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And Germanwriter sits and eats sweet gefilte fish served him by Ahbed and tells about songs he used to read to Friedrich and Jordana shuts her eyes and ponders, who, who, who, he tells about the songs and how Friedrich asked who sang those songs and he said: We, I sang, my son, and then Friedrich refused to read even one of my books, said Germanwriter, not even one story, and I wrote for him and he didn't read, he went to his grandfather and asked him: How could you? And he didn't read. He fought me, read stories of younger authors, and in their war against me maybe they were closer to Friedrich's grandfather than I was and he didn't know, and he died, and we at least tried to give an answer about something that no longer had any meaning, but was the essence of our life, to know why we were what we were, he didn't forgive, didn't read my books, said Germanwriter, and Rebecca said: They're all like that, they die and don't know, like those who live in Nehemiah's settlement and read in the museum that Nehemiah built a model farm and don't know who really built or why, anger built, not love of kings, and what came out of all that? Ebenezer carved in wood the face of Joseph, not his! And then they went from there, and Boaz, if he was there, would say: This time not in a stolen car! as if it really was important that he once stole a car, and he adds: Maybe what I need to do is erect a big memorial, remember how we went to Kastel? And there Henkin could have met Menahem if only he believed me, and on a high hill, fifteen stories of a memorial, a revolving restaurant on top, conference rooms, memorial rooms, and pictures of all those who fell in the wars of Israel, thousands of standard-size pictures, and rooms for those who will be, rooms of memory for those who died in the Holocaust, for the ghetto fighters. Guides in uniforms will explain the wars and the salvations according to the expressions of those who fell, and a room will be devoted to Dante, maybe a whole floor, to the poet who almost created a world from the tunes of the Temple, and then they brought me an unwanted salvation from the mouth of Rebecca, according to the Captain who always brought good tidings, as if he came here because of our wishes more than because of the illogical urgency to erect a memorial to Dante here, and the memorial may not be erected, because Boaz is trying to sink into the depression he craves so much and wants to know who is the father of his child and Noga won't tell and he doesn't know if, when he was with Licinda as Sam, Sam wasn't with Noga as Boaz, or perhaps they knew everything and kept quiet, or maybe those things didn't happen and somebody is now writing the last words, his description of one indescribable moment, a moment when one side of the coin met the other side. Somebody is now inventing not only a past but a present in which those things take place, and what happens is a prediction forward and backward, like the history that's already disappearing from the world and only historians are left without history, to describe something that is no longer remembered, that disappeared with the houses of Cologne where Germanwriter lived until he came to bury his son next to Menahem Henkin who died instead of Boaz and didn't want to be saved as Menahem wanted to live near the sea, with Hasha Masha, and maybe with two orphan girls from Diskin or even with Noga whose belly will swell and who knows who is the father of her son, that wise woman, just as they won't know things and we won't know who was the father of Ebenezer, even though it's quite clear who his father was, if not the river, then who, somebody who reads and listens to the tapes can know, but Rebecca is silent and then silence prevails, and Germanwriter thinks of his son and why he didn't read his books and hurts, now of all times he hurts, just like Melissa, whose father wrote him letters and tells, and calls Lionel, and Lionel goes to Connecticut, where he hadn't been since he was a boy in love and everything is different there, Mr. Brooks's awkward supplication turned into "a lament on the death of little girls," his offices are called "Melissa Inc.," and the sales center is called "Melissa Ford Motors," and the main street is called "Melissa Street," and there's a souvenir shop there called "The Shop of Poor Little Melissa," and The New York Times published an article about the city where masses of young people stream, and Time wrote about it, and Newsweek, and they talk about Melissa whom Sam Lipp fell in love with thirty years after she died, and a German writer came to search for her fifty years after her death and miserable youths stream here and stand at Melissa's grave holding signs, "We love you, Melissa,"-and "There's life before death," and they go to the shop and buy "Melissa souvenirs" and "Melissa dolls," and some of them commit suicide there or try to commit suicide, and they've set up a first aid station with a doctor and a psychologist and a person who studies those cases for the University of Michi gan, and there's a game called "Game of Melissa Memory" and "Beautiful and Wretched Melissa Toothpaste," and a book with blank pages, with a picture of Melissa on the cover and everybody writes his sad thoughts there and sends them to a certain address and gets a raffle prize every month, and Hollywood is making a movie about Melissa and what happened to her after her death, and people pay high prices for cars, and from all over America they flock to buy Melissa cars. What a world, writes Mr. Brooks, and Lionel comes and everybody applauds him as if he were a hero, he wrings his hands, bends down, tries to flee, thinks about Licinda, asks her to come, but she doesn't, and Lily sits and is angry or laughs, who knows, and they go to Israel, to Sam, who is still locked in a room with Boaz or with himself, and they bring the smell of the great success of poor Melissa fifty years after her death and…