In the laundry on the roof of his house, Uri has a rocket made from bits of an old icebox and parts from an abandoned bicycle. The rocket is aimed at the Houses of Parliament in London. And I alone am responsible for the delay, because it is up to me, Dr. Einstein, Dr. Faust, Dr. Gog-and-Magog, to develop in my laboratory the formula for the secret fuel and the Hebrew atomic bomb.
He spends hours on end immersed in my huge German atlas. He is quiet, polite, clean, and tidy. He listens respectfully to what I say but rebukes me for my slowness. He pins little flags in the atlas to trace the course of the advance (with my permission, naturally). He plans a mock landing of Hebrew paratroops on the Suez Canal and along the Red Sea coast. He captures the British fleet off Crete and Malta. Occasionally I am invited to join in this game that is more than a game, in the role of Perfidious Albion, hatching dark plots, conducting desperate rear-guard actions on land and sea, in the Dardanelles, Gibraltar, the Red Sea approaches. Eventually I am forced to capitulate graciously, to cede the whole of the East to the forces of the Hebrew Kingdom, to enter into negotiations, to pencil in lightly the limits of spheres of influence, and to admit sportingly that I have lost the diplomatic war of minds just as I have already been conclusively routed on the battlefield. Only then will the ground be prepared for a military alliance, and the two of us together, Kingdom of Israel and British Empire, will be able to operate against the desert tribesmen. We would advance eastward in a carefully coordinated pincer movement until we encountered a forward patrol of the forces of the ten lost tribes, right at the edge of the map. I have permitted Uri to sketch in in blue pencil a large but Godforsaken Israelite kingdom in Central Asia, somewhere among the Himalayan Mountains.
The game is not entirely to my taste, but I join in nonetheless, and at times I even experience a certain secret thrilclass="underline" A child. A strange child. My child.
"Dr. Nussbaum," Uri says, "please, if you don't feel well again, I can give you your supper. And I can go to the greengrocer's for you and to Ziegel's and buy whatever you need. Just tell me what."
"Thank you, Uri. There's no need. On the contrary; there's some chocolate in the kitchen cupboard — help yourself, and you may find some almonds, too. And then you must go home, so they don't worry about you."
"They won't worry. I can even stay overnight and keep an eye on the laboratory so you can get some sleep. Mommy and Daddy have gone away to a sanatorium. There's no one at home except Auntie Natalia, and she won't make any trouble for us — she's too busy with her own business. I can even stay out of doors all night if I want to. Or just stay quietly here with you."
"What about your homework?"
"It's done. Dr. Emanuel—"
"Yes, Uri."
"Nothing. Only you…"
"What did you want to ask me, Uri? Don't be shy. Ask."
"Nothing. Are you always… alone?"
"Recently, yes."
"Haven't you got any brothers or sisters? Haven't you thought about… getting married?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
"No reason. Only I haven't, either."
"Haven't what?"
"Nothing. I haven't got any brothers or sisters. And I… I don't need anybody."
"It's not the same, Uri."
"Yes, it is. And you don't call me a crazy child. Am I a crazy child?"
"No, Uri, you're not."
"Just the opposite. I'm your assistant. And that's a secret between you and me."
"Naturally," I say without a smile. "Now you must go. Tomorrow, if you like, we'll spend some time in the lab. I'll show you how to reduce certain substances to their elements. It will be a chemistry lesson, and you tell them that at home, please, if they ask you about your visits to me."
"Sure. You can count on me not to talk. I'll say it was chemistry lessons like you said. Don't worry, Dr. Emanuel. Bye."
"Wait a minute, Uri." I hesitate. "Just a minute."
"Yes?"
"Here, your sweater. Good night."
He leaves the house. Slips away down the back stairs. From my balcony I can watch his furtive passage among the shrubs. Suddenly I feel a surge of regret. What have I done. Have I gone mad. I mustn't. Then again: he's the neighbors' child, not mine. And naturally my illness is not catching. But all this will end badly. I'm sorry, Mina. You will certainly view this strange relationship in a totally negative light. And you will be right, as usual. I'm very sorry.
September 5
Evening again
Dear Mina,
I should have told Professor Dushkin there and then on Mount Scopus that I could on no account accept his harsh words about Moshe Shcrtok and Berl Locker. After all, these poor delegates of a tiny, isolated community are almost empty-handed. And I should have told the engineer from the Jewish Agency that it would be better for them to give up their useless fantasies about mysterious weapons and start making clear-sighted preparations for the departure of the British army and the impending war. And I should have tried to put up a fight — forgive me for using such a hyperbolic expression — to put up a fight for the soul of my child, my neighbors' child, to put a firm stop to his games of conquest, to get him out of my laboratory, to produce sensible arguments to counteract the romantic dreams with which his Cossack Bible teacher has apparently filled the boy's head.
But I cannot deny that these romantic dreams sometimes take hold of me, too, at night, in between the attacks of pain. Last night I helped Dr. Weizmann, disguised as a Catholic priest, to make his way secretly in the dark to one of the bridges over the Danube and empty phials of plague bacillus into the water. After all, we are already infected, Dr. Weizmann said; there's no hope for either of us, he said; if only we live long enough to see that our death does not go unavenged. I tried to remonstrate, I reminded him that we had both always despised such language, but he turned a tortured, eyeless face toward me and called me "Svidriga'ilov."
Early in the morning, I went out onto the balcony again. I found the light on in my neighbors' window across the yard. Zevulun Grill, who is a driver in the Hammekasher bus cooperative and a member of our local civil-defense committee, was standing in his kitchen slicing a sausage. He was probably making his sandwiches. I, too, put the kettle on for my shaving water and my morning coffee, and a strange, irrelevant phrase kept grating in my mind like a trashy popular tune that refuses to go away: a thorn in the flesh. I am a thorn in her flesh. We are a thorn in their flesh.
Dear Mina, I must record that yet another bad sign has joined all the others: for the first time I fell asleep fully dressed on the sofa. I woke up rumpled and disheveled at two o'clock and dragged myself to bed. So I shall have to hurry up.
"I went to the Tel Arza woods by myself after school," Uri said. "I've brought you a canful of that honey stuff that drips from pine trees when you break off a branch; hello, Dr. Nussbaum, I forgot to say it when I came in, and nobody followed me here because I was careful and made several detours on the way. This stuff smells a bit like turpentine, only different. My suggestion, which I thought of on the way back, is that we could try mixing it with a bit of gasoline and some acetone, then lighting it and seeing what the blast's like."
"Today, Uri, I suggest that we do something completely different. For a change. Let's close the windows, make ourselves comfortable, and listen to some classical music on the phonograph. Afterward, if you want to ask any questions, I may be able to explain some of the musical terms."