A Late Divorce

WEDNESDAY

“… so that as consistently as these youngsters rejected the idea of the state, and of all public bodies and institutions, they also rejected, at least initially, the idea of organized terror. Their terror was individual, and so they wished it to remain. A private rather than a collective act. Authority could reside only in the individual acting by himself and flowed from his great sense of inner freedom that sought to bestow itself upon the nation as a whole. The decision to commit a terrorist act could not be made by any organized forum proceeding by majority vote or some other resolution-passing process. Thus, despite their enormous feeling of camaraderie for each other, their marvelous sense of shared humanity that made up in part for their lack of contact with a sympathetic public, the terrorists remained radically isolated. In the first place, you must remember that they were very young — much younger than you yourselves. Pisarev, the leading theoretician of Russian nihilism, once remarked that children and teen-agers made the greatest fanatics. Russia was at this time a youthful nation that had been essentially reconstituted barely one hundred years before, and its terrorists were youthful too. ‘A proletariat of high-school graduates,’ they were called. And yet it was they who held high the torch of freedom and took a stand against a brutal dictatorial regime in order to liberate a people that was far from eager to collaborate with them. Nearly every one of these youngsters paid the price of suicide, public execution, imprisonment or insanity. A handful of intellectuals struggled alone while an entire nation kept silent. On the twenty-seventh of January 1878, what is called the First Wave of Russian Terror began. A young woman named Vera Zasulich shot General Tarpov, the vicious head of the St. Petersburg police. She had received orders from no one and was acting completely on her own, impelled by her own moral conscience. Ideologically, however, she was well prepared for what she did. She had read many underground writings, among them an essay called Murder by the German Karl Heinsen that was published as early as 1849 and was well known in her circles. She was also familiar with Mikhail Bakunin’s famous treatise Revolution, Terrorism and Gangsterism, which appeared in Geneva in 1856. These were the two selections that I asked you to read for today in Walter Laqueur’s anthology…”

But as usual they haven’t. The pens stop moving. Outside the wind howls in the sudden silence. Their eyes avoid mine breaking off contact. What do they care about treatises? I should be grateful that they’re willing to listen to me at all. You tell us about it. Whatever you say. But unless I get a discussion going now I’ll have to eat into my next lesson. There are still fifteen minutes to go. If only that old fusspot had come today: he doesn’t bother with the reading list either but he always has something to say and knows the oddest details and old books. He’s the only one here with some vague idea of what I’m getting at even if he is always protesting in the name of his absurd sense of values. I can always kill some time with him. Shadowbox with him in a corner. But he didn’t come to class this morning and he wasn’t here last week either. Sick? Dead? Dropped the course? Neither did those old women auditors show up today because of the holiday. I have a small audience and that always annoys me, I’ve gotten used to standing room only.

“Can somebody please tell me then what Heinsen’s basic thesis is? Who’ll sum it up for us?”

A scraping of chairs.

“Who read it?”

They avoid my glance leafing through their notebooks looking out the windows deep in thought.

“Perhaps I’d better ask who hasn’t read it.”

A limp hand goes up. Several others hesitantly follow it. They grin at each other.

“The book wasn’t in the library because you have it,” calls a voice from the corner.

Relieved laughter.

“But there are two other copies. I put them on the reserved shelf myself at the beginning of the year.”

They frown bewilderedly.

“I really did look for it but it wasn’t there.”

In her dreams.

Yes, a student announces, they were once on reserve but they’re gone. The librarian can’t understand it herself.

“Gone where?”

“Who knows? They’re gone.”

The relief is general now. As long as the books aren’t there.

“But why didn’t you let me know? I asked you to read those selections a month ago. Why didn’t you say something then? This is a discussion class, not a lecture…”

The door opens silently and Dina’s curly head peeks in. “May we?” she whispers amiably and without waiting for an answer turns and says in a clear voice that echoes down the corridor, “It’s here!” She glides to the last row and slips silently into a seat while father tiptoes in behind her head down as though entering a low tunnel careful not to meet my eyes his little valise clutched to his chest and picks his way through the jumble of empty chairs to the last one in the corner. Everyone turns to look at them. Several students recognize her and start whispering to each other while giving me doting looks. The blood goes to my head. Goddamn her. Why did she have to come in now? The room buzzes irritatingly.

“Karl Heinsen’s essay Der Mord, Murder, is considered the most important ideological document of the early terrorist movement. Reprinted several times and widely quoted from, it first appeared in 1849 in a newspaper put out by a German political exile in Switzerland. In it Heinsen, who was exiled himself, seeks a moral justification for terror. He himself was not a socialist but a radical bourgeois, for which both Marx and Engels attacked him; it was his rejection of socialism rather than his espousal of terror that offended them. In later life Heinsen emigrated to America, where he edited several German newspapers. He died in 1880 in Boston, a city that he considered the one refuge of culture in the United States.”

A faint smile darts over father’s tense face when I relate Heinsen’s opinion of Boston but at once he starts and stares down.

Dina isn’t listening. She’s still beaming with dumb pleasure. She had no time to put on makeup this morning and her face looks all splotchy. She has an old childish blue dress on. She peeks at the notebook of the student sitting next to her who offers her his notes right away. They exchange whispers. Is she going to make a public nuisance of herself?

“Heinsen begins by reviewing several historical cases of primitive terrorism in which individuals sought to strike down tyrants on their own initiative. He describes the respect and admiration we feel for such figures as Harmodius and Aristogiton, who murdered the tyrant Hipparchus…”

I’ve learned their names by heart and don’t even have to sneak a look at my notes. Father bends marvelingly forward. I’m taut as a spring driven by an intellectual anger.

“He demonstrates that, historically, terror in itself has never been repudiated as long as the wickedness of the tyrant or regime it is aimed at has been acknowledged. On the contrary, terrorists throughout history have earned our approbation. If the young German named Stacz who tried to kill Napoleon, asks Heinsen, had succeeded and not been caught at the last minute, would not he be a world-famous figure today?”

Again you can hear a pin drop. I pace back and forth looking down at the floor tiles.

“Heinsen develops his theory further by arguing that the difference between state and individual terror is to the moral advantage of the latter. The state employs weapons of destruction that indiscriminately kill people by the hundreds, whereas the terrorist strikes only at a specified target. The moral contrast between an artillery shell and a pistol shot is entirely in the pistol shot’s favor.”

They’re bent over their notes. They’ll write down whatever I tell them.

“Indeed, a well-aimed pistol shot…”

I stand facing them. I raise one arm and make a pistol with my thumb and forefinger. The silence deepens.

“In those days care was still taken to avoid injuring the innocent bystander. When the final touches were being put to the planned assassination of Admiral Dubasov, the terrorist Vinarovsky declared: ‘If Dubasov’s wife is there with him, I won’t throw the bomb.’ Karl Heinsen makes his own position clear. You’ll read it for yourselves. Tomorrow the vacation begins and you’ll have plenty of time. I’ll return my copy of the book to the library.”

“But put it on the reserved shelf before it disappears too…”

The familiar ripple of laughter. Only the technicalities concern them. Their pettily practical souls.

“All right. But I want you to read two more selections in the anthology. One by Sergei Nichaev and the other by Morozov.”

I angrily write their names on the blackboard.

“Is that clear? Those two selections too, and I’m warning you that you’ll be tested on them. I’ve had enough of this monkey business. If you don’t read everything you’ll never understand the intellectual background of young Vera Zasulich, the daughter of aristocrats, who served two years in jail even before she decided that she was honor-bound to make Tarpov pay for his bestiality. She loaded her pistol, stuck it in her coat pocket, and gained admission to Tarpov’s suite on the pretext that she had an appointment with him…’’

The bell. At last. Father looks pale. He props his head on one hand while holding the valise on his knees with the other.

“She waited quietly in the vestibule outside his office. She knew him well — in fact, she had visited his house many times with her parents as a small girl. I’ve mentioned that she was of aristocratic stock, and relations among the terrorists between children of nobility and children of commoners were deep and fraught with consequences. As soon as he stepped out of his office surrounded by his assistants she rose and shot him in the chest. She didn’t kill him, though; he was only wounded. She made no attempt to escape. She threw her pistol on the floor and calmly let herself be arrested.”

Dina stops whispering. All eyes are on me in the sweetly deepening silence. They want adventure stories not history.

“The government did not try Zasulich before a regular court but rather before a special jury of magistrates that was appointed to give her sentence moral standing. To everyone’s amazement, however, this jury acquitted and freed her. And when afterwards the police sought to arrest her administratively in the street, a crowd of admirers rescued her from their hands. Eventually she illegally left Russia and became a leading figure among Russian revolutionary exiles abroad. Vera Zasulich’s pistol shot and dramatic acquittal paved the way for many more assassinations. A wave of terror swept over Russia. That same year Krabchinsky, a strange but talented man about whom we shall yet have much to say, laid still another tier in the growing edifice of terror with the publication of a small pamphlet entitled A Death for a Death.”

Father’s eyes shut. The valise almost slips off his knees. The door opens. The next class’s students are trying to get in.

He shuts his folder with a flourish. He takes out the cigarette prepared in advance and lights it with the ritual gesture that marks the end of the lesson. A cloud of smoke envelops him as the dry tension slowly eases. The students rise to go. Two of them ask him for the book. He hands it to them in silence, answering their questions distantly, laconically, almost brutally. He throws his papers and other books one by one into his briefcase, bristling as new students fill the room. Already I’m making my way out through the crowd bead down careful to touch no one passing without a glance by Dina who stands giggling by the door with two students. Neither do I look at father who leans uncertainly against the wall unable to find a place for his valise. Gingerly I lay my hand on him: “Come, we’ll be late.” And without looking back I hurry down the corridor and skip quickly down the stairs. He feels my anger as he hurries after me.

“I hope we didn’t disturb you,” he murmurs. “Dina insisted that we drop in to watch you teach. I myself didn’t want to…”

“It’s all right.”

He smells faintly of eau de cologne. What’s gotten into the man?

“You’re so intense that you scared me. But I’m glad to have seen you lecture. Marvelous! You’re a real orator. And with those dramatic hand gestures… I thought you were really going to shoot Bravo! Go on being tough with them. Give them exams. That’s the only way they’ll respect you. What was the subject of today’s lesson, terrorism? How interesting. Are you lecturing on that all year long?”

“No. The course is on late-nineteenth-century Russia.”

“Of course. That’s what your doctorate’s about.”

“No, it’s about the 1820s. I sent it to you… but I don’t suppose you ever looked at it…”

I weave in and out lightly fending off bodies like a submarine in a busy harbor.

“But I did. Of course I read it… that is, the parts that I could understand… it’s just that…”

Now he’s trying to stammer his way out of it. But then I didn’t hear a single word from him. We stand facing a strong dry wind in the plaza outside. Dina rushes to catch up with us. She clings to me hugging and kissing me for all the students to see.

“It was such a lovely class!”

“But you kept disturbing me.”

She giggles.

“He started up with me. It wasn’t my fault. He’s one of those eternal students. He was once even in a class of mine. But we talked in a whisper.”

“Forget it.” I take a step back from her. “Were your parents happy to see you?”

“At least now they’re sure that you weren’t immaculately conceived… even if you would have liked to be.”

Father laughs.

“I’m glad Dina made me go. It was a must. They were so happy to see me. It was a short but successful visit, wasn’t it, Dina? They’re very likable people.”

“That’s good, father, but we have to move. We have a long trip ahead of us.”

Again I feel the sting of the lost day. My precious time… and it almost Passover and the library soon to be closed…

“Yes, let’s go,” says Dina animatedly.

“You’re coming too?”

“Of course.”

“But how can you? Aren’t you going to work today?’’

“I’m taking the day off. I’m coming with you.”

My wife the playgirl.

“Absolutely not. There’s no reason for you to be there.”

“Then I’ll wait outside ”

“But what on earth for? I don’t get it. You haven’t gone to work for several days. In the end you’ll be fired, you do know that, don’t you?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

The selfishness to keep taking off from work and coming home at the end of the month with hardly any paycheck. If it weren’t for what we get from her parents…

“Then I’m coming.” She turns beseechingly to father who says nothing.

“You are not!”

“I haven’t seen your mother for so long.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to see her. She’s not going anywhere. And neither are you today.”

I squeeze her arm hard to show her I mean it. She has new little pimples on her face. Brackish blue eyes. Cheekbones that protrude as though about to puncture her thin skin. How did I ever get stuck with her? A stubborn Mongoloid child.

“Why don’t you go to work.”

She retracts her arm from me.

“I don’t want to. And you can’t make me.”

Father turns away smiling faintly half listening to our enjoyable little spat.

“Of course I can’t. Who can make you do anything? Come, father, we’ll be late.”

She stands there stunned flushed with rage. Students stare at us as they pass. Father lays a light hand on her.

“So we’ll see you on the holiday? You’ll come to say goodbye… we’ll be in touch…”

She doesn’t hear him though. Doesn’t look at him. She stares at me floored by my refusal.

“Then give me some money, Asa.”

“What for?”

“I need some.”

“But just yesterday…”

“It’s all gone.”

“Do you two need money?”

“No, father, it’s all right.’’ I take out my wallet and give her five hundred pounds.

“That’s all?”

“That’s all I have. I need some for myself.”

“If you two need money, say so.”

“Fine. I’ll go to the bank.”

“There’s none left there either.”

“He’ll give me some anyway.”

