A Late Divorce

THE FIRST DAY OF PASSOVER

Already it’s tomorrow. This is it. A new shadow gleams on the wall like a bar of thin mercury. Good morning last day. Who would have thought they would all pass so quickly? A matter of hours now. At midnight tonight your divorced your divorcing father blasts off. A whirlwind visit but the knot has been cut. Not without mistakes but I’m free. To forget it too. All the dreadful little moments. Perhaps only one of them will remain perhaps not even that the parchment flying through the air into her outstretched palms a spasm of rabbis around us. Old toothless religion you still have the power to shock at the least expected times. A dash of mystery. So farewell my murderess. No fantasy of mine. A few hours from now you will bank steeply over clouds and land in a gray alien dawn straight into a big American kitchen filled with quiet suburban light. Into a cold and peaceful exile. The Return of the Old Israeli laying his now available name beside the swollen white belly. Cold cereal and coffee before stripping to a flabby erection. But with infinite patience. There you do not disappoint. There is only grateful wonder that you exist at all. That you are what you are. But what time is it and what’s happened to my watch?

The door opened gently, admitting a quick shaft of reddish light, and Ya’el groped her patient, cumbersome way into the room. Without a sound she made straight for my bed and rolled back the blanket, searching among the sheets. Carefully she moved aside my hand and pulled out a small, limp bundle from beneath my feet.

“Ya’eli?”

“Shhh. Go back to sleep, father. I’m just taking the baby.”

“Rakefet? She’s still here? I forgot all about her… but what happened?”

“She must have put you to sleep.’’

Night’s sweet, stubborn plaything came aloft from the sheets, her clenched fist a last vestige of her nocturnal storm of tears, her head drooping limply, delicately backwards. For a second she blinked, a blue light flashing in the stubbornly idling little engine.

“You should have woken me. How did I miss hearing her?” said Ya’el.

“Don’t be silly, what for? I wouldn’t give up an extra minute with her, and I couldn’t just let her cry. What time is it?”

“It’s still early, father. Go to sleep. You have a long, hard day ahead of you.”

“But what time is it, Ya’eli?”

“Not even six yet. Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t find my watch.”

I got out of bed and searched for it barefoot among the linen. Ya’el bent and poked a hand into the large, finned diaper just as the little fist opened and a shiny object fell onto the pillow.

“She swiped it from you,” laughed Ya’el. “But at least she was fair enough to return it in her sleep.”

“Let me have her for a minute. I can’t stand to think of leaving her.”

I reached out to take her on my lap, planting little kisses on her warm mouth and on the familiar set of her jaw. All at once she sighed deeply.

The door shuts the shaft of light is gone the silent tremor of a shadow resumes its place on the wall. My bare feet still touch the cold floor the watch is warm and fragrant in my hand its face hidden from me. Let it be a clockless day. Leave time alone for this once. Forget it let it lie in your bag by your ticket and passport ticking away in the dark while you step out of the cold vise of its hands into the nebulous light now creeping toward the issue of your loins who will get you through this day let them pilot you in and out of it right up to the flight gate at midnight Ya’el and Tsvi and Asi and Dina who promised to come today too let them all have their way with you. You are theirs today you belong only to them even to Gaddi who has gotten close to you in his fashion even to the baby even to Kedmi yes you will put up with him too. Be patient with him today the man puts his foot in his big nasty mouth each time he opens it yet since you helped him get his murderer back he’s mellowed toward you. You can put up with him too I’m at your service Kedmi have all the fun you want with me I’ll even put up with your Haifa this formless town that once used to be a real city but is only the sum of its neighborhoods now. Yes you can even put up with Haifa today in this new holiday light this aroma of spring. All winter long you dreamed of Tel Aviv the people the places in the end it all went down the drain of coming and going to see her in the hospital but never mind. The knot has been cut the parchment crossed the room. Next time. Whenever that will be. It’s goodbye for a long while now. My small maddening land you’ll have to wait for me I need to rest. What was it that little fellow that Calderon said that night in the kitchen his dark eyes deep in their sockets just give me time. To protect the chafed exposed surface of your embroiled identity. A nervous land. And how quickly without even thinking he agreed to give her his share. Just give me time. But the knot has been cut. A new freedom. The shadow moves on the wall the windowpane shakes a bus starts its motor in the street startling the morning’s deep quietude. I lift the blinds and open the window letting a breeze slip inside. A dawn mist swaddles the bay. The newspapers vivisect this country on each page merrily they wonder if it has a future Kedmi makes hash of it ten times a day but here it is stretching so peaceful and safe its smokestacks exhaling lazy gray smoke into a low sky. Reality is stronger than all thought it even surprises itself.

Not even Kedmi believed it until they rang the doorbell halfway through the seder. We were sitting with our Haggadahs, and for a moment I was terrified that it was her on the heels of her phone call. But Kedmi ran to the door and there he was in the dim light of the hallway, come to turn himself in. I didn’t recognize him at first in a white shirt, freshly shaven and combed, his beady chimp’s eyes gleaming fiercely, until Kedmi broke out in a crafty smile and grabbed him with both hands as though to make sure he stayed put. He was already talking a blue streak. “Well, well, well, what an honored guest! Just look at what we have here, everyone! Now that we’ve made two happy people of father and mother, it’s time to cheer up the police…. But do come in. We’ll have to think quick if we’re to keep this night off of yours from costing you another two years.”

The young man stood silently, sullenly in the doorway, recoiling from Kedmi’s grasp, a great fatigue in his eyes. He turned back toward the dark stairway from which two more figures emerged, one of a short, sturdy old workingman wearing a threadbare suit and gray cap and clutching a plastic bag, and the other of a swarthy, unkempt, gypsyish-looking woman of undefinable origin. Kedmi divined at once who they were and hurried toward them.

“This way, please, Mr. and Mrs. Miller. Come right in, it’s no imposition at all. I’m sure God won’t mind if we take a break and finish the seder later. Come in, have a seat.”

I felt a twinge of pity for the father standing so awkwardly with his dark wife, who looked too young to be the boy’s mother. I rose to make room for them and offer them my seat, as did Ya’el, while Kedmi’s mother sat up and smiled indulgently and Tsvi slumped deeper in his chair, looking the murderer over. More chairs were brought but the couple seemed uncertain whether to join us or not. Both kept looking at their son, unprepared to have to part with him again.

“Sit down, have something to drink,” said Kedmi, suddenly in one of his manic moods. “Perhaps you’d like some wine… you can have the cup we saved for Elijah…”

“You haven’t informed the police yet?” asked the father in a thick German accent.

“No. I decided to wait and see whether your son would really show up. I thought he might want to spend the whole holiday with you, ha ha… but never mind… never mind… we’ll give it a religious twist, eh? We can say that he ran away to pray… I hope you at least attended services… what, you didn’t? But we’ll still make a born-again Jew of him! We’ll have him wear a skullcap… we’ll give him a new image in the very best contemporary style. Do you know, I phoned the prison this afternoon and they were still hunting for you in the woods… they’re absolutely determined to find you there… they even brought some dog to track you, just like in the movies, and flew over in a helicopter. Oh, they’re playing a real fine game of cops and robbers. I tell you, this family seder of yours will cost the government a quarter of a million pounds… but never mind, they’ll run it off the press as soon as the holiday is over…. Come, sit down, ladies and gentlemen, don’t be afraid. There’s no extra charge for any of this. I’m still waiting for your uncle from Belgium… perhaps the police will find him in the woods too, ha ha ha…”

Kedmi Kedmi where did they ever find you? With your supercilious sarcasm your total tactlessness your diarrhea of the mouth your weird pointless but still surprising even sometimes anarchistic jokes. And yet Ya’el does love you I never realized that until this visit. And controls you too with that passive silence of hers that manipulates you by some hidden force. Who really are you Kedmi? And such a home-brewed Israeli concoction always shoving to the front of the line…

The morning mist is breaking up dissolving northward a clean light washes the bay. How quickly day is born here. And out there in the west darkness awaits you or rather it creeps up behind you in a few more gratuitous hours it will have caught up with you again. A free gift that you needn’t pay back. What time is it? What time can it be? You open the door of the darkened guest room Tsvi is curled up on the living-room couch fast asleep his pale arm dangling down his wristwatch catching the light you can’t resist picking up the thin hand he lets you have it in his sleep you twist it to look it’s five after six. He opens his eyes for a moment with a smile then curls up like a fetus again. You walk to the dining room nothing is left on its expanded table but the soiled cloth you drop into the seat at the head of it where you sat last night your head in your hands from somewhere comes the flicker of a thought.

Here next to you, a few hours ago, sat the uncommunicative parents. At first they wouldn’t hear of joining us but I insisted until they did. Kedmi took the young man aside for “a quick briefing,” as he put it, telling him what to admit and what not, the main thing being to dispel all suspicion that he had escaped to stash away the loot from the robbery. Once again it struck me that he thought the fellow was guilty and was defending a client whom he didn’t believe in. In the end he made him sign some document stating that he was turning himself in of his own free will, after which he hastened to phone the police, refusing to talk to anyone but a certain officer he knew. Meanwhile the murderer’s parents sat with us at the seder table, frantic with worry, not touching the wine cup placed in front of them, the woman staring at the table, the man watching us with hard, alert eyes. Gaddi looked back at them hostilely, while I sought to smile sympathetically.

“He simply wanted to spend the seder with us,” the woman explained to Ya’el. “He’s an only son, he didn’t want us to be alone…”

“Are you his mother?” Ya’el wondered softly. The woman nodded in an admission of guilt. When you began to question the father you discovered a stubborn but naive German Jew who had somehow fallen by the wayside due to his own self-limiting rigidity and had remained a simple blue-collar type all his life. Now he was in total, unremitting conflict with the world, and economically slowly going under.

“Don’t you worry,” said Kedmi’s mother, beatifically inspired to feel that via Kedmi they had come under her patronage. “You’ll see. My son will save him.”

The woman regarded her trustingly, murmuring her gratitude, but the father burst out irately:

“There’s nothing to save him from because he never did anything in the first place!”

Kedmi’s mother gave him a knowing smile, mystified by his stubbornness but ceding nothing. “You’ll see. Even if he did murder her, Yisra’el will save him.”

“Murder who, grandpa?” asked Gaddi, who was sitting next to you, in an excited whisper.

“No one,” we all exclaimed together. “No one at all.”

Tsvi smiled, still slumped in his chair, toying with the little Haggadah that he held.

“Then why are the police coming to get him?” Gaddi persisted.

“Because they think that he murdered someone. But your father will prove that they’re wrong.”

The murderer’s father looked angrily at Gaddi and we all fell silent, listening to Kedmi rant over the telephone with his customary know-it-all aggressiveness and uncalled-for provocations. Tsvi alone sat there untroubled, taking it all in with an ironic smile, his fingers constructing a small pile of matzo crumbs on the white tablecloth. At last Kedmi returned to the dining room, beamingly dragging the escaped man after him as if afraid to let go of him for a second. It had taken a while for the morons at police headquarters to get it, but soon they would arrive. “Come on now, let’s finish the seder in a hurry before the fun begins…”

The parents jumped up in alarm. “Well then, we’d better go,” they said sorrowfully. “We’ve bothered you enough as it is.”

“But how can you say that?” asked Tsvi. “You’ve been no trouble at all!” He got gallantly to his feet. “Stay with us until the police come. You’ll want to say goodbye to him then.”

“Yes, do,” agreed Ya’el. “Perhaps you’d like to wait in the living room. You can be there quietly by yourselves.”

“But why should they?” protested Tsvi, who had come suddenly, mysteriously to life. “Come sit with us if you can stand it.” He smiled at me. “You’ll have the experience of hearing my father sing Passover songs.’’ And he made room for Kedmi’s murderer, brought him a chair and helped him into it, and redistributed all the Haggadahs.

I felt a burst of fear when I saw how he looked at the fellow. Kedmi was taken aback for a moment but quickly gave his assent; perhaps he was afraid that the escaped prisoner would disappear again if left alone in the next room. Hesitantly the guests resumed their seats and listened to the weak, uncertain singing led by me with Kedmi’s mother and Gaddi joining in while the others just hummed along. Thus the seder came to an end, leaving us at the table still waiting for the police.

Kedmi went to open the front door. “For Elijah.” He winked. Suddenly there wasn’t a sound. We sat there unaccountably silent, except for Tsvi, who whispered something to the murderer with glowing cheeks, to which the escaped man replied with an annoyed, uncomprehending look. And so we waited until at last we heard heavy steps on the stairs. Kedmi hurried back to the door. “Listen to them drag their feet,” he mocked. “The only place you’ll ever see a cop run is on TV.”

