Ya'ari attempts to protect his parents, with little success. Efrat cross-checks the dates and proves to him that his father is no saint. Why should he be a saint? asks Ya'ari. Because you and Daniela want to give the impression that you always do the right thing, that you're perfect people. Ya'ari chuckles. What do you mean, perfect? We have our faults. Of course, his daughter-in-law giggles, too, and her reddening face reassumes its wonderful sheen. But somehow, she insists, you manage to persuade all of us that your faults are actually virtues. Amotz laughs heartily and keeps his cool. Maybe Daniela, but not me. And he looks approvingly at the blush that has returned to his daughter-in-law's face.
Nadi eats the limbs and body of the chocolate boy and wants to eat Neta's chocolate girl too. But she succeeds in moving it to higher ground, safe from his jaws.
On television, standing beside a fighter jet, the Minister of Defense lights the Hanukkah candles and sings, in a pleasant voice, "He Who performed miracles for our forefathers." Nofar calls and chats affectionately with her sister-in-law and also asks her niece and nephew to kiss her over the phone. Ya'ari hesitantly takes the receiver, wondering with mild trepidation whether the landlords have revealed his impulsive visit to her room. It turns out they kept their promise, but Ya'ari's father did tell his granddaughter about her father's visit to an old client in Jerusalem, and she's disappointed that he didn't think to come visit her at the hospital. She would have taken him to the trauma unit, where she is now working at her own request, so he could start believing in the resurrection of the dead.
Nadi has landed on the sofa, asleep. Ya'ari helps his granddaughter put on her pajamas, covers her with a blanket and reads her a story about a family that doesn't care that a mouse is roaming freely in their house. The dishes are piled in the sink, the tablecloth is stained, the Hanukkah candles dwindle. His restless daughter-in-law paces from room to room, making call after call to find a babysitter, but it turns out that on a Friday night at the height of the holiday no young girl is willing to pass up her friends' party. Listen, Efrati, he says kindly to the desperate woman, I'll stay here this evening with the kids. You also deserve a little joy in your life. She looks up with amazement, not knowing if he's being ironic or serious. But it could be till late, she warns her father-in-law. Whatever you want, he answers graciously. I caught up on my sleep this afternoon; staying up won't be a problem.
Why stay up? his daughter-in-law says. She'll spread a sheet and blanket on the sofa and give him one of Moran's clean T-shirts and a pair of sweatpants, and he can sleep peacefully here till morning. Now he is taken aback. I don't understand — you're planning to come home only in the morning? No way to know, she says with a mysterious smile. It depends how things go at the party. What things is she talking about? Ya'ari wonders to himself. Maybe he ought to set a curfew for the mother of his grandchildren and get her back here by midnight. But it's too late for that. Efrat has come alive: in an instant the depressed and worn-out housewife has been transformed into a happy young woman, a radiant beauty, her heels clicking proudly about the apartment. She puts on a dress that fashionably exposes all that may and must be exposed of a woman, barring her nipples, which still belong to her husband, and on her unblemished skin she strews some sort of sparkling stardust, meant to ease the entry of a lovely woman into tonight's banquet of the gods.
From the look she casts his way, it's clear she is waiting for a rave review for her performance, but Ya'ari prefers to keep quiet. Daniela has already warned him against giving his daughter-in-law the sort of compliments that a man gives a woman. You do not look at your daughter-in-law through the eyes of a man. Even what was permitted to her father is forbidden to you. Indeed she was right. For as she bends over her sleeping son, lying beside him on the sofa, to determine whether she ought to move him to his bed, the perfumed breasts that nearly brush his face, and in particular the tiny tattoo engraved above one of them, ignite a strange desire that for a brief moment takes his breath away.
"Don't move him. Let him stay here with me. Even if he wakes up, I'll manage with him."
"The main thing," she says, astonishing him, "is not to show signs of fear or weakness, because then he gets crazier."
"Gets crazier? You're not exaggerating?"
To be on the safe side, in case of an emergency, she puts Baby Mozart into the VCR. From Neta's infancy Ya'ari remembers fondly the little railway cars carrying adorable animals and the dancing of these animals, and the car that vanishes and then reappears and reconnects and disappears again, and the sea lions sliding and climbing and sliding and climbing, all of this to the masterful music of Mozart, which according to researchers calms the souls of toddlers and at the same time sharpens and broadens their minds. If such a video had been available in my day, Ya'ari likes to complain, I wouldn't be a mere engineer today, but rather a major scientist.
Overriding his objections, the gorgeous mother insists on tiptoeing in her high heels into the children's bedroom to say good bye to her drowsy girl, and to allay any potential separation anxiety by telling her that her grandpa, strong and alert, will protect her from evil spirits and bad dreams. Half-asleep, the girl mews a little protest. For the life of me, Ya'ari protests, I don't see the point of all this frankness. But Efrat's beauty apparently obliges her to report her every movement, so that her husband's imagination will not torment him. Now she wraps herself in a thin blue shawl that matches the color of her eyes.
"You won't be cold?"
"It's fine, I'll be driven door to door."
And before leaving, glowing with happiness and gratitude, she wants to kiss and hug tightly the available old babysitter, but he pulls away, lightly touching her hair, so that her flesh will not get too close to his.
"Go… go… you're wasting time."
The moment the door closes a heartrending cry bursts from the bedroom: Imma, Imma'leh, where are you? And when he hurries in and turns on the light, he finds his granddaughter, a darling duplicate of the vanished mother, standing in her bed and stubbornly wailing a lament: Imma, Imma, Imma'leh, where are you? Why did you go?
Neta is considered a well-behaved and rational child, and compared with her wild brother is sometimes defined as an angel come down from heaven. Ya'ari is therefore certain he will easily be able to calm the crying that has left her anguished and shaking. But when he tries to take her in his arms, she only increases her shrieking, propping her head with her little hand as if it were about to fall off.
He shuts the door to the children's room so that her cries will not wake her brother, but it's too late. The toddler is pounding on the closed door now with his little fist, and when he enters — barefoot, agitated, red-eyed — he climbs at once onto his bed and sits in a weird cross-legged position, coolly studying his blubbering sister, waving his little foot like a pendulum.
"But I'm here, I'm with you, I'm taking care of you," Ya'ari tries to convince his granddaughter that she has not been abandoned, but her weeping has its own momentum now and nothing will stop it. She is still holding her head in her hand, as if she felt a stroke coming on, and out of that vertigo of lamentation, throttled now and then by deep internal sobbing, throbs the relentless dirge: Imma, Imma, Imma'leh, where are you? Where did you go?
Ya'ari is desperate. He anticipated a battle with Nadi, but not with Neta, who is always willing to cooperate. And so, after unsuccessfully trying to calm her with promises, he decides on a new tactic.