Those are the annals of Israel. Abraham begat Isaac. Isaac begat Jacob, end.
Tape / -
When Mr. Klomin came to the settlement to see his grandson, Dana claimed that Rebecca had sent him to spy. Mr. Klomin came with the Captain, who had just returned from Rebecca's house. Rebecca stood at the fence separating her house from her son's house, and Mr. Klomin, who knocked on the door, didn't get an answer. He wanted to read to his daughter the six-hundred-page letter he had written to the High Commissioner. The Captain also considered that letter the piece de resistance of the life of Mr. Klomin, who started believing the rumors that had been making the rounds of the Yishuv for some time that the Captain was secretly inciting the Arabs to revolt (he didn't know exactly against whom) and therefore Mr. Klomin believed that that inciter should be used to remove the foreign government from the Land by means of his loyal or hidden servants. The Captain's generosity enabled the recruitment of about twenty new members into the party, but the source of his money became more suspect when Shoshana Sakhohtovskaya returned from Egypt. Shoshana was the daughter of Nathan, Nehemiah's old friend, and married a Jewish officer in the British army who was stationed in Cairo and he was said to own two factories for holes in pennies (one for the hole of a penny, and one for the hole of a tuppence). Shoshana told with a fervor that almost made her face bearable, that the Captain's newspaper sold only thirty-four copies, was merely a deception and behind it, she said, hid a secret, international, maybe even religious body, she almost shouted, a body whose purpose is to convert the Jews of the Land of Israel to Christianity and keep the Land from turning into a Zionist base. The Captain was too polite and in love to try to refute those accusations, which seemed exaggerated even to him, although he did see something in them that was fair to some extent. In his opinion, the accusations were partly correct, but imprecise, maybe even malicious, and he pledged himself by his nobility, which he occasionally called "South American nobility" and "Swiss courtesy," to silence and would wring his hands, and say: I said what I said out of love, I don't go back there, that's a fact, I'm no longer friendly with the English, I live in the settlement, and the proof was so dubious that everybody almost tended to accept it and Shoshana Sakhohtovskaya sat at night, gobbled up all the oranges on a tree she had planted with her own hands as a child. She heaped up the peels in a pyramid and when a black bird with a yellow beak stood on the tip of the pyramid and nodded its head and an owl screeched at night, Shoshana burst into bitter weeping, and called out: At least I have someplace to go back to. The Captain didn't explain what places he didn't go back to, and people wondered about those places, for a person generally isn't born in Argentina, Switzerland, and the United States. He has to choose, said those who were considered experts in the ways of the world. The elders of the settlement, who were grateful to Rebecca for Nehemiah and for Nathan's happy death, said: The Captain's Greek Orthodoxy is not exactly the religion that prevails in Argentina, the United States of America, or Switzerland, so when the Captain went to get his things that would come three times a year in a ship to the port, a few members of the settlement watched him and with their own amazed eyes (Mr. Klomin stood with them, even though he was ashamed of it) saw a gigantic trunk taken off, placed on the shore, and a British officer loaded it on a cart and took it to the shed, where the Captain was waiting. An aged consul stood next to him, eating an apple. The case was opened, there were new uniforms there, medals, and hats with padded visors. They also saw how the Captain was granted new insignia, which the aged consul pinned to his epaulettes, and he shouted unambiguously in a loud voice so they too could hear that the Captain was now promoted to the rank of colonel and the adorned scroll in the consul's hand was seen even from where they were hiding. The insignia were made of gold, the new visor was woven of silk fibers, silver and gold.
Later on, when Rebecca wanted to know more details about the event that had been described to her in great detail, she asked Captain (Colonel) Jose Menkin A. Goldenberg to read her the scroll. One paragraph in the scroll seemed to her to suit the Captain to a tee. The paragraph said: Colonel Jose Menkin A. Goldenberg valiantly defended the homeland, destroyed, captured, burned, smashed, split, sliced, trapped, penetrated, attacked, surrounded, crushed, broke, overcame, breached, caught, repelled, cleansed, cracked… And Rebecca listened to the words, was silent, and then said: It's nice of you that after all those deeds you're willing to waste time with simple people like us. They sat, drank a little brandy, the Captain smelled of imported flowers, and she said: Here you are with us and we're fond of you, Captain, and for us you'll always be Captain, they suspect you, respect and esteem you, you buy us gifts, but who you really are we don't know and maybe we won't know.
Rebecca, who was too busy with her attempt to capture Boaz, was really not surprised that not only the Captain and the manager of the wine press were wooing her, but also the Jewish husband of Shoshana Sakhohtovskaya, who owned two factories for holes, who came to visit. She told him: You should be ashamed of yourself. You're married to the daughter of my distinguished friend Nathan.
The war for the fate of Boaz was then at its height. The fence between the houses was thickened. For more than a year now, Rebecca hadn't seen Ebenezer or Boaz. Boaz would cry at night and she would yearn for him. Ebenezer started having nightmares he wasn't used to and Dana claimed that Rebecca was casting spells on him through the fence. When he woke up, he looked at Boaz and hated him. He said to Dana: He looks like Joseph, and she said: Ebenezer, this child is your son and I'm not to blame for who he looks like. Rebecca spread the rumor that the child was brought from Joseph to her through Dana's womb, and Dana grew melancholy and made bitter claims against the mother of Ebenezer, whose nightmares thickened with her dread.
One day Ebenezer burst the barriers, punched the guard he had once employed and who worked for his mother, stood at her chair, and pleaded with her to leave them alone and not harm Dana. She's all I've got, he said. I had nothing, Father died, you weren't there, I've got Dana! And she said: You two don't interest me, Ebenezer. Not you and not your Dana. You've got my son, give him to me, take your Dana and go to hell. You pray for her death, said Ebenezer. She laughed and said: I've got no control over what the Holy One Blessed Be He does. I filled my part of the deal with your father, he wanted you and I have Boaz. And until he's mine, I won't shut up.
Rebecca turned her face away and through the window screen she saw Ebenezer's back as he went off and a longing she had never known passed through her, a longing to bequeath to Boaz her life and her property. For the first time in her life she felt that she had surrendered to the most ridiculous of feelings, to pure unconditional love. The yearning flattered her but also scared her.