Finally a fat, mustachioed sergeant appeared in the doorway gasping for breath. He had a piece of paper in his hand and a big pistol strapped to his waist. “Does Yisra’el Kedmi live here?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Kedmi rapidly, “and it’s about time you’ve come. It’s only on TV that you people ever move fast. In reality you’re as slow as molas…”

The words were still in midsentence when the sergeant pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and slipped them with startling speed onto the astonished Kedmi’s wrists.

“That’s enough of your wisecracks,” he said, dragging Kedmi to the door. “Move!”

Kedmi went wild. “Just a minute, you nut, I’m the lawyer! Why don’t you read that note through to the end…”

Tsvi let out a loud, strange guffaw while the rest of us crowded around the sergeant. Next to me Gaddi was biting his lips. The murderer grabbed the policeman and said calmly:

“Hey, it’s me. I’m the one.”

But imperturbably, stubbornly, the sergeant refused to admit his mistake. He stood there slow and stolid, his humorous eyes the only sign that he was enjoying the scene he had caused.

“What do you mean, it’s you?”

“I’m the one who escaped.”

“Are you Yisra’el Kedmi?”

“No, I’m Yoram Miller.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“That’s me.”

“No one said anything to me about any Miller. But if you care to join us, come along.”

Kedmi went totally beserk, rattling his handcuffs and screaming, “You let me out of these at once, you moron, I’m his lawyer!”

The sergeant gave him a sharp yank, twisting his cuffed wrists savagely. “Stop calling me names, you! I’ve got Yisra’el Kedmi written here. Is that you?…It is? That’s all I want to know.”

At which point I approached him, gripped him lightly by the arm, and set him straight simply and clearly. He listened to me, beginning to comprehend, while Kedmi watched pale with anger, his eyes darting hatefully back and forth. The sergeant took a walkie-talkie from his belt and tried to get headquarters. There was a crackle of static. He asked Ya’el for a glass of water, laid the set on the table, took the glass with his free hand and gulped it down. A young woman’s voice spoke. “What did you say the name of the apprehended party was?”

The sergeant told her. A brief silence ensued while Kedmi stared hard at the set. “Is there a Yoram Miller there?” asked the voice.

“Yes,” said the sergeant.

“Then apprehend him. He’s the escapee. And be advised that he’s dangerous.”

With a smile the sergeant let Kedmi go and handcuffed the murderer. “Sorry about that,” he said.

Kedmi sprang away from him, massaging his freed hand. “If anyone should be sorry, it’s the parents who gave birth to you. Now please sign this statement that I’m turning him over to you of his own free will.”

The sergeant didn’t even look at the paper extended to him. “I’m not signing anything. The last statement I signed cost me two more years of waiting for my sergeant’s stripes. If you want, you can come with me to the precinct.” He smiled genially again. “I really am sorry, but all I had written here was Yisra’el Kedmi.”

“Why be sorry?” reiterated Kedmi in a quiet, hate-filled, profoundly injured voice. “It’s not your fault. Your parents should be sorry. The police force should be sorry. You’re not to blame that you were born a cretin.”

“I’d watch it if I were you, Mr. Kedmi,” said the sergeant, still smiling unflappably.

But Kedmi wasn’t through with his tantrum. “I should watch it? I? It’s you who better watch it…. If you think you’ve seen the last of me, I’ve got news for you! But enough of this clowning around… I’m coming with you. You too, mother. And the rest of you…”

He was in a white heat. How quick the man was to take offense. But I was less mindful of him than I was of the boy, who had taken the sight of his handcuffed father hard and was clinging to me in confusion, his hand in mine, in search of support. You’re going to miss him, I thought. When you first saw him the night you arrived and they woke him to show you, you were almost frightened by how fat he was. A miniature Kedmi, but without Kedmi’s manic spirits, so somber and strange. And then when he woke you that overcast afternoon with rain streaming down the window you were scared again by the sight of him standing there in a black trenchcoat with an old leather hat jammed down on his head, holding a pair of sugar tongs. You were sure that the boy was retarded or at least emotionally disturbed. But in the end you came to understand him, to appreciate his clarity of mind. Oh he was somber all right, seldom smiling, a little pessimist squelched by a father to whom he was very attached and yet whom he judged all the time. It amazed you to hear him talk about his parents, whom he saw so complexly, so accurately. And all along, in that brooding silence of his, he must have been judging you too. How foolish it was to take him with us to the hospital. We must have seemed ridiculous to him — and yet even when he saw Asa hit himself, even when you went down on your knees, he didn’t bat an eyelash — no, not even when that giant snatched his toy away. Will he at least remember you and this hectic crazy week until you come again? Only when will that be?

The shadow beside me sticks steadfastly to the wall a dark ragged strip of gauze that will dissolve in the morning light. Behind you before you the darkness deepens over the sea. Already a dull feeling of fatigue but better a tired day than a flight without sleep. Distractedly my fingers knead the scar Connie calls it my psychosomatic itch and takes my hand away tonguing it with a kiss. With such American goodness such bold givingness. All at once Dina wanted to see it. Good and scared I was. No fantasy then. The need to show everyone. The compulsion. Even you found it odd the way you opened your shirt for her in that crowded cafe. Asa was furious he couldn’t understand the petty mind. Why did you have to go tell her? What a luminous smile. She was happy you did though not frightened at all even secretly made a note in her little pad maybe you and your scar will turn up in some story of hers. No more than a child. A beauty unaware of her own power but she liked you. The joy of seeing her again. Coming especially to say goodbye. The slow trickle of time what surprises has it in store for you today? What time is it?

The sleepers tossed in their rooms. Soft morning stirrings. A warm, cozy hour. Everyone had gone to sleep late. Tsvi made up his mind to go to the police station. Kedmi took his mother and the murderer’s parents home. Ya’el went to put Gaddi to bed. And so I was left by myself at the head of the deserted table while, as though materialized by magic, across from me sat a young reporter from a local newspaper who had tiptoed in the open door. Never one to miss a trick, Kedmi had gotten him to cover the story in order to get some free publicity. “They’re all gone,” I said, “but I’ll tell you exactly what happened.” And I sat him across from me like a student and gave him his scoop.

A heavy shuffle of feet. Gaddi emerged drowsily from his room and walked blindly to the bathroom, his shadow trailing after him on the floor until swallowed up by the rug.

“Gaddi,” I whispered.

He paused for a second as though hearing voices and continued to the bathroom. The water was flushed and he came back the other way.

“Gaddi,” I whispered again without getting up.

He paused again, scanning the darkness with shut eyes as though called by a ghost. Slipping his hand through his pajama tops like a little Napoleon, he laid it on his chest and went back to bed without a word.

My heart went out to him. I followed him into his room. Curled up beneath his blanket, he opened one eye and regarded me. Would he remember me? How delve deep enough into him to keep him from forgetting? I sat on his bed, feeling his warm body, smelling a faint odor of pee. “Do you know that I’m leaving today?”

He nodded.

“Will you remember your grandpa?”

He considered and nodded again.

“Didn’t you hear me calling you before?”

He didn’t answer. Calmly he observed me with his big eyes, realizing now that the ghost was only grandpa. Beneath the blanket his hand groped back toward his chest.

“Where does it hurt you? Your mother said she’d take you to the doctor tomorrow and that you’d write me what he said. You’re just not active enough. You don’t exercise. You don’t walk.”

“Where to?” he asked.

“I mean in general.”

“No, that won’t help,” he answered hopelessly, with a maturity that seemed beyond his years. “It’s because of my glands. They have to be taken out.”

“That’s nonsense. Nothing has to be taken out. You’re a fine, healthy boy. You just have to do more with yourself. Come on, get up. Maybe you’d like to take a walk with me now.”

“Where to?”

“Just out in the morning air. We’ll be the only ones out at this hour.”

“All right,” he said, still making no move to rise.

I went to get dressed, watching the thinning, gauzy shadow that had breezed in through the blinds turn to a flap of sky blue. Parting. Only eighteen more hours. The knot was cut. The border sealed and receding the wounds that would quickly heal. No more of her and her other. No more lunacy. I washed and shaved with slow movements. And out there the darkness was moving behind before the slowly revolving light. I peeked in on Gaddi, who was still in bed with his eyes shut. Asleep. I went to the small kitchen and shut the door behind me. The washed dishes were stacked in the drying rack, the leftovers were all neatly covered. I put up water to boil. Opening a closet, I found a hidden cache of bread that Kedmi had put away for the holiday. Alongside it lay the long bread knife. What had I promised that disappointed her so?

I was drinking my coffee when the door opened and in walked Gaddi in his school uniform, rubbing his eyes.

“So you’re up! That’s great. Would you like something to eat?…No? Are you sure?”

He debated with himself.

“No. Then how about a glass of milk at least?”

He consented. I poured it for him. He drained it quickly, reaching out without thinking for some matzo, breaking off a piece and sticking it silently into his mouth.

“Eat,” I said. “You don’t want to be hungry.”

He ate the rest of the matzo. I put the dirty dishes in the sink and we left, passing by Ya’el’s bedroom, through whose slightly open door I saw Kedmi’s great bulk sprawled on its back, one hand on Ya’el’s face.

“We’d better leave a note,” I said. I found a piece of paper and wrote: We’ve gone for a morning walk. We’ll be back soon. Grandpa. “You sign too,” I said to Gaddi. He wrote his name gladly.

It was already full morning outside, but still very chilly. Spring was having a hard time deciding. What time could it be?

Gaddi seemed pleased to find the street so still. “Everyone is sleeping off the seder,” he said. “What time is it?”

“I left my watch in my valise. I’ll spend the day without it.”

“How come?”

“Because I don’t want to see time running to the finish line of my visit.”

He smiled.

“You don’t have a watch of your own? I’ll leave you some money and tomorrow you can buy one with it.”

He wanted to show me his school. We walked down the hill and entered a large, rectangular yard that was caked with a layer of well-trodden mud. On the wall of the school building hung a large clock that said eight.

“It always says that,” said Gaddi, who was full of life now. He was searching for something around him, bending to dig in the hard mud. Suddenly he kneeled and scooped up a big colored marble that he put into his pocket.

“I found it!” he murmured under his breath.

He went on looking, enjoying the unfamiliar quiet in this familiar place, feeling at home. At one end of the yard was a small stone platform on which he jumped and walked about importantly.

“Where’s your classroom?” I asked.

He pointed up at it and after unsuccessfully trying several locks found a door at the back of the building that swung open. We stepped inside, walking down long corridors whose walls were decked with portraits of national heroes, dried flowers, slogans and verses from the Bible, maps of a post-1967 Israel. A homeland still struggling to be a homeland. A squashed-banana, public-school smell. I hadn’t set foot in such a place since the children grew up. I began to tell Gaddi that I too was a teacher, but a teacher who taught teachers to teach. He nodded, satisfied with the information, and led me up some stairs to his second-floor classroom, whose door was disappointingly locked. Through its glass pane we saw desks and chairs stacked against the wall. He led me back down to the yard, trying all the doors on the way. The sun was shining brightly. The blinds on the houses across the street were still drawn. He jumped happily on the stone platform, ruddy and fat, excitedly talking to himself, playing at being the principal or some teacher. From afar I watched the sunrays glance off his face that resembled an overfed boxer’s.

“Who’s your principal?” I asked when he rejoined me.

“It’s a woman,” he murmured shyly.

“Your heart doesn’t hurt anymore?”

“No.”

Less than a thought. We left the schoolyard and he proposed showing me his old kindergarten. We walked back up the street until we came to a small stone building tucked into the side of a ravine. Stone stairs descended to it. He hurried down them, cutting across the play area with its seesaw and sandbox and trying the door. It was open. I followed him.

“Someone’s in there,” he whispered.

We entered, hearing voices, and found that the kindergarten had been converted into a makeshift synagogue.

“Excuse us,” I said to the small group of men who were standing inside and stretching a rope across the room to mark off the women’s section.

“Please come in,” said one of them. “There’ll be enough of us to start the service soon.”

“Oh, no,” I stammered. “We had no idea… my grandson just wanted to show me his old kindergarten… we didn’t come prepared for prayer…”

But they wouldn’t relinquish us, they had everything we needed, from a cardboard box they produced, all brand-new, prayer shawls and prayer books and skullcaps. “Come on in, sit down, if you don’t mind waiting. This is the first time that we’re holding services here. The municipality let us have the building for the holiday… there’s a need for it in the neighborhood… we’ll be starting soon…”

I glanced at Gaddi, who was watching with interest as his old nursery school turned into a house of worship.

“Would you like to stay a bit and see a service? Have you ever been to a synagogue before?”

“No.”

“Your father never took you?”

“No.”

“Then let’s stay a while. It will give us a chance to rest. What time is it?”

We sat on the tiny chairs. The four or five young men around us went on setting up the room, arranging the chairs in rows, making an ark for the Torah out of the doll closet, placing a Torah scroll in it that they removed from a carton, improvising a podium for the cantor, joking amusedly about the kindergarten they had invaded while a young, dynamic rabbi with an English accent directed them. Someone banged cymbals. For years I hadn’t bothered to attend a synagogue service in Israel. And here was one being held by these young people — and very unreligious-looking young people they were, with their skullcaps that kept slipping off their heads — who seemed so normal and with it.

