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By Root 564 0

state of Israel, the dovish left, himself, and his friend. But after putting the receiver down, he thought it over and changed his mind: we mustn't get hysterical. He nearly called Tsvi again to warn him against the despair and hysteria lurking all around nowadays. He felt ashamed of his rudeness to his long-standing friend, such a learned and intelligent man, and one of the last voices to have stayed sane. Even though he was somewhat saddