And the Rat Laughed - By Nava Semel Page 0,5

of nature and work its way through every barrier in the human body. Even when she discovered within herself the intention of shedding light on it, especially for the sake of the one with whom she has had children, that intention was short-lived, because she soon discovered that her darkness would not lend itself to reformulations.

This is all she can offer then: I was in the dark. A muddle of time. I don’t know when it began or when it was over.

If it was over.

***

And those are the details of the story, pretending to be ordinary. The creatures who were there in the dark grasped her presence. A rat groped its way in her direction, first sniffing, then biting. She didn’t scream. It was she, after all, who had disrupted his routine. Then they grew used to one another. She petted him and he grew fat. The glimmer in the rat’s eyes was her only light.

She could not make out her hands or feet. To be sure they were there – she fingered herself, and that’s how she discovered the lice, not knowing that’s what they were called, these tiny creatures that had set up home in her hair and on her body, being fruitful and multiplying. She picked them off her body and crushed them – the only sound in the darkness. That and the sound of her breathing, which she also learned to emit ever so softly.

Her senses, which had grown sharp almost instantly, began by grasping the subterranean movement. The rotting of the potatoes. The slow progress of the roots. The groaning of the wood in the ladder leading down to the pit. The wheezing of the seeds as they fought to sprout. The drops of rain percolating through the soil.

She learned to recognize the sounds above ground too. The lowing and the growling. The footsteps of cows. The croaking of frogs in a faraway lake. She concentrated on every murmur, deciphering its effects on the world above. Then she translated the sounds into pictures. The hay being stacked up in the silo. The thrashing of the pitchfork. The neighing of the farmer’s horse as it crossed the wheatfield. The farmer lashing out at his wife: What did we need this for, you fool! And for next to nothing too. Jesus, that little Jew is a danger to all of us.

Birds she didn’t hear even once. Maybe they were too far away. But planes she could hear clearly. Every time she recognized the muffled hum, she couldn’t help thinking of her father and mother, and clinging to their promise. Even if they were the meanest parents in the world, the kind who abandon their daughter, still she wanted to be with them. Every part of her body was aching to be hugged. The anger and the longing blended together. Never would she be able to tell them apart.

The farmer woman was coming down the ladder. She threw down the bowl along with a spoon, and a bucket-toilet, and announced: You’re not coming up until you know.

But the little-girl-who-once-was did not know what it was that she was supposed to know.

***

Twice a day – soup and two slices of bread. That was how she could tell time. Whenever she got very hungry – and she did – she would gnaw at the potatoes. Then she grew worried that the farmer woman would count the potatoes, one by one, and would realize that some were missing. She learned to stick to the moldy ones.

In a rare surge of boldness, she asked: If you hate Jews so much, why did you agree for me to be under your ground?

The farmer’s wife said: Just pray that the money arrives. And spat on the ground of the darkness.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

The little-girl-who-once-was stammered voicelessly, stumbling over the words. In the darkness, the farmer’s wife aimed an expert hand at her cheek and slapped her. You little sinner, she said, say it out loud. How can you expect to learn it unless you say it out loud? We should have asked for more. To think what you cost us.

The farmer’s wife took the little hand and made a cross over her body time after time until she was satisfied.

Up above, the farmer was muttering: I’ve had it. I’m handing her in. Enough of this story.

Muttering –