“Do you live around here?”

“No, but I’m visiting my daughter, who does.”

Still glistening from the last rains the green ravine could be seen through the window in the brightening light. Silvery-green olive trees dotted its slopes, which here and there were darkened by the mouth of a limestone cave. Large, gaily colored toy blocks lay around us, and here too slogans, accompanied by photographs of dogs, papered the walls. Already Gaddi was excitedly checking the names of the children by the coat hangers and helping the rabbi to find things, while I, on my little kindergarten-tumed-synagogue chair, bore inadvertent witness to the contemporary religious revival…

Only a few hours left now. One last Israeli day under way. And there behind you before you the thickening darkness waits. Not a fantasy after all. Sitting there in her wide cotton dress beneath her white smock so strong so big so serene that crazy fanatic fighting for our marriage beyond the thin wooden door playing for time. For a burned-out wick. Smiling not at all sorry clinging to her madness as though to the leash of some great crouching beast. I don’t believe in her getting better children watch out for her you have no idea how deep it goes. You disappointed me. So calmly so lucidly. I did did I? Disappointed you that I didn’t go crazy too. Forgive me but that far I wouldn’t go. And did I ever really promise?

Two of the young men, scientists from the Haifa Technion, it seemed, were talking about some laboratory experiment of theirs. Gaddi came and sat beside me, his heavy profile with its double chin suddenly reminding me of Ya’el when she was a girl. His eyes darted curiously about him while his hand unconsciously crept up to his chest again, exploring, squeezing lightly.

“Why do you keep putting your hand there? Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“If it starts to I’ll squeeze it.”

“Squeeze what?”

“The pain.”

“Tomorrow your mother is taking you to the doctor. I don’t like this one bit. And he’ll explain to you how to lose weight and how to keep away from fattening foods. The next time I’m here…”

“Are you coming back?”

“Of course I am.”

Three young women entered the room with a whoop. The men rose to greet them. “Good to see you here!” They joked about their kindergarten, showed them the little washrooms, and sat them behind the rope they had strung. “Here. You are absolutely forbidden to cross it.” More laughter. It was an adventure for them, this trying on of religion for size. More worshippers arrived, descending the stairs and exclaiming at their surroundings. The young rabbi had the men put on prayer shawls and taught them the blessing to recite. “There are ten men here now,” someone said. “We can start to pray.”

There’s a bit of ocean too in the splendid view in the window. My first year abroad I missed this landscape terribly afterwards I grew attached to others so breathtaking especially in autumn and in spring. We who saw this country being born thought we could always bend it to our will always correct it if it went off course yet here it was out of control full of strange mutations different people odd permutations new sources of unexpected energy. The clear lines have been hopelessly smudged. If only it could at least be a homeland when will it settle down to be one. Asa go easy with your historical chaos don’t force too much of it on us.

The scented women regard you from behind their rope. It was in America that you first discovered your powers of attraction. They didn’t miss a lecture not even in midwinter not even during a blizzard. The old Israeli Valentino. The Apostle to the Exile who re-exiled himself and now spends his days in heated underground shopping centers fingering the fabric of dresses checking out the millinery aisles waiting for Connie. Connie I’ve given away my half of the house. Like a corpse tied to the bedposts and you so patient such a gentleman.

And still there were only ten men.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the rabbi. “I didn’t come to pray. I just happened by.”

“At least stay for the beginning,” he pleaded. “There’ll be more of us. Just for the beginning.”

He went to the improvised ark, explained briefly to those gathered the nature of the morning’s prayer, and began to sing the old hymn in a mild, clear voice:

Great King of All Whose reign began

E’er was there any living thing,

And Who, when All’s done by His will,

Forever still will be called King;

When All is gone and is no more,

Still will He rule eternally;

Imperially glorious,

He was, He is, and He will be;

And He is One, beside Him none…

A young couple arrived and stood looking on in the entrance. I felt rooted to my chair. Exhausted. Time was trickling away. But what time was it? The room began filling up. The box of prayer shawls was empty. The sun glared through the window. Hymned clarity. Stubborn flicker of thought. Fear-constricted. Gaddi turned uncomfortably to the rear. A small boy had entered the room, recognized him and pointed him out in a whisper to his father, who was wearing an officer’s uniform. He tugged at my sleeve, ill at ease.

“When are we going?”

“Soon.”

I shut my eyes, in thrall to the liturgy, around me the decorous silence of these non-observant Jews unaccustomed to the constant drone that accompanies prayer in an Orthodox synagogue.

“Mom and dad will worry,” Gaddi persisted, rising from his chair.

“All right, let’s go. Excuse me,” I said to a young man sitting next to me, “do you happen to know the time?” He showed me his watch, afraid to utter a word.

I took off my prayer shawl and skullcap and handed them without glancing up to a new congregant who had just arrived. The small boy rose too and made his way toward us, but Gaddi hurried up the stairs away from him and we stepped out into the spring day. The street was filled now with both adults and children. Cars streamed down the hill. I walked still staring down at the ground. What guilt they managed to infuse in you. Not that you ever believed but for a long while you didn’t disbelieve either. Leave God out of this Naomi said right away.

We continued back up the street. Gaddi strayed into a field and returned with a bent metal pipe. He stopped by a tree to pick leaves for his last silkworm that hadn’t yet spun a cocoon. Suddenly I felt that we were being followed by a car driving slowly behind us. I stopped. So did it. The light reflected from its windshield was too blinding for me to make out the driver. We turned into Ya’el’s narrow street and climbed the stairs to the apartment. The living room was still dark. Ya’el and Kedmi were in the kitchen, sitting at a table piled high with breakfast, with matzos and pitas side by side, both eating ravenously. Kedmi still wore his pajamas and was in high spirits.

“Last night you made off with our daughter and this morning it’s our son, eh, grandpa?”

“Gaddi keeps having these pains in his chest. You have to take him to the doctor tomorrow.”

“It’s nothing,” said Ya’el. “He’s just imagining it.”

“Still…”

“All right, we’ll take him,” said Kedmi.

“Is that a promise?”

He looked at me, amused.

“It’s a promise. Where have you been?”

We told him about the new synagogue in the kindergarten.

“Didn’t I tell you they were taking over this country?” he shot back. “Before long we won’t even be allowed to drive a car on Saturday. We’ll have to get around on roller skates.’’

I asked him what happened last night at the police station. He had actually filed a complaint against the sergeant, who would, he claimed, retain that rank for the rest of his life. I asked him again about his murderer. Did he really think that he was guilty?

“Do I think that he’s guilty? What difference would it make if I did? My job is to keep the judge from thinking it.”

Ya’el brought me my breakfast.

“What time is it?”

“Did Rakefet break your watch after all?”

“No. I just left it in my room.”

“It’s half past eight. Have you begun counting the hours?”

“No. Why?”

The phone rang. Ya’el answered it and returned. It was Asi calling from the bus station in Tel Aviv. They were on their way. I returned to my room on a wave of emotion, knelt by my little valise, took out my passport and ticket, and checked the time of departure again. I reread the power of attorney that I had prepared for Asa and glanced again at the signed certificate of divorce. A shadow flashed across the ceiling. Mine or some object’s in the room? I folded my pajamas and packed them away. The sky outside was bright blue. Below on the corner I caught sight again of the white car that had followed us. Its driver loitered beside it, a slender man in a white suit.

I hurried to Tsvi, who was still sleeping in the dim living room, his white arm trailing on the floor. He open his eyes with a luxuriating sigh.

“Father? What time is it?”

“Already past nine.”

He sighed again deeply.

“Tsvi, get up. I think that man is waiting for you downstairs.”

“Who?”

“That man… of yours. You know who I mean… Calderon….”

“Oh my God. He’s here already? He’s really too much.”

“Are you getting up?”

“In a minute. What’s the rush? It’s only nine, and today’s a holiday.”

“Perhaps I should invite him up then.”

“Don’t. Let him wait. He’s used to it.”

He snuggled back under the blanket and shut his eyes again.

“I still think you should get up.”

“All right. In a minute. There’s plenty of time. Do you have the travel jitters?”

“Not especially.”

“Are you glad to be going back?”

“It’s not easy to leave you all.”

“Oh…” He turned over on his other side.

Kedmi sat down to read a newspaper. Ya’el cleaned the house. I looked out the window at the slender man, who was still in the same place, smoking a cigarette. I debated for a moment and made up my mind to go to him. He was standing and gazing up at the windows of the apartment when I approached him. Suddenly he noticed me. He made a movement as though to flee, recalled it immediately, smiled and held out his hand.

“Hello, Mr. Kaminka. I didn’t realize you had recognized me. How was your seder?”

“Pleasant enough. And yours?”

“The main thing is that it’s over. It dragged on and on. That’s because of my wife’s eldest brother… every year he makes it longer. But we got through it in the end…’’

“Are you waiting for Tsvi? He’s still asleep.”

“Of course, of course, I knew he’d be. Let him sleep. I have something to tell him. Something new that may interest him. But never mind. Let him sleep.”

“Something new?”

“Oh, it’s just a business matter. Nothing very dramatic… it can wait… it’s not really that important. But how are you, Mr. Kaminka? I heard that the divorce went smoothly. I drove Tsvi up there yesterday and had the impression that she took it well.”

“Would you like to come upstairs with me?”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that! Not at an hour like this. I’ll wait here in the car. I have a radio and whatever I need. I simply misread my watch, and so I came early… but never mind… and after all, this is your last day here…”

“No, Mr. Calderon, I insist. We’ll wake Tsvi up.”

“Absolutely not! It’s just that… just that I…”

He began to shake all over.

“It’s just that I… I actually had meant to go to synagogue… I never travel on holidays… I have my prayer shawl and prayer book with me in the car… that is, I was on my way to synagogue when suddenly the thought crossed my mind… that it’s hopeless… that he wants to leave me… tell me it’s not so! You were a source of so much strength to me that night, that’s what’s kept me going until now…”

I touched his light, warm arm and he sheltered against me, his lined face blotchy as though rouged, his eyes two bits of sunken coals.

“Come up anyway.”

His face lit up.

“He didn’t say anything of the sort about me… Tsvi… he didn’t say…?”

“No. Not as far as I know. But come up and have something to drink. We’ll wake him. He’s slept enough.”

“It’s no good for him, this sleeping late of his. It keeps him from getting ahead. I’ve told him that he can’t wake up an hour before the market opens and think that there’s still time to size it up. But today’s a holiday, why shouldn’t he sleep? Never mind… he’ll only be annoyed if we wake him… and perhaps I can still find some place around here to pray in…”

He wiped his eyes.

“Come, then, let me show you a little synagogue that just opened today. Gaddi and I were out walking this morning and we found it in his old kindergarten… some people in the neighborhood have gotten interested in religion…”

He wavered. “I’m sure they’re not Sephardim… it’s only the Ashkenazim who are returning to religion now… and I’m not up to a whole lot of new melodies. Never mind, though, I’ll go… where is it?”

He took his prayer shawl from the car and donned it, placed a black skullcap on his head, rolled up the windows, and locked the doors.

“When I got into the car this morning and started out on the highway I felt like I was driving on fire. I’ve never traveled on a holiday or a Sabbath before. It’s a good thing that my father is dead and doesn’t know. But I’ll make it up… I’ll give God back what I’ve taken from Him… I’m keeping accounts. It’s just that I feel so hopeless. The bottom has fallen out of my life. I’ll be good and sick from this yet, I know I will.”

He grabbed my hand.

“He really said nothing to you? He hasn’t told you what he intends to do?”

“No.”

“But I know it… no, don’t try telling me… I know that he wants to ditch me… I can feel it. If he were a woman… but where am I going to find another man to fall in love with? This whole thing has been such a disaster for me, right from the start…”

He stood in the sunlight by the stone stairs of the synagogue, raving with a nasal whine. Down below it seemed like a regular service now: children ran about, voices were lifted in prayer, men lounged by the entrance in their prayer shawls. I wanted to comfort him, to make room for him in me too.

“Let me talk to Tsvi about it…”

“But you mustn’t! He’ll be furious with me… and you’ve had enough worries as it is, quite apart from your leaving tonight. By the way, I told Tsvi that I would be happy to drive you to the airport. I’ll miss you, Mr. Kaminka… we all will. Well, I’ll see you later. Maybe praying will calm me down a bit. Tell Tsvi that I’ll be over soon.”

