“It’s unimaginable to leave mother without glasses,” he repeated scoldingly, rewrapping them in the handkerchief and handing them to Ya’el. Mother watched him with that flickering smile of hers that I had always hated. It vanished when her eyes met mine. The only one in the family who ever stood up to her was me.
“Tell me about the winter there, Yehuda. The last time you were here you described the snow so nicely…”
“I did?”
“You don’t remember? I was very sick then. I don’t remember much, but your description of the snow… yes, that I do…”
He turned to us for help, glanced at the mass of faces in the window, looked at his watch, gave me a frightened look, reached for Gaddi, held him tight, stroked his hair: trying to fathom what it was that she wanted. On the table, where the kettle had been, lay some folded sheets of paper. No doubt Kedmi’s agreement. He started to pick it up, then stopped and sat down next to mother instead, moving his chair closer to her while beginning to tell her about the snow, glancing at us apologetically, failing to comprehend how he had fallen into such a trap. But he had patience. He still felt sure that all would end well. The need to make one’s own mistakes. The struggle to resist the historical process as a historical trap.
Take Rhodesia. Sane, pragmatic, unhysterical Anglo-Saxons with a rational outlook and no national mythology to uphold gradually fall victim to the stubbornly lunatic notion that they can twist history’s arm. Their immediate motive is obvious, even naturaclass="underline" the wish to retain their productive farmlands and continue to exploit cheap native labor. Slowly, however, they sink into an ever deeper quagmire. There are only two hundred thousand of them and yet, in a world that boasts nearly as many independent nations as people, they are determined to rule over six million blacks in the heart of Africa. At which point the same practical, down-to-earth folk suddenly decide that they have a great, anti-historical mission to perform — the sole purpose of which in reality is to keep them from understanding what should have been understood long ago. And so — sophisticatedly, imaginatively, impetuously, with unbeatable solidarity — they dig in their heels, turning their agricultural acres into a holy land and constructing a global ideology: from now on they are no longer simply white Rhodesians, hardworking farmers who troop off every Sunday to sing sweet hymns in church, they are the vanguard of Freedom, the torchbearers of Truth, stubborn servants of the Lord and of the whole civilized world. Infuriated and embittered, they gaze out through the bars of the cage they have built for themselves, despairing of the world that has condemned them, assuring themselves of the blindness, the pathology, the self-destructiveness, the decline of the West, holding out against embargoes, terrorism, vituperation and ostracization with a military savvy and a messianic passion that are out of all proportion to their true strength, turning themselves into steel, their isolation into a fortress of Western culture. And yet just when the world has begun to get used to their madness and even to learn to live with it, they crack for no apparent reason; they agree to small compromises that lead to larger and larger ones: and, having entrusted their little pinky to the great hand of history, they find themselves dragged along by it with greater and greater force until they voluntarily hand over their power to the most implacable of their enemies.
“And how much do you earn now, Yehuda?”
Father grinned. “A thousand dollars a month.”
“How much is that in Israeli pounds?”
“A hundred and twenty thousand.”
Mother was staggered. She regarded him with awe.
“That isn’t much there. In fact, it’s considered a small salary.”
“And are you happy?”
“Oh, well… happiness… what actually is it? It’s something I had never dreamt of for myself. The concept itself isn’t clear to me. But I do feel at peace there… yes, that I have over there, a kind of peace. Not that I don’t miss the children terribly… all of you…”
He eyed us nervously, seeking to gauge the effect his answer had had and whether it had passed the test.
“And that woman… did you bring a photograph of her?”
“What woman?”
“That woman of yours… the one you live with… whose name you never told me… maybe…”
“Connie,” said father hopelessly.
“Connie? Because last time you were here he promised to bring me her picture.”
I jumped to my feet but she ignored me. The sudden shift to the third person was always a bad sign. They had to be separated at once. Father looked at us, utterly baffled.
“What do you need a picture of her for, mother? What does it matter?”
“But he promised me last time. I just want to see her picture.”
I turned to him furiously. “Do you have her picture with you?”
He crimsoned, rose, pulled out his wallet, and, lo and behold, produced a small color snapshot. Mother took it and studied it at arm’s length with Gaddi, who wanted to see what an American woman looked like: plumpish, blond, standing on a patch of lawn by a garage door. The snapshot fell to the floor. Father hurried to retrieve it. He handed it to mother, who declined to take it. Quickly he put it back in his pocket.
“And do you have a picture of the baby too?”
“The baby???”
Ya’el quailed. “What baby, mother?”
“His baby, the new one…”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why, about that new baby of his.”
“Who said anything about a baby?”
“Tsvi did, yesterday.”
“Tsvi???” The three of us were aghast.
“Yes. They were here.”
“They?”
“He and a friend. An older man who brought him.”
“But what did he come for?”
“To visit me. He hadn’t seen me for weeks. He wanted to read those pages that Kedmi brought me… he wanted to know what… maybe to show his friend…”
“And what did he say?”
“Nothing. He told me that you had a baby.”
“But he couldn’t have!”
“There’s no baby, mother,” Ya’el pleaded. “Whatever made you think that?”
“But…” Mother grabbed her head in deep distress.
Father forced a laugh. “Tsvi misunderstood. He always mixes things up.”
“But how…?”
She wrung her hands defensively, blushing, distraught at the unexpected denial.
“And I was so happy that you’d had a baby… that you still could… Tsvi told me, ask him…”
All at once I rose to speak in a clear, dry voice, compelled to put an end to the obscene farce.
“It isn’t born yet but it will be…” I turned to her, gripping her lightly by the arm. She was afraid to look at me. “It isn’t born yet but it will be.” I ignored the panic seizing father and Ya’el, the commotion by the door, the faces behind the curtain on the window. “Father is telling the truth. Tsvi didn’t understand. It isn’t born yet but it will be… that’s why father was in such a hurry to get here. It isn’t born yet but it will be!” I repeated once more, raising my voice as the deep anger swept over me. “That’s why we’re here. Because otherwise what would it have mattered… you’re separated anyway… but because of the child… the baby… there’s a legal problem there… according to the law… legally you need to… and you yourself wouldn’t want him to…”
Only by now I no longer knew what I wanted to say. The word “law” had gotten into it and stuck there. Mother stared at me, the old wild glitter in her eyes, the theatrical colors of her makeup a changed tint.
“We didn’t mean to hide it from you… you know everything now… father hasn’t kept anything back. It isn’t born yet but it will be…”
I turned to him in cold fury. “When will it be born?”