Things cleared up now and that could be seen on his rounded forehead, his hardened body; he thrust the ring in his pocket and picked up the kitbag. You're Minna, maybe we really did know each other, who knows. She leaned on a tree and didn't notice that a dripping resin stuck to her dress and she could see purplish leaves falling into her hair. She said, You said you'd write to me, where were you in the war? And he shook his head and said more to himself than to her, Where the rings were I was too, I've got a collection of gold teeth of dead Arabs. And an ear that my friend, who died, would chew like gum. She tried to smile, the dark grew thicker, the change from evening to night was too swift. So my name's Boaz Schneerson, he said, here, take the ring from me and wait for me, I don't need phony rings. He held out the ring he took out of his pocket and started going away from her, he didn't turn around but walked backward, his face stuck to the sight of her, she stood leaning on the tree, her hair covered by a gloom drenched with leaves, and the little girl opposite yelled: Mama mama I've got to make peepee, a car sprayed water that may have been left there from the sloppy watering. In the thickening darkness the thick, gnarled, ancient sycamores looked like giant memorials, and she looked amazed at his back illuminated in the light in front of the theater that suddenly came on. The light didn't touch the kitbag or his hand and it looked like his hand were lopped off. She thought about a hand chewed like gum. The kitbag was the shadow of a dog that wasn't there. Close to the sand dunes the houses were scattered up to the row of cypresses whose outlines were now erased in the light crushed on their backs; for a moment, a stub of moon was seen above the house under construction and Boaz lit a cigarette, the smoke curled into the street that led nowhere. Maybe he once knew some girl who lived here, maybe it was on another boulevard. Minna's house with the red roof tiles. Everything was too blurred to be caught in a clear picture. She looked abandoned near the tree, far away, and he thought, maybe the little girl doesn't have gold teeth anymore. He stood still in the middle of the street and waited. Then the dull feeling of regret that had started filling him earlier was finished, his mouth was still full of the dampness of blood and then he smiled too. But the gloom covered his smile. When he saw the two headlights of the car heading for him, he thought it was the same car he saw before, even though maybe it wasn't. The lights moved toward him like the limbs of an enemy. And that's what he also said to Solomon on the way to Tel Aviv: Got to search for the enemy even after the war, to search for a proper defeat, and Solomon said: I'm not searching for any enemy, going to screw until the middle of next year, nonstop, stop only to eat fresh vegetables and halvah. The car came close and the driver, who had already seen Boaz, started honking his horn. The honking was mashed, from one of those broken horns, so Boaz felt generous toward the honking, but couldn't budge. The car approached and squealed to a stop; in the light of the streetlamp, it looked like a big ladybug. Another person was there who burst out of the kiosk hidden under an awning loaded with a heavy dropping of leaves. The kiosk light was dimmed by the black paint that hadn't been removed when the war ended; the person who came out of the kiosk held a pencil and a notebook and was writing something. On his lips was a smile he had brought with him from the kiosk and had nothing to do with what was going on outside. Boaz looked from the car to the person and back, wanted to smash the car, but the notebook in that man's hand excited him to some extent, as if all he wanted to do ever since he had come down from Jerusalem and knew that the battles were over was to see a person with a notebook and pencil. The driver got out of the car and started yelling. His voice was low, thick, and the words came out of his mouth a bit drawled, as if he could think even during anger. The person with the notebook and pencil immediately turned into a witness. You were standing here in the middle of the street, sir, and blocking traffic, he stated with angry politeness. And nobody asked him. Boaz, who was sparing with words and afraid to waste them, let the two men discuss it between themselves. He put down the kitbag and waited. The person with the notebook and pencil said: People like that should be run over, then they wouldn't stand in the middle of the street and stop traffic, and the driver said: If I hadn't stopped, he'd be dead, and he looked at Boaz, who didn't move from where he was standing in front of the car. The word dead inflamed the driver, who said it with a vague fear, and the person with the notebook and pencil now seemed dressed with rather exaggerated elegance, on his nose a scratch was clearly seen that could have come from an illegal chase of municipal tow trucks, thought Boaz and didn't know if he really had anything to do with those people, if he really spoke their language, if he understood what they were saying, and why the shoes of the person with the notebook and pencil had no laces. They spoke energetically to one another. The notebook in the man's hand shook and the driver wanted to go and then Boaz approached, with his strong hands that looked so delicate, he grasped the two heads, held them a moment as they were amazed, coupled them, moved one head away from the other, and then knocked the heads together. At the moment the smashing of the two skulls was heard, a car was seen trying to maneuver its way left. From there a wagon with a stooped carter was seen, and the wagon, unlike the car, passed by very slowly, the mare was old and weary and the carter was humming a song in Yiddish: There was a queen whose crown was sparkling, sparkling, there was a queen whose tomb was sparkling, sparkling. The two heads now moved away from one another, the car whose lights were still on blocked the picture of the cart and the other car, and after a silent pause, the cart and the car disappeared, the notebook dropped onto the ground and Boaz, illuminated by the lights, quickly tossed the kitbag into the car and when the driver yelled: What are you doing, sir? in his slow defensive voice, Boaz saw on his face the crushed expression of somebody who managed to stun with illogic but certainly with a certain methodicalness. I'm taking your auto, said Boaz, what I wanted was to lie on the street to ask forgiveness from your shoes. But his hands started hitting in rage, the little girl dropped from the balcony, that tranquility.
Minna wants him to remember her, the rage stunned him, a rage that brought a ring down on Minna, I'm sorry, he said, and when he jumped into the car, he yelled: My name is Boaz, but he should have said: I'm Boaz, he started the car and began driving. The stunned driver stood there next to the person with the notebook and pencil, his face crushed from the blow, and the man with the notebook searched for the pencil that might have fallen and clenched his arm that had been hit and Boaz drove fast down the slope of Dizengoff toward the huts on Nordau. He saw people huddled at the coffee shop where a news announcer's voice was coming, and he went on, he stopped at a breached bridge with a few bushes still burgeoning between its tatters and an iron skeleton was seen peeping out of what had apparently once been a complete structure. He parked the car, turned off the lights, took the kitbag, and went. He walked along the street and could smell the blood of the sea. The smell was calming and the crash of the waves was pleasant and demonstrated devotion and obstinacy.