as Gabi promised. Suppose I could even identify the person waiting for me there. How would I find the nerve to turn and ask, Who am I?

  What would the other passengers think? I could just imagine them glaring at me.

  One of Gabi’s typical schemes, I grumbled. Dad would never have gotten me into this fix. He would know how embarrassing it is.

  Who am I?

  I think it’s time to tell you a little about myself.

  When all this took place, exactly twenty-seven years ago, I was a few days shy of thirteen, a perfectly normal kid, in my opinion, though there were other opinions, so let me present the undisputed facts:

  Name: Nonny Feuerberg. Place of birth: Jerusalem. Family status: single (naturally), and likewise: one father, one Gabi. Best friend: Micah Dubovsky. Distinguishing features: a deep scar on the right shoulder. A bullet on a chain around the neck. Other particularities: my hobby.

  My hobby was the police. By age thirteen I’d memorized the shield number of every police officer in the Southern District. I was familiar with every type of police weapon and vehicle. I had my own collection of wanted posters at home dating back five years. And I had another collection, possibly the largest in Israel, of missing-persons notices. In addition to this, I was able—in ways best not divulged—to get my hands on all the top-secret documents that Gabi typed, including autopsy reports of famous murder cases, crime scene sketches, and photocopies of forensic files. Twice I spoke to the Police Commissioner himself, on the steps of district headquarters and at the wedding of a superintendent. At the wedding he called me—everybody heard him—the district mascot.

  Who am I? Who am I?

  And what if I picked the wrong guy?

  Would I have the nerve to approach anyone else after that? In the same compartment?

  Better cool off awhile and think it over.

  The first thing you do—I addressed myself in Dad’s voice—is learn everything you can about your opponents. Pick up information. That’s what he taught me: Knowledge is power. How many times have I heard, him say those words: “Knowledge is powerrrr!,” making a fist and pounding it for emphasis. I could never be sure which was more important to him, knowledge or power.

  Who am I?

  Here was compartment 3 already. This train was going too fast for me.

  First try—I hurried past in such a dither that I hardly dared to look in. But straightaway I turned in my wobbly tracks and made a second attempt, forcing myself to peek inside this time. There were five people in there and one empty seat between them marked off with a red ribbon and a tag that said: Reserved.

  Ho ho!

  I went back for a third try, taking it more slowly this time. I could see that there were three men and two women inside. A man with glasses was reading a newspaper. The women were both slender: the elderly one wore her hair in a bun, the other wore bangs. There wasn’t much I could deduce from that. I walked by again. The elderly woman nudged the man sitting beside her, indicating me with her eyes. She had a sour expression that reminded me of my grandmother Tsitka, but I was beginning to make a little progress just the same: I noticed a man wearing a tall black hat. Very strange: he looked like a diplomat. Or an executioner. A chilling question entered my mind: What was an executioner doing on the train to Haifa?

  I stopped. Pivoted sharply. Turned back. Didn’t stop this time. But I needed a cover, some excuse for all the scurrying back and forth outside their compartment. Because the secret of a successful stakeout—according to a certain person—is to believe your own cover; i.e., if you go out disguised as a beggar, do it with all your heart, despise cheapskates and bless the generous. When you dress as a woman, be a woman in every way: your walk, your gestures, your preference for one display window over another. Make a wrong move and you give the whole show away, Dad would tell me, narrowing his eyes till the crease between them darkened ominously. “Listen, Nonny, when an actor flops, all he gets is a bad review, but a blundering detective is liable to end up with a bullet in his head!” And he inadvertently touched his shoulder, as I touched the bullet on the chain around my neck. We looked into each other’s eyes. He had never told me the name of the person who shot him, and I didn’t dare ask. There were certain subjects we didn’t broach, subjects that called for a manly silence.

  Again I walked by the compartment, for the fifth time in a row, maybe, frowning with concentration, my arms folded over my chest. Was I ever lost in thought! That’s how it is for a young genius like me, on the verge of inventing the pendulum.

  But then, despite my excellent cover, all five passengers in the compartment sat forward to take a better look at me, and due to their exaggerated attention, I was unable to turn up any more clues regarding my suspect, the man in the executioner’s hat. I did recall, though, that he had been wearing a red bow tie. I stopped. To change my cover? Was I, perhaps, too young to pass for a young scientist? Or did they suspect that the pendulum had already been invented?

  Time was running out. Soon we would be pulling into Haifa station. There and then I changed my cover, turned on my heel, cursed Gabi, and walked by the compartment again, this time as a young actor in the role of a tormented Ping-Pong ball, but they all turned to the window—including the executioner—and started whispering together. Actually, they may have been talking out loud, or even shouting angrily, only I couldn’t hear them through the glass.

  No good. How many more times could I walk past them before they pounced on me and dragged me screaming into the compartment? With bated breath I stood at the door. All five of them turned to glare at me. Blinking courageously, I entered the compartment, and nearly fell over them, under
them, and between them. I stepped on every foot in sight before groping my way to the empty seat with the red ribbon and the Reserved sign, where I sank down, finally, frozen with fear, though my ears were burning hot.

  Five pairs of reproachful eyes were upon me, surprised that the seat of honor had been taken by a child.

  Five pairs of reproachful eyes?

  But wasn’t one of them supposed to know I was coming?

  They all looked so stern.

  I didn’t have the nerve to look back at anyone.

  And then, cautiously, I took a peek …

  Casually … glancing this way and that…

  She’ll be comin’ round the mountain …

  Bangs … bald head … glasses … top hat …

  Who am I? Who am I?

  The train is rattling and shaking like me. I’ve never asked a stranger who I am before. Who am I? … Who-am-I? … WhoamI?

  But suppose the man in the top hat turns out to be the Swedish ambassador on a sightseeing tour of the country, what then?

  Or a chef in mourning? I quickly looked him over: a tall, grim, tight-lipped character, someone who might slap your face for asking an impertinent question.

  But wait a minute!

  That roly-poly guy sitting next to him … the baldy with the red face, wide round nostrils, and fat lips; he looks like a pastry chef, or maybe a balloon inflator. He’s staring out the window, muttering to himself, possibly rehearsing the big scene when I turn to him and ask the question!

  Or the girl in the blue jeans. I broadcast her description over my imaginary radio: blue patch on left knee, green T-shirt. Brown hair, cut short, with bangs. Small khaki bag. Distinguishing features? None. What a boring face. End of description, over and out.

  Or that old lady who looks like Tsitka, Dad’s mother, and also my grandmother, I regret to say, but that’s another story—could she actually be in on the game?

  Maybe Dad had a secret motive: four hours of this was surely worth a month of training … an accelerated practical course … and to pass it, I’d have to use every trick in the book … What a bar mitzvah present, I thought with some dismay, though a Swiss watch wouldn’t be so bad, either.

  One face, another face, a smile, a nose, a mouth. Dad used to say that every face is like a book, you only have to learn how to read it. And a real pro can tell just about everything from a person’s face and lines and wrinkles. For my tenth birthday he made me an IdentiKit, just like the one he had at the office. He drew all the transparencies himself, the noses and chins, the beards and eyebrows, and the eyes and ears—everything that goes on a face—Handing me the kit, he said, “Here—read this, the most interesting book in the world.”

  Time was passing, the train sped on, and still I couldn’t decide who my man was, though more and more I suspected the top hat, who sat rigidly erect, his eyes under a bushy awning and his mouth set in an angry scowl. Though I was pretty certain he was the man, somehow he frightened me more than the others. Or was it this very fear that Dad and Gabi hoped I would overcome? I cast an anguished glance his way. Please, sir, smile at me. Even a hairline smile would help me get started. But he wouldn’t budge. He looked like Dad when I try to make him laugh.

  I failed. I was a coward. Why didn’t anyone offer to help?

  They just kept staring, staring at me shamelessly. How did I look to them? Like a skinny blond kid with a short haircut (the only style the police barber knew) and big blue eyes, widely set, which could be disconcerting if you tried to look into them both at the same time. Yep, that was me. The unobservant might take me for a goody-goody. “Ah, you’re the picture of an angel,” Gabi would sigh. “But in your heart lurk the seven deadly sins!” Because the picture didn’t show the vein throbbing in my neck so hard it hurt, or the burning in my cheeks, or my fluttering fingers, or the way my eyes would dart anxiously around: Who wants to hear how I (almost) caught a pickpocket single-handedly once? Anyone interested in buying a used compass or a dog whistle? Want to hear a joke?

  “This kid has ears like an elf,” Gabi would add, touching them in wonder. “See how pointy they are? Who are you, a boy or a wildcat?”

  WhoamI, whoamI…

  I couldn’t. I just couldn’t ask them who I was. A hundred times I tried to whisper the words, but they crumbled in my mouth. What would Dad think of me now? He would snort with contempt because I’d failed him again. Here he had planned such a wonderful surprise and I wasn’t even enjoying it.

  Before I realized what I wanted to do, Mount Feuerberg decided for me, spewing me out into the corridor like lava.

  Now what? I couldn’t go back. Should I just give up the adventure?

  Nonny’s a coward, a rabbit-hearted coward.

