See Under

said it isn’t good for you to cry, please, Mama, for our sake, and Momik makes a vow, tfu, may he die in Hitler’s black tomb unless he finds a green stone that cures diseases of the eye and other cholerias, and this is what Momik is thinking so hard to help him not hear the seventh-grade hooligans shouting a safe distance away from big fat Papa: “Lottery little, lottery big, turns a pauper into a pig,” a kind of ditty they made up, but Momik and Mama hear nothing, and Momik sees Papa, the sad giant of an Emperor, staring down at his enormous hands, no, all three of them are deaf to the hooligans, because they hear only their own secret language which is Yiddish, which soon the beautiful Marilyn Monroe will understand because she married Mr. Miller, a Jew, and every day she learns three new words, and these hooligans, let them drop dead, amen, and Mama touches Momik here and there while he says the magic word “Chaimova” seven times to himself, which is what you’re supposed to say to infidels at the border tavern in the Motl Ben Paisee book, because when you say “Chaimova,” they drop everything and obey you, especially if you ask them to help you cross the border to America, not to mention a simpler thing like handling a gang of seventh-graders whom Momik will only refrain from throwing to the infidels out of the goodness of his heart.

“There’s a drumstick in the refrigerator for you and one for him,”says Mama, “and be careful with the small bones, you shouldn’t swallow any, God forbid, and he shouldn’t either. Be careful.” “Okay.” “And be careful with the gas too, Shleimeleh, and blow the match out right away, so there won’t be a fire, God forbid.” “Okay.” “And don’t forget to make sure you turn off the gas knob when you’re done, and the little tap behind the stove too. The one behind is the most important.” “Yes.” “And don’t drink soda water out of the refrigerator. Yesterday I noticed at least one glass less in the bottle. You drank it, and it’s winter now. And as soon as you’re inside lock the door twice. The top lock and the bottom lock. Just once is no good.” “Okay.” “And make sure he goes to sleep as soon as lunch is over. Don’t let him go out like a shlumper.” “Okay.” She carries on talking to herself a little longer, making sure with her tongue that there are no words left over, because if she’s left out a single word, then everything she said will be wasted, but it’s all right, there’s nothing left out, nothing bad will happen to Momik, God forbid, so Mama can make her last speech, like this: “Don’t open the door to anyone. We’re not expecting company. And Papa and I will be home at seven as usual, don’t worry. Do your homework. Don’t turn the heater on even if it gets cold. You can play after you do your homework, but no wildness, and don’t read too much, you’ll ruin your eyes. And don’t get into any fights. If anyone hits you, you come here to us right away.” Her voice sounded weaker and farther away. “Goodbye, Shleimeleh, say goodbye to Papa. Goodbye, Shleimeleh. You be careful.”

This must be how she bade him goodbye when he was a baby in the royal nursery. His father, who was still the Emperor and a commando fighter in those days, summoned the royal hunter and, with tear-choked voice, ordered him to take this infant deep into the forest and leave him there, prey to the birds of the sky, as they say. It was a kind of curse on children they had in those days. Momik didn’t quite understand it yet. But anyway, luckily the royal hunter took pity on him and raised him secretly as his own, and many years later Momik returned to the castle as an unknown youth and became secret advisor to the Emperor and Empress, and that way, unbeknownst to anyone, he protected the poor Emperor and Empress who had banished him from their kingdom, and of course this is all imaginary, Momik is a truly scientific, arithmetically gifted boy, there’s no one like him in fourth grade, but meanwhile, till the truth will out, Momik has to use imaginary things andhints and hunches and the talking that stops the minute he walks into the room, that’s how it was when Mama and Papa sat talking with Idka and Shimmik about the compensation money from Germany, and Papa said angrily, Take a man like me, for instance, who lost a child Over There, which is why Momik isn’t so sure it’s only imaginary, and sometimes when he’s really feeling low, it makes him so happy just to think how glad they’ll be the day he can finally tell Mama and Papa that he’s the boy they gave away to the hunter, it will be exactly like Joseph and his brothers. But sometimes he imagines it a different way, that he’s the boy who lost his twin brother, because Momik has this feeling that he used to have a Siamese twin, and when they were born, they were cut in two like in Believe It or Not: “300 astonishing cases that shook the world,” and maybe someday they’ll meet and be joined together again (if they want).

And from the lottery booth he makes his way home at a precise and scientific pace, they call it the camel walk because they don’t understand that he’s directing his footsteps through the secret passages and shortcuts only he knows, and there are some trees you have to brush against accidentally, because he has this feeling maybe there’s somebody inside and you have to show him he hasn’t been forgotten, and then he crosses the dump behind the deserted synagogue where old Munin lives all by himself and you have to