“Who?”

“The teller who brought me the cheese last night.”

All at once she bursts out laughing gaily. Warmly she throws herself on father’s neck then shakes my hand stiffly and disappears among the students.

“Very simple people. I was in their grocery store. Straight out of a nineteenth-century Hebrew novel, with a barrel of pickled fish by the door. A genuinely literary grocery! A most depressing one too. And they’re very religious, even if her father doesn’t grow long sidelocks. Very religious, I tell you: I have a sixth sense for that sort of thing and I could feel it right away. In fact, in no time they were telling me that they belong to a small sect of Hungarian Hasidim with some very old rabbi whom they consult about everything and who tells them just what to do and think. Were you aware of that? You too, my dear Dr. Kaminka, are in his hands. You too are being manipulated by him by means of some hidden string, heh heh…”

(Why is he carrying on like this?)

“Is this our bus? The express to Haifa? You’d better make sure…. Let me pay for us. It’s frightful that I still haven’t gotten to the bank to change dollars….All right, then, I’ll pay you back in Haifa. The main thing is to be in the station there by one o’clock. Ya’el and Kedmi will be waiting for us…. It makes no difference to me, you can sit by the window…. What I’ve been asking myself since my fascinating visit with your in-laws this morning is whether you knew what you were getting into or whether you simply saw a pretty young thing at the university and didn’t bother to ask what she came with. What a hodgepodge world it’s become! Twenty years ago a young girl from such a family would never have left the streets of her neighborhood; she would have gone about so muffled up in long dresses that you wouldn’t have bothered to look twice at her in the street. But today there are such astonishing leaps and transitions… the barriers have all come down. A total chaos. Just look what an anarchist like you has gotten involved with! But I suppose you manage to get along with them… leave it to you. From the time you were in nursery school you always had the knack of getting along. Asa knows how to minimize conflict, mother and I used to say to each other…. When is this bus going to leave? I’m glad I went to see them, they would have been hurt if I hadn’t. I really don’t understand why you were so against it. After all, we got back in perfectly good time. Your Dina can be a bit childish, and I’m happy you didn’t let her join us for the drama that’s in store for us today. You saw that I kept out of it. But this morning she was right. Why should you have been angry? After all, I did it for your sake too. I really don’t follow you there. Are you ashamed of them? They may be simple folk, but they’re certainly decent ones. And your own father is no model of perfection either, heh heh…”

(He’s got this new way of laughing. Almost reedy. What’s come over him?)

“Well, someday they’ll be gone, and you’ll be left with a wife who ten years from now will be a notorious beauty. I’ve noticed how people stare at her… right now she’s still half-baked, but give her a few years’ time. She’ll open a lot of doors for you… your father has some knowledge of these things…”

(Did he really wink at me? How revolting!)

“Of course, we talked about you too. They’re very fond of you. Maybe fond isn’t the word, but they do respect you, perhaps even fear you a bit. And her they absolutely adore. If you treat her like a little girl, they still treat her like a baby, waiting on her hand and foot, thrilled with every step and bite of food that she takes. I’m glad you don’t live any nearer to them — if you did they’d crawl into bed with you at night from sheer concern and devotion…. Perhaps if you gave them a grandchild they might bother you less. Take my advice, think it over. I know how you value your time, but it’s still worth considering. She doesn’t really have a steady job anyway… so why not let her raise a child and write her poems? They alluded to it a few times themselves, trying to get me on their side. I suppose you must hear it all the time from them. Perhaps their rabbi is after them, heh heh… and yet they’re good, simple people. We must seem like freaks to them. I saw how they kept looking at me, and I couldn’t help wondering whether they knew the whole story about mother or whether you had spared them the gory details…. Don’t think they’re not in awe of you, though. You can consider yourself lucky that they didn’t come to hear you lecture about that young Miss Zasulevich whom you described so vividly, as though she were a friend of yours…

“Zasulich, right, excuse me. Zasulich? What really could she have been like? Most likely simply another one of your disturbed young persons — after all, you yourself said that that general was a friend of her parents. To go and shoot him just because of something she had read… oh no, you can’t convince me that it was a matter of ideology. What I look for in such cases is always the personal angle, and I wish my historian friends would get off their high horses and look for it too. Connie has taught me to pay more attention to the psychological fine points, and believe me, it’s as though a curtain had gone up on my world. But to do that you’d have to read in the original… in Russian…”

“I’m studying it now.”

“Are you! I’m glad to hear that. I’m sorry I don’t live close enough to help with it…. What was that?”

“What?”

“Those metal things sticking up back there.”

“It’s an air force memorial.”

“A new one?’

“No. It was there in your time too.”

“I’ve never noticed it before.”

“How often were you ever in Jerusalem?”

“That’s so. Those last years I was hardly there. I was imprisoned with her in the house. Every time I went out was a production. But you’ve forgotten all that, and now you blame me for trying to salvage what’s still left of my life…. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“I know. I heard you tossing in bed. Why don’t you close your eyes? I promise you I’ll shut up…”

“You don’t have to. I’ll never sleep on this bus.”

“You’re driving yourself too hard… deliberately… I could see it in your class. You’re so intense, like a bowstring… you’ll burn out quickly, old man. And where did you get all that pathos from? Is it really from me? Certainly not the power of it, though… and you’ve chosen such gloomy subjects. Although you do have a talent for making things seem important. Even when you were a tot you’d come home from school and have the whole family breathless with some account of a cat or a fly that you’d seen on your way…. Where are we now? What happened to the Trappist monastery that used to be here? Or am I completely confused?”

“We’re on a new bypass now.”

“Ah, yes, the famous new road. I read about it. There was even some picture in the paper of the ceremony when the Prime Minister or the President cut the ribbon. Zionism isn’t dead yet if we still hold such pageants for a few kilometers of paved road.”

“You were on it yesterday too.”

“I didn’t notice. I’ve no head for landscape, old fellow. I hardly know where I am yet, though I’ve been here four days. Ail right, the first day I slept right through, I was simply dead on my feet. Day Two I waited for Kedmi, who insisted on going alone to the hospital and came back empty-handed. Yesterday I spent with you, and today I’m going back again. God only knows what she’s cooked up for us. I don’t trust anyone anymore. And I was so sure that it would only be a matter of a day or two, the signatures, the divorce ceremony, everything, and that I’d be free to spend some time with you afterwards, to see old friends, to look for books. Everything was supposed to be settled. All those letters back and forth, the long-distance phone calls… Kedmi drove me crazy with the tiniest details, he’d call me about them in the middle of the night — collect, of course. He enjoyed torturing me…. What’s that over there?”

“I don’t know. What? That forest?”

“No, over there.”

“It’s just some little army camp.”

“Do you think you could close your window a bit? It’s terribly windy outside. Don’t tell me it’s raining again!”

“I can’t tell ”

“Ya’el told me that there hasn’t been a winter like this here for years. I know you’re angry at me for dragging you up there today. You’ve always made people feel that your time is a valuable commodity. Never mind, though: you can lose a day of your life for your father’s sake — and for your mother’s too. Believe me, it’s also for her. So you’ll get your professorship one day later….I simply couldn’t bear the thought of having to face her all by myself. And Ya’el is immobilized whenever the two of us start to quarrel. If only Tsvi had been willing to come. But he wasn’t…. Well, it doesn’t matter. You haven’t seen her for so long that you owe her a visit anyway. Kedmi claims that he’s seen more of her these past few years than you and Tsvi put together. And even if he’s exaggerating as usual, we can’t let ourselves be talked about like that. People will say that we’ve thrown her to the dogs. After all, Tsvi was always close to her, and you should visit her too now and then even if it is far away. Where are we turning off to now?”

“To the airport. From there we take the Petah Tiqva road.”

“Ah, I see. And this four-lane highway continues to Tel Aviv?”

“Yes.”

“Tel Aviv is the place I miss most, and in four days this is the closest that I’ve gotten to it. The humidity… the sea smells… the broad sidewalks with the café tables already set out on them in early afternoon… Jews who visit this country always talk up Jerusalem and run down Tel Aviv — and I let them. Just try telling them that Zionism began with men who left Jerusalem for the coastal swamps. Who can appreciate that today? Jerusalem, Jerusalem, it’s a regular cult….I want you to do the talking for me there. Explain to her that it’s all finished- Talk about freedom, human values. Your moral judgments always counted a great deal with her. Be gentle but firm in that imposing way that you have…. After all, you’re on my side, we see eye to eye. Ya’el gets too emotional, that’s why it’s best for her not to talk. I won’t say any more than I have to either. Because once I start, everything will flare up… I’ll keep my mouth shut, you’ll see…’’

(Then why don’t you start now?)

“Don’t say anything about another woman or a baby. Don’t talk about the past or even about me. Talk about principles. I’m glad Tsvi isn’t with us… God only knows what he thinks. Kedmi can stay out of it too, there’s no need for him. The four of us will sit and talk quietly… it’s all up to you. What will you say, have you decided?”

“More or less.”

“We’ll hear her out first, and then we’ll do some explaining. I want you to know, though, that I’m not at all dependent on her. She’s the one who will have problems if she doesn’t agree. I’ll manage, there are all kinds of ways… if necessary, the child can be legally adopted by me. Don’t let her feel that I need her… it will only bring out the cruelty in her. She still can’t accept the fact that I’m no longer under her thumb. Talk about principles in that logical way you’re so good at… unsentimentally, as though it were a lecture to your students. I’m counting on you…. Isn’t there going to be a rest stop?”

“No.”

“Once they used to stop at some diner on this trip.”

“There’s no point in it anymore. The whole ride barely takes two hours now.”

“You look so pale.”

“I’m just tired.”

“Then why don’t you try to sleep? You can rest your head here, I’ll squeeze over.”

“No, I can’t sleep on buses.”

“That’s because you’re afraid of losing control.”

“Where did you get that idea from? You’ve suddenly become this big psychologist”

“I’m afraid to fall asleep when I travel too. But never mind. I’ve been meaning to ask you: do you have enough money?”

“For what?”

“In general. I’ve noticed that you worry about money a lot. If you’re hard-pressed, let me know. I’ll scrape up something over there and send it.”

“Hard-pressed? Whatever made you think…?”

“All right, all right, don’t be upset. I really enjoyed my stay with you. I’m sorry it had to be so short…. What are you working on these days, tell me. I apologize for not responding when you sent me your doctorate. I was actually very proud of it. After all, that’s something I dreamed of myself and never managed to achieve…”

“I didn’t expect you to read it. I just wanted you to have a copy. I knew it wouldn’t interest you.”

“No, I should have responded. I should have made the effort to understand at least part of it. Not that I didn’t thumb through it I even read that poem of Pushkin’s that you quote… it’s a good one… but my mind was somewhere else.”

(It always is. That’s why he’s never gotten anywhere.)

“Never mind.”

“But I do mind. When I get back I’ll read it and write you what I think.”

“Don’t bother. Really, father. It will bore you.”

“I’ll do it for my own sake. What are you working on now, those Russian terrorists?”

“No. That was just today’s lesson.”

“What then?”

“It wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

“Try me anyway.”

“On the question of historical necessity. On the possibility of shortcutting historical processes. Something having to do with the nineteenth century. A kind of a model.”

“But that’s very interesting. Why wouldn’t it mean anything to me?”

“Because it involves a controversy about theories that you know nothing about.”

“You and your controversies. You waste too much energy arguing with everyone.”

“I had a good teacher to learn from.”

“Maybe I once did let myself be goaded against my better nature… but it happens less often now. I’m more on my guard. Connie… well, never mind. Shortcutting history? Can it be done?”

“It can.”

“For example?”

“Not now, father. Not on this bus.”

“Right you are. But this, Asa, you must send me to read. Do you promise?”

“All right.”

“After all, how can I allow myself not to know what you’re doing, even if I am so far away? I’m sure to understand parts of it…”

“Parts of it, certainly.”

“I myself, you’ll be surprised to hear, am in a very productive period. I’m constantly doing new things. I have my little linguistic projects… it’s very peaceful there… and in the winter you can’t go out anyhow. And recently — I’ll let you in on a secret — I’ve been writing this… these memoirs… maybe one day they’ll turn into a…”

“Novel? I always thought you’d write one someday.”

“Why shouldn’t I try? There’s no need to be so scornful.” “Who’s being scornful?”

“You are. You keep parading this intellectual scorn for me.”

“I was never intellectually scornful of you.”

“But I keep feeling it. Well, it doesn’t matter. You’re like a small boy, angry because I’ve left you…”

“Since when? You’re totally mistaken.”

“But I’ll return. You may not believe me, but I’ll return to live here someday.”

“I never said you wouldn’t.”

“I keep feeling that you’re judging me.”

“I’m not.”

“For all it mattered to you, I could have stayed locked up with her in that house until I died. Just as long as I didn’t bother you.”

“Did I ever tell you to stay there?”

“If I had stayed, could I ever have hoped for such a relationship with a woman… for such an intellectual renaissance? Tell me… when I see your angry looks… why, you would gladly have seen me taken away and locked up there with her!..What’s this, already the new road to Haifa?”

“It’s the old road. The inland route.”

“But it’s so wide. It looks new too.”

“They’ve widened it.”

“How soft and lovely everything seems… these orange groves on either side… it’s a beautiful country, we should be kinder to it… But where was I? Enough, let’s change the subject…”

(Now! I can feel it coming over me. Right smack in his puss.)

