After a while they reached a small moshav hidden behind a hill and a few groves. Two rows of houses, most with tacked-on balconies and flimsy storehouses, were abutted by chicken coops and feed silos and separated by yards piled with crates, iron pipes, old fridges, and all sorts of junk. Avram’s eyes lit up as he scanned the options. Concrete bomb shelters jutted out of the ground like snouts, covered with lettering in chalk and paint, and here and there a rusty tractor or a pickup truck with no wheels was propped up on blocks. Among the patchworked houses, the occasional sparkling new building stood out, towering castles of stone with turrets and gables and signs announcing luxurious guest rooms in a charming Galilee atmosphere, including Jacuzzis and shiatsu massage. Adults and children started to pour out of the houses as they arrived, shouting, “Akiva’s here! Akiva’s here!” Akiva’s face lit up, and he stopped at various houses to deliver a member of the gang to a woman or a child. At every house they asked him to come in just for a moment, for something to drink or nibble, and lunch would be ready soon, but he refused: “The day is short and there is much work to be done.” He walked the length of the main street — it was the only street — in this fashion, until he had dispersed his flock and was left only with Avram and Ora, whom no one came to claim. Children and young boys walked beside them and asked who they were and where they came from, and whether they were tourists or Jews. They agreed among themselves that they were Jews, albeit Ashkenazim, and wondered about their backpacks and sleeping bags and about Ora’s scratched, dirty face. Mangy, malcontented dogs ran after them and barked. They both longed to get back to their path and their solitude, and Ora could barely hold back the talk about Ofer, but Akiva was somehow unwilling to let them go. As he talked and jumped around he seemed to be searching for a place where he could help them, and between waving to an old man and giving a quick blessing to a baby, he told them that for him this was both a mitzvah and a living. The local council had arranged a special job for him as “gladdener of the dejected”—that was what his pay stub actually stated — and he did this every day, six days a week. Even when they cut his salary in half this year, he did not cut down on his work; on the contrary, he added two hours a day, “For one must multiply acts of holiness, not diminish them.” Besides, he said, he remembered Avram from the pub on HaYarkon Street. Back then, neither of them had a beard, and Akiva’s name was Aviv, and Avram sometimes used to belt out “Otchi Tchorniya” and Paul Robeson songs from behind the bar. If he remembered correctly, Avram had developed a fairly interesting theory about the memories that old objects had, whereby if you put together all sorts of junk, you could make them play out their memories. “Did I remember correctly?” “You did,” Avram grunted, and glanced at Ora evasively. Ora pricked up her ears, and Akiva walked quickly and told them that he had found religion five years ago. Before that, he was getting his doctorate in philosophy in Jerusalem. Schopenhauer was half God for him, the love of his life — or actually, the hatred of his life. He let out a green-eyed laugh. “Do you know Schopenhauer? Such a masking of the divine face! Such total blackness! And you, what about you guys? What’s with the gloom and doom?”
“Forget it,” Ora laughed. “You won’t cheer us up with a blessing or a dance, we’re a really complicated case.”
Akiva stopped in the middle of the street and turned to face her with his vivacious eyes and his strong high cheekbones, and Ora thought, What a waste.
“Don’t be condescending,” he said. “Everything here is really complicated too, what did you think? These are things that can break the strongest faith. In this place you’ll hear stories that only the most misanthropic author could write, maybe Bukowski on a really bad day, or Burroughs jonesing for a fix. And if you’re a believer, where does that leave you, hey?” There was no jocularity on his face. His lips trembled for a brief moment, in anger, or from heartbreak. Then he said quietly, “Once, when I was like you, maybe even a lot more cynical than you — a Schopenhauer freak, you know? — once I would say about these kinds of things: God is cracking up with laughter.”
Ora pursed her lips and did not reply. She thought to herself, Shut up and listen, what harm could it do to gain a little strength, even with his help? Do you have such reserves of strength that you can pass up even a drop of reinforcement? For a moment she considered offhandedly pulling out her shiviti from her blouse, so he’d see that she too had an elated Jewish soul. Oh, you miserable woman, she rebuked herself. You beggar. Or maybe it was just that this Akiva was arousing something in her, despite his tzitzit and all his jumping around and his religious nonsense.
Akiva wiped the anger off his face with both hands, smiled at her, and said, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, we shall go to Ya’ish and Yakut’s house to cheer them up, and maybe we’ll cheer ourselves up as well.”
Even before they arrived, a small, round, laughing woman came out to them, wiping her hands on her apron and calling, “Oh my, we’ve been waiting so long, we could’ve died! Hello, Akiva! Hello mister and missus, such an honor, really. What happened to you, lady, did you fall, God forbid?” She kissed Akiva’s hand, and he put his palm on her head and blessed her with his eyes closed. The house was dark, despite the midday hour, and two young boys were dragging a table with a chair on it across the room to replace a burned-out lightbulb, and there was great rejoicing when they walked in. “Akiva brought the light! Akiva brought the light!” When the family members saw Ora and Avram, they fell silent and looked at Akiva for guidance. He waved both arms and sang, “Hineh ma tov! Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” Avram was quickly seated in an armchair with much fanfare, and Ora was taken by a big-boned woman to the bathroom, where she washed her face and hair for a long time, flushing out streams of mud. The woman stood watching her with kind eyes, then handed her a towel and some cotton wool and gently applied yellow iodine to her cuts and scrapes. She said it was good that it stung, that meant all the germs were burning off, and then she took Ora back to the living room, washed and placated.
Meanwhile, from the bustling kitchen, there had emerged a silver platter adorned with little silver fish around the edges, bearing sunflower seeds, almonds, peanuts, pistachios, and dates. Then came a round copper platter with glasses of tea in delicate silver holders, and the lady of the house urged Ora and Avram to snack, saying lunch would be served soon. With some horror, Ora noticed a muscular young man with both legs amputated, darting around on his arms with amazing speed. Akiva explained that the three boys in the family were born deaf-mute, and it was from God: “The girls came out all right, praise God, but not the boys. Something hereditary. And that one you see there, Rachamim, the youngest, he decided in childhood that the handicap wouldn’t get in his way. He went to high school in Kiryat Shmonah, got all Bs on his finals, and had a profession as a bookkeeper in a metal factory. Then one day he got sick of it and decided he wanted to see the world.” Akiva turned to the young man and announced: “Isn’t that true, Rachamim? You were a real jet-setter, hey? Monaco?” Rachamim smiled and gestured with one hand at his no-legs and made a warmhearted yet terrifying cutting motion, and Akiva explained that two years ago, in Buenos Aires, Rachamim was working in a quarry when a heavy machine flipped over and crushed him. “But even that didn’t stop him,” Akiva said as he leaned over and put his arm around Rachamim’s shoulders. “Last week he was back at work in the moshav, doing night shifts as a guard in the egg storeroom, and God willing”—he gave Ora a look that denied his grin—“next year we’ll marry him off to a kosher Jewish girl.”