"Mr. Nehamkin! Please! Mr. Nehamkin!"
But he did not hear me. He could not possibly hear me. He was sitting, as usual, building a model of the Temple out of used matchsticks, following the descriptions in Scripture and in other sources. It was a project that had been going on for years, and its completion was receding further and further into the distance, because, as he explained to me, the evidence of the various sources was inconsistent, and he was constantly obliged to dismantle and rebuild it, now according to one plan and now according to another.
With his large, pale fingers, he dipped matchstick after matchstick into a bowl of flour-and-water paste. He had a piece of twine gripped between his teeth, and all the time he hummed to himself:
Our Father, our King,
Have mercy upon us and answer us
Although we deserve it not.
Afterward, lying in bed, scratched and smelling of pepper, I could hear the fervent worshipers in the Faithful Remnant Synagogue, gathered for the Midnight Vigil. The summer would soon be over, and the Days of Awe would be upon us.
And outside, in the warm darkness, something was enraging or terrifying the dogs of the neighborhood and making them hesitate between barking and howling.
4
Ephraim was a sharp-witted but impatient chess player. Father sometimes managed to beat him because he refused to take risks and always conducted a cautious defensive campaign.
"Slow but sure," Ephraim would say condescendingly when Father occasionally succeeded in capturing a defenseless pawn on the outskirts of the field of combat.
Father was not offended. He merely urged:
"Concentrate, Ephraim. Don't give up yet. I shouldn't mind changing places with you, even with your present setup."
Ephraim dismissed this offer with a single contemptuous word: "Today!" He suggested they quit chattering and get on with the real business:
"You're just trying to confuse me with your speechifying, Kolodny. But any moment now, you'll find yourself in a spot, and then you won't feel much like making speeches."
"We'll soon see," Father replied mildly. "Meanwhile I'm besieging your castle, and I've made a good meal of your pawn."
"Make the most of it," Ephraim said angrily. "Nibble the bait to your heart's content; I'm ready with my rod and line."
"We'll see," Father repeated affectionately.
They sat facing each other across the heavy brown living-room table: Ephraim short and dark, his head held forward as if ready to charge, his shirt deliberately unbuttoned to show off his curly-haired chest; Father in a vest and a pair of khaki shorts that were a bit too large for him, his cheeks pink and close-shaven, the corners of his eyes wrinkled in a smile that I secretly called his "schoolmasterly smile."
The chessboard lay on the table between them, surrounded by nuts, biscuits, apples, and pale-blue paper napkins printed with pictures of white-sailed fishing boats. There was also a china ashtray in the form of a woman's cupped hand. Among the various delicacies stood a yogurt pot containing some wilting white roses. From time to time, a yellowing petal landed gently on the oilcloth that covered the table, and found a rejuvenating echo in the vividly colored roses that were printed all over it. Father would instantly seize the dead petal, fix it with a concentrated stare, and fold it skillfully into ever-smaller squares.
Ephraim would pick up a knight or a bishop, tap it impatiently on the boards as if calling Father to order, and say:
"Why ponder, Kolodny? You've got no choice."
Father:
"Yes. You're right, I'm just trying to decide which is the lesser of two evils."
Mother, from her perch on the piano stool, said:
"Calm down, you two. It's not worth getting worked up over a game."
This remark seemed to me to be uncalled for: it was not Father and Ephraim who were getting worked up.
The living room was simply and cheerfully furnished. The curtains were bright and airy, the ceiling was painted pale-blue, and the walls were patterned with tiny flowers, as if the decorator had fancied himself a gardener, rather than a painter. Behind the sliding glass doors of the sideboard, the dinner service was neatly displayed in serried ranks, like troops ready to be reviewed by a high-ranking officer. There was a chandelier with four intertwining branches, each surmounted by a bud-shaped light bulb.
On the other side of the room hung a bookshelf containing a Bible with a modern commentary, the Gazetteer of Palestine, a history of the Jews and a concise world history, the complete poems of Bialik, selected poems of Chernikhovsky, and Gur's Hebrew Dictionary. A volume entitled Gems of Literature lay on its side on top of the other books, because there was no room for it on the shelf. Above the sideboard hung a picture of a pioneer pushing a plow through a field in the Jezreel Valley, oblivious of the black crows hovering over Mount Gilboa in the top corner of the picture. On top of Mother's piano stood a plaster bust of Chopin, which I secretly called Mr. Szczupak because it reminded me a little of the proprietor of Riviera Fashions on King George Street. The bust bore a legend in Polish that Mother translated for me as "With all the warmth of my heart and until my dying breath." Next to my window sill, the Jewish National Fund collection box hung from a thick nail. It was adorned with a map of the country, with the areas we had already won back filled in in brown. I could not restrain myself: I took my box of paints and drew one arrow from Jerusalem northward through Gilead and the Golan toward Mount Lebanon, and another southeastward to the borders of Moab on the shores of the Dead Sea. As a result of this pincer movement, it became possible to paint the whole map brown, and so to gain possession of the whole country. At first Father was angry, and insisted that I carefully wash and dry the box and remove every trace of this piece of cleverness. Then he changed his mind, his face broadened into one of his schoolmasterly smiles, and he said:
"All right. Leave it as it is. You were carried away by a flight of fancy. So be it."
Mother said:
"Every Friday we put two mils in the box, and yet it never fills up. Perhaps even money evaporates in this heat. Instead of talking, Kolodny, maybe you wouldn't mind going out and buying a quarter-block of ice for the icebox. Or else send your son. I don't mind which of you goes, only get cracking, before all the vegetables perish."
If Ephraim won the game of chess, Father would take it in good part and remark cheerfully:
"After all, it's only a game."
But if Ephraim's concentration was distracted by Mother's presence or by some ideological brainstorm, so that he made one crass mistake after another and lost the game, Father's face would be covered with shame and confusion: "Look, Ephraim," he would whisper anxiously, "look what a spot you've got yourself into. What shall we do now?"
Ephraim would respond with a short burst of silent fury. He would pick up a nut and crush it between his teeth, glance at Mother's shoulders or beyond, at the hillside, which was visible through the window, and hiss through pursed lips:
"So, Kolodny, so you've won. So what? Now let's play seriously, for once."
As if the game that had just finished had merely been for practice. As if his losing had merely been a small gesture to my ungrateful father, and now the time had come for the real game in which no quarter would be given.
Mother would generally prevent the outbreak of this real game by interrupting her playing, coming over to the table, laying one hand on Father's shoulder and the other on the back of Ephraim's chair, and saying: