She said: Still sitting in the cafe and wasting time?
Yes, he said. In her hand she held a bouquet of flowers. The sense that he had once had parents perplexed him again.
Rebecca looked at him. He came to her and kissed her on the mouth. She shrank. In the distance, the face of the Captain was seen waving to her. They sat and looked out the window, the rain fell, he said: I've got to find some poem, I told somebody his son wrote poems.
Take Joseph's poems, said Rebecca. The words there are a space between things, that's what they want, don't reveal too much, it was like Joseph, bold in bed and a liar on paper. He rummaged around in an old desk and found a big envelope. He chose a few poems Joseph Rayna had written to the German noblewoman named Frau von Melchior on the beauty of her neck, her face, and her legs, took eight poems and read them and started laughing. Three poems he knew from school skits.
I didn't know they were his!
They don't know either, she said.
The rain stopped and the wind dispersed the clouds. Boaz passed by on a neglected path, the rain has just stopped, the black sky is strewn with stars, and he walks like a snake, eludes, even though nobody is pursuing him, in his pocket the poems of Joseph Rayna. From the opening in the trees, he could see people eating supper, he could guess what they were eating now. The radio played music from the war-Don't tell me good-bye, just tell me cheers, for war is but a dream soaked in blood and tears. He threw a stone at a window and went on. The window shattered before he disappeared and a shrieking woman came outside, her husband apparently holding a dog's leash, but Boaz was already beyond the prickly pear hedge. In the distance he could see Nathan's son tracking him with a flashlight and the woman screamed: Come here, you hero, let's see if you've got any blood! And her husband said to her: Don't waste your strength, the dog growled but didn't bark, he was an old dog, about thirteen years old, he knew Boaz even before Nathan's son, at the age of forty-five, decided to get married. Between the prickly pear hedges, he found wood sorrel. The wood sorrel shouldn't be there now, he chewed the wood sorrel, crushed it and sucked fragrant, wet, and bitter jujube leaves. From there he slipped off to the citrus grove, in front of him stands a water tower and behind it Naftali's farm is lighted by the light of the night milking, from Dr. Zosha Merimovitch's house came a weeping woman, next to the no-threshing floor he stopped. In the distance a tractor could be seen leaving the lighted dairy. Empty milk buckets clinked. He walked along a path where young people once marched to future wars in front of All's-Well's flag, a scent of washed earth was a restrained reply to the silence of the jackals that had disappeared. In the dairy sat old Berlinsky, reading Spinoza as usual. Next to him, milk jugs were heaped up and a sourish smell came from the dairy. Boaz walked in back, found an empty can, emptied a little milk from the jug standing there, and drank. The taste of the fresh, unfiltered, unpasteurized milk, pleased his palate, he licked, and could see old Berlinsky amazed as ever at the absolute but surprising beauty of the refined logic of Spinoza's ethics. He could imagine how in a few moments, the old man's eyes would be veiled as he again ponders the injustice inflicted on such a great spirit. And that was a blatant injustice, he'd yell at them when they'd bring the milk at night, he was a prince of the Jews, why don't they forgive him now that there's a state, why don't they go down on their knees and beat their breast for the sin. Even Rebecca would blurt out a few good words now and then about the old man, and nobody knew where he came from or what he had done before he came here at the end of the war. After he drank some more milk, he came to the house on the no-threshing floor. He could see, even at that hour, how beautiful were Mrs. Ophelia's roses. In the house of the firefly, the phonograph played Faure's requiem, he knew the music from Tova Kavenhazer's house. He remembered Tova's father trying to point a menacing finger at Rebecca's house and saying: She fights us as if we sinned when we ran away from Germany, and then he'd play for Boaz the requiem of Faure or Verdi or Vivaldi, and would say: What does she know, a savage from the dark of the ghetto. Boaz broke into the old DeSoto, hot-wired it, released the handbrake, and let the car slide to the foot of the hill. When he came to the foot of the hill, next to Noah's house, he started the motor and drove off.
The radio didn't work, but the car's lighter was fine and Boaz was filled with respect for the old car. He lit a cigarette and hummed a song to himself. The road was almost empty. Fresh smells of virgin land rose to his nose, a smell of just fallen rain, of night, windows were open, for a moment he completely forgot that tomorrow at one in the afternoon, he had to bring a poem.
