The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz

7

Jachin-Boaz dreamed of his father who had died when Jachin-Boaz was in his first year at university. In the dream he was at his father’s funeral, but he was younger than university age. He was a little boy, and with his mother he walked up to the coffin among flowers whose fragrance was strong and deathly. His father lay with closed eyes, his face rouged and smoothed-out and blank, his brows unfrowning, his beard pointing out from his chin like a cannon. His hands were crossed on his breast, and the dead left hand held a rolled-up map. The map was rolled with its face outward, and Jachin-Boaz could see a bit of blue ocean, a bit of land, red lines, blue lines, black lines, roads and railways. Lettered neatly on the border were the words For my son Jachin-Boaz.

Jachin-Boaz dared not reach for the map, dared not take it from his father’s dead hand. He looked at his mother and pointed to the map. She took a pair of scissors from inside her dress, cut off the end of the dead man’s beard and showed it to Jachin-Boaz.

‘No,’ said Jachin-Boaz to his mother who had changed into his wife. ‘I want the map. It was in his left hand, not his right. Left for me.’

His wife shook her head. ‘You’re too little to have one,’ she said. It was dark suddenly, and they were in bed. Jachin-Boaz reached out to touch his wife, found the coffin between them and tried to push it away.

The bedside table fell with a crash, and Jachin-Boaz woke up. ‘Left, not right,’ he said in his own language. ‘Left for me.’

‘What’s the matter?’ said Gretel, sitting up in bed. They always spoke English. She could not understand what he was saying.

‘It’s mine, and I’m big enough to have it,’ said Jachin-Boaz, still in his own language. ‘What map is it, what ocean, what time is there?’

‘Wake up,’ said Gretel in English. ‘Are you all right?’

‘What time are we?’ said Jachin-Boaz in English.

‘Do you mean what time is it?’ said Gretel.

‘Where is the time?’ said Jachin-Boaz.

‘Quarter past five,’ said Gretel.

‘That’s not where it is,’ said Jachin-Boaz. His dream had gone out of his mind. He could remember none of it.