The American commander's rebuke of the pilot who mistakenly dropped a bomb on the death camp of Auschwitz: "From now on, be careful not to waste bombs on areas close to attack targets like the A. G. Farben factory, or any other industrial concentration." Rebecca and Mr. Klomin also found Mr. Klomin's letters filed by the date they were sent, a journal of Boaz's life, faded brown pictures of anonymous handsome women in splendid old-fashioned garb in unidentified places, a little girl's curl, and next to it an aging yellowed note: "Delicate Melissa." Names of the Mameluke military commanders, dubious research on seaweed, on Swiss democracy, history of the struggle for equal rights for women in the United States, history of the tango, cooking recipes, Bible stories illustrated with saccharine drawings, and an explicit request to be buried according to his real religion (not identified), in the natural place (without any indication of place), account books, checks and savings accounts in the name of Rebecca and Boaz Schneerson and Mr. Klomin, in Egypt, Israel, Switzerland, Argentina, the United States, and Sweden.
They buried the Captain in two places. He was buried in the little church in Jaffa and then his clothes were buried in Roots. The rabbi pretended not to see, and two tombstones were erected in his memory, one in the churchyard and one in Roots. Despite the protests of the rabbi and the director of the Burial Society, the schoolchildren, in white shirts, were forced to sing the national anthems of Israel, Argentina, Switzerland, the United States, and Egypt at the Captain's grave. Singing the last national anthem evoked strong protest even among Rebecca's supporters, but she insisted and it was hard to fight with her, especially since the young people were starting to come back from the war and most of the residents of the settlement were on their way to Jerusalem to see the miracle of the unified city. The consuls who were invited didn't come. Rebecca allowed the limited audience to see her shed a few tears at the grave. Mr. Klomin said: You missed the great kingdom of Israel that arose in spite of her foes, and Rebecca said: May you rest in peace, Captain, and when you come to your god, whoever he is, kiss his eyelids for all of us and be our advocate for our health and wealth.
On the way back from Roots, Rebecca walked faster than Mr. Klomin. She saw a castle in the clouds with a flag waving on it. In the castle, like a coil of silkworms, the Last Jew lay curled up. His eyes were shut and she felt a stab in her belly because when she sat on the deck of the ship and Ebenezer was inside her, she could sense the dream of Nehemiah Schneerson curled up in her, and then she saw Boaz come into the world and he was a copy of Joseph. She looked at the castle, the clouds moved, the mists scattered, and then she saw Ebenezer standing in the distance and looking at her. She called him to come home, and she said: The Captain is dead, Ebenezer, and he said: Before you looked at me as if you didn't see me. But she was too tired to answer him. They entered the house and when they sat in the room, Mr. Klomin started muttering vague words, his eyes were wet, crying now, he asked where was the queen who had once lived here whose sons had brought a disaster. He said: Dana will return from the Captain's house soon. Then he pulled out of his pocket a new map of "the liberated territories" that had been distributed two days before by the newspapers, and said: Greater Israel, the land of David, Solomon, and Alexander Yanai, and he started talking to the Captain and telling him the results of a poll of fifty-two members of the party who had died long ago, and then he bowed his head and banged on the table, Ebenezer started up and Mr. Klomin turned his face, smiled and said: In blood and fire Judah fell in blood and fire Judah… and he died. Rebecca said, Soon I'll be glad you came back, Ebenezer, see what a new plague of death has spread here, and she thought of the plague of death that ran rampant in the settlement years ago, and Ebenezer said: Samuel's forgetting machine is the watch set backward of the Last Jew! She looked at him in amazement, shut Mr. Klomin's eyes, but Ebenezer, who was excited and tried to understand what he had just said, wrote something in the little journal he had started carrying in his pocket in recent months and wrote in it things he thought, to know if he knew some things about himself. He didn't understand what disease of forgetting could have afflicted Samuel, and what was its connection to the watch set backward of the Last Jewwhich is me, and Samuel wasn't here at all. Rebecca who was already worrying about burying Mr. Klomin, forgot that Mr. Klomin never claimed to be an American citizen, and so the strict rabbi, who replaced the local rabbi who went to the desert to bury our forces of H. Herzog, didn't raise any difficulties, even though he asked who guaranteed that Mr. Klomin was indeed a Jew. Mr. Klomin was buried in Roots, next to the Captain, two single strangers in the parking lot of Nehemiah's pioneer paradise, said Rebecca, for whom phrases like "parking lot" or "right of veto" were new. She told Ebenezer, I'm old now and what's in store for me, who else will be taken from me, and then Boaz came back from the war and showered and sat in the bathroom and talked with Noga on the phone and went to the graves of the Captain and Mr. Klomin and let Rebecca read him five of the hundred and fifty poems written by Joseph Rayna and the Captain for Rebecca Schneerson and he fell asleep.
Tape / -
When he came to Tel Aviv the roof was locked. On the door hung a note: Be back soon, wait for me. Noga climbed up carrying a bag of groceries. They kissed, it was oppressively hot and they stayed on the roof. Below, horns honked as cars got stuck in the convoy. When they went into the house and Noga set the table with the groceries she had just bought, he noticed the pile of letters. There were invitations to memorials, construction bills, printed matter and pieces for proofreading; he kicked the pile and yelled: Come on, let's blow this place. The windows were open and from all of them came the song "Jerusalem of Gold." The song tells of how Jerusalem was empty of people until the Jewish paratroopers conquered it. Too bad we weren't defeated, said Boaz, I could have made you a beautiful corpse. She didn't answer, looked around and thought of the Captain and Mr. Klomin, if only for them the war should have been won. Then they ate hummus at Shmil's restaurant and drank cold water from a whiskey bottle and looked at the vegetables heaped up in the nearby store and fish were brought in nets to the fish warehouse, and Boaz started the car, and said to Shmiclass="underline" The hummus was great, Shmil, and they left. They parked the car, went into the hotel and spoke English. Boaz said: We're foreign journalists, and the woman smiled and said in Hebrew: Go up to room twentysix. He sealed the windows, and said: The Captain shouldn't have died, Ebenezer is searching for Samuel, Talya's boyfriend died, I'm building tombstones, what a crappy victory!