  I walked away. Standing by the window at the end of the coach, I hated myself. I knew that the mystery man Dad and Gabi had posted in the compartment would report how I had disgraced myself and Dad.

  Who am I?!

  But now that I’d worked up my courage, now that it was bursting out of me, I didn’t want to lose momentum. Over and over I whispered, WhoamI? WhoamI? and went on whispering as I slowly turned around and doubled back to the third compartment, afraid that if I stopped for even a second I would lose my nerve, and after every tiny step I thought, I’ll just close my eyes and walk in without looking, and ask that guy over there, and whatever happens happens, and still whispering to myself, I shuffled along, but noticed that every time I asked the question, I felt a sharp pang inside, as though there were somebody knocking in there to get my attention, and the more I whispered, “Who am I?” the more bitterness I felt in my heart.

  It was strange that I had never asked such a simple question before. I knew who I was, everybody knew, I was me, Nonny, the Jerusalem district mascot, with a father and a Gabi, and a best friend named Micah, and future plans to work with Dad, but just then, for some reason, I had a feeling maybe there were a lot of other answers, maybe things weren’t so cut-and-dried, and my heart sank, weighing me down till I almost didn’t care anymore about this adventure, and wondered glumly, What’s the matter with me, who am I? …

  Just then I caught sight of someone gazing at me through the glass partition with a strange look in his eye, as though he didn’t really see me. I stopped; that is, I was stopped in my tracks by the expression on his face. I knew, I just knew I reminded him of someone, because he kept looking at me with a dreamy, faraway smile. I stood directly in front of him, keeping perfectly still. He seemed to want me to stand there and pose so he could concentrate on his memory.

  Then his eyes focused sharply. They penetrated the bewildering reflections in the train windows and stared directly at me, yes, me, with quizzical affection, as his long leg jiggled over his knee, and he fished something out of his pocket, a round piece of glass hanging from a fine gold chain. He put the glass to his eye, wedged between his cheek and his eyebrow. I had seen something like this in a movie once: a monocle, that’s what it’s called. The kind English gentlemen wear.

  Hey, I’m being watched through a monocle! I realized happily, raising my head high and thinking noble thoughts to improve my reflection, because it isn’t every day an Israeli kid makes an appearance in a monocle.

  But even as he watched me, I did not neglect my professional duties: I guessed he must be seventy or so, with a deep tan and the handsome face of a stranger from a distant land. His eyes were blue and clear and smiling, the eyes of a baby in a manly face, with sun-baked wrinkles radiating from the corners and a distinctive pair of bushy eyebrows overarching them; in between there loomed the nose, and what a nose! A stately nose, a monumental nose, a nose of such grandeur one was prompted to bow down before it. And fine white hair that curled down behind his ears, making him look like a distinguished old painter.

  He was alone in the compartment—of course he was, because there was no one else like him on the train. He wore an elegant white suit and a tie as bright as a tropical bird. And that’s not all: there was a fresh red rose in his
lapel and a handkerchief folded in his pocket. To this day I remember every detail. There weren’t many people in Israel in those days who dressed that way. Who could afford to buy a suit back then? And anybody who happened to own one certainly wouldn’t wear it on a train, least of all the Haifa train.

  Yet I knew at a glance that the suit belonged to him, that he wasn’t an actor wearing a costume. It was as much his own as the rose he had picked for his lapel. There was an ease about the man, as if his clothes felt good on him.

  And another thing: for a minute he resembled Dad. Though not physically. I don’t really know why he reminded me of Dad just then. Maybe because of his solitude in the compartment. In every other way he was completely different. Most of the time Dad looked—I have to admit it—like an SOS, as Gabi used to say (a sweaty ornery slob). And this man seemed happy, like someone who enjoys life, who knows how to relax and has time to take a lively interest in everything and everyone around him. But there was also an invisible line setting him apart from his surroundings. Maybe that’s a sign of true nobility, because he definitely had that. And the feeling inside me was so strong by now that without a second thought, I opened the door to his compartment; I did so in direct defiance of the letter from Dad and Gabi setting forth the rules of the game, because I didn’t care, I could always catch up later; I walked straight over to him and asked in a loud clear voice, Who am I?

  And he beamed an even bigger smile, and crossed his other leg, and took a long look at me, and the scent of his aftershave filled the compartment, and his cheek muscle twitched and the monocle dropped into his waiting palm and disappeared into his pocket; it was unbelievable, like in a movie. But he hadn’t answered my question yet. I tingled with anticipation, that pleasant excitement you feel sometimes when you’re about to solve a riddle. He, too, I could see, was savoring the moment. I truly hoped he would know the answer. Here was the partner I wanted for the game.