After he entered the city, he ran out of gas at the corner of Shenkin and Ahad Ha-Am. Boaz pushed the DeSoto to the side of the street and saw a bored policeman. The policeman was feeling his gun and looking at the dark display windows. Boaz asked the policeman if he had a pen. The policeman said he did and gave it to Boaz. He asked, Why do you need a pen? Boaz said: I stole a car and I want to leave a note. The policeman said: You've got a Sabra sense of humor, and he laughed. Boaz took out a scrap of paper and wrote: I took the car because my ass is shaking in buses, in America there are more Jews, but on the other hand, there are buses at night there, too. A state isn't all of the dream. There's no gas in the car. Return to Mrs. A. name of the settlement… Signed, Generous Contaminated.
He thanked the policeman and the policeman went on his way, Boaz waited a little, pinned the note under the windshield wiper and heard a rooster crowing. He didn't know there were roosters in Tel Aviv, and when he looked at his watch he couldn't see the hands because the phosphorus had worn off long ago. He walked along Ahad Ha-Am Street, came to BenZion Boulevard, sensed people slumbering beyond the walls, and if they had been made of glass, he could have seen them weeping. Near Habima Theater, he saw the end of the boulevard and thought of Minna, sometimes when he'd think of her, he'd come to her, bite her, an affair of many years, where to, where from, for whom, and in the middle she got married and divorced and was now alone again, the bleeding finger. He saw people drinking coffee at the kiosk, most of the sycamores here were torn down, the sands covered with unfinished structures, somebody started building a gigantic parking lot next to the old streetlamp, on Chen Boulevard there were little houses, their lights out, and Boaz climbed a tree, came to the top branch, pushed himself, touched the window, pushed it, and landed in a room. A small lamp hung over Minna. She was reading a book. She looked at Boaz, who stood up, and said: Boaz Schneerson, where do you come from? He said: Where do I come from? There are no doors in the house anymore, said Minna, in his free time Boaz takes off fake wedding rings or plays Tarzan. Then he got into her bed and hugged her. She said: After all these years either you love me or you're going to hell. You take off my ring in the middle of the street, come, go, come back, disappear, I've had it, I'm a big girl, want a real life with a husband next to me, I'm not just for sleeping with when you get a hard-on, Boaz.
Then they talked about her nipples, and he said: I let you get married and I didn't tell at the rabbinate, you'll teach me how to love, and she said either you know by yourself or it's not important. They kissed one another with serene passion, shrouded in the past, everything flowed slowly now, he calmed down inside her and she reached out, her hand took a flower from the vase and laid it on her chest. Then, rage stirred in him, he thought of Menahem that he was screwing for him, and about the poem, he fucked her and then he lay on his back, struck, and his eyes began shedding tears. At first she thought it was the water flowing from the flower, but when she saw the tears, she was scared. She sat up straight and said: Never did I see Boaz crying! He bent over, put on his shoes, and said to her: I have to invent for somebody who's dead, I'm going and don't make yourself beautiful for anybody, you don't know what pain will be on your father's face the day you die. She took a thermometer out of the drawer of the nightstand and put it in her mouth. He looked at the book she was reading and saw that it was a report of an income tax evader. He asked her if she read that book a lot and she shook her head and didn't take the thermometer out of her mouth. He wrenched the thermometer out and she said, Yes, mainly because my father is one of the main characters, he put the thermometer back in and she shook her head and he didn't know if she was really laughing. He asked, What's with you? You'll sit like that until morning, and she nodded. He went up to the window, caught a branch and once again pushed himself and was on the tree and when he crossed above the street, a motorcycle roared by underneath him. The streets were empty and he walked to the tents where he had once lived. The tent that was his was lighted by a hurricane lamp. A worker was sleeping there. Boaz went in and the worker didn't wake up. He looked under the bed and found an old carton. He picked up the carton and went outside. The sea stretched before him and two people were seen walking on the boardwalk. A dog barked, the hotel where he had once stayed with a woman whose name he didn't know was dark. He walked to his hut, went upstairs, opened the door, a few minutes later he sat at the small table and the lamp was lit and he tried to think of Menahem's letter, and what he would do with it. When Menahem died, Mr. Henkin, said the commander, he received an order to move, soldiers were lacking, every death was a national annoyance, not like today.