Teacher Henkin waits until the little car that burst out of Jordan Street passes by him, its left side is already whipped by rain and its right side is dry. He looks at his watch as if it's important to know what time it is now. Music comes from a locked apartment. He knows it's a Bach piano concerto. And then he crossed the street and stood on the dry land, looked behind him to make sure he has come from the rain, the cloud hasn't yet moved, Henkin is leaking water, while the young man is dry and wearing a raincoat, the cigarette held for a moment in his hand and then he thrusts it back in his mouth. And his mouth takes on the shape of a question mark. Therefore, the encounter became like most important encounters, through small misunderstandings, through alternating rain and dry, through a cigarette that should herald a change. The roof of Mugrabi Cinema was open, and the roar of its closing was heard. From the window above peeps the face of a worker closing the roof. The young man flicks the cigarette into a niche, the match is bent in his pocket, the cigarette in a niche, the time is eight-oh-five, and then Teacher Henkin has to cope with some uneasiness that fills him, shuts his eyes, says: Hello, and the young man tries to look surprised, hesitates, wrings his hands and separates them as if they bothered him, and says: Yes, hello.
My name's Obadiah, says Teacher Henkin, you're familiar to me, were you my student and I forgot?
As he said that he thought: Did a student wait for him here in the dry part to toss a cigarette into a niche?
I wasn't your student, said Boaz, I had a kindergarten teacher who knows us even when we grow up. She says the features of the face don't change.
You're familiar to me.
You're familiar to me too, says the young man, but he says the words warily and then they understand. The moment the rain crosses the street, both of them see the same picture in their mind's eye: years before, Boaz stands in front of Henkin's house on Deliverance Street, measuring it, observing, not saying a word, refusing a glass of water, and Henkin goes into the house and looks at him through the shutter.
My name's Boaz Schneerson, he says, you're Menahem's father.
After they went into the cafe, the worker came out of the kitchen, closed the windows, and stretched the covers over the chairs on the sidewalk. Boaz and Teacher Henkin sat down at a table and a weary waitress got up from where she was sprawled, chewing gum, slowly came to them and they ordered coffee, one roll, and cake for Boaz. Teacher Henkin also ordered a glass of soda. He tries to sit more authoritatively, as if it were important to set the balance of power and know who was more important, who had more rights. And Boaz understood and didn't resent him. He understood that Henkin had to win where people like him always lose. Recognizing his look blended of reproach and envy, he decided to ignore it. I have no other line of defense, he said to himself and was amazed at the words "line of defense," which he had heard from Rebecca. The conversation flowed while drinking coffee. At first there were gropings, Henkin took off the hat, asked Boaz if he really was the young man who once stood in front of his house, and Boaz tried to evade but his face answered yes, and he couldn't explain why, he just said, I was angry then. Why didn't you ever come to us, asked Henkin. I didn't know, said Boaz, for some reason I didn't know. His death was too much for us, we didn't manage to live afterward, maybe the next generation will be more successful. He wanted, he wanted so much to tell Henkin how he once saved Menahem from death, by mistake, when they shot at them from the village of Koloniya and Menahem shot through the peephole of the armored car and he suddenly was pushed to him, took him down, and a bullet penetrated the armored car and bounced around in it and hit one of the guys who was slightly wounded, and Menahem was saved. For how long? What will he tell him? I saved your son so he could die a month later? So, from the hopeful eyes of that handsome old man, dignified in the enjoyment of his loss, Boaz told how Menahem had saved him from death. He also put in suddenly's, as if there are suddenly's in war. Very slowly, the scene changes, the story changes, the image of Menahem grows bigger, Henkin's eyes demand more and more and Boaz talks from the man's desires, it's sad for him to sit across from that man, who seeks Menahem and finds Boaz, so he tells him stories of Boaz as if they were stories of Menahem, what difference does it make, he won't die from that again, thinks Boaz and Teacher Henkin swallows every word, a strong wind flies dust, the rain whips down, the waitress shivers, winter's coming, leaves fly in the wind, cars look elusive in the oblique downpour that fills the street with spraying water, and he tells Henkin his son who was Boaz, he tells and exaggerates and he doesn't care, good luck to him, he thinks, from the things he tells he even starts loving Menahem, a national hero he creates, Menahem who would tell him about the English in the Muslim cemetery and who would peep at them screwing Ruthie Zelmonovski's sister. Single-handedly, Menahem now conquers Jerusalem for Teacher Henkin…