“Did you tell Dina that mother tried attacking you?”

“Murdering me, not just attacking. You know perfectly well… please…”

“You know that’s not so.”

“What are you talking about? How can you keep insisting?…Tsvi saw me lying there in my own blood…”

“All right, forget it. Don’t let’s start with that again. So she wanted to murder you. Why did you tell her yesterday…?”

“I just mentioned it in passing. What was wrong with that? So she’d understand why I didn’t come to your wedding. I owed her that much of an explanation.”

“Did you also owe it to her to open your shirt and show her your scar?”

“I don’t remember showing her… did you say that I opened my shirt? How can that be… is that really what she told you? Perhaps I just outlined it with my hand. She really said that? But you know what she’s like. Terribly childish, she lives in fantasies… or call it the literary imagination… and even if I did show her, so what? I suppose she thought it was a big joke.”

“No.”

“Then what did I do wrong? For better or worse she’s one of us now. Let her know. It’s not something that can be kept hidden. Why must you keep feeling ashamed?”

“I’m not ashamed. I just want you to know that if I feel scorn, it’s for that. It’s not intellectual. I never looked down on you intellectually. On the contrary, I learned a great deal from you. You were a teacher too, and I’ve followed in your footsteps, although in a somewhat different field. But this sentimentality of yours… this uncontrollable need to talk… without the slightest sense of discrimination…”

“Where are we turning now?”

“I don’t know. Why are you so worried about the bus?”

“I don’t want to be late. Are you sure he’s going straight to Haifa?”

“Of course.”

“But that’s how I am. That’s my nature. Take me or leave me, as the Americans say. It’s my nature to be frank.”

“Don’t be absurd. Frankness has nothing to do with it. Nobody asked you about it. Don’t you see why I didn’t want you to visit her parents? I was afraid you’d start telling them everything, that you’d stand there and open your shirt…”

“Did you really think I was capable…?”

“Why not? Recently you’ve proven yourself capable of astounding things.”

“That’s Connie. It’s she who gave me new hope. It’s she who saw the potential still in me when I came there a beaten, desperate man… who restored my faith to me. I’d like so much for you to meet her. You’d understand me much better if you did. It would be wonderful if you and Dina could come spend some time with us… if you could see our little Jew-child when it’s born… what a miracle! I still haven’t told you everything… I have grand plans for you… it’s just that… Look, there’s the ocean at last! It will be a chance for you to get out into the world… I’ll arrange something for you at the university… how is your English? You can lecture about your terrorists, or about Judaism and Jewish history — that’s a hot item there now, and they pay well. We’ll live together for a while…. Could you open the window a bit or is it too windy? I’m suddenly gagging… I feel nauseous… you’ve really done a job on me… squelched me completely… you don’t know the meaning of compassion… why can’t you understand what I’ve been going through?”

“That’s enough, father. Never mind. Let’s drop it for now. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. I’ll try to sleep too.”

And the pale young man so rudely plucked from his work — that thinker of never-before-thought thoughts that were to astound the few intellects of his age that could grasp them — that man shut his eyes. He sat with his head thrown back in the speeding bus that drove one dull spring day through hot dusty winds toward the ridges of the Carmel and the bay that looped at their feet, passed on the left by soundless cars whose drivers, sprawled limply at their black wheels, had not the slightest inkling who it was they had passed sitting at the window by his father, that blurred, concupiscent figure of a man now wiping away tears whose traces too would be stalked one hundred years from now by an eager young biographer, who — if he meant to do the job property — would have to travel all the way to Minneapolis and burrow there through old papers to determine what, if any, had been the paternal influence on that world-shaking, seminal mind. He curled up in his seat, savagely kneading his own silence, upgrading raw libido into intellectual power, contemplating space rushing by upon the face of the historical time that meandered within him. Flowing past borders, shooting white water, navigating the hydra-headed river, crossing the alluvial swamp in the midst of dead cosmic time, there he would find the bottom, the true bed in which it all flowed. The time had come to make order, to gather the defiant facts into one grand system, to bare the underlying laws, the sudden cascades, the disappointing channels that blindly petered out only to burst forth unexpectedly again, the missed, the impossible opportunities.

To understand the pulsing shuttle of the historical grid: with that he was to begin the first of his series of essays, which, appearing one by one at regular intervals, were eagerly snatched up by his few mental compeers… The theoretical approach to history and its laws is still alive. No doubt it has suffered a severe setback in the course of this century, in which certain malignant phenomena in the human organism have revived absurdly chaotic ideologies of a mythical, religious or fatalistic nature that exist side by side with the most banal sociological generalities. Yet the historical process itself has continued; it is inherent in human behavior and has its own laws that render it both predictable and quantifiable. It moves irreversibly forward, never revolving in place, though increasingly complex and tortuous attempts to shortcut it have frequently blurred its clear course. Is it possible to construct a reliable and measurable method that will account for the success or failure of such shortcuts, which are the essence of practical politics, within the readily discernible outlines of the historical process itself? Are even the most chimerical attempts to oppose or circumvent this process governed by laws of their own? In this series of essays I shall attempt to build and verify such a model based on a study of the history of the nineteenth century taken as one homogeneous unit. Undeniably I have taken upon myself a highly ambitious task…

We were exhausted when we got off the bus in Haifa. Father stumbled going down the stairs and had to shut his eyes and lean against one of the big concrete columns of the terminal. I took his valise and he walked slowly on, head down and arms dangling, through the dark wide passageways that echoed with the screeches of the buses. All at once Kedmi popped out of some exit.

“It’s about time! What happened to you? I was about to try the lost-and-found department. The two of you look as depressed as though you’d just landed on the moon.’’

Father looked right through him. He glanced about, then left us without a word and crossed the passageway to the men’s room. Kedmi winked jovially.

“This is his big day. Believe me, though, he never should have come. All I needed was one more time alone with your mother to get her to finish thinking. But who can stand up to you all? Come, there’s another Kaminka-and-a-half eagerly awaiting you.”

He took me to a corner table in the cafeteria. Once again I was struck by the sheer size of Gaddi, who sat there with a big shiny bright toy locomotive. I smiled at him and mussed his hair. He didn’t smile back.

“We’re old phone pals, aren’t we, Gaddi?”

He nodded.

Ya’el sat hunched, soft and pensive, in a big gray windbreaker, her smooth, unlined face looking broader than ever. I dropped into a chair by her side. Should I kiss her? She made a face, then shut her eyes, put her arms around my head, and kissed me. Her so feminine skin.

“Who’s looking after the baby?”

“Kedmi’s mother,” answered Kedmi with a twinkle.

“Dina couldn’t come with you today?”

“No. And it wouldn’t have been a good idea.”

“I don’t suppose it would have. How is she? I haven’t seen her for so long.”

“The same. She’s still working on and off at the same place.”

Kedmi chuckled abruptly at a joke he’d just told himself. Ya’el smiled nebulously. She started to say something but Kedmi beat her to it.

“You’d better hustle, Asa, if you want to eat something. The train is leaving soon. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

“The train? What train?”

“Surprisingly enough”—he laughed—“there is one. And you’re going to Acre on it. Relax. I promised Gaddi. It will be an experience for you too. The station in Acre is near the rabbinate building. From there you’ll take a cab to the hospital, and I’ll pick you up at five. It’s been all decided. I’ve got to run to see my murderer now. I still have to earn a little money here and there, your father hasn’t put me on a retainer yet…”

Through the plate glass I saw father come out of the men’s room. He halted confusedly, then headed in the wrong direction. Kedmi grinned and roused Gaddi. “Go get your grandpa before we lose him.”

“What’s with him?” asked Ya’el. “How was his visit with you?”

“Fine. He actually seemed in good spirits.”

“Yes. He seems happy.”

Gaddi ran up to father and poked him in the back. Father bent and hugged him warmly, then picked him up and kissed him with an emotion that surprised me. The toy looked excited too and kept pointing at the locomotive that he held. They returned to us with their arms around each other. Ya’el got up to hug father. His face was wet, his hair damp. There was a faint smell of vomit about him.

“I didn’t feel good. I don’t know what happened to me all of a sudden.”

“It was your fear,” blurted Kedmi without looking at him.

“Fear of what?”

“Never mind…”

A nauseating man with a nauseating sense of humor.

Father made a move to sit down but Kedmi began giving him orders too.

“Go eat something. It won’t help any to be hungry.”

“Sit, father,” I said. “I’ll bring you something. What would you like?”

“Just tea and cake or something. But wait a minute…”

He reached for his wallet and took out some dollar bills.

“I don’t need them,” I said.

Kedmi hovered jocularly around us. “You still haven’t changed your dollars, eh, Yehuda? You’re a rational man, you know a dollar changed tomorrow is worth two changed today…”

Father interrupted him short-temperedly. “Where is there a bank around here?”

“Not now… not now…’’ we all exclaimed together.

“But I have to. I must.”

“Come here, I’ll change them for you. How much do you want?”

Father gave Kedmi a hundred-dollar bill. Kedmi held it up to the light, grinning impishly. “There are counterfeits making the rounds.” He picked up a newspaper to check the exchange rate and showed it to father.

“Fine, whatever you say,” mumbled father with loathing.

I went to get lunch and returned with it. I said nothing, watching them remotely from some tenuous, still point inside me. Gaddi stared at the loaded tray that I’d brought. Father forced some pound notes on me. Kedmi grinned. Ya’el kept her eyes silently on father. Where is Dina now? People came and went. Dishes clattered. Jerusalem seemed a world away. The morning’s lesson. Kedmi scurried about, conversing with people, scanning newspapers. At one point he furtively slipped me some document. “If you can catch her between the acts, see if you can’t gently get her to sign this. It’s a copy of the agreement that I gave her. If you don’t stay cool, who will?”

I said nothing.

At two o’clock we were standing by the train. Kedmi put us aboard as though we were luggage, finding us our seats, buying us our tickets. He’d put father’s valise in his car and given him a yellow cardboard file holder which said Chief Rabbinate on it. There was nothing he hadn’t made his business in his revoltingly jovial way. How did the two of them live together? But Ya’el was her usual patient, passive self, thoroughly held in check, always ready to give in, to let him poke his nose everywhere, even go through her purse.

“Why do you all look so alarmed?” he called to us from the platform. “Don’t worry. It’s an honest-to-goodness train. It will be an experience. I’ll come to get you at five, five-thirty. Gaddi, don’t forget your locomotive on the train. And ask your uncle to show you around it.”

He waved at us and departed, leaving us out of time in the still, empty train. A hell of an experience to have to go through for the boy’s sake. What was I doing here? I wondered. I felt paralyzed, dog-tired. I watched Ya’el open a large plastic bag and take out a big blue woolen shawl and a flowery robe to give father to give mother as presents. He accepted them gratefully, and together they removed the Israeli labels. Slowly the train began to move. It crept along through the freight yards of the port, among cranes, past ugly factories, warehouses and grim garages, stopping for no reason and starting up again, nearing some blocks; of public housing. Father was restless. He chain-smoked, asked about relatives, sighed, combed his hair. “I won’t say a word there,” he promised again. “I’ll let you do the talking. Asa will go first.” He opened the cardboard file holder that Kedmi had given him and studied its contents.

I took Gaddi for a tour of the train. We walked to the last car and, from a rattling passage by the rear window, watched the unweeded rails slowly receding. The boy stood silently by me, a softer edition of Kedmi but terribly earnest, the locomotive still in one hand and the other on his chest. He stood glued to the window. I took out the document that Kedmi had given me and leafed through it. Their divorce agreement. Brutal legal phraseology spelled here and there by sentimental cliches. The last page enumerated the joint property to be divided. With what perverse pleasure Kedmi had listed all the furniture, inventoried everything, estimated its value down to the last cent. I shook with anger. Where is Dina now? What am I going to do with her?

It took us a ridiculous hour to reach Acre. At the station we found a taxi and drove to the rabbinate building in the walled seaport, not far from the old citadel. “Here you’ll leave it to me,’’ announced father with a sudden show of firmness. “It won’t take me long.” And so we waited in the taxi, bus stops and felafel stands around us, old stones from the citadel piled on the curb. The driver got out to clean the windshield. Gaddi drove his locomotive back and forth in the front seat. Ya’el sat huddled next to me with a guilty look on her face. Does she ever actually think? Think, Ya’el, think, we used to beg her whenever she would suddenly go blank.

“You know… he’s going to have a baby over there… with that woman…’’

“Yes. He told me.”

“Have you told Tsvi?”

“He knows.”

“What did he say?”

“He just laughed.”

“He did? Why didn’t he come with us today? I phoned him last night but got no answer.”

“I spoke to him.”

“Why didn’t he come with us?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want them to get divorced. He likes having their apartment…” She didn’t finish the thought. But it was Kedmi’s anyway, not hers.

“Is that what he said?”

“No. All he said was that he didn’t like hospitals.”

“I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept tossing in bed. That baby slays me…. Who would have thought it of him?”

She didn’t understand, though. Her eyes grew large with wonder.

“What makes you say that?”

I shook with anger again. My lost time. I missed Jerusalem as though it were years since I had last seen it. Father was taking his time. The driver had gone to sit in a nearby café. I glanced at the vaults of the citadel, at a strip of sea on the horizon. I opened the car door.

“Come on, Gaddi. I’ll show you something.”

We strode along the seawall until we came to some steps that zigzagged down to a recessed apse at one end of it. A dry, gray day, with a hot desert wind from the east. The U-shaped bay was a blur, the Carmel range a purple mass. I grasped Gaddi’s fat hand to keep him from slipping on the guttered stones, the locomotive still under his arm, explaining to him what we saw and showing him the hills across the water where he lived, although he preferred looking at a column of flame rising from the oil refinery on the bay to flicker in the foul wind.

1799. From a hillock nearby Napoleon gazed down on these walls, reached out his hand to them. Had he wished to take them or merely to comprehend, to palpate the pulsebeat of history with his sensitive touch? And then he retreated. This was not the place. Never mind. It was through this trivial defeat that he came to know himself, his true powers, the mission entrusted him. That he found the necessary point of connection. The last years of the eighteenth century were where I must begin.

I wanted to he myself again but could not. The boy was in the way. Scrutinizing me. My trampled time, my papers left by my books. In far, clear Jerusalem. Clear thought. Hard light. Dina in its streets, free with our money, free with strange men. And you, stranded high and dry here.

We descended the wall. Ya’el was; still in the taxi, eyes shut, arms folded on her chest. The driver looked at us.

“Father isn’t back yet? What’s going on in there!”

I climbed the steps of the rabbinate building. A large, long hallway with narrow doors. From somewhere came a sound of muffled sobs. Father’s? In a fit I opened one of the doors. A dark young woman sat at a bare desk in a room that made the sobs resound like a weird echo chamber. She rose to speak to me as though I were an office clerk, but I beat a hasty retreat, letting go of the door, which slammed behind me. At the end of the corridor, through another door, I saw father’s head beneath a black skullcap. Two young, dark-bearded rabbis sat on either side of him, evidently explaining something to him while he nodded his agreement. I collapsed onto a bench in the hallway, my head in my hands. An endless day. Two black-suited men climbed the stairs with a folded stretcher, threw it on the floor at my feet, and continued up another flight. At last father emerged, seen out by the rabbis, to whom he hadn’t stopped nodding. He bowed his head and shook their hands with submissive gratitude. “Everything will be all right, Professor Kaminka,” they assured him. I rose quickly and started down the stairs with him hurrying after me while removing the skullcap and sticking it into his pocket.

“Really, they’re being most considerate. They’ll bring the rabbinical court to the hospital. They’ll arrange it with the management, even though it’s Passover eve.”

The exit below was blocked by the yawning doors of a hearse.

With an angry movement I slammed them shut. It was already half past three. We were late. The taxi drove to the hospital and left us at the front gate. Suddenly I had second thoughts: shouldn’t Gaddi wait for us outside? But father insisted.

“Why shouldn’t he come? She’ll be happy to see him. He’s a big boy already and can understand.”

Did he want him there to be a buffer? We started down the paved path among the lawns and cottages, the sea glinting beyond them, the strong dry wind at our backs. My last visit here was late last autumn. I had lectured to some history teachers at a local regional high school and stopped off to see her on my way back. It was dusk when I arrived. She was thrilled by my unexpected appearance. She was as lucid as could be, hardly talked about herself, wanted only to hear about me, even asked about the lecture I had given. I felt that she knew what was going on in my mind, in my life. I had already been told of her unforeseen improvement, which hadn’t surprised me at all, because I had never really believed in her illness. When it began to get dark she suggested that I stay the night and even went to see if there was a room, but I was in a hurry to get back to Jerusalem. In the end she walked me in the darkness to the gate. Horatio ran wide circles around us, coming back to us each time to sniff our footprints, lick my shoes, tug at their laces with his teeth. And she walked by my side, heavy but erect, stopping now and then to look at me, wanting something from me that I never could give. We didn’t argue or quarrel even once. She was unusually tender, thoughtful, uncomplaining, unaccusing. We were standing by the gate when she first told me that she had been getting mail from father. She took out a rustling packet of envelopes from her handbag and showed them to me without letting me hold them. What does he want? I asked anxiously. A divorce, she said. A weak light shone from the gatekeeper’s hut. The dog passed under the barrier and stood in the middle of the road with his ears back and his tail wagging softly, drawn bow-like by the sounds of the night, the white fields of cotton, a distant bark. Now and then he glanced our way as though following our conversation from afar.

I began talking in favor of it, enthusiastically even. It’s high time. It should have been done long ago, you’ve just enmeshed each other more and more. She heard me out in silence, her profile turned to me, until she interrupted coldly:

“But he didn’t want to.”

“When didn’t he?”

“Years ago. Before you were born. I begged him. He didn’t want to. There are things you don’t know. He wouldn’t let me go.”

“But when?”

“There are things you don’t know. You wouldn’t believe how he clung to me.”

“But you yourself say that now…’’

“We shall see. Now be on your way.” She was discounting me, dismissing me. “You’ll never get to Jerusalem tonight like this.”

And I left her, walking down the empty road in the dark. Horatio set out at a lope next to me, turned suddenly around to look for mother, and rejoined me once more. Finally he stood halfway between us in the middle of the road, emitting a long angry howl until he was gone in the night.

And now the four of us were going to see her, a family delegation to this hospital that was once a World War II British army base. Gaddi gripped father’s hand, Ya’el went ahead, and I brought up the rear with my briefcase. Again the urge to he myself and again the need to forgo it. He. What is a he? And what was the collective consciousness of the four of us, did it add up to a single whole? Gaddi’s terror combined with his curiosity to see the forbidden he had barely even heard talked of, Ya’el’s sadness, father’s apprehension, the pain in store for him, his hopes and his fears — and I, feeling only anger at their pointless mulishness and the desire to tell them both off, to expose them, to pillory them, to have done with it, mourning my wasted day. I quickened my pace. Suddenly the paths around us were full of people. Patients and visitors spilled out of the cottages, nurses bearing trays crossed the old lawns still frost-burned from the hard winter, all slightly doubled over in the wind. A shrunken little yellow sun peered through the haze. Will I someday remember this moment, will it have any meaning? Can it be maintained as something tangibly, necessarily alive or must it shrivel too with the dead husk of time?

And then all at once there was a howling shriek as though a tramcar were flying through the branches, something galumphed through the air, someone screamed, the people in front of us scrambled out of the way, someone fell, someone shouted with laughter — and out from the bushes he charged, throwing himself upon us, his torn chain dragging behind him, whining, howling, first jumping on Ya’el and then quitting her, next sinking down at my feet to bite my shoes, then running into Gaddi, bowling him over on the grass, licking him and romping on again, at last spying father and sprawling all over him, pawing his face, clasping him, slobbering on him with choked whimpers, spattering him with mud, rattling the chain still wound around him. Father lost his footing and fell to his knees, white-faced and startled, but only when he screamed did I realize that he didn’t know it was Horatio. He had completely forgotten his own dog, who had now streaked so suddenly back into his life and begun to writhe in a demonic dance, circling tightly around him on the pavement where he sat with his arms shielding his face, sprawling on him again like a thing possessed, yipping in a throttled falsetto as though trying to force out a bark that was stuck in the throat.

I rushed over to them. “It’s Horatio, father! It’s just Horatio. Don’t be afraid.”

Ya’el ran to pick up Gaddi, who was too bewildered to cry, and the locomotive that had gone flying on the lawn.

“This is ’Ratio?” Father was stunned, disheveled, covered with mud. “’Ratio? He’s here?”

Father had always called him ’Ratio.

He rose and tried grabbing the uncontrollable dog by its head, as though struggling to make out his once-beloved pet in this mangy old beast.

“Down, Horatio!” I tried calming him. “Down…”

Just then we glanced up and saw mother watching us in silence a few steps away. Her hair was loose, her face was rouged, and she wore a long brown dress. In one hand she held the other half of the tom chain. The wild look of her shocked me, the glare in her eyes, the splotches of makeup on her tanned cheeks. It was twenty minutes to four. Had she had a relapse? Silently she watched father struggling with the dog.

“He’s here? He’s alive?” He laughed, still in a daze. “Didn’t you write me that he’d died long ago?” he asked mother.

“Who did?”

“I had already mourned for him… I was sure he was long dead…” He gripped the hairy head that nuzzled in his lap.

“He was sure that you were dead too.”

They kept their distance, she solidly planted where she stood, a wrinkled old nurse in a blue uniform behind her. Her answer, though clear, did not bode well, I thought.

Ya’el kissed her and led Gaddi to her. She bent and hugged him feelingly.

“Gaddi… darling Gaddi… do you know who I am? Do you remember? And where is your little sister”—she fumbled in her pocket, took out a slip of paper and read from it—“Rakefet?”

Still whining, the dog broke away from father and ran wagging to join the embraces. Gaddi clung to Ya’el, too frightened of Horatio to move, his face stained red from mother’s kisses.

“Don’t let him frighten you… he’s ours… when you were a baby and your mother left you with us, the two of you even played together…”

Gaddi looked unbelievingly at the huge animal, amazed at himself.

Then it was my turn to embrace her, bussing the air about her rouged cheeks, my head tilted skyward, eyes shut.

“Asa… at last a visit from you… in honor of your father…”

She hugged me powerfully.

“Where is your wife?”

“She couldn’t come. But she’ll be here on the holiday.”

“On Passover?”

“Yes.”

Now father finally stepped up to her, the dog tagging after him, his arms spread wide with Russian pathos.

“Mother… at last…”

Did he know what he was doing? Had he planned it this way or had the shock of events unnerved him? I cringed while he hugged her, pressing her to him, gathering in the strong erect woman, planting kisses on her face. “You look so well… there’s been a great change…” he murmured as though come for a reconciliation rather than a divorce. He even whispered something in her ear and laughed with tears in his eyes. Could he really be that shallow or did he have some ulterior motive? Mother froze in his arms, staring into space with dilated eyes, a hint of amusement on her lips.

Horatio gave a loud bark. At last he had gotten it out. Then father stepped back and mother introduced him to the wrinkled old nurse, who stood there without ceasing to smile. “I want you to meet Miriam… she’s my good angel… Miriam, this is my husband… the man from America…”

“Yes, I know. We’ve all been waiting for you.” The lines in her face reddened sharply as father turned to her and quickly embraced her too with the same somnambulistic zeal.

And indeed, to our horror, they were waiting for us. Much of the hospital already knew of our arrival. A crowd streamed toward mother’s cottage, men and women in bathrobes and pajamas swarmed around her, a young doctor stepped up to greet us. As we passed the row of beds inside someone even broke out into applause. Father went first, nodding to everyone, shaking the hands that were extended to him, that conducted him to mother’s bed, which was piled high with big white pillows. There he stood, declaring how moved he was until I thought I would go mad myself. The patients reached out to touch Gaddi and pat his head — one could see how he attracted them, they had probably not seen a child in ages. Then the doctor explained about the ward and its routine while father listened devoutly and the nurses pushed back the curious patients — one of whom, a little old fellow, kept elbowing forward again and interrupting the conversation with eager hand gestures. At last we all trooped outside, the crowd of patients still behind us, and were led to a small building that served as the hospital library. Some tables with chairs stood inside, on the largest of which, in the middle of the cracked concrete floor, was a white cloth set with an electric kettle and several white cups and saucers stamped Property of the Bureau of Public Health. Beside them was a big, yellowish, lopsided cake, very high on one side and totally caved in on the other, so that it formed a steep inclined plane at the base of which glittered a knife. A few of the patients tried following us in, but the nurses kept them clear of the doors. And again that skinny, rotten-toothed old fellow made the most fuss; he seemed very agitated and kept trying to catch father’s attention while pulling behind him a moronic-looking giant who carried a rake on one shoulder.

In the end they were all persuaded to leave. The door closed on us. We took off our coats and Horatio ran happily wagging his tail around the room. My eyes scanned the books that lined the walls but it was impossible to read their titles because they were all covered with the same brown wrapping paper. What a dump. We stood around the cake, eyeing it nervously as though it concealed some harsh message. “Mother baked it for you all by herself,” said the old nurse, as though apprising us of a major psychiatric feat. A silent, younger nurse poured tea into the cups while Horatio thrashed restlessly about among our legs. I tried grabbing him by the collar and dragging him outside, but he growled aggressively and shook free, trying to bite me.

“Let go of him!” mother cried.

The old nurse handed her the knife. She made a movement to wield it, then suddenly shrank back, stealing a quick glance at father and releasing it.

“No, you cut it,” she said.

Quickly the cake was sliced into thick heavy pieces and we sat down to eat. Horatio climbed on a chair too, climbed down again, still rattling his broken chain, and jumped once more on father, as if the years that had elapsed since their parting were now running amuck in him and giving him no peace. Father smiled, lifting a full, shaky cup to his mouth. Mother rose, went over to Horatio, gave him a quick hard slap with the chain, and pushed him beneath father’s chair. She threw him a slice of cake there, which he sniffed at suspiciously and licked a little without eating.

No one spoke, not even to utter the simplest, most ordinary words. The cake had struck us dumb. I tensed like a bowstring each time I heard a noise outside the door. The giant’s face appeared at the window, staring in at us. We drank the lukewarm tea and ate the half-raw cake, which was a mishmash of colors and tastes. The two nurses ate too, the younger one chewing away at her end of the table as though compelled by a strong inner code, yet not quite certain what she was ingesting. Like in some relentless ceremony that we were all called upon to perform. The cake turned to a sickening goo in my mouth. Mother fed Gaddi, who sat beside her, but did not eat herself.

