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Then, in a different voice, she talked to me about my new grownup responsibility, to look after my father from now on, to bring some light into his dark life and give him a little satisfaction, for example, by doing especially well at school. Then she went on to talk about my feelings: she had to know what I had thought when I heard what had happened. What were my feelings at that moment? What were my feelings now? To help me, she started to enumerate various names of feelings, as though inviting me to make my choice, or cross out the ones that did not apply. Sadness? Fear? Anxiety? Longing? A little anger perhaps? Surprise? Guilt? Because you have probably heard or read that guilt feelings can sometimes arise in such cases? No? And what about a feeling of disbelief? Pain? Or a refusal to accept the new reality?

I said sorry nicely and got up to go. I was terrified for a moment that when she locked the door, she might have hidden the key in her pocket and I wouldn't be allowed to leave until I had answered all her questions one by one. But the key was still in the keyhole. As I left, I could still hear her concerned voice behind me:

"Perhaps it is still a little too soon for you to have this conversation. Just remember that the moment you decide you are ready for it, don't hesitate for a moment, come and see me, and we'll talk. I believe that Fania, your poor mother, very much wanted a deep bond to continue between you and me."

I fled.

Three or four well-known figures of the Herut party in Jerusalem were sitting with my father; they and their wives had met in a café beforehand and come together, like a small deputation, to offer us their condolences. They had previously decided to try to distract my father with political talk: at that time the Knesset was about to debate the reparations agreement that Prime Minister Ben-Gurion had signed with Chancellor Adenauer of West Germany, an agreement that the Herut party saw as a disgrace and an abomination, a slur on the memory of the victims of Nazism and an ineradicable blot on the conscience of the young state. Some of our comforters maintained the view that it was our duty to thwart this agreement at any cost, even if it meant bloodshed.

My father hardly participated in the conversation, he merely nodded a couple of times, but I was fired with the courage to say a few sentences to these Jerusalem grandees, as a way of washing away some of the distress I felt after the conversation in the bathroom: Aunt Lilia's words grated on me like chalk on a blackboard. For several years afterward my face used to twitch involuntarily whenever I remembered that conversation in the bathroom. To this day when I recall it, it feels like biting into rotten fruit.

Then the Herut leaders went to the other room to bring comfort to Grandpa Alexander with their indignation over the reparations agreement. I went with them because I wanted to go on taking part in the discussion of plans for the coup aimed at foiling the abominable agreement with our murderers and finally toppling Ben-Gurion's red regime. And there was another reason that I accompanied them: Aunt Lilia had arrived from the bathroom and was advising my father to take some excellent sedative pill that she had brought with her, it would make him feel much better. Father made a face and refused. For once he even forgot to thank her.

The Torens came, and the Lembergs and the Rosendorffs and the Bar-Yizhars, Getsel and Isabella Nahlieli from Children's Realm came, and other acquaintances and neighbors from Kerem Avraham, Uncle Dudek, the chief of police, came with his pleasant wife Tosia, Dr. Pfeffermann came with the staff of the newspaper department, and other librarians came from all the departments of the National Library. Staszek and Mala Rudnicki came, and various scholars and booksellers, and Mr. Joshua Czeczik, Father's publisher from Tel Aviv. Even Uncle Joseph, Professor Klausner, appeared one evening, very upset