“I was thinking about eating you, Chief, but as you’re such a stubborn, annoying man, who makes me pissed with everything other sentence he utters from between his beautiful, badly-behaved likps, I thought I’d better tie you up first. What do you say?”

“What do you give the man who has everything? I thought I’d give you . . . me.”

“I would have told you earlier, but as it was your birthday . . . What do you give the man who has everything? I thought I’d give you . . . me.”He puts the keychain down on the bedside table and snuggles in beside me, pulling me into his arms against his chest so that we’re spooning.“It’s perfect. Like you.”

“He shakes me."Say my name.""No.""Damn it,would you just cooperate?""I do not know that word,'cooperate.'""Obviously,"he growls."I think you make up words.""I do not make up words.""Do,too.""Do not.""Too.""Not."I laugh"Woman you make me crazed,"he mutters.We do this often.Get into childish arguments.He is stubborn,my beast.”

“Grandpa, what do you think, who’s a better creation of Allah’s, woman or man?" Mad winked at me, suggesting he knew the answer and was just testing the old man."Woman, my boy. He managed to make woman much more accomplished and better-looking than man. After all, He created Adam first. And whenever you do something for the first time,my boy, you’re bound to make mistakes. You end up with some bits that hang out, some that are protruding, superfluous or missing…You’re bound to do a better job the second time around, especially if you’re God. So it’s obvious that Eve, as His second attempt at creating a human being, has turned out a much better specimen.”

“Grandfather interrogates me about you every day. He desires to know if you forgive him for the things he told you about the war, and about Herschel. (You could alter it, Jonathan. For him, not for me. Your novel is now verging on the war. It is possible.) He is not a bad person. He is a good person, alive ina bad time. Do you remember when he said this? Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was. Sometimes I feel ensnared in this, as if no matter what I do, what will come has already been fixed. For me, OK, but there are things that I want for little Igor. There is so much violence around him, and I mean more than merely the kind that occurs with fists. I do not want him to feel violence anymore, but also I do not want him to one day make others feel violence.I parrot: Grandfather is not a bad person, Jonathan. Everyone performs bad actions. I do. Father does. Even you do. A bad person is someone who does not lament his bad actions. Grandfather is now dying because of his. I beseech you to forgive us, and to make us better than we are. Make us good.”