“You don’t have to feed him, mother,” said Ya’el softly. But she didn’t hear. She went on tearing off pieces of cake with her fingers and cramming them into Gaddi’s mouth while the rays of the setting sun slanted sharply off her painted cheeks.

“What a wind there was today,” sighed father all of a sudden. “All the way from Jerusalem.”

He resumed chewing his cake. Mother regarded him thoughtfully before turning back to look at Gaddi’s mouth, which hung slightly open.

Where are you, Asa? In a little cottage, a library for the insane, an abstract thought deflected from its path, shanghaied from its desk, on which an old lamp casts its light on papers and books, a sole beacon shining in the dark. The irretrievably lost hours. If only they would die already! If only the two of them would die. Why can’t they understand? Their nightly quarrels, like two old children, all their cursing and shouting each time I came home from friends or the Scouts. Ya’el was married already. Tsvi was in the army. I would slip off to bed but they would follow me there, sit down on the blanket, pull it off me, anything to have a referee.

“Aren’t you eating your cake?”

“No, mother, I’m not hungry.”

Ya’el rolled her eyes at me.

“You don’t have to be hungry to eat a piece of cake. Or don’t you like it…?”

“I do. I’m just full. I mean…” I was only making things worse.

Silence. Horatio had calmed down. He stretched himself beneath father’s chair and started to nuzzle his penis, licking it vigorously. A dull yellowish light filled the room. Perhaps they were dead already and I was visiting them in the underworld. Dutifully, slowly, father and Ya’el chewed their cake. Gaddi was already having seconds.

“You’re not eating yourself,” said father gently. “Your cake is delicious.”

Mother didn’t answer.

The young nurse rose to collect the dishes, adroitly removing my plate with what was left on it.

“Would you like some more?” mother asked father.

He nodded, hoisted by his own petard. A new slice of cake appeared on his plate and he set to work chewing that too.

The young nurse placed the dishes on a tray. Someone opened the door for her. She stepped outside, where waiting hands snatched the tray, and returned at once. She pulled the cord from the socket in the wall, wound it around the electric kettle, and took that to the door too. And again she came right back. Meanwhile the old nurse was murmuring something to mother while wrapping the remains of the cake in an old towel. The young nurse opened the door again. Heads peered in, whispered laughter. They were waiting for the leftovers. The two nurses left and shut the door.

“Who are all those people outside, friends of yours?”

Mother smiled ironically. “Friends…”

Horatio crouched next to her, his head turned, his eyes shut, bald patches like burn scars in his mangy red fur. Father gazed at him and reached out to pet him.

“Has ’Ratio been here all along?”

“Since when is he ’Ratio?” we scolded. “His name is Horatio. You never could get it right.”

Father smiled. “’Ratio… Horatio…”

“Maybe you should take him back with you to America,” said mother abruptly.

Father laughed.

“I hear you’ve had a particularly hard winter this year. I’m glad I brought a coat with me. At first I didn’t plan to, since it would already be spring here, and spring here is as good as summer. But in the end I brought it, and it’s a good thing I did…”

(Bring himself, he meant.)

Ya’el rose without a sound and handed him the plastic bag that had been lying by his chair.

“Oh yes, I forgot. I brought you a present.” He took the bag and went over to her. “It’s something that I bought you…” But he couldn’t remember what it was. He opened the bag to take a peek. “I believe it’s a robe and a sweater.” He looked at Ya’el for confirmation. “Yes, a sweater.”

He pulled out the big wool shawl and spread it on his knees.

“A sweater?” Mother seemed very touched.

Ya’el took the shawl and draped it around her shoulders.

“The colors are perfect for you.”

Mother stood up. The two of them helped wrap her in the shawl.

I sat immobile in my chair, thinking what a dangerous thing this tenderness between them was. I glanced at Gaddi, who had not taken his eyes off the dog.

“It’s just the thing for you,” said father.

“Thank you. You needn’t have bothered… did I ask for a present? It’s really very warm…” She wiped away a tear. “Once I had a shawl like this years ago… exactly like this one… how did you find it again?” She removed it, searching for the missing label. “You shouldn’t have wasted so much money, Yehuda. Really, you shouldn’t have. Perhaps you should give it to someone else… to Asa…”

She made as though to give me the shawl.

But father wouldn’t hear of it.

“How can you say such a thing? You don’t know how happy it makes me to see you so calm. It’s a great change for the better. I would have brought you more, but I left in such a hurry…”

“A hurry?’’

“As soon as I received your letter… and then Kedmi told me…’’

“Oh”

They were beating around the bush. The afternoon light was fading in the room.

Mother sat down again. “So what’s new in America?”

“America?” Father lit a cigarette while he considered. “America is a big place. But nothing is new there. We had a long hard winter too.”

“Another one?”

“Another one.” He stood dangling his arms, not knowing what to do with them. Was he having an attack of idiocy or of cold feet?

“Are you still in that same place…?”

“Minneapolis.”

“But just where is it?”

“Up north.”

“Someday I’d like to see where it is on the map. Maybe Asa has a map in his briefcase…”

“No. I don’t.”

“Maybe there’s a map in one of those books.”

Ya’el was already on her feet, Homo dutifuliensis.

“I’ll show you where it is sometime, mother. On Passover I’ll bring an atlas.”

“It’s near the Canadian border,” explained father anxiously. “Not far from Canada. In the interior. Can you picture it?”

But she could not. Bracing herself, Ya’el threw a despairing glance at the shelves of books. The giant’s face peered in once more at the window. Someone, perhaps the old fellow, tried pulling him away. They could be heard quarreling. Father smiled, still groping for Horatio beneath his chair.

“I understand that the doctor says you can leave here soon. Ya’el told me that he’s very optimistic…”

There was no answer. Arms on her chest, mother watched Ya’el go through the books. She pointed to a corner of the room.

“There must be a map there. Asi’s sure to find it.”

To suddenly be in her damned clutches again. Hopelessly I rummaged through the books in the corner. Cheap novels. Instant biographies. Lifeless volumes bearing the imprint of the Cultural Division of the National Medical Insurance Plan. Ghost-written memoirs of ex-politicians distributed free of cost by their parties. No one spoke. With a smile of consternation father rose to look too. Nothing could proceed without a map. Finally I found a small one in a children’s encyclopedia. I showed it to her, reading out loud the place names near Minneapolis. She bent to get a closer look. Father stood by us, confirming what I read.

“Is it cold there?”

“Very.”

“Then you should move down here. Further south.” She laid a finger on Brazil.

Father smiled at us uncertainly. But to me it was clear: it was he who brought out the madness in her.

“No, mother. You’re already in Brazil.”

“Brazil?” she giggled embarrassedly. “I can’t see very well. Dear me, Brazil? My glasses broke last week and no one here seems able to fix them.”

She took out a folded handkerchief from the pocket of her dress, unrolled it, and showed us her glasses. One lens was shattered. Father took them from her solemnly, carefully, with deep concern.

“We’ll get them fixed right away,” he told Ya’el. “It’s something we must take care of.”

The shattered lens fell apart in his hands. He tried fitting it back together.

“It’s unimaginable to leave mother without glasses,” he repeated scoldingly, rewrapping them in the handkerchief and handing them to Ya’el. Mother watched him with that flickering smile of hers that I had always hated. It vanished when her eyes met mine. The only one in the family who ever stood up to her was me.

“Tell me about the winter there, Yehuda. The last time you were here you described the snow so nicely…”

“I did?”

“You don’t remember? I was very sick then. I don’t remember much, but your description of the snow… yes, that I do…”

He turned to us for help, glanced at the mass of faces in the window, looked at his watch, gave me a frightened look, reached for Gaddi, held him tight, stroked his hair: trying to fathom what it was that she wanted. On the table, where the kettle had been, lay some folded sheets of paper. No doubt Kedmi’s agreement. He started to pick it up, then stopped and sat down next to mother instead, moving his chair closer to her while beginning to tell her about the snow, glancing at us apologetically, failing to comprehend how he had fallen into such a trap. But he had patience. He still felt sure that all would end well. The need to make one’s own mistakes. The struggle to resist the historical process as a historical trap.

Take Rhodesia. Sane, pragmatic, unhysterical Anglo-Saxons with a rational outlook and no national mythology to uphold gradually fall victim to the stubbornly lunatic notion that they can twist history’s arm. Their immediate motive is obvious, even natural: the wish to retain their productive farmlands and continue to exploit cheap native labor. Slowly, however, they sink into an ever deeper quagmire. There are only two hundred thousand of them and yet, in a world that boasts nearly as many independent nations as people, they are determined to rule over six million blacks in the heart of Africa. At which point the same practical, down-to-earth folk suddenly decide that they have a great, anti-historical mission to perform — the sole purpose of which in reality is to keep them from understanding what should have been understood long ago. And so — sophisticatedly, imaginatively, impetuously, with unbeatable solidarity — they dig in their heels, turning their agricultural acres into a holy land and constructing a global ideology: from now on they are no longer simply white Rhodesians, hardworking farmers who troop off every Sunday to sing sweet hymns in church, they are the vanguard of Freedom, the torchbearers of Truth, stubborn servants of the Lord and of the whole civilized world. Infuriated and embittered, they gaze out through the bars of the cage they have built for themselves, despairing of the world that has condemned them, assuring themselves of the blindness, the pathology, the self-destructiveness, the decline of the West, holding out against embargoes, terrorism, vituperation and ostracization with a military savvy and a messianic passion that are out of all proportion to their true strength, turning themselves into steel, their isolation into a fortress of Western culture. And yet just when the world has begun to get used to their madness and even to learn to live with it, they crack for no apparent reason; they agree to small compromises that lead to larger and larger ones: and, having entrusted their little pinky to the great hand of history, they find themselves dragged along by it with greater and greater force until they voluntarily hand over their power to the most implacable of their enemies.

“And how much do you earn now, Yehuda?”

Father grinned. “A thousand dollars a month.”

“How much is that in Israeli pounds?”

“A hundred and twenty thousand.”

Mother was staggered. She regarded him with awe.

“That isn’t much there. In fact, it’s considered a small salary.”

“And are you happy?”

“Oh, well… happiness… what actually is it? It’s something I had never dreamt of for myself. The concept itself isn’t clear to me. But I do feel at peace there… yes, that I have over there, a kind of peace. Not that I don’t miss the children terribly… all of you…”

He eyed us nervously, seeking to gauge the effect his answer had had and whether it had passed the test.

“And that woman… did you bring a photograph of her?”

“What woman?”

“That woman of yours… the one you live with… whose name you never told me… maybe…”

“Connie,” said father hopelessly.

“Connie? Because last time you were here he promised to bring me her picture.”

I jumped to my feet but she ignored me. The sudden shift to the third person was always a bad sign. They had to be separated at once. Father looked at us, utterly baffled.

“What do you need a picture of her for, mother? What does it matter?”

“But he promised me last time. I just want to see her picture.”

I turned to him furiously. “Do you have her picture with you?”

He crimsoned, rose, pulled out his wallet, and, lo and behold, produced a small color snapshot. Mother took it and studied it at arm’s length with Gaddi, who wanted to see what an American woman looked like: plumpish, blond, standing on a patch of lawn by a garage door. The snapshot fell to the floor. Father hurried to retrieve it. He handed it to mother, who declined to take it. Quickly he put it back in his pocket.

“And do you have a picture of the baby too?”

“The baby???”

Ya’el quailed. “What baby, mother?”

“His baby, the new one…”

“What are you talking about?”

“Why, about that new baby of his.”

“Who said anything about a baby?”

“Tsvi did, yesterday.”

“Tsvi???” The three of us were aghast.

“Yes. They were here.”

“They?”

“He and a friend. An older man who brought him.”

“But what did he come for?”

“To visit me. He hadn’t seen me for weeks. He wanted to read those pages that Kedmi brought me… he wanted to know what… maybe to show his friend…”

“And what did he say?”

“Nothing. He told me that you had a baby.”

“But he couldn’t have!”

“There’s no baby, mother,” Ya’el pleaded. “Whatever made you think that?”

“But…” Mother grabbed her head in deep distress.

Father forced a laugh. “Tsvi misunderstood. He always mixes things up.”

“But how…?”

She wrung her hands defensively, blushing, distraught at the unexpected denial.

“And I was so happy that you’d had a baby… that you still could… Tsvi told me, ask him…”

All at once I rose to speak in a clear, dry voice, compelled to put an end to the obscene farce.

“It isn’t born yet but it will be…” I turned to her, gripping her lightly by the arm. She was afraid to look at me. “It isn’t born yet but it will be.” I ignored the panic seizing father and Ya’el, the commotion by the door, the faces behind the curtain on the window. “Father is telling the truth. Tsvi didn’t understand. It isn’t born yet but it will be… that’s why father was in such a hurry to get here. It isn’t born yet but it will be!” I repeated once more, raising my voice as the deep anger swept over me. “That’s why we’re here. Because otherwise what would it have mattered… you’re separated anyway… but because of the child… the baby… there’s a legal problem there… according to the law… legally you need to… and you yourself wouldn’t want him to…”

Only by now I no longer knew what I wanted to say. The word “law” had gotten into it and stuck there. Mother stared at me, the old wild glitter in her eyes, the theatrical colors of her makeup a changed tint.

“We didn’t mean to hide it from you… you know everything now… father hasn’t kept anything back. It isn’t born yet but it will be…”

I turned to him in cold fury. “When will it be born?”

“I think”—he could hardly get out the words—“in two months…”

“In two months, did you hear that? Now you know everything. We’re all suffering. You think it’s only you but it isn’t. It’s a disgrace for us all, but what’s done is done…. What is it you want to know now?”

She tried saying something but I cut her short, though her Ups continued to move.

“What more do you want? What good does it do to be stubborn? Let him go back to America and we’ll all stay here with you. All of us. And you’ll be getting out of this hospital soon…”

I snatched the agreement lying on the table. Its pages were already creased and stained.

“What does Tsvi know about it? Kedmi has seen to everything. I’ve spoken with him. Just sign!”

She retreated from me with a movement of her brown dress. I turned the pages of the document until I came to the black line above her name at the end. I put a light, unsteady hand on her shoulder. Her smell.

“Are you going to sign?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“I have to think.”

“What about?”

“What about?” father exclaimed after me.

She balked stubbornly, staring at us with suspicion.

“What about?” I shouted. “What about?”

Ya’el rose to restrain me.

“You know it’s all over with!” I cried, carried away with myself, as though it were my life, not his. “What is there still to think about, mother? But you, you have to know about the snow… the snow… he should tell you about the snow! And you”—I turned to father with senseless rage while he hung his arms limply with an embarrassed smile like a swindler caught in the act—“you actually start to tell her. I always knew that the two of you enjoyed it. Yes, enjoyed it! This eternal war of yours gives you pleasure. Knifing him, being sick, all your make-believe — there’s hidden pleasure in all of it. And you too, father. That’s why it’s gone on like this for so long. That’s why you keep beating around the bush. And Tsvi eggs you on. But Ya’el and I are sick of it, we’re so depressed we could die!” Ya’el, her cheeks burning, tried to stop me. “You used to drag me out of bed at night to judge between you. Well, I’m judging now. End it!”

Father grabbed me. “That will do! That’s enough.”

But I pushed him away, hearing my own steadily rising voice.

“What is there still to think about? Tell us. How much longer can you drag it out? Who has the time? Because there isn’t any… the time has run out. You wanted to kill him, what more do you still want from him? Why don’t you kill me too! Kill me! Go ahead and kill me!..”

Overcome by sadness. Her twisted face. Anger snagged on pity. My raised arm. A glance at the dirty curtain at the crazy faces there. I shut my eyes and strike my head here it comes I slap my face hard I drum on my chest with my fists a shudder of joy like desire swept up in the rhythm of it a yellowish light in Gaddi’s eyes turned quietly on me at last peace descends the dull pain in my chest now father is acting up too he’s caught my hysteria he stutters from anger he buries his face in his hands he shouts out loud he grabs hold of mother who’s risen from her chair do you see now do you see al! at once he kneels down before her with that terrible hatred of his Ya’el and I both rush to lift him from the bare concrete floor Ya’el shoves me away protecting him from me. Will he hit himself too?

“The child,” whispered mother, stony-faced and composed. “Just take the child outside.. why should he have to see it? You’ve done this on purpose… it’s all on purpose…”

Father and Ya’el pushed me outside while I dragged Gaddi after me. At once I was surrounded by the patients waiting by the door. They reached out to touch me, shook my hand, tried grabbing hold of Gaddi, who shrank against me. Had they seen me lay hands on myself and now come to give me their blessing? A washed-out, tormented-looking blonde accosted me and tugged at my shoulders. She stuck a finger in her mouth and shut her eyes. There was a babble of voices.

“A cigarette… Give her a cigarette…”

I took out a pack, which was snatched from me by the little old fellow. A bundle of energy, he nimbly pulled out the cigarettes and passed them out to the patients. A large gold lighter glittered in their midst. They bent over it, shielding the flame with their hands, getting down on all fours to fight the strong wind. At last a lit cigarette burned in each mouth. I too was given one. I hesitated before sticking its wet tip between my lips. I had no space to move. The old fellow clung to me, devouring me with his eyes.

“Are you taking her away from here?”

“Not today. Some other time.”

“Are you the son from Jerusalem?”

“Yes.”

The wind fanned the glowing cigarettes like little engines. The blonde leaned lightly against me, inhaling greedily.

“They won’t let you leave,” whispered a morose young man.

“Who won’t?”

The old fellow smiled an apology at me and derisively twirled a finger against his forehead. I noticed dry blood on my hands and felt my head. There was a scratch there that must have been made by my watch. A water faucet stood by the path but the long hose connected to it seemed to end nowhere. I licked the blood clean. Gaddi squeezed my hand, the locomotive still under his arm, his other hand working away inside his shirt.

“Does something hurt you, Gaddi?” I asked.

“My heart.”

“That’s not where your heart is.” I smiled. “Let me see.”

He slowly moved his hand toward his heart.

“They’ll arrest you at the gate,” said the morose young man.

“Shhh.” The old fellow hushed him with a smile. “No one will be arrested.” He tried driving the young man away.

“Your only chance is to escape through the hole,” the young man persisted.

“What hole?”

“Over there,” said the old fellow, pointing toward an overgrown corner of the fence.

“Over there…” echoed everyone, pointing in unison.

“That’s enough!” shouted the old fellow angrily. “Clear out of here…. Stop bothering him…. Don’t pay any attention to them.”

But they did not clear out. Instead they pressed even closer. The blonde kept rubbing against me, drawing on her cigarette without removing it from her mouth or even opening her eyes, draping herself all over me, soft, light and invertebrate as though her illness had sucked out her insides. Where was I? The breathing in and out around me space. The great bare sea. Red lights twinkling from towers on the Carmel. The world through a glass darkly still it moved. Time can never stop flowing but sometimes there is an air lock in the middle of it. The woman’s boneless hand coiled lightly around my stomach. A chill ran down my spine. I tried gently prying her loose but she adhered to me. A uniformed nurse passing by stopped to look at us, wondering if I needed help. But I looked back at her unconcernedly.

“The lawyer isn’t coming today?” asked the old fellow.

“He’s waiting for us at the gate. This is his son.”

“His son?” He was thrilled.

Voices reached us from the library. I fought my way back there, the crowd jostling after me, feeling deeply fatalistic. Father was speaking in Russian to mother, who was answering him with her quaint accent. The sweet Slavic sounds made me shiver. The switch to Russian, her being made by him to speak the language he had taught her, had always signaled a new, more intense stage in their quarrels.

I let the voices draw me on a few steps at a time, the crowd keeping pace with me, enveloping me in thin static. The soft body covered me like a quilt, its gelatinous hand creeping through my clothes, caressing my bare skin. Other bodies swayed heavily against me. A strange, sudden lust stirred in my chest. Someone laughed madly, half aloud. Now the giant made for us too, eyes riveted on something in our midst. The crowd tried blocking him but he strode powerfully through it, slowly yet irresistibly pulled the bright locomotive from under Gaddi’s arm, and continued on his way. A cheer went up from the crowd. He too flashed something like a smile. Gaddi was shaking all over.

“Don’t worry, he’ll give it right back,” the old fellow reassured us. “He just wants to look at it… I’ll get it back for you in a minute…’’

The library door opened and Horatio emerged, wagging his tail and shaking scraps of paper from his fur. After him came father, his face blanched, his tie askew, an extinguished cigarette in his mouth. A scrap of paper fell from his jacket too. Despair stared from his eyes. The dog tried ponderously to jump on him and lick him but father flung him rudely aside.

The crowd of patients; ran up to him, shook his hand too, begged for more cigarettes. The old fellow pushed and pulled, trying to keep order. Father’s eyes met mine above their heads.

“Tsvi ruined everything! He made her think… she wants it all now… the house… everything. Ya’el is still talking to her inside… don’t go in… damn you, what have you done?”

“Here’s the lawyer!” someone shouted.

And indeed up the path in the early twilight came Kedmi, irritably waving his arms and shouting something. The patients moved back. The blonde woman released me. A low baying went up like the sound of hounds scenting prey. Kedmi rapidly approached us.

“What’s going on here? What have you been up to? Did you decide to settle down here for good?”

The patients turned to him. The old fellow sought to shake his hand too, but he rebuffed them, walking right past them.

“Yes? I beg your pardon, gentlemen. Please… let’s have a little air… give me some room here… another time…”

They frightened him yet he provoked them, unable to control himself.

“What is this, some kind of happening? What do they all want? At least let me have my child back. Where’s Ya’el?”

He pulled Gaddi toward him, hugging him hard.

“Where’s the locomotive?”

“He took it.”

“Who did?”

“He’ll give it back,” cried the old fellow. “He’ll give it back right away. I’m responsible.”

“Nobody asked you,” said Kedmi sharply. Without further ado he flung himself at the giant and tried extricating the toy.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Gulliver, taking things from little children…”

The patients surrounded Kedmi in an uproar. “He’ll give it back! He’ll give it back!” they shouted while I tried to restrain him. The giant clutched the locomotive with a terrified look, crushing it against his chest with his great paw while Gaddi watched in silent agony.

“That’s enough, Kedmi!” shouted father. “I’ll buy him another one.”

Kedmi was repulsed, flushed with rage.

“Where are all the nurses? Where are all the doctors? Where is the management? This is total bedlam! Come on, Gaddi, let’s find mom and get the hell out of here.”

Like a whirlwind he spun toward the library, kicking Horatio out of his way and flinging open the door. In the thin, dimming light inside mother was standing and talking to Ya’el, who sat listening quietly, her arms on her chest. The floor was littered with paper. Kedmi bent to pick up a piece of it and laughed bitterly. In a crushed voice he said to father:

“Well, this is the end. Extraordinary… she actually finished thinking…”

“I tore it,” declared father, while fresh anxiety shot through me. “Never mind now. It’s none of your business.”

“It’s none of my business?” marveled Kedmi in his quick, husky voice that was already a thought ahead. “You’re right, it’s none of my business! I only wish you had told me that a year ago. I couldn’t have put it any better myself: it’s none of my business and never will be… I’ve had it…’’ He crumpled the scrap of paper, shredding it in his hand. “If I had known you only wanted it to rip it, I would have given you blank pages…”

“Knock it off, Kedmi!” I broke in.

He looked at me jeeringly, “Ya’el!” he cried suddenly.

Mother and Ya’el stepped outside. A new light shone in mother’s face. She seemed very calm. Ya’el hurried to father and hugged him, whispering excitedly while mother nodded in agreement. All at once the patients surrounded her as though she were their queen, and the old fellow linked arms with her. Kedmi was already hurrying Gaddi away. Mother regarded me timidly, wanting to say something, to explain, but unable to. I backed slowly away as she stepped toward me, my briefcase swinging in my hand. I took a last look at the patients, my eyes lingering on the boneless blonde, who stood leaning against a tree. Next to her on a bench sat the giant, the crushed locomotive at his feet. I turned to go.

Mother whispered something to father. He called to me, his arms limp at his sides. I halted.

“Come over here. Mother asks you to forgive her.”

“Never mind. Forget it.”

“Forgive me,” said mother. “I’m asking for your forgiveness, Asa.”

“What for?” I mumbled, turning red. “Forget it.”

“Forgive me, Asa.”

“All right.” I winced. “All right.”

“It’s my fault… all mine…” Mother almost managed a smile, glowing with a sadly poignant beauty. “Just don’t hit yourself anymore. I thought you had stopped that long ago…”

“All right, all right.” I bent to kiss her and walked by myself toward the gate. Ya’el and mother followed me arm in arm, while father tagged along at their side, still very pale, absorbed in thought. Further back the crowd of patients trailed slowly after us. We crossed the lawns, Horatio lumbering between us, our sole connecting link. Kedmi’s car was waiting at the gate, already faced toward the main road, its radio blasting away. The engine started up and raced nervously.

“Tomorrow…” said mother in parting. “Tomorrow…”

Ya’el slipped into the front seat. Father was talking Russian again, hurriedly, urgently, intent on finishing his thought. But his words were drowned out by the motor. I got into the back seat with him after me. Horatio tried squeezing in too but the door banged shut on him. He began to howl, clawing at it frantically.

“Ya’el,” yelled Kedmi, “if he scratches up that door I’ll murder him…”

He stepped on the gas.

Horatio chased us. We watched him through the back window as he ran down the middle of the narrow side road, a diminishing point. Smiling to himself, Kedmi glanced in the rearview mirror. He slowed down and the dog began to catch up.

“Drive faster, Kedmi,” said Ya’el.

Kedmi sped up a bit and then slowed down again, stopping for a long while when he reached the main road. Horatio loped on down the middle of the side road, behind him the sea and a last gasp of sun setting in a wrinkled orange sky. Eyes narrowed to a slit, red tongue dripping sunlight, he almost touched the car with his wolfish cranium when Kedmi started up again and turned into the main road. Horatio chased us into it, still running down the center line, cars honking and screeching all around him.

“Stop, Kedmi!” cried father. “He’ll be run over.”

“Don’t,” said Ya’el. “Drive faster.”

But Kedmi neither speeded up nor stopped. All concentration, he led the dog away from the hospital, determined to kill him.

“Kedmi, what are you doing?” pleaded Ya’el. “Drive faster!”

He was deliberately staying behind a slow truck.

“All criticisms of my driving should be typed in triplicate, please…”

I said nothing. As soon as we entered Acre we lost sight of the dog among the cars behind us. We were in heavy city traffic now, stopping for lights, passing pedestrians with their packages of matzos and youngsters hanging out on corners between appliance stores and fastfood stands. In Crusader times St.-Jean-d’Acre had been a metropolis the size of London or Paris.

Kedmi stopped to fill the car at a gas station, moving lazily, looking around him. At the last light on the way out of town we caught sight of Horatio in the crosswalk in front of us, his eyes bulging, his tongue grazing the asphalt, a hairy old thing lost in a shuffle of human feet, sniffing the tires of cars. The light turned green, leaving him by himself in the middle of the crosswalk, still searching for our scent. Behind us cars beeped their horns wildly. Kedmi was set to steamroller him when I opened the door and jumped out, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him onto the sidewalk. The traffic flowed past. At first Horatio fought me, but when he saw who I was he licked my hand, more dead than alive, yelping with dumb, hoarse joy. I peered in his eyes. He was exhausted, half crazed from fatigue and the maze of city streets. “Go home, Horatio,” I said, pointing north. He looked at me, his skull bones strong but fragile in my palms. “Go home, boy. Go home to mother.” He wagged his tail, his eyes a dull wolfish blue. I picked up a small stick, a broken sliver of board, ran it over his dry snout, and threw it as far as I could into a rubbish-strewn abandoned lot. “Go get it, Horatio! Don’t you remember how?” He looked at me without budging, drawn to a different scent, wagging his tail some moire. “Get it, Horatio!” I shouted. I took another stick and threw it too. “Go fetch, boy, I need it!” He cocked his head wonderingly, then suddenly shook himself as though harking to an ancient call and ran into the lot, vanishing among some two-by-fours. I dashed back to the car, jumped in, and slammed the door.

“Go, Kedmi! For God’s sake, step on it. The poor dog.”

“Since when have you begun believing in God?”

“Go, Kedmi!” shouted all three of us. “Go!”

“All right, you don’t have to shout.”

And while the old dog was still hunting for the stick we were already driving south on the highway toward Haifa. Father sat huddled in one corner with his head thrown back, his face swept by headlights, his lips tightly clenched. Suddenly he felt me looking at him and looked back, noticing for the first time the scratch on my forehead, terribly upset, in total despair over me.

“So you’re still hitting yourself,’’ he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “But you promised! There’ll never be any peace for me now. I shouldn’t have brought you today. It’s my fault.”

I could see Kedmi’s beady eyes in the mirror, studying us curiously.

He was struck down by lightning toward evening. His charred body was lifted from the street and laid on a bench at a bus slop, a torn blanket over it. Eventually it was brought to the morgue and left in a corner on the floor. A quiet night passed. In the morning the waiting students filled the lecture hall. A few of them went out to look for him in the corridors. Suddenly, bloodshot, Professor Berger hurried to the dais. He’s dead, struck down by lightning, our great genius. What a frightful loss. The most brilliant of all my pupils. Our bright young hope. And just when he was on the verge of the great historical breakthrough. You have no idea what he had in mind, the sheer daring of it Now only his notes remain. What a painful loss. If only he had had the time. If only he had been given more time. But his parents killed him. A bolt of lightning struck him down…. Dina faints at the graveside. Now I know, she says, that I too am to blame. She returns to her parents’ home, where she lapses into religious mysticism. In the end she is married off to a dirty old rabbi.

I got out at the Haifa bus station. Father stayed in the car. He’d sleep at Ya’el’s tonight and return to the hospital the first thing in the morning. This time by himself. They would call Tsvi immediately; should they phone Dina too and tell her I was on my way? No, I said. You needn’t bother. Maybe I’ll stay on for a while in Tel Aviv. To punish her. To make her miss me.

Father laid a protective hand on me. My hitting myself had left him one up, he could pity me now. “Well, now you understand me better, don’t you? Don’t worry, though, I’ll let her have her way in the end. Do you want me to give you any money?…When will we meet again?…You’ll have to come on the holiday to say goodbye…. We’ll be in touch…”

Suddenly I was putty in his hands. A burst string. And yet deep down a feeling of tranquillity.

The large concrete station was already dark and silent. In the cafeteria where we had eaten lunch the lights were out and the chairs were stacked on the tables. I boarded the Tel Aviv bus, and it backed slowly out of its stall. A lit-up train traveled parallel to it until it vanished into thin air. The driver turned on the news. The bus was full of sleeping soldiers. A narrow, shrunken patch of sea flickered in the wind. To take some distant period and discuss it in trivial terms — to find a neglected document or manuscript that has yet to be written about and blow up its significance — to burrow through old newspapers in search of unknown facts about some second-rate statesman who lived in a forgotten age — let that be for the rest of them. But I would find the cryptograph, the secret code. The old age has died, the new one has yet to be born, and meanwhile there are morbid pustules everywhere, a bad case of adolescent acne. An age of nostalgia, confusion, anticipation and fear, a twilight zone, an eve of great upheavals, a jumbled time of contradictory processes. Who will find the right cipher, who will see thirty years into the future, not by means of his fallible intuition but clearly and with scientific certainty…?

In Tel Aviv the hard dry wind still blew. A low, orange sky. The bus let us off in a dark, deserted street near the central station. Used ticket stubs swirled through the darkness. Grains of sand from the Sahara turned to grit between one’s teeth. The passengers scattered quickly and were gone. I walked down a street lined with shoe stores, their darkened display windows full of thin, cross-strapped ladies’ models, and emerged in the dimly lit square of the station, by felafel stands with their mountains of colorful salads and shuwarma joints with their glowing grills of spitted lamb. On the opposite sidewalk, at platform number three, a small line of travelers waited to board the Jerusalem bus, which was almost full. A short, middle-aged man wearing a striped jacket, elevator heels and a linked chain around his neck stood by a public phone booth, eyeing me with a warm, penetrating glance. May I? I asked. At once he moved aside with a show of deference, measuring me with his eyes. I dialed Tsvi. An unfamiliar, Levantine voice answered politely. Tsvi had stepped out for a moment. Did I wish to leave a message? No, I said, there was nothing special. But who was calling? I told him.

“Ah, you’re Dr. Asa Kaminka. How do you do? I’m Tsvi’s friend, Refa’el Calderon. Your sister and father telephoned a while ago from Haifa with the latest news. Can I be of any assistance to you? Would you care to stop by and rest up here before going on to Jerusalem?”

The same man who brought Tsvi to see mother yesterday. One more finger in the pie. I hung up.

A dark-complexioned girl in short pants and high-heeled clogs, apparently a whore, was talking in low tones on the street corner to the man from the phone booth, who kept looking at me with a friendly smile. The Jerusalem bus had already left. Waiting for the next one was a lone traveler, a thick-bearded religious man holding a suitcase tied with string. I went to get something to eat and bought myself a felafel and a glass of juice. The short man went on smiling deferentially, never taking his eyes from me. Two grotesquely madeup girls wearing Nite-Glo jerseys and swinging luminescent bags came up to join him. I stood at the felafel stand, garbage cans all around me, sauerkraut dribbling steadily from the overfilled pocket bread, eating savagely, my briefcase between my legs, getting sesame dip all over myself. It was eight o’clock. I hadn’t been in Tel Aviv for weeks; why not seize the opportunity to get in touch with some friend, someone I could talk to, bounce ideas off? Suddenly I was in no hurry to get home. I wiped my face with a paper napkin and bought a new pack of cigarettes, hungry for human contact here in this no-man’s-land, in this no-time and no-place. In my ever-further-away-from-me native town. I thought for a moment of the lunatics I had braved today, of my newly discovered sangfroid in their presence, of the horribly sweet feeling of that soft blonde spilling over me. Perhaps I should give Stem a ring. An old friend who once had studied with me and was now teaching the same period as I was at the University of Tel Aviv: I could never enjoy a relaxed talk with him when calling long-distance from Jerusalem. I searched for another phone token in my pockets but couldn’t find one. Still regarding me cordially, the short man with the link chain took out a handful of tokens and offered me one, firmly refusing to let me pay him for it.

“But that would be an insult…”

He spoke in a low, quiet, knowing voice. A pusher or a pimp? Well, that wasn’t my lookout. I went back to the phone and opened the thick, tattered directory that was attached by a heavy chain to the wall. Its back pages were tom or missing. The letter S was gone entirely. I let it drop, the chain creaking loudly, took out a cigarette, and fumbled for a match. At once he stepped up to me, whipped out a small lighter, and lit it for me with a bluish flame.

“Are you looking for something? Perhaps I can be of help.”

“No, thanks. The phone book is tom.”

“If it’s a girl…”

“Excuse me?”

“I said if it’s a girl…”

“No. It isn’t a girl.”

“Because I have another one for you. She’s waiting for you there. She’s taken a liking to you.”

He pointed to the two whores restlessly swinging their bags.

“No, thank you.”

“She asked me to tell you… it’s just that she’s bashful…”

“Thanks anyway.” I smiled. He talked about the two of them as though they were one person.

“If you think she’s too tall for you… or too strong… if that’s it… then there are other options…”

He spoke quickly, deftly, in a reasonable, businesslike tone.

“It’s not a question of that. At the moment I’m…”

“Because I have others too. Just tell me what you’re looking for… explain your wish to me… I’ve got a big selection around here. I know a sweet, very classy young girl who lives right next door… you might like her… she’s practically still a child… she may even still be a virgin… yes, I believe she is… real class…”

He laid a warm, friendly hand on my shoulder. I gave a start.

“There was something I liked about you as soon as I saw you walk into the station. You only have to say the word to me. Just tell me what you want. Everything is available. Why don’t you have a quiet cup of coffee and see what I have to show you?…Where did you say you were going?…The buses run late, I know because I’m always here. And if you miss the last one, I’ll bring you home in my own car. Come on… you only have to look… let me show you what real service is. There’s something about you I like. Don’t be scared… it’s all aboveboard… no obligation, no money down… I just show you the goods, it doesn’t cost you a cent…”

He was quiet, reassuring, trustable. And I was out of time, out of place, plain out of it. Let her wait up for me. She’s probably gone to sleep at her parents’ anyway.

“At least you’ll join me for some coffee?”

“But I’ll pay for it.” The words tumbled out by themselves.

He smiled, highly satisfied.

“But of course… it’s your treat… you’re the boss. Don’t let me pressure you. I never pressure anyone. It’s like window-shopping… just pretend that you’re window-shopping…”

The coffee was served, us at once. I gripped my cup hard, in need of the hot pick-me-up. A small teen-ager ran up to my new friend with some message. Everyone in the café knew him. Bazouki music blared over a radio. He lit a king-sized cigarette and offered me one. I declined. His face was furrowed, with wrinkles. An unplaceable accent. He managed the conversation with me tactfully, reliably.

“Many people can’t explain what they want and end up being disappointed. It’s not something that can be done just like that, automatically. You have to find the right combo. That’s my business. Every dream has its answer. Its fulfillment. Take yourself. You’re an intellectual type, I can see that right away. But you’re pressed for time. You’re in a rush, and so are your thoughts. If you’d just say the word to me…”

“What’s the price nowadays?” My voice sounded foreign to me, squeaky.

“That depends on how long it’s for.”

“No, I mean just the usual…”

“It depends… whatever you feel like paying…’’

“But what’s the going rate?”

“Some people give five…”

“Hundred?”

“Thousand. What’s a hundred these days?”

“Five thousand?”

“But not for you. For you there’s no charge. It’s on the house. And I have this feeling that she’ll go for you… that you’ll make it with her big…”

And supposing just this once. To prove to myself. Not against her but to realize to help us both. For our future. Our child. Another Jerusalem bus pulled out across the street. A new one pulled in after it and was boarded by a crowd of religious Jews. Whenever I want I simply pay for the coffee, cross the street, and get on it.

A couple entered the café and came over to say hello, a chubby girl dressed in white with short-cropped hair and smiling, mischievous eyes and a tall young man whose hand rested on her shoulder. The girl glanced at me inquisitively, her pants stretched tight over her thighs. The little pimp pulled her toward him and she bent down to kiss him, baring for a moment the dark ivory globes of her breasts, before being led by her partner to a table in the corner. Something about her eyes and short hair sent a stab of pain through me. The young man came back to us and whispered a few words to my companion, who listened judiciously.

“She’ll be here soon…. Would you like to drink something stronger in the meantime?”

“No, thanks. I have to be on my way. I’m in a hurry… I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time on me…”

“Why worry about it? It’s my time. And I’ve enjoyed spending it with you…’’

I noticed him follow my glance to the girl in the corner, who sat smilingly holding her friend’s hand and bobbing her head pertly.

“Maybe you like her? Just say the word… let me know…”

“Who?”

“The one who just said hello to us… in the corner…”

“Who?” I tried acting innocent. “Oh, her. Yes, I think she’s nice… but why do you ask?”

His face lit up all at once.

“Very nice! A real personality… she’s a student, you know.” He grasped my hand. “Allow me. You won’t regret it. Now I see what your taste is… you won’t 1‹ disappointed…”

He rose, crossed the room to the chatting couple, made a sign to the girl, and whispered something in her ear. She blushed, taken aback, then glanced my way with her large, gleaming brown eyes and ducked her head shyly. She was gentle, not at all hardened. And yet she was pleased. I caught my breath, the blood pounding away in my heart. My hand shook. I’ll punish her. It’s my right to. For two years I’ve begged and gotten nowhere. The pimp came slowly back to me, sat down without a word, and offered me a cigarette. I glanced down and when I looked up again the girl had already slipped out the back door. Her friend had opened an evening paper and was reading it. Across the street the bus was still waiting. Two teen-agers boarded it and then got off again.

Home. She’s probably having a fit. Who needs this insanity. And all the money too.

“Come.” He touched me lightly.

I still played innocent. “Where to?”

He threw me a hard look.

“You’re just like a child. A stubborn one. Come on, it’s only to say hello to her. Just to say hello. To get to know her.”

“Not now… some other time,” I murmured, rising and putting a friendly arm around him. We stepped outside, pausing in the doorway for him to regard me with a despairing smile.

“Just come say hello to her. She’s waiting for you. You can arrange to meet her some other time… it isn’t nice to stand her up…”

And patiently, expertly, without losing his calm, he steered me into a narrow side street. All at once I was back among the shoe stores, only on the opposite sidewalk. Boots and sneakers filled the dark display windows. In the back of one of the stores a small bulb still burned. We stepped into the hallway of an apartment house. The man pressed the handle of the first door and opened it. “Just say hello to her. Act your age! What are you afraid of? This is strictly on the up-and-up.”

I was in the lit store. I could see myself reflected in its mirrors, thin and gray, the scratch on my face like a string of tiny pearls, my tie over one shoulder, my jacket badly creased. Next to a divan were some inclined stools for trying on shoes and shelves with samples of ladies’ footwear. Empty shoe boxes and white tissue paper lay scattered on the floor. Shoes had been sold here a short while ago, there was still a human smell about the place. She stood at the back of it, near the cash register, examining a shoe with a spiked heel. Close up she was not so pretty; her perfume was cheap and there was a small scar by the side of her mouth; but the special charm of her eyes, that humorous gleam, was still there. No choking up this time. Which thought turned to slow desire. She looked at me calmly, tossing her head with a deep, natural grace so unlike the manner of a whore. She sat on the divan, about my age, perhaps a year or two older, and placed one leg on the stool in front of her, her pant bottom rolled up to reveal a plump, smooth, creamy-white foot. I stepped toward her, still holding my black briefcase. She glanced at it with a bright, intelligent look, waiting smilingly for me to put it down. I laid it on the carpet and sat on the stool like a salesman.

“What’s your name?”

“Natalie.”

“Natalie? Really? How lovely… are you Israeli?”

“For the time being.”

I laughed abruptly.

“My name is Tsvi.”

“You’re not from Tel Aviv?”

“I used to be. Now I live up north, near Acre.”

The need to leave a trail of lies in self-defense.

I stroked her foot. Her skin was warm, sweaty, smooth to the touch. I undid the buckle of her old, worn shoe and slipped it off her foot, which she let lie, white and puffy, on the slope of the stool.

“What size do you take, madame?” I asked suddenly, feeling myself go scarlet.

Firmly she set down her other foot, presenting me with it. I unbuckled the shoe, slipped it quickly off, and threw it aside. With an awful lust I fell upon her feet, kissing the dust, the Nubian loess, the faint stink of callused skin, the smooth underarch, the human flesh. Swooning, I licked them, my pants bursting with desire, with my hideous love for her, lifting her feet and sticking them into my mouth, nipping them lightly while she laughed with alarm and strange pleasure, her eyes shutting light. I dropped from the stool to the carpet, still licking and biting, beside myself, dizzy with desire, grunting like an animal, abandoning myself to the depths. Glassily she stroked my hair and hauled my thin tie in like a rope. Suddenly, though, she took fright and pulled her bare feet away.

“Don’t. Stop that! Get up and come over here.”

And I did, filled with a passion I had never felt before, struggling to undo her blouse and pants. She pushed my hand away and slipped out of her pants herself. Brown lingerie parted along a hidden zipper, revealing a large, scar)’ brown navel. My love, I whispered. My dearest.

“Help me, please.”

She didn’t get what I meant.

“Can you help me?”

She made a face. “What do you want?”

“You know. Help me in.”

And standing there I began to come even as I went down on her. A failure. Here too? Panic took hold of me. She spread her legs wide, reaching for my wet cock, grimacing with disgust.

“Wait a minute! Hang on there. You’re shooting your load. Hang on!”

I buried my face in her, trying to hold it, feeling her warmth, her legs wound around me, shuddering with each jet that squirted as though from a little heart, still coming while I kissed the white fabric of her blouse, searching for her eyes which she denied me.

At last she threw me powerfully off.

“Was I in you?”

“Sure, sure. Don’t let it worry you.” Her voice was suddenly harsh, impatient. “Don’t tell me that this was your first time…”

“Of course not. What makes you think that?”

She rose, looking away, and quickly zipped up her pants. She ran a hand through her hair while casting me a querying look of concern. I zipped my pants too, took out my wallet, and gave her the thousand-pound note that I’d gotten from father.

“This is what he and I agreed on.”

“Who’s he?”

“That man…”

“Since when does he do business for me? Hand over another thousand.”

“I don’t have it.”

“You don’t have it? What do you mean you don’t have it?”

“I don’t have it.”

“Then give me your watch.”

“My watch?” I was flabbergasted. “No way!”

“The hell with it then. Give me five hundred more pounds.”

“I tell you I don’t have it.”

“What’s in that briefcase?”

“Just papers.”

She sat down by the cash register, slipping her feet back into her unbuckled shoes, her butched head held high. Where had I seen before that look that flared in her eyes?

“Let me see your wallet.”

Her voice was dry, tough, but controlled.

I laughed nervously and showed it to her. She went through it quickly, found five hundred pounds, and started to take it.

“Leave me that money. I need it to get to Jerusalem.”

“You can hitch.”

“No, I can’t. No one will stop for me…”

I spoke fearfully, fawningly, a stranger to myself.

Someone tried the front door of the store.

She reflected, replaced the money, and handed me back the wallet.

“I’m letting you off this time,” she scolded. “But it isn’t nice to take advantage like that. You look like a decent type… let’s have none of your tricks next time…”

“I really am sorry… next time… I didn’t realize… do you always hang out around here?”

Her eyes smiled.

“You’ll find me. But no more funny stuff, please.”

A middle-aged man in a custom-made suit opened the door, bowed hurriedly, and shut it again. I took my briefcase and left, walking quickly with my head down, not looking where I was going, losing my way in the vacant streets until I found the station again. I joined the small line of people waiting for the Jerusalem bus. The wind had died down but it was colder now, with fog instead of dust. A few students and tired commuters stood alongside me. Feeling empty inside, I leaned against the metal railing of the platform. Someone reached out to me across it. It was the short, swarthy man with the link chain.

“How was it?”

“Okay,” I murmured. “It was fine. But I don’t have any cash left I gave it all to her.”

“How about a watch or a pen…?”

I didn’t answer. People turned to look at us. He smiled to himself, fair and patient to the last.

“Never mind, then. It’s something else in there with all those shoes, isn’t it? A special thrill. I always score well there. Well, never mind… next time… this is my beat, by the Jerusalem bus…”

He shook my hand. I felt shaken. Had he really seen right through me?

The bus lurched into the night, confidently negotiating the narrow streets of south Tel Aviv. To hell with the money. Not against life or beside it but straight into the teeth of it. Home. Home. You’ll help her. She’ll let you. She’s scared and so are you. But to lick her like a dog! From where did it grab me like that? The cheap scent of her perfume still clinging to my face the dust on her feet the sickening horror of it not till my dying day. Alone and by myself. The pairs of shoes in the dark store. An unplumbed reality. And now what? Horatio’s head between my palms old and decrepit half dead from chasing after father. I must make order at once. But what made me say my love? Something has happened. Something dreadful has happened and is done. If I’m not careful I’ll lose her. Dina my love. My child. My light. My forgiveness. Not against you. With you. But what made me say my love? Yours the decent folk and mine the lunacy. Let him stick to what he’s good at. He alone. While he lives and breathes. Let him sit and write.

Take care take care all things are possible never again. Too chancy. Though my heart stirs for it. And you deserved it.

A smell of orange groves in blossom. So spring is breaking out after all. The lights of the houses receding behind us. The last factories. What made me say my love? How did the words slip out? How do I annul them, take them back? What have I done? She must be worried to death. Gone to her parents’, called Ya’el, they’re at our house now. There’ll be hell to pay. What made me say my love?

The three basic rhythms. Contact, release and contraction. The more human beings come to resemble each other under the influence of culture, civilization, commerce and cross-contact, the more they seek freedom, even perversity, but also a greater sense of self via new conflicts. The Peloponnesian Wars. In the midst of such insight, such sophistication, such a blossoming of philosophy, art and religion, the Greek cities declare all-out, bloody wars on each other for no good reason and contract self-destructively.

The roar of the speeding bus into the night, plunging through Judean fog. Surrounded by patients. She leaned on me with such assurance. Did they sense it in me too? A kindred soul. I must be mad to bark like a dog where could it have come from? My students should have seen me. Must get up and bark for them. Her eyes on me. Vera Zasulich. The individual in history. After Passover I’ll start straight from the murder of the Tsar. In a subdued tone, with precise, colorful details. The thirteenth of March 1881. Nikolai Riskov pitches a bomb at the horses’ feet, not far from the Winter Palace. The cobblestones caked with ice. Sofia Proveskaya, that noble, magnificent soul. And above all, the thrower of the second bomb that killed the tyrant, the blond, curly-headed Pole Ignaty Grynbatski, age twenty-four, an engineering student who refused even to give his name when he lay dying in his own blood. Sitting paralyzed on a bench in the summer garden, Dostoyevsky hears of the planned assassination several months in advance and, despite his reactionary views, neglects to inform the authorities. I’ll hook them with the flashy little items and take them quickly on to the big significant ones. They’ll learn to love those lost young terrorists yet.

I can’t get rid of her smell. The taste of dry felafel and greasy sauerkraut. The smell of diesel fuel. My sticky fingers. First of all a hot bath. What strange stains on my clothes. I’ll elude her in the dark. But what made me say my love? And so easily.

The bus is speeding like mad. A cowboy of a driver. A wave of nausea inside me. The other passengers slumped mostly asleep in their seats. I can never learn to sleep on a bus. Horatio. Horatio. Did he ever get back to mother? So terribly sorry for him. Father will go back there tomorrow by himself. And you hit yourself. You’ll go mad yet. They’ll drive you to it. Genetic insanity awaits you Asa. But give it your all keep a clear head don’t take a wrong step. Now I know what my soul stirs for what I need. The sacred tremor within. A woman not a child. Yes my love.

I tripped going down the steps of the bus, the vomit already in my throat, while an old Civil Defense reservist stood looking on. My briefcase had puke on it too. Sick and shivering with chills, I dragged myself to the bus stop, where I waited endlessly for a bus to take me home.

The windows of the apartment were unlit. It was nearly eleven. Her parents must have taken her home with them. I unlocked the front door. The hallway was dark. The guest room was locked. Not a sound. I opened the living-room door, still clutching my briefcase. The blinds were down but bright light struck my eyes. Something was changed in the room. Had the furniture been rearranged? Pillows were scattered all over. Papers lay about the couch. A haze of cigarette smoke. She sal in her jeans with her shoes kicked off, her hair gathered at the back, wide awake, very pretty, looking as if she’d grown smaller during the day. There were more pages in her lap and pens everywhere. A small rag doll sat on the couch among big cushions.

I stopped in the doorway.

“I tried calling the neighbors but no one answered. I had to wait forever for buses. Did you call Ya’el?”

“No.”

“Don’t get up.” She had made no move to. “I threw up in the station in Jerusalem. I feel like I’m dying. What a day! I’m glad you didn’t come, you would have gone out of your mind. At least I spared you that. I have to wash up, the briefcase is filthy too. I’m sick. I missed you all day. Were you at your parents’?”

She shook her head with a faraway look, remote, self-absorbed, in a world of her own. She had a new secret. Some new role she’d thought up for herself.

“My mother still won’t sign. It’s a whole comedy. You can be thankful that your own parents are sane. Better a sane grocer than a… what did you do all day long? Wait a minute before you tell me. I want to wash up first.”

But I went to the kitchen instead. More pages on the dining table. Dirty breakfast dishes still in the sink and on the counter. Crumpled pages everywhere in her large, clear hand. Something about a young woman with a baby carriage.

“Stop that immediately!” she hissed behind me. “Go wash up. You look as though you’d been rolling in the gutter.”

“What did you do all day long? Where were you?”

“Right here.”

“Did you go to the bank? Did you take out money?”

“No.”

“So what did you do all day?”

“I was here. I wrote a story… complete, in one sitting. I was all alone. It felt good to be without you for a change…”

I went on collecting the dishes, sorting the silverware and the cups.

“Stop that! Go wash.” She raised her voice at me. “You’re a filthy, stinking mess!”

I put down the dishes and went to the bedroom. More papers all over the bed. Piles of clothing, hers, mine, on all the chairs: she must have emptied out the whole closet. She followed me silently, careful not to get too close, her light eyes opened wide. I wandered distractedly about the room before going to the bed. On the night table lay an open history book in English that I had been reading in the morning. Portraits of young Russian revolutionaries in cravats and high collars, a photograph of the Tsar in full military regalia, pictures of ladies in long evening dresses, the date of birth and death under each. The earnest face of Vera Zasulich, a gleam of mischief in her dark, deep-set eyes. A flash of fear ran through me as it dawned on me whose eyes they also were.

I went to the closet and began taking out hangers for her clothes.

“Stop it!” she screamed. “Go wash up. You don’t know what you look like…”

Something happened today. Something will never be the same.