His long crooked shadow snaps on the descending stairs he vanishes into the kindergarten and is gone. And you where are you? Your shadow frozen on the concrete wall plastered there larger than life laced with foliage like a frilly dress. I’ll miss you. How quickly farce turns to tragedy. I’ll miss you. Whose shadow is now blotted out. The chill light. A sky arrayed in the deepest of blues. The softly stirring air. We all will. Your guts are hanging out your flattery gets you nowhere you are a run-down washed-up old man. And nevertheless. Straight simple streets avenues of eucalyptus trees. March on. March on. Homeland can you be a homeland. A small dog with its tail in the air leads a large dog nose-down after it. Children people the traffic in the street. What time is it? The jungly green ravine between two houses. A sense of depth now. It mustn’t be said must not even be said but the state of Israel is an episode. Or will history have mercy? Asa do you hear historical mercy there’s a concept for you to work on. March on. March on. Easy. A matter of hours. Or else to stop time in its tracks. You who thought to slink away in the night will be missed. Not even angry with you. Overwhelmed by your generous concession. Asa and Dina are coming all this way they feel close to you after all. Down down into the ravine oh to disappear there following a path through the fragrant tangle of bushes to where the bay opens up at a new angle. Far away dogs bark. The squat buildings of the Technion across from me. To remember. To cleanse my tired eyes in this light. At first the longing for another landscape you saw then that landscapes were replaceable. Sitting on this rock unbuttoning your shirt airing out your scar contemplating it pleasurably scratching it here by yourself in this lush moist brush. Dawn knife flash. No fantasy no nor regret. Promiscuously doubling herself demanding the impossible from me to keep a promise meant only as a metaphor as a landmark of longing. But is it thinkable? And suppose that I did disappoint that I was afraid but I wasn’t ask the dog. One day the children will understand what really happened.

“Hey, someone’s down there!” shouted a youthful voice above me. “Some old man.” All at once a column of youngsters filed overhead, slithering out of the bushes like a colorful snake and tramping down the path a few inches from me with giggled whispers.

“What time is it, kids?”

“Almost eleven.”

The column continued down the ravine and vanished in the undergrowth. I climbed back up, passing the synagogue, which was now a kindergarten again. A heavy lock glinted on the door. The white car was gone. Dressed in old clothes Kedmi stood in front of his house with a hose, rags and bucket, washing his car and barking orders at Gaddi, who was assisting him.

“Are Asa and Dina here yet?”

“No.”

“Is Tsvi up?”

“Why should he be? Is the stock market open today?”

“What time is it?”

“Time enough for you to take a few more walks.”

I quickly climbed the stairs. The door of the apartment was open, admitting the sounds of the neighbors and of someone’s radio. Ya’el stood washing dishes in the kitchen while the baby sat gaily in her armchair at the table, waving a big-nippled bottle.

“Tsvi’s still sleeping?”

Ya’el smiled serenely. “He doesn’t want to wake up. You know what he’s like in the morning.”

“But we can’t let him lie around all day. I’ll wake him.”

And I stormed into the darkened living room, pulling open curtains, raising blinds, shaking him back and forth. “That’s enough, you lazy bum! On your feet!” An obscure anger swept over me. “Up, you brute!” I pulled off the blankets with one jerk. The smell of his bedclothes. He sat up in a daze, groggy and annoyed.

“What’s going on?”

“Get up! What’s going on is that I’m leaving for America soon, Asi and Dina are about to arrive, and you’re wallowing in sleep right in the middle of everything!”

He tried pulling the blanket back over him but I jerked it wildly away. His degenerate, smooth, unsullied face. A portrait of me as a young man.

“What’s gotten into you, father? Are you out of your mind? What time is it?”

“That’s enough, can’t you understand! The rest of us have been up for ages… that’s enough…”

He sat up, squatting on his haunches among the crumpled sheets, holding his head, regarding me with a troubled look.

“I think I dreamed about you again…”

“You dreamed about me?” I broke into a hysterical laugh. “God help us all! Now get up.”

“Don’t you want to hear about it?”

“Later. First get up.”

I turned on the radio full blast, rocking the house with loud choral music, and hurried back to Ya’el, who was in the bathroom getting ready to wash the baby.

“Here,” I offered eagerly, “let me help you.”

“Why bother, father? Go lie down. You’ve been on your feet all morning, and you still have a long day ahead of you.”

“I don’t want to lie down. I want to be with you all I can. Here, hand her over. I’ll hold her.”

I carefully undressed the baby, laying her on a fresh diaper, while Ya’el filled the little tub with water. Steam rose from it and fogged the mirrors. I removed her tiny shirt and undid her diaper, smelling her thin, odorous BM. I prepared the soap and baby powder and checked the temperature of the water. Outside we heard Gaddi and Kedmi, who had come back upstairs. The kibbutz choir on the radio sang even louder, celebrating the Festival of Spring. An announcer read verses from the Bible. Who would have imagined that all these old rituals were still kept up? Amazing. More voices of neighbors, someone stepped in to borrow a cup of milk. An Israeli morning. I took off my shirt to keep from wetting it and swung the baby’s rosy little body over the water, lowering her slowly into it, crooning to her and trying to make her laugh. Ya’el sought to help me but I waved her away. She watched my deft, vigorous movements with astonishment.

“We’ll miss you.”

“You’ll what?”

“We’ll miss you, father. I mean it. I never realized…”

“Don’t be silly. You’ll finally have a little peace and quiet when I’m gone.”

“No, it will be sad without you tomorrow.”

“Not for Kedmi.”

“For Kedmi too. He’s gotten to feel close to you these past few days. I can sense it. He doesn’t let it show but still…”

“Oh, I know that. He’s really not a bad sort. I’ve gotten more used to him too.”

“He really isn’t It just seems that way because of how he talks…”

She blushed, afraid of having said the wrong thing.

I smiled and said nothing. Rakefet gaily slapped the water with her hands, sending it spraying. Her chaste, dainty pudenda. With a start I recalled Gaddi had said she looked like Naomi. I gripped her little form hard to keep it from slipping. Tsvi came in to wash and shave, fully dressed, making his way between us to the sink, where he stood watching me in amazement. The baby shut her eyes while I took her for a swim in the water.

To have room enough for them all. Crazy thought. Out there peaking now the behind you before you darkness. Brave widow turned corpselike in the huge bed. Illimitable desires. Taking off from them a few hours from now perhaps really making them sad. Left to wish you were here. To miss you. But will they?

“That’s enough, father.”

“Just a little more. Can’t you see how she’s enjoying it?”

The choir was still going strong, soprano voices raised in an Israeli oratorio. Kedmi entered the bathroom too and watched me float the baby with superior amusement.

“We’ll miss you, grandpa. How will we manage without you tomorrow?”

“I just said the same thing to him.”

He walked out again, switching off the light and leaving us in moist, vaporous darkness. Ya’el spread a large red towel.

“That’s enough, father.”

I fished the baby from the water and handed her to Ya’el, who wrapped her quickly in the towel. The doorbell rang. Someone entered the apartment. Gaddi knocked on the bathroom door.

“They’re here from Jerusalem!”

I felt honestly moved to be seeing them both again and hurried down the hallway half naked, my hands dripping water. Timidly, like strangers, they were standing in the doorway’s square patch of light. She had had her hair cut boyishly short and looked different in her old-fashioned, puritanically long-sleeved black dress with its white, nunlike collar; tall in high-heeled black shoes, a black patent-leather bag in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other, she might have been paying a condolence call. A pale black candle. Older-looking than when I last saw her, she stood chatting with Kedmi and threw me an anxious glance when she caught sight of me. Something in the beauty of her extraordinarily chiseled face with its high cheekbones and large bright eyes had changed, grown deeper and more inward. She stared at the floor, nervous to be meeting me again, while Asa, oblivious of my presence, made straight for the living room, where he halted by Tsvi’s unmade bed to examine the books on the shelves. I hastened after them, my heart pounding for no good reason, thrilled by her beauty as first I was in that Jerusalem street by the taxi.

“It’s so good to see you children. We were in the middle of bathing Rakefet. I’m soaking wet.”

Kedmi stood hulkingly in the middle of the room and winked at them. “He’s doing his internship with us.”

They smiled uncomfortably.

“Have a scat, have a seat. The mess you see is pure Kaminka.”

He himself sat down first in the big armchair.

The two of them looked at me silently, a great gulf between them. I should have gone to my room but instead I stepped up to them in my state of undress and hugged and kissed Asi, feeling him draw back from me.

“Don’t be afraid, it’s only water. And thank you for coming,” I murmured emotionally. He didn’t answer. I turned to her, reaching out to grasp her too, but she too recoiled from my nakedness. I smiled and bent to sniff the flowers that she held. She clutched them tighter, extending a rather cool hand.

“How are you, Yehuda?” she asked.

“You can see for yourself… it’s my last day… how was your seder?”

“Very sederlike,” snapped Asi with a sharp sideways look at us.

She didn’t turn to look at him.

“And how are your dear parents?”

“Fine, thank you.”

“I mustn’t forget to say goodbye to them. Perhaps I should call them now.”

“That would make them very happy. But not now… tonight… they don’t answer the phone on religious holidays…”

“Of course not. Tonight, then. I must make a note of it.”

I put an arm around her thin shoulder.

Ya’el emerged from the bathroom with the baby, all scrubbed, combed and snugly wrapped in snow-white diapers. With a quick cry of admiration Dina turned to hand her the flowers, taking Rakefet in return with a graceful movement. Just then Tsvi stepped into the room, freshly shaven and nattily dressed. He nodded to Dina.

“Was it still dark out when you left Jerusalem?”

He went over to embrace his distinguished younger brother, who shrunk back from him too while casting a glance at Ya’el. Shyly he went over and kissed her warmly, clinging to her like a mother. I felt a sharp pang. For a moment we were all too disconcerted to speak. Kedmi alone remained seated in his armchair.

“Go on, kiss away, you Commie Russians,” I heard him mumble under his breath. “Later you can knife each other and drink tea.”

I was so stunned I couldn’t move. What a vile character after all. How could he talk that way? But the others didn’t seem to have heard him. I felt befuddled. The cold breeze coming through the window made me shiver. I hurried to my room and took out a folded white shirt from my valise. My fingers touched my watch. It still said eight o’clock, it must have stopped. I held it uncertainly for a moment, then put it back. I checked my passport and ticket again and found the power of attorney for Asa, which I folded and stuck in my pants pocket. Suddenly I felt dizzy. How to find room for them all?

The line that runs between them all at once there are tears in my eyes my shadow leaps out from under the bed I shove the valise back beneath it making some order around me. A few more hours. Chin up. They came especially to make you happy. Your power over them. And yet you feared the disgrace. The loss of you beginning to sink in. Why shouldn’t you? Not in their wildest dreams. A thought to tear you all apart. Naked lies the hairless Jewish widow. The frigid whirlwind. And you namelessly kissing each cell. The terrible tender lust. But who would have thought that there would be a baby?

Gaddi came into the room.

“Mom wants to know if you’d like some tea.”

“Of course I would, old buddy. Come over here.”

I squeezed his fat, heavy frame.

“Go show Asi your worms and cocoons. When he was your age he also liked experiments.”

I wiped away my tears, put on the shirt and a tie, combed my hair and rejoined them. Ya’el and Dina were in the children’s room with the baby. Tsvi was making his bed under Kedmi’s supervision. Asa stood alone on the terrace, smoking and staring at the view, gloomily preoccupied. So calmly hitting himself in the little library. The parchment flying through the air. What’s wrong with him? Tom apart, devastated by her beauty. Gaddi approached him with his shoe box of white cocoons. Asi nodded absentmindedly and glanced at me. I went to him.

“Well, we didn’t get to spend much time together, did we? Such a short visit.”

“How did it go?”

“Where?”

“Up there.”

“Pretty well. I already told you on the phone. The actual ceremony was very brief.”

“As long as it’s over with.”

“Yes.”

“And mother?”

“What about her?”

“She was all right too?”

“In what sense? Yes…”

“She kept calm?”

“Yes. Why shouldn’t she have?”

“Ya’el told me that some rabbi tried making trouble.”

“It wasn’t anything much. He was a young fanatic… but Rabbi Mashash handled him well…”

“And does she really want to be let out? Will they agree…?”

An anxious note crept into his dry voice.

“I don’t know. Maybe. The doctor said that there wasn’t any reason not to…”

“But where will she go?” he interrupted.

“I really don’t know, Asa. Wherever she wants. She’s yours now, not mine.”

“Did she drop any hints about her plans?”

“No. I didn’t ask her about them, either.”

“She didn’t say anything about Jerusalem?”

“Jerusalem?”

“Never mind.”

He truly hated her.

“You know, I have to give you my power of attorney so that you can officially transfer my share of the house to her.”

“Why give it to me? Why not to Tsvi or to Kedmi?”

“Because I want you to have it. Tsvi might do something rash — you know what he’s like when it comes to money. And it’s none of Kedmi’s business. I want you to take care of it. It won’t demand much of your time.”

He regarded me quietly.

“But how are things with you on the whole, Asa? How is your Vera Zasulich?”

He flushed hotly, taken aback.

“What does Vera Zasulich have to do with it?”

“I just happened to think of her. Your students… I still remember the few minutes of your lecture that I heard… I’m all admiration for how you teach… for the ideas you have… really I am. I was very moved by it all. Please don’t forget to send me all your publications. This time I promise to respond… I’m so sorry I didn’t then… I can’t forgive myself…”

“Forget it.”

Tsvi re-entered the room, animatedly talking to Dina. Kedmi still sat provocatively in the armchair with his newspaper, his mocking little eyes darting back and forth, ready to strike without notice.

Ya’el served tea. The light had grown dim and the air felt less warm; a soft curtain screened the sun; almost at its prime, the day had suddenly faltered. A weak-willed spring. From beyond the windows, with their view of white houses and wooded slopes, came the muffled sound of traffic. Ya’el set out the teacups, her heavy face aglow, while Dina helped her with unobtrusive grace. I smiled at her, seeking to strike up a conversation, but she continued to avoid me behind a wall of reserve. Gaddi brought a tray of hot pita bread. Asi questioned Kedmi about the view and received an explanation. Tsvi began to crack jokes. I let my eyes linger on my progeny, all gathered together with me here, then glanced out the window at the north end of the bay and at the white cliffs of the Lebanese border clearly visible in the distance beyond it.

Homeland will you ever be a homeland. Out there my concupiscent horizon. My ears register only a faint buzz such tiredness they drink the tea they chew the round warm bread. Weak trickle of light. Half hearing Tsvi tell of his therapy. His graphic much too clever tongue. Did I disappoint them too? No longer my judges. A fact. Their odd dispossessed father. Kedmi steers the talk toward politics. Asi’s face lights up. Before Kedmi’s cynicism his thoughts retreat then quickly counterattack. A flanking movement. Speculations historical examples from different times different places taking the long view. Such a precise wealth of language that much at least I did give them. Language. A tongue. Tsvi in a puddle of light basking in sunshine gripping his teacup like me between thumb and forefinger joining handsomely in with that shiny inner shallowness of his laughing someone’s at the door.

Gaddi answered the doorbell and came back for Tsvi.

“Somebody wants you.”

Tsvi sighed without getting to his feet and shut his eyes in despair.

“What can I do? Tell him to come in.”

Calderon entered hesitantly, not daring to look at us. I quickly rose to take him under my wing, afraid that Kedmi might make some rude remark. Yet when I introduced him to the family, he already seemed to know everyone, hastening to shake hands with them all and to identify each by name.

“Yes, yes, I know…” he murmured. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Kaminka. So you got here from Jerusalem… and you too, Dr. Kaminka… Mr. and Mrs. Kedmi, how do you do…” He patted Gaddi’s head and handed him a bar of chocolate from his pocket. “I’m honored to meet you all.” His eyes avoided Tsvi’s. “I see we’re all here except Rakefet. Where is she?”

“In bed,” smiled Ya’el.

“Well, did you manage to get in some praying?” I asked in a low voice.

“Yes. Thank you. A bit of the musaf”

He took out a pack of cigarettes and offered it around, stealing a glance at Tsvi.

“Would you like tea or coffee?”

“No, nothing, thank you. I only came for a few minutes. The weather is changing again. When is your plane taking off?’’

Ya’el went over to whisper something to Kedmi, who remained ensconced in his chair, enjoying the scene.

“Who needs to buy anything?” he answered her impatiently. “We have all we need here.”

Ya’el pulled his hand, trying to make him get up.

“Can I be of any help, Ya’eli?” I asked. “Why don’t you let me cook. You can ask Asi and Dina to recommend me.”

Dina too wanted to help. Ya’el, though, kept tugging at Kedmi, who refused to leave his chair.

“Get up!”

“Forget it, Ya’el,” said Asi. “We’ll eat what there is. We’re not hungry anyway.”

Calderon jumped up. “Perhaps I could take you all out to a restaurant that I know of near here. Let it be my treat. A lovely place to eat, in a garden in the woods.”

Ya’el declined:

“Thank you all the same, but we’ll eat here.”

Kedmi, however, came out in favor. “Maybe we really should eat out. Why not?”

“Let it be on me,” insisted Calderon eagerly. “It’s my pleasure to invite you all. A farewell dinner for Mr. Kaminka… provided, of course, that I’m allowed to foot the bill…”

“But it’s not a question of that,” smiled Ya’el. “I’ve already prepared a meal here… you’re invited to it too…”

And again she tried pulling Kedmi out of his armchair. Carried away by his own idea, though, Calderon now tried persuading Tsvi, who sat grinning in his corner at Ya’el.

“It’s fine with me,” he said. “Whatever you prefer. His restaurant will be a good one, that much I can promise you. Money is no object with him…”

“It’s a very distinguished place, with good, digestible food… and served in a garden… real European cuisine… our bank takes its customers there…”

Yet Ya’el wouldn’t hear of it.

“No, we’ll eat here. Everything is ready.”

Which only stiffened Calderon’s resolve. He was getting hysterical now.

“It’s in a garden, we’ll have a quiet corner to ourselves… nobody will bother us… why put yourself to all that trouble, Mrs. Kedmi… it’s father’s last day, let it be my treat… I’d be only too happy to have you as my guests…”

His agitation was incomprehensible and his reference to “father” made us all feel uneasy. Only Kedmi was entertained by it. Yet he too looked mystified, his mouth agape as though waiting for the next burst of laughter.

I rose and put an arm around Ya’el, my shadow surging up the bars of the balcony on the terrace.

“Why don’t we go out then? It’s really not a bad idea.”

Dina sat in her corner dressed in black, cold, upright and withdrawn, her incredible face a bright pennant aloft.

All your children. The knife turned at dawn. Would they have cared? The Case of the Early-Morning Scream. And how slow Tsvi was.

Kedmi rose at last. “A jolly good idea! Why don’t we? What’s the point of fussing with pots in the kitchen all day long? The food here won’t go to waste, Gaddi and I will polish it off tomorrow. And you have only a few hours left with your father.”

Ya’el was confused. She wasn’t used to putting up a fight. She turned again to Calderon:

“Really, it’s very kind of you, but we have whatever we need here. You’ll join us.”

He literally began to shake.

“I would love to join you, but don’t you see I can’t because of… the bread. Not that it’s any of my business… it’s your right… this is a free country… but I can’t sit at such a table. Perhaps Mrs. Kaminka too… not that I’m naive enough to think that anything will happen… here, I’m touching it”—he lifted a pita from the tray with his fingertips and gingerly put it down again—“you all see that I wasn’t struck down by lightning… but still…”

“Ya’el,” I said, “why don’t we go out. It will be nice.’’

“And the children?”

“We’ll take them with us… of course we will!” exclaimed Calderon. “The place is perfect for them… special arrangements can be made… I’ll hold them on my lap…”

Kedmi let out a great roar.

“I suppose I’m just being a nuisance.”

He stood there mortified, looking at Tsvi, who said nothing.

Kedmi grabbed hold of him good-naturedly and backed him into a corner. “Now that occurs to you? No, no, it’s quite all right… I didn’t mean any harm… what bank do you work for… tell me, how old did you say that you were?”

Oh they’ll make a happy man out of you yet today.

It really was a pleasant place, high on the Carmel, in a small pine woods reached by a narrow path whose small bits of gray gravel crunched beneath our soles, a well-tended, countryish boardinghouse inhabited by elderly people with a bit of sea like a small kerchief in the distance between two houses. Buxom old women in flowery dresses sat about the garden, through which, looking peaceful and bursting with health, two little old men in dark suits strolled while regarding us fondly. The wood-paneled restaurant was a bit worse for the wear but very clean. Its Arab waiters, dressed in black with white bow ties, hurried to greet us.

“Where should we sit, inside or out?…Will it be too cold here for Rakefet?…It’s not that bad, let’s sit outside…”

Calderon ran inside to get the manager, who immediately ordered a large table set out. “We’ll start you in the garden,” he said. “If it gets too chilly, you can always come inside.”

And indeed the skies had begun to cloud over, turning from blue to gray, while the air was growing colder. From inside the restaurant emerged two large, thin, white-goateed, very hairy dogs, evidently twins: they circled us slowly, their tails like weak pendulums, their noses down to get a whiff of us, dropping exhaustedly on the gravel path as soon as we reached out to pet them. Chairs were brought quickly and someone spread a white tablecloth. Calderon ran back and forth. Asa bent over one of the dogs, lightly scratching its head.

“Did ’Ratio ever turn up again?” I asked Tsvi.

“Why must you insist on calling him ’Ratio? His name is Horatio, father. No. I was there yesterday. He’s been gone for four days now. But he’ll turn up in the end. He always does.”

“You really are a bastard,” said Asa straight to Kedmi’s face. “Why did you have to lure him on like that? What did you get out of it?”

Kedmi was hurt. “That dog could drive a person nuts. Don’t you people have enough problems without him?”

“But what did you have against him?”

“Me?” inquired Kedmi innocently. “What did I do? Is it my fault that he ran after my car? It’s hard enough to keep track of who runs in front of it.”

“It’s lovely, here, isn’t it?” Calderon kept asking. “You must admit that it’s lovely here, Mrs. Kedmi.”

“Yes, it is,” conceded Ya’el with a sad smile.

“Father at the head of the table!” called Calderon, seating me first. “Father goes at the head! You decide where to seat the rest of them…’’

“Come, girls, sit next to me,” I said to Dina and Ya’el. “And you, Gaddi, you sit near me too.”

Tsvi took a turn about the garden, walking in the shady light of the trees and nodding haughtily to the old people, who had fallen silent and were watching us with interest. Calderon hurried over to confide something to him; he sought to take his arm, choked by his own love, but Tsvi brushed him off without looking. Two waiters set the table with silverware and plates, smiling at the baby, who had been placed on a second table next to us beside a large wicker basket of matzo, while staring at Dina out of the corners of their eyes, overwhelmed by her beauty, honored to be able to serve her. Asa went off to have a look at something, then returned and sat down at the far end of the table. Kedmi took a seat too. Tsvi was the last to join us. He picked up his knife and tested it carefully on his fingertips, looking at me hard as he stood by his chair.

“When I think, father, that in a few hours from now you’ll be gone… we really will miss you this time…”

I smiled, my cheeks red, a queasy feeling in my stomach, and turned to Dina, who was sitting next to me thin and virginal, her perfumed skin contrasting whitely with her mysterious black dress. She was involved with the baby, still oddly remote.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, glancing at Asa sitting by himself at the table’s other end. Suddenly it struck me that they weren’t talking to each other. They hadn’t exchanged a word since they had come.

“Is anything the matter?” I asked again.

“No, nothing.” She smiled.

“This really is a lovely spot. Thank you, Calderon. It was a good choice.”

“I told you. Didn’t I tell you? You could be in Europe here.” Flushed and bright-eyed Dina leaned toward me in a low voice:

“Will you have some time for me later?”

“Of course. What a question! But what for?”

“I have something to read to you.”

“What? Ah… something of yours?”

She nodded.

“Of course. I’d be glad to. Whenever you’d like…”

“It’s long, though.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll find the time.”

I squeezed her arm.

“I’m so glad you came today. This whole visit has been like a quick dream. The evening I spent with you in Jerusalem already seems so far away… is everything all right with you two?”

“Yes.”

She wouldn’t unbend. And meanwhile the table was filling up with baskets of matzo, bottles of wine, condiments, platters of raw vegetables. The waiters poured the wine and silently handed us our menus.

Kedmi scanned his quickly. “The prices aren’t half bad,” he murmured.

“What did I tell you?” crowed Calderon.

The headwaiter appeared, a heavyset, immaculate, middle-aged Arab, and positioned himself next to me.

“Good afternoon, please. Would you care to order? I’ll bet it’s grandfather’s birthday…”

“You lose,” Kedmi shot back. “It’s actually a divorce party.”

The headwaiter laughed incredulously.

“Grandpa is leaving Israel. Aren’t you glad? There’ll be one less of us here.”

The man was stark raving mad. You never knew what he would come up with next. Calderon was alarmed. Ya’el laid a hand on Kedmi’s arm. This time he had really gone too far. But the headwaiter smiled imperturbably.

“The gentleman can’t be serious. Why leave Israel? What’s so bad about it?”

“Maybe it’s not so bad for you,” Kedmi answered with unaccountable, poker-faced vitriol. “After all, you people think you own it.”

This time the headwaiter frowned. The smile froze on his lips.

“Cut it out, Kedmi! That’s enough!” disgustedly hissed Asi and Tsvi.

The man was too much.

“Well, then, what will you have?”

We conferred. Calderon insisted that we all order appetizers. Even Gaddi. Even the baby.

“I’m asking you for my sake…’’ he pleaded. “Please do it for me…”

“Calm down there, Refa’el,” snapped Tsvi angrily.

Calderon shut up.

The meal was tasty, though: consommé, chopped liver, tender chicken breasts, crisp-roasted meat, vegetables done to perfection, big white potatoes. Asi and Tsvi chatted at their end of the table and Calderon sat in the middle talking with Kedmi, who was eating voraciously while pumping him about the bank. The wine was dry and subtle, lit now and again by tumbling drifts of light. Rakefet rocked back and forth in her high chair, a big piece of matzo in one hand, singing to herself as she ate it. The dogs minced down the gravel paths, along which some elderly boarders in their holiday best slowly led a small lady leaning on a walker while conversing in spirited tones. More tables were set for the oldsters and the waiters ran back and forth among them with little glasses of schnapps. They murmured brief instructions to each other in Arabic and served us pleasantly and politely. Ya’el sat tranquilly next to me, eating hungrily. Gaddi kept looking about him, hardly aware of what went into his mouth. A chill wind blew, stirring the branches. Ya’el talked about Rakefet to Dina, who kept wanting to know more and suddenly pulled out a small notebook and quickly scribbled something in it.

I laid a hand on her and winked. “So the little pad is still with you.”

She returned a friendly smile. “Always.”

The wine was going to my head. Kedmi had made peace with the headwaiter and was joking with him now, trying out his Arabic on him. I would have loved to know what Tsvi and Asi were talking about at the other end of the table. Kedmi praised the food, piling more and more of it on his plate until he was red in the face. Calderon’s worried eyes ran back and forth; from time to time he made some motion to a waiter while Kedmi jotted down on a napkin the names of stocks he was giving him and Asi and Tsvi lit up cigarettes.

“No smoking in the middle of the meal, boys,” I called out to them.

“Who do you think we learned from?” laughed Tsvi.

“But what are you two talking about? Speak louder, I want to hear too.”

“About history,” laughed Tsvi again in his winning way.

“History?” asked Kedmi. “What’s that?”

“Everything,” answered. Tsvi. “At least according to Asi.”

“What do you mean, everything?”

“Even this meal that we’re eating.”

“Even this meal? I like that.” Kedmi lifted a fork with a slice of meat on it and slid it into his mouth. “Yummm… what a delicious piece of history…”

The vulgar, twisted mind of the man.

“But if it’s everything,” asked Calderon wonderingly, “what can you learn from it?”

“Nothing,” Kedmi shot back. “You just keep eating it till you die…”

“No, really,” Calderon persisted, turning to Asa. “Is it possible, Dr. Kaminka, to understand what’s going to happen… perhaps even to draw conclusions about the future and prevent mistakes…?”

Asa nodded seriously.

“Really?”

“Not to prevent them, but to inoculate against them.”

“To inoculate???”

“To isolate the meaning, the secret code of the past, and distill from it a serum that can be injected into human beings to prepare them for the coming catastrophe: that’s the study of history in a nutshell.”

“What catastrophe is that, Asi?” I asked, startled.

“The coming one… the one that can’t be helped…”

Dina broke off her conversation with Ya’el and turned to look at Asa as though seeing him for the first time. An uncomfortable silence set in. It was clear that they weren’t on speaking terms.

Rakefet began to whimper. Calderon rose to pick her up but I reached her first and lifted her in my arms.

“Would someone pass me the meat, please,” said Kedmi, beet-colored by now. “And you, Asa, none of your horror tales, please…”

All at once exhaustion. You feel like you’re going under. The wine percolates through your limbs. What time is it? I grip Dina’s thin hand and twist it lightly to look at her gold watch with its Hebrew letters in place of numerals. A Jewish wristwatch. Alef zayin. One thirty-five. Before you behind you the darkness cleft by a strip of purple light. Snow in the streets stubborn icy snow packed hard against the quick plows. A divorce party. How could he. Taking liberties. Mother why. Her very words. Disappointed her how? I was afraid I always feared her even those first years when we made love. And suddenly two of her. The spirit is weak. Perhaps. I promised too much is that it? All at once the full weight of the thought O wondrous oppressiveness. So many things at one time. The cleft dawn. Soft sounds of German among the trees. She sits on the stoop she walks she reads she may get out any day. The dog in some city street or already run over and dead. A limp erection. The parchment in the air. Connie in the air suspended nude. A Jewish dish. You give me something realer than mere values. Behind me the headwaiter filling my glass with more wine. I smile back at him. He gives me a friendly look. For a moment the urge to open my shirt and show my scar to him too. Tsvi whispers something to Asa Kedmi bends crimsonly forward to listen. Gaddi is still putting it away how can they let him someone has to stop him. Ya’el and Dina confide in low voices. Only Calderon turns his washed-out face toward me wanting to say something wanting to hear.

I recalled our midnight meeting.

“Say, whatever happened to that mouse?”

“I finally caught it. In a trap I brought. We heard it snap shut in the morning.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I gave it to the city.”

“To the city?”

“I left it by the entrance to city hall. I thought I’d let them decide what to do next.”

“Ha ha. Too much!”

“I’m afraid, though, that it isn’t the last mouse running around there. I heard another.”

“What isn’t the last mouse?” asked Gaddi.

“Mr. Calderon discovered a mouse in the kitchen and caught it.”

“In whose kitchen?”

“In my and grandma’s old apartment in Tel Aviv.”

“But it isn’t yours anymore. You signed away your share.”

“Yes, I heard about that,” chimed in Calderon. “A surprising, I might even say dramatic, decision…”

“Dramatic.” I smiled at him. “That’s the word.”

“To sign away five million pounds just like that…”

“Five million? You’re exaggerating, Calderon.”

“No, it really is worth that.”

“That old place? It’s barely worth four.”

“I’m sorry but you’re wrong,” said Calderon heatedly. “It may be old but it’s in an excellent location. Right in downtown Tel Aviv, in the most promising block of real estate in the whole city…”

“It still can’t be worth that much.”

“But it is. I happen to know for a fact that Tsvi has a buyer who’s offered him that, and that isn’t his last word either.”

“What?” I was aghast. “Tsvi wants to sell?”

An easy killing. I glanced at him, leaning comfortably back in his chair and talking to Asa with that remote shadow of a smile. Soft-throated. Winsome. Calderon threw a longing look at him. He would try to pull a fast one on us yet. But I was leaving everything behind. Out there the land of frozen lakes was lit by a fiery dawn now, the red-bulbed trucks were thundering down the turnpikes like flying Christmas trees. Suddenly the sky darkened. A small black cloud had covered the sun. We all looked up at it. The old boarders let out a cry of joy in German, reminded no doubt of European climes. And I was to be left with nothing, my lifeblood running low. Except for my now available, my divorced name. To have to begin again from scratch. Rakefet gave a start on my lap and screamed in her sleep. I tried to gentle her while Ya’el hurried to take her from me, but her screaming only grew louder as she pushed away the bottle that Ya’el gave her. Now Dina rose to take her from Ya’el and walk with her in the garden, rocking her in her arms while the old boarders looked on excitedly and cooed advice. But Rakefet continued her deep, heartrending cries. Ya’el took her back again and undid her diaper but the crying didn’t stop.

“Ya’el,” grumbled Kedmi, “do something.”

Rakefet shrieked still louder, as though possessed. Gaddi jumped up and down with excitement.

“It’s just like it was then, just like it was then, only then I was alone with her! You see that you can’t make her stop! Only then I was alone with her!”

Rakefet was passed from hand to hand, keys were jangled in front of her, even the headwaiter tried his luck with some old toy dog made of wool that he brought from the kitchen. Rakefet wouldn’t even look at it. She shrieked till she was blue in the face. Ya’el was alarmed.

“We have to go home,” she said to Kedmi.

“Just a minute. What about dessert…?”

Calderon leaped up to order the desserts but Rakefet’s screams were deafening. In a panic Ya’el began to shout at Kedmi. We all got to our feet.

We tried to calm her. “It’s nothing… she’ll get over it…”

But Ya’el was adamant. “I want us to go home this minute.”

I went over to join Asa and Tsvi, who were still chatting off to the side.

“You two should get together more often. What have you been talking about all this time?”

“The assassination of the Tsar,” laughed Tsvi. “Asi was telling me how he was killed. Which one did you say it was?”

“Alexander II.”

I laughed too.

“All right,” said Kedmi, giving in. “Let’s go.”

“What a pity,” said Calderon. “Perhaps I should take her for a drive in my car. That’s how I put my own girls to sleep when they were babies.”

“Don’t trouble yourself. We’ll all go home.”

Dina and Ya’el busied themselves with Rakefet and gathered up her things.

“We’ll drive to the hospital, father,” said Tsvi. “You go rest. You’re pale, and you still have a long day ahead of you. Maybe we’ll look for the dog while we’re up there. Soon mother will get out, and if Horatio goes back there he won’t find her. He doesn’t deserve to have to stay there by himself. Are you coming with us, Asi?”

Asi wavered.

“Go to her, Asi,” I encouraged him. “She’ll be very happy to see you.”

“All right.”

“And Dina?”

“She’ll stay here. There’s no point in taking her with us.”

“When will you be back?”

“By six. We have plenty of time. Your flight doesn’t leave until midnight.”

Calderon made his way into the circle. “So, what have you decided?”

“We’re going to the hospital. Can you drive us?”

“Certainly.”

“Your wife in Tel Aviv must be going out of her mind.”

He shut his eyes in anguish, the flicker of a smile on his thin lips. “So supposing I’ve changed families for the holiday?”

The waiter came over with the bill and said something to him in a whisper.

“How about splitting it,” I suggested.

“Absolutely not. It’s my pleasure.”

Tsvi smiled. “It’s his pleasure.”

I looked him in the eyes. “Are you really trying to sell the apartment?’’

He blanched and turned to Calderon.

“You have to blab about everything, don’t you, you old tattletale!”

“I beg your pardon… forgive me… I was sure your father already knew…”

“You want to own our minds too, it’s not enough that…”

“Don’t… I… just a minute… Tsvi…”

“That’s enough out of you, you traitor!”

Gaddi tugged at my clothes. “We’re waiting for you.” Kedmi honked his horn.

Dina and Ya’el were already in the car with the baby, who was still screaming. Dina hadn’t said goodbye to Asi. The motor started up. I got in.

“What is it, Rakefet? What?”

The car backed out through the gate. For a second I caught sight of the three of them standing there, Asi holding on to Calderon, who was struggling to go down on his knees before Tsvi.

“He fell down,” said Gaddi.

What time was it?

Suddenly, just like that, Rakefet grew still. All at once.

“That’s just how it was then!” exclaimed Gaddi, unable to get over it.

Kedmi stopped the car. “Now she quiets down. She just didn’t want me to have my dessert. It was damned nice there. Maybe we should go back.”

“For God’s sake, Kedmi,” shouted Ya’el, “drive home!”

“You call him Kedmi too?” asked Dina in surprise.

“No one likes to call me by my first name… one Israel is enough. That old fellow is damned nice too… why does he torture him like that?”

“Let’s not talk about it now, Kedmi.”

But that failed to put a damper on his mood. He whistled merrily, the car’s shadow darting from curb to curb as he drove. The streets were deserted. A quiet holiday afternoon. The weather was changing again and looked like rain. Rakefet sat without a peep, staring straight ahead with dry, wide-open eyes.

“What’s wrong with her?” asked Ya’el anxiously.

“Not a thing.”

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Almost time for you to fly off into the wild blue yonder, Yehuda. You’re a lucky man. The rest of us will be left behind here with Begin…”

“But didn’t you vote for him?’’ asked Ya’el, puzzled.

“What does that have to do with it?” He burst out laughing, his hands dancing on the steering wheel.

The apartment was growing dim. Rakefet slept with her head thrown back. Ya’el seemed less worried now. “What did she want?” she asked. “What was the matter with her?” She put her to bed. Gaddi entered the children’s room too and lay down on his back, one hand on his chest. All at once the place seemed so untidy. The dirty teacups. Tsvi’s open suitcase. Kedmi went to the refrigerator and took out some chocolate to eat. “Have some,” he said. “Sweets to the sweet.”

“Dina and I will be in my bedroom for a while,” I said to Ya’el. “She wants to show me something.”

Ya’el and Kedmi went off to their room. Dina sat on my bed, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her legs, golden in their silk stockings, beneath her. She sat upright, her slender shadow a blur on the wall. My head was still spinning from the wine. She took a thick packet of closely written pages from her bag and looked at me glowingly.

“You’re the first,” she said softly.

“How come? Hasn’t Asi read it?”

“No.”

“But why not?”

She shrugged. A strange girl. Like a black candle burning with a bluish flame.

“Has something happened between the two of you?”

“What makes you ask?”

“I can feel it. It’s like there’s a tug-of-war between you. You haven’t said a word to each other all day.”

“That’s true. We haven’t been talking much.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just one of those things.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Not in this case.”

“But how long have you… not been talking?”

“Since Wednesday.”

“Of last week?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s the day he went with me to the hospital!”

“Yes.”

“He must have come back in a bad mood. He had a hard time there. It wasn’t his fault.”

“Yes. I know. He told me that he hit himself in front of you.”

“He told you that?”

“Yes. I know all about it. But it isn’t that.”

“Then what is it?”

“I can’t tell you now.” She was suddenly impatient. “Are you ready to listen?”

“To listen?”

“Yes. To what I want to read.”

“Ah, you want to read it out loud….All right, that’s not a bad idea. If that’s what you’d prefer, fine. I’ll sit here. What’s the story called?”

“It has no name yet. But that’s not important… you just have to promise to tell me what you really think…”

She took a pair of glasses from her bag and put them on, accenting her beauty even more. Solemnly she began to read in a slow, barely audible, slightly husky voice, her eyes glued to the text, a soft crease appearing in her pale forehead. Her prose was complex, its sentences long and involved. An eclectic style. Sometimes nouns without verbs. A Jerusalem evening seen through the eyes of a woman, a not so young secretary on her way home from the office, walking down a street, going into a bank, thinking of having a baby. Long descriptive passages that occasionally repeated themselves but had a definite sensuous tone of their own and a steady cadence, three or four beats to the phrase. Outside the window the sky was turning grayer. A cozy silence reigned in the apartment. Dina kept her thin, almost matchlike legs tucked beneath her and didn’t take her eyes off her manuscript, from which she read slowly and quietly, enunciating each word clearly, never once looking up, as though afraid to catch my glance.

“Excuse me, Dina. Perhaps we should turn on the light.”

She shook her head and went on reading.

I struggled to concentrate. The thought of the Tel Aviv apartment bothered me. If Asi let him sell it she would be left without a home, and then I’d be sent for again. There wasn’t a sound in the house. Suddenly I heard a hoarse gasp through the wall next to me… was it Kedmi’s? I froze. They were making love, I could hear his voice whispering, “What are you doing to me?” No doubt of it… and the passionate one, so it seemed, was Ya’el… well, at least they had that much between them. I rose uncomfortably from my chair and went to stand by the window. Dina glanced up at me, annoyed at the interruption, her voice quivering in a light rebuke.

“Are you still listening? Should I go on?”

“Of course.”

And she did. The secretary, a nameless woman of about thirty who had once been briefly married, was planning to kidnap a baby and took a bus to some new section of Jerusalem to look for one. A description of it that sounded very much like the neighborhood in which Dina and Asi lived. She attached herself to a woman with a baby carriage and followed her into a supermarket. The descriptions grew more and more detailed.

On the other side of the wall the noises grew louder. Kedmi was snorting now. How like him to come like an animal. Had we not always felt, though, that Ya’el, for all her docility, had in her a tough, dark kernel of passion? She never even got through high school. The snorting sounds reached a comical crescendo. A lunatic scene. Afraid that Dina would hear, I crossed quietly back across the room and leaned my body against the wall to cushion the sound.

But she was too absorbed in her own bizarre story to hear anything. The flow of words didn’t stop. Descriptions of counters, of foods, of shopping lists. There was something undeveloped, held in, still juvenile about the emotions she was expressing but she definitely did have talent. The power to titillate with language, to let a plot slowly unfold. Only what was this fantasy of hers really about? What was she getting at?

Beyond the wall I heard Ya’el’s soft sobs and Kedmi’s devilish laugh. Dina took off her glasses and glanced up with a troubled look. I felt myself go red. She studied me severely, puzzled to find me standing with my back to the wall.

“Is something wrong?”

“No.”

“You’re still with me?”

“Of course I am.”

But my thoughts strayed. Don’t pin your hopes on me I said to her I’m not a stand-in for the man you don’t believe in and never will. And I can’t love the second woman any more than I do the first. A waste of time. And out of guilt you let her have it. Out of fear that you’d make a dreadful mess. Disgrace yourself. The tears formed a lump in my throat.

The woman quickly paid for two liters of milk and went to the checkroom, by the counter of which stood the baby carriage. With one motion she lifted the infant and hurried outside to the bus stop, where she boarded the first bus. A description of the sky. She changed buses, got off again, and climbed the stairs to her apartment. A thorough description of a stairwell, on which stood a bucket and a mop. She laid the kidnapped baby in her bed. More straightforward narrative, the pace quickened. But what a weird plot!

I sat down again in the chair. A small tuft of absorbent cotton lay on the floor and I picked it up absentmindedly and rolled it between my fingers. Strange as it was, Dina’s story moved me. She continued to read, her blue eyes deepening a shade, her soft breast rising and falling with her breath, her cheeks rosy with color, her voice growing stronger and more intense. A description of the night passed by the woman in her apartment with the crying, kidnapped child. Suddenly a knock on the door. An unexpected visit from her father, an old pest in a fedora, a slightly bohemian type. With a start I realized that he was partly modeled on me. The woman hid the baby in the bathtub. She turned the radio on full blast and finally managed to get rid of the old man.

My fingers were coated with slime. I stared at them. The absorbent cotton oozed a living, sticky jelly that might have been a squashed butterfly or a worm. I shuddered. One of Gaddi’s cocoons must have fallen on the floor and was now crushed between my fingers. I hurried to throw it in the wastebasket and to wipe my hand on a piece of paper.

But Dina hadn’t even noticed. She went on with her obstinate narration, continuing the story. Days went by and the woman remained imprisoned in her little apartment, afraid to leave it for anything. Only at night did she venture out to get food. Time passed, no one came to look for the child, and little by little the suspicion dawned on her that it might be slightly retarded. An odd, messy denouement. Possibly symbolic. An ending that didn’t really end.

It was getting darker out. The day had turned. The pages rustled in Dina’s hands as she collected them, still avoiding my glance. She took off her glasses and stretched herself, a feverish glow in her cheeks.

“You were bored.”

“I most certainly was not!”

“Then talk!”

Confusedly I began to relate my impressions, analyzing the story like a student before a professor, telling her what I thought of it. She listened tensely, hanging silently on every word, her fingers playing with the edge of the blanket. I tried to be honest while also being careful what I said. “I’m overwhelmed…. Awfully moved…. You have great power…. I need to read it again…. The end isn’t clear…. Still unresolved….It needs more thought…. A slightly childish fantasy, but complex…. It’s true that there are repetitive passages, but there are also unforgettable descriptions, such as the one of the bucket and mop at the bottom of the stairs…And at the same time there’s something frightening about it…That moment when the father arrives and she puts the child in the bathtub….I was scared of her then, of what she might do…”

She looked up, intrigued. “You were scared of her? How odd!”

“Yes. For a moment I thought that she was going to kill the child.”

“Kill it?” She seemed amused. “And you never once felt sorry for her during the entire story?”

“Sorry? No… something else… I’ll have to think about it…”

All at once she stood up radiantly, very satisfied, even blissful. She hugged and kissed me, pressing herself against me.

“And I was so afraid of what you would say…”

“You were afraid of me? But why, silly girl?”

“We’ll miss you a lot… Tsvi was right…”

I stood there distractedly stroking her cropped hair. Yes, parting was going to be harder than I’d thought. You’ve made a happy man of me today.

“The only one who doesn’t care is Asi…”

“Oh, no, he does too. He’s just too proud to admit it.”

All of a sudden she let go of me, ran to her bag, pulled out her pad, leafed through it, and wrote something down. So infantile. I looked down at my stained fingers, on which was smeared something shaped like a wing. I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. A few more hours. And I had let Naomi have my share. Soon she would be free, might even remarry. Where does the thought keep coming from? On again off again. I washed my hands thoroughly, looking at myself in the dark mirror: the tired face, the dry, gray hair, the bloodshot eyes. I took my toothbrush and cleaned my teeth. Phantasmagoric. A few more hours. Perhaps I should shave, the flight would be a long one. And there dawn had broken by now. Connie was counting the hours. Not a young woman anymore and soon to have a child. And me with my bridges burned. Disinherited. Homeland why weren’t you a homeland. I left the bathroom and passed down the hall, peeking in on Gaddi, who lay open-eyed in bed with a suffering look on his face. I kissed him without a word and returned to my room. Dina was still on the bed in stockinged feet, her glasses back on, rereading her story, pleased as punch with it. An ambitious little thing. One of your do-nothing won’t-work don’t-want-children scribblers. He’d have his hands full with her. Fantasies. I went to the living room. The house like the still echo of a no longer thrumming bowstring. Outside it really was gray now. Maybe it would rain. I went to the bathroom to pee. My face shook and was gone in the dim toilet. What really do you want? Five million just like that as though it weren’t mine. Back in the hallway I bumped into Kedmi in his undershirt, drowsy, sour-smelling, sleep-disheveled, smiling to himself as he stepped into the bathroom.

I returned to my room. Dina was still too absorbed in herself to notice me. I bent over my valise and took out my passport and ticket, putting them in my pocket. I took out my last dollars too and stuck them in my wallet. I put on my jacket and hat.

“I’ll be right back. Tell Asa and Tsvi that I won’t be long.”

Some boys and girls in the blue shirts of a youth movement were drifting slowly down the street below. By the newsstand on the corner was a taxi stand. I jumped into the first cab, whose driver was a sullen-looking, middle-aged man. What time was it?

“Take me to Acre. I’ll direct you from there.”

He started the motor.

“Wait a minute.” I tapped him on the shoulder. “Will you take dollars?”

“Don’t you have any pounds?”

“I’m afraid not. But we’ll check the exchange rate in the paper. You won’t lose a cent.”

The taxi’s shadow bolted ahead of it. It headed downhill toward the bay and then took the main road running east. The traffic picked up. The city itself had been quiet but the roads were full of vacationers. At the old British checkpost outside of town we turned north to follow the curve of the bay, passing through its industrial zone and suburbs, the traffic lights slowing us up. The driver kept silent, and I was thankful that he didn’t turn on the radio. To my left, in the west, I caught sight of the sea, the last sunlight glinting off the foam of its strong, steady surf. Clearly visible behind us was Mount Carmel, massive and lush, a large cloud sinking over it. Pinkish light. The same now here as in Minneapolis. The cab picked up speed. Northward toward the minarets of Acre. We approached them and crossed some railroad tracks. The traffic kept getting thicker.

“Don’t drive through the town. Bypass it to the right”

“But where do you want to go?”

“I’ll guide you. Keep heading north past the town.”

“But where to?”

I told him the name of the hospital.

“So how come you didn’t want to tell me? What’s to hide?”

“I didn’t realize that you were familiar with the place.”

“Of course I am. You’re not the first fare I’ve taken there, and you won’t be the last.”

The taxi swung around Acre to the right. Soft pastel colors, a row of eucalyptus trees, stands selling wicker furniture. We passed the old railroad station with its freight cars gleaming in the waxing golden light of sunset. Dusty streets, Arabs selling pitas, cars backed up in a row. A crossroads. To the right the road ran eastward to the Galilee but we drove straight ahead. We crossed the railroad tracks where they swerved toward the sea, the western horizon all awash, the sun slipping free of the clouds, dropping as they rose. The taxi slowed. The traffic ground to a halt, cars honked. Something must have happened ahead. I leaned impatiently forward and glimpsed a pack of dogs blocking traffic while cars beeped their horns and tried to shoulder them off the road. At last we came to the yellow sign of the hospital and stopped to turn left, waiting for the line of southbound cars to pass. More dogs ran by wagging their tails, careening off the car and into the fields. Finally we turned into the narrow approach road that led to the hospital gate. Back again. For the fourth time this trip. Yesterday you were certain that you would never return. The sea. The sun at eye level near the horizon. The mountains at your back. In a few hours I would be taking off. The cottages. The trees like paper cutouts, a slender form standing by them in the brackish, yellow, crinkly evening light.

“Stop!” I cried.

The taxi slowed down.

“Stop right here, driver!” I said again, grabbing him by the shoulder. He turned to me angrily.

“What’s wrong?”

By the distant gate I had made out Calderon’s white car and several figures standing by it. Tsvi, I recalled, made a point of never entering the hospital.

“Stop right here.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Wait for me here. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

“I can bring you right to the cottages. They always let me drive into this crazy house.”

“You needn’t bother. Stop here and wait. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, half an hour at the most. Can you wait?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because I once waited here for half the day for someone who was supposed to be coming right out. For all I know he’s still in there.”

“No, listen here, I’m not a patient… I just have to deliver some document. Here, let me pay you for the return trip.”

“Keep it, mister. Pay me for coming here and for the wait. Let’s call it an hour.”

“That will be fine. Would you happen to know what time it is?”

