Godfatherhood is also an obligation on the part of the godson, said Boaz and smiled. Boaz surveyed the Captain with a certain affection, maybe a lot more than he allowed himself. There was some imagination in the Captain, even fictional, even not clear, that, instead of winning a position, honor in the big government of the world, he agreed to live with us here in this forsaken place. The splendid figure of the Captain now stood in the twilight and looked to him like the abandoned god of a treacherous kingdom.
After they spoke, Boaz said: But why the memorial, why now all of a sudden? Because I'm waning, Boaz, said the Captain in a gloomy despair and a betrayed sadness, Dante wrote the world and then tried to build another world, he's my bereaved son! I've got the money. You've got the knowledge. You build memorials for everybody. Build one for me.
Maybe, said Boaz.
No maybe, said the Captain. You owe me and you'll build. I'll pay.
Boaz asked: Is there a specific place that will suit the memorial?
The Kastel, said the Captain. From there Jerusalem was seen in ruins by Gottfried of Bouillon. There the poor Crusaders ripped their clothes in ten ninety-nine before they went up to conquer Jerusalem. From the Kastel, the city is seen in its wretchedness by pilgrims in all generations. From there Dante could have seen it if he had gone up to it. Do you know the mountain? he asked.
Once, said Boaz, I conquered it for you inadvertently.
There we'll erect the memorial, said the Captain, whose faith in it was only strengthened by the authority of the words.
Noga refused to come along. She told Hasha Masha: Henkin wants to go with Boaz and the Captain, they're going to find a place for the memorial to Dante. Hasha Masha said: They'll put that Italian on their committee, what do you have to do with Boaz Schneerson! But Henkin put on his hat and kissed Noga on the cheek, hugged Hasha and left the house. Boaz and Noga's roof was new to him. Walls enclosed the little grove Noga planted. A plane circled in the sky on its way to Lod Airport. Henkin stood in the center of the roof, looked at the rusting houses of old Tel Aviv, and said: I'm torturing myself, what do I have to do with this mountain? And Boaz looked at Henkin with the same ancient and piercing affection he saw in the eyes of Ebenezer when he thought he was Samuel, and said: That mountain was the most important place in Menahem's life, but I confused everything and you won't believe anymore, so what's the point of talking-
Boaz drove the car and Henkin and the Captain in his uniform observed the very familiar landscape. Not far from the place where Menahem is buried, Boaz turned right and climbed up the mountain. The air was fragrant and pure. A wind whistled in the treetops, the mountains at that hour were clear and free of mist and came close together.
On top of the mountain stood a ruined structure. Below new structures were seen and Jews from Iran, Bukhara, and Afghanistan dressed in colorful clothing were walking around among the structures. A woman in a purple yashmak called out: The mother of the sons calls the Lord! A gray-haired mustached man appeared, and said: The wicked of the wicked is before you my lady, and she said strangers came up above and he turned his eyes aside and saw a car and three people, one of them a general, he picked up the old rifle and the cartridge of bullets, shot one bullet into the air, and the colorful people stopped what they were doing and looked up, and the woman yelled: Kill, kill, but the man approached Boaz, Henkin, and the Captain aiming the rifle at them, and Boaz said: We're from the Prime Minister's office, searching for a suitable place for a tombstone for an outstanding Jewish commander named Dante Alighieri who overcame the wicked Romans. The man, whose rifle slipped down, recalled his distant youth in misty mountains in a distant land, and the other people approached and stood around him. One man said: Commander? We had a dervish who was the son of Queen Esther, and lived in the mountains. He was a great Jewish hero and the king of all the Persians. Did you hear of Ahasuerus? Esther was his wife. Then we came to the river. Remember what river would come to the Land of Israel? It was forty days across, forty days we rode in a truck just to get across to the other side. And then, the little girl born after the big rain died, and from there in airplanes, and you're a commander, you want a tombstone? Why not? Jews or non-Jews? And everybody laughed and startled the pure air with mouths full of white, crooked, and black teeth. As a sign of friendship, the man put the rifle down on the ground and started singing, and everybody hummed along with him. The singer reminded the Captain of the ancient melodies they'd sing in the Temple, which was taken to Babylon and from there came to Spain and was preserved in monasteries by conversos, who were then exiled to the east and came to Persia and India and Kurdistan and Afghanistan, and from those chants Dante Alighieri wove the Divine Comedy, whose melody was heard by Emanuel the Roman who knew the melodies he took in with his mother's milk and the hidden and mysterious notes were latent in him…
Then they stood above, and the people, except for that silver-haired mustached man, went to their houses and Boaz told about the decisive battle on the Kastel. Henkin stopped his ears. He didn't want to hear. And so Teacher Henkin, stubbornly but courageously, missed the only chance he was given in his life to hear about one battle in which his son fought wisely and heroically.
After Abdul Khadr el-Husseini was killed by mistake, said Boaz, and any one of us could have shot him, including Menahem, he said and looked at Henkin, all the Arabs fled and then came a reinforcement of commanders and we saw them enter the path, yelling, but they didn't hear and then it was too late and Simon Alfasi shouted: "Privates retreat, the commanders will cover the retreat," and thirty-three commanders were killed to defend Boaz and Menahem and Joseph. Afterward, the Arabs discovered the body of their leader and they fled… And that started the decisive turning point in the War of Independence… Menahem's one shot!
Or yours, shouted Henkin who heard the last words.
Or mine, said Boaz sadly.
Henkin started thinking about the next Independence Day: Nineteen years have passed and what am I doing? I'm helping erect a tombstone for Dante that will look toward Menahem's Jerusalem, while for my poets I left abandoned graves in the old cemetery of Tel Aviv. And out of pondering and an ancient sense of treachery, Henkin said: I see shadows on the horizon, Boaz, and Boaz said: What shadows, and the Captain looked and said: There will be a war, and Boaz thought: They're making fun, those old men, what war can you see, but he didn't say a thing and looked at the old Bukharan who started singing again.
In the evening, the Captain sat with Rebecca. Rebecca said: He's probably fed up with memory books and he wants to be a memorial to himself, but without my Psalms, he won't succeed. And the Captain said: But what will become of us, Rebecca? He thought about Ebenezer who had recently come back and painted his house, and Rebecca said: What will be? All my enemies are dead, all I've got left is you, Captain, Roots is waiting for me, you're suffering from eight diseases and you won't recover from any of them, what do you want from an old woman like me?
Tape / -
Boaz was one of the first to go. Then Noga was mobilized too. Hasha Masha asked, Why you all of a sudden? And Noga, who came to visit her, said: They'll find something for me, I'm not considered married and the lists got mixed up. People stuck pieces of tape on windowpanes, Rebecca sat in her armchair and contemplated her life and didn't find anything in it that wasn't compelled in advance. Planes flew low and shook the house. The great-grandson of Ahbed disappeared, but came back. At the airport, foreign residents were evacuated. The Captain said: They built an Auschwitz here with a philharmonic orchestra and now they sit and wait. Why don't they strike? He wore his uniform and asked to be mobilized, but nobody even paid attention to his lunacy. Dayan was appointed Minister of Defense. Eskhol delivered a speech. On television, hordes of Egyptian recruits were seen marching to throw the Jews into the sea. The nation of Israel, said the Captain, sees Chmielnitski and Hitler assaulting it, and I pity Nasser. He was the only one who pitied him at that time. Early in the morning, the red sheet was hoisted and without music, and in a thin still voice, the nation of Israel went to the great war against fat Frieda who lay under the dog, thought Ebenezer, the fist clenched for three weeks gaped open.