Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

something is. Am I frustrated? Am I actually just panicky? And that confusion changes your mood, it becomes your mood, and you become a confused, gray person. But with the special water, you could look at your orange hands and think, I'm happy! That whole time I was actually happy! What a relief!
    Mr. Black said, “I once went to report on a village in Russia, a community of artists who were forced to flee the cities! I'd heard that paintings hung everywhere! I heard you couldn't see the walls through all of the paintings! They'd painted the ceilings, the plates, the windows, the lampshades! Was it an act of rebellion! An act of expression! Were the paintings good, or was that beside the point! I needed to see it for myself, and I needed to tell the world about it! I used to live for reporting like that! Stalin found out about the community and sent his thugs in, just a few days before I got there, to break all of their arms! That was worse than killing them! It was a horrible sight, Oskar: their arms in crude splints, straight in front of them like zombies! They couldn't feed themselves, because they couldn't get their hands to their mouths! So you know what they did!” “They starved?” “They fed each other! That's the difference between heaven and hell! In hell we starve! In heaven we feed each other!” “I don't believe in the afterlife.” “Neither do I, but I believe in the story!”
    And then, all of a sudden, I thought of something. Something enormous. Something wonderful. “Do you want to help me?” “Excuse me!” “With the key.” “Help you!” “You could go around with me.” “You want my help!” “Yes.” “Well, I don't need anyone's charity!” “Jose,” I told him. “You're obviously very smart and knowledgeable, and you know a ton of things that I don't know, and also it's good just to have company, so please say yes.” He closed his eyes and became quiet. I couldn't tell if he was thinking about what we were talking about, or thinking about something else, or if maybe he'd fallen asleep, which I know that old people, like Grandma, sometimes do, because they can't help it. “You don't have to make a decision right now,” I said, because I didn't want him to feel forced. I told him about the 162 million locks, and how the search would probably take a long time, it might even take the full one and a half years, so if he wanted to think about it for a while that would be OK, he could just come downstairs and tell me his answer whenever. He kept thinking. “Take as long as you want,” I said. He kept thinking. I asked him, “Do you have a decision?”
    He didn't say anything.
    “What do you think, Mr. Black?”
    Nothing.
    “Mr. Black?”
    I tapped him on the shoulder and he looked up suddenly.
    “Hello?”
    He smiled, like I do when Mom finds out about something I did that I shouldn't have done.
    “I've been reading your lips!” “What?” He pointed at his hearing aids, which I hadn't noticed before, even though I was trying as hard as I could to notice everything. “I turned them off a long time ago!” “You turned them off?” “A long, long time ago!” “On purpose?” “I thought I'd save the batteries!” “For what?” He shrugged his shoulders. “But don't you want to hear things?” He shrugged his shoulders again, in a way so I couldn't tell if he was saying yes or no. And then I thought of something else. Something beautiful. Something true. “Do you want me to turn them on for you?”
    He looked at me and through me at the same time, like I was a stained-glass window. I asked again, moving my lips slowly and carefully so I could be sure he understood me: “Do. You. Want. Me. To. Turn. Them. On. For. You?” He kept looking at me. I asked again. He said, “I don't know how to say yes!” I told him, “You don't have to.”
    I went behind him and saw a tiny dial on the back of each of his hearing aids.
    “Do it slowly!” he said, almost like he was begging me. “It's been a long, long time!”
    I went back around to his front so he could see my lips, and I promised him I would be as gentle as I could. Then I went back behind him and turned the dials extremely slowly, a few millimeters at a time. Nothing happened. I turned them a few more millimeters. And then just a few more. I went around to the front of him. He shrugged, and so did I. I went back around behind him and turned them up just a tiny bit more, until they stopped. I went back in