The sunrays glance off the green dollar bills he holds them up to the light pretending to know what to look for. I get out and stride into the fields leaving the road behind me cutting through rows of young sprouts in the moist earth bearing traces of sand from the sea heading for the hole in the fence that the patients told me about. The yellowish light gives the sprouts a blue tint I’m walking through a sprouting sea on my right to the north the houses of a village. A tractor pulls a cart piled high with long irrigation pipes and drops them off at intervals in a field. Behind me my huge shadow plows the ground. Homeland why can’t you be a homeland. No fantasy then she wanted to kill me. Had she just gone mad I would have stayed to nurse her but she used her madness to settle old scores. I disappointed her? Wait till she sees what I do now. And there it’s morning Connie grinding coffee in her gadget-filled kitchen. A pregnant woman by herself she wonders how. I’ll take back what’s mine. I reach the old concrete wall festooned with dead vines looping up from its base an imposing barricade of barbed wire but where is the hole in it? All at once the wall stops but the gap is sealed with barbed wire too. Have I been misled? I press on. The wall resumes again it’s lower now the concrete yielding to ancient stones perhaps the ruins of a Roman aqueduct of the kind often found in these parts. I clamber up its broad stairlike headers there’s the hospital below me the lawns the paths even the little library. The parchment flying through the air. I turn to look at the black taxicab parked now in front of the railroad tracks next to Calderon’s car.

Hurry.

Not really dusk yet it’s the clash of clouds and sun that’s ground the light to smithereens. Already you’re on the hospital grounds you know your way from here. Your fourth time in ten days. Once more into the breach. Collect yourself. The right to change your mind. The clump of trees. The rubber hose snakes upon the ground someone is standing there and slowly hoeing a small dead bush it’s that mute giant hard at work. I pass close by him but he doesn’t see me. Be quick. Ask her for the waiver and destroy it have the lawyer cancel it in Tel Aviv. I jam my hat down on my head. The library door is open the puddles of mud have dried to hard earth. No one here. Silence. Soft light of fear. Born-again balminess of the spring evening. Here’s her cottage. Three years ago when I first came to visit it was pouring cats and dogs she sat layered in clothes by the kerosene stove listening to me tell her about the snow in America. It was then that I promised to write her.

Stealthily I enter the cottage ready for anything. The beds in rows some made some not a small overly tailored lady of about forty sitting on a chair by a window next to a very big suitcase reading a woman’s magazine. She glances up at me her face twitches quickly. I take of my hat and nod.

“Excuse me. Perhaps you could tell me which bed is Naomi Kaminka’s.’’

“I’m sorry but I just got here myself. I don’t know anyone.”

But I’ve already found it by the broad straw hat upon it. I hurry to her locker here are her dresses her red robe the shawl that Ya’el brought her for me. I open the drawer and go through it rattling the dog’s chain. Bottles of perfume salves bags full of medicines here are some papers a packet of letters from me the parchment divorce a peaceful white dove the waiver on the house a copy of the power of attorney for Asa. I fold the last two and stick them in my pocket I turn to leave passing by the small lady again she hasn’t stopped looking at me.

“Excuse me…”

“Yes?”

“How were you allowed in here?”

I smile. “What do you mean, how was I allowed? That’s my wife’s bed over there…”

“But didn’t you need special permission?”

“Not at all.”

“Men are allowed in here?”

“Of course.”

“Because my husband said he wasn’t. Perhaps they misinformed him, or else he misunderstood…”

“He must have misunderstood.”

“Because suddenly he left me…”

She rises and comes over to me perfumed rather scared suddenly she whispers:

“Do you happen to know by any chance if this is a religious institution?”

“A religious institution? What gave you that idea?”

“We came here so quickly. I had a sort of breakdown at the seder, and the doctor from the health plan sent us here. But I think… I’m afraid… that they sent us to a religious institution. My husband is an army officer and knows nothing about these things…”

“But what makes you think that it’s religious?”

“It looks like it is. The walls… these beds…”

“Well, it isn’t. Some of the patients may be observant, but…”

“And the management? How about the management?”

“No. There’s no reason to think… it’s a government hospital, after all, it’s run by the department of health… it’s not a private institution at all…”

She smiles sadly reassured.

“Excuse me,” I say. “Do you happen to know what time it is?”

“Half past five.”

I nod goodbye to her I tip and wave my hat she sits down again in her chair reaching out to touch her suitcase hesitantly sticking her thumb in her mouth. Dusk now. I head back toward the front gate the giant still standing there without moving limply holding a pitchfork waiting for something. He’s recognized me. I retrace my steps cutting back through the ward with its rows of beds smiling pleasantly to the tailored lady who watches me bare legs pertly crossed hesitantly taking her thumb from her mouth. I enter the small kitchen at the far end of the ward and slip out through the back door. A new perspective. The sound of surf. Dogs bark. The green cottage of the library seen from behind. The bench in the garden beneath the tall eucalyptus trees where we stood. Nearby another cottage with bars a dim light shining inside. The gathering darkness. I make a leisurely detour around the lawn to my left no need to run I bend down and pluck a leaf chewing it inhaling its fresh green smell. I reach the southern end of the fence and cut back eastward plunging into the bushes planted alongside it the barking growing louder one dog is howling now as though it were hurt I never was afraid of dogs but this is an eerie sound. The concrete wall ends. Here must be the hole I head toward it through the bushes but I’m wrong it’s the barbed wire again the sealed gap some hairy mangy thing is thrashing about in its loops and kicking up dust. Beyond the bushes more dogs bark. And human voices too. It’s ’Ratio he’s caught in there he’s howling pawing up earth. All of a sudden I feel my heart break for our old dog.

“’Ratio!” I shout. “’Ratio! Horatio!”

He stops what he’s doing and looks up at me. Our eyes meet. He wags his tail madly. From beyond the bushes I hear Tsvi calling him too.

“Horatio! Horatio!..He’s stuck in there, mother.”

And Naomi’s voice from afar:

“Where?”

Dogs bark in a frenzy.

“Git!” shouts Asi furiously.

I crouch and hide behind a bush hearing them struggle in the red sunset.

“He’s over there! He must have smelled him.”

“Father??”

“He’s stuck in there, pull him back this way!”

Above the branches I glimpse Naomi’s white hair.

“Grab his chain!”

“He’s gone crazy! How did he ever get in there?”

I don’t move at all seeing the road far away the black taxi waiting by the railroad tracks facing east toward the main road a line of cars turning in there toward the hospital. They’re shouting outside the fence and I’m hiding inside what a reversal of roles.

Now! I take the documents from my pocket I read them quickly and tear them into little pieces I dig a small hole in the ground and stick them in it covering them with stones and earth. A sense of inner peace. I’ll have to call the lawyer from the airport. Divorce yes. The house no. My inalienable rights. I disappointed you? What did I ever promise? I rise and head back the way I’ve come doubled over. Hide-and-seek. I’ll leave by the sea side. Soul colors in the fiery pageant of sunset far away. What time is it? Time enough. Time enough. I finger my ticket and my passport in my pocket. Cars enter the hospital bringing back patients from their seder day at home. A noisy bustle of people lights go on in the wards. I cross the lawns again the giant’s still there poking his pitchfork at the dead bush. Dumbfounded to see me. I smile at him. Amazingly he has a big watch on. “What time is it?” I ask. He looks at me in a trance not answering. I tip my hat and walk on.

Your head is spinning but inside you you’re at peace. A bit much though all that tipping of your hat. You enter the ward again the tailored lady hurries toward you.

“Oh, it’s you,” she says. “I’m glad you’re back. I can’t seem to turn on the light.”

I flick the switch but nothing happens.

“There must be a short,” I explain. “Someone will come to fix it soon.”

No fantasy then. What you love is what you kill the spirit listeth where it will. And supposing I did disappoint? Divorce yes. The house no. We’ll bargain again. Two women. No less. Maybe you’d like to kill me again please. I fling myself on Naomi’s bed. Saber-sharp thought. I push aside her straw hat and stretch out on her bedclothes. The last rays of the sun glint on the white sheets. I’ll wait for them here. The wretched lady hovers by the bed.

“Excuse me, Mr….”

“Kaminka.”

“I don’t remember what you said about supper.”

“Supper?”

“When is it served? And where?”

“Usually here on the ward, but because of the holiday it’s in the big dining room tonight.”

She nods wringing her hands.

“I feel so lost here. I can’t even get myself to unpack my suitcase. This whole place makes me sick… they didn’t allow my husband in, and so he left me… he’s an officer, he’s always in a hurry… he has to get back to his regiment…”

“You’ll get used to it.” I nod back with my head on the pillow my mind somewhere else. “You’ll see that you will.”

“But how?” she asks hopelessly. “How?”

“You’ll see. They’ll take good care of you.”

“I certainly hope so.” She smiles childishly. “Do you think they’ll let me swim in the ocean?…I like that so much…”

“Why shouldn’t they?”

She regards me sharply stricken with new anxiety.

“But where is your wife? Where is she?”

“She’ll be here any minute.”

“What kind of woman is she? Do you think that we’ll be friends?”

“Of course you will. She’s a very nice woman. You’ll get to know each other.”

Suddenly the sound of people running. I jump up instinctively and dash to the kitchen seeing Yehezkel hearing him call from the door:

“I tell you, that wasn’t him! You’re wrong.”

He runs to Naomi’s bed he opens the drawer he takes out the broken half of the dog’s chain he runs back out again.

I return to the bed. All things mesh together. The sun enmeshed in the middle of the square windowpane. The tailored lady sits there helplessly tears running down her cheeks.

All at once gripped by the thought.

“Why are you crying? What are you here for?”

“They thought I wanted to kill myself. But I didn’t. I only wanted to try it… to frighten them… and they thought I meant it…”

“There, there. Look, they’ll take good care of you here. And soon you’ll be able to leave.”

I can’t tear myself away from Naomi’s bed I don’t lie down on it though I just stand there looking at the straw hat on the pillows at the open drawer. Fragile inner workings of. Thinking of your regained half a house. Half a guest room half a bedroom half a kitchen half a bathroom the whole place halved by an imaginary line. Taking off my soft felt hat and putting on her straw one in its place. The lady in the corner looks at me but there’s no turning back now. I lift Naomi’s cotton dress I finger it crinkling the fabric I sniff it she’s lost her old smell these last five years and gotten a new one. I can’t put down the dress. Shaken annoyed at myself I wriggle out of my jacket I hold up the dress and slip into it struggling with the fabric caught for a dark moment but then it falls freely over me stiff and clean. I see the little face in the corner fill with terror the lips are trying to speak.

“Oh, no… why are you… you’re frightening me… oh, don’t! Don’t frighten me, please… why didn’t you tell me you were sick too?”

I frown at her watching the dress swirl lightly around my legs bending to roll up my pants until my white ankles show. The sun sinks slowly beneath the square window I take the soft gray shawl and cast it over my shoulders looking for a mirror. The woman trembles bites her fingers sobs.

“Don’t… don’t… please…”

I walk to the door the giant is standing there limply holding his pitchfork listening. Cars keep coming down the road now Asi rushes up too. I run back to hide in the corner the woman watching every move white-faced falling apart eyes sputtering in the dark. Asi steps inside and gropes for the light switch. History as closure? No children there is always a way out. I freeze in my corner the hem of the dress flutters slightly while he steps warily into the dark room and finds my jacket on the bed.

“Father?” He halts calling softly. “Father…”

He senses me for sure but doesn’t dare come closer he stops I’m ready now. Murder me. I am that I am. Let her rip. I’ve done all I could. Suddenly I dart from my place I spin around and race to the kitchen and out the back door. In the open again. I have plenty of time my ticket my passport my money. Plenty of it. And half the house mine again. The taxi is waiting. I hurry down the path by cars unloading patients more depressed than ever after a day with their families. In female garb I slip past them an unaccustomed draft around my ankles suddenly a flood of lunar light. The dogs are still barking faintly but the howling has stopped. ’Ratio must have been freed he’s galloping toward me I mustn’t miss the hole in the fence.

I head straight for it the outline of my plump woman’s shadow trailing clearly after me. A cool wind. Scudding clouds. All symbols. I know and smile to myself. And supposing that the pleasure that it gives me does destroy my very self?

All at once I see him before me the giant mute colossus of a man just standing there moving in slow motion as though remote-controlled he faces me on the little path blocking my way staring at me hard. They call him by some Arab name Musa I think that must be it but I’m sure that he’s a Jew. Well what’s on your mind? Have I disappointed you too? “Naomi…” he mutters. “Naomi…” Meaning you or trying to warn her? Can he really have confused us? He mutters some more or rather groans it’s all too much for him I’d better calm him down he’s humorless that’s your original your unilateral your unadulterated form of madness. I take off the shawl and toss it on the ground I unbutton the dress but it just puts him into a Neanderthal rage. He’s actually growling now. The main thing’s not to panic not to touch them they’re like dogs fear only makes it worse. Perhaps he needs to be scolded. A fateful man. Better to humor him. But now he’s waving his arms he doesn’t even know he’s got a pitchfork in them. What a predicament. Suddenly you’re in a dreadful mess.