And there was also a moment of no return. And maybe all those tapes were meant only to describe that moment, so I know, my son said what he said and from then on everything was obscured, it's hard for me to understand how, because of one song, such a strong revolution takes place, Boaz spoke, maybe it was an indifference coordinated with the fears, the eyes of Teacher Henkin demanding more, pleading, dictating, Boaz reads in them things he has no time to discern precisely, to decipher, he has to talk, he restores the dead Menahem, magnifies, turns his death in a diversionary action near Mount Radar into death in the Old City, there was a mistake in the recording, he said, the reports were confused, another Menahem fell near Mount Radar, I was in both battles and I know, Menahem saved me, helped the wounded, they don't know what happened to him, he became so human, something in him started to pity, the opposite of what he tried to be, he sat in the courtyard, says Boaz, the guys were killed on Mount Radar and he waited for us to decide what unit he belonged to. We held a discussion, it was decided to accept him, that was the moment he showed me the poem, he quoted a poem then and I write too: and it was written in Henkin's eyes: Poem! Poem! And Boaz reads word for word: Poem! Poem! As if he were first learning to read, and Teacher Henkin is silent, drinking thirstily, unable to conceal from Boaz his other son, the one Hasha Masha mourns, the one Noga loved, was another Menahem and Boaz discovered him, but he knew all the time that Menahem was different, they didn't know, he knew. A poem he wrote, Boaz reads on Menahem's father's face, and that's how the poem was sold to the teacher who had thought all his life in the ancient skill of his profession, systematically, around and around, and the poem will bring redemption to men who are so in need of the right word, the proving word, the knowing word. And Boaz now forgets Menahem who, between battles, took him to the movies to see Fiesta in Mexico, the one and only film showing in besieged Jerusalem and the owner of the movie theater sat outside and waited for somebody to come and watch it, and the divine Esther Williams jumps every night, at the same time, with the electricity from a private generator, into a beautiful blue pool, and Ricardo Montalban with splendid sideburns and brilliantined hair sings with a Mexican accent and Estherke swims in a shiny bathing suit and her teeth are white, and then he took him to the twins and one of them was a little hunchbacked and had a wounded look in her eyes and they sucked lollipops he had brought from the black market. A bereaved father wants a Menahem he dreamed about at night. As if imprisoned in the hands of that teacher, Boaz sells heroism and a poem. He'll love me, Boaz says to himself, he'll love me, and a deep wound inside him all his life gapes open. They drank another cup of coffee, something becomes clear in Teacher Henkin's face. One eye still pondering, he finishes sipping the coffee, looks at the new cigarette in Boaz's mouth, even hands him a match from the box of matches on the table. The rain outside stopped for a moment and then intensified, and then Boaz lopped off the match on the table, looked at the heavy clouds in the window, somebody drew a rabbit on its steam, and a little girl sitting there sang: Come to me, butterfly grand, come back to me, sit on my hand, and she said: I love my rabbit. And there were also faces she had drawn, and the waitress wiped the table with a gray rag, trying to gather up the cigarette butts and Menahem grows stronger, his image is opened to a new biography, a salvation of the wounded, the battle for the Old City, explosives in the Wall, after all, Hasha Masha said afterward, after all why should you blame Boaz? He sat with Henkin and Henkin wants to be worthy of his son, wants his son to be worthy of some ideal so he can love him, what did Boaz do? He told Henkin Menahem as if he were Boaz. What Boaz did in the war was copied to my son. And Boaz erased himself, was he looking for a father for himself? I don't know. I loathe the fellow, but I also understand him. The devil in him, that innocence to read in Henkin's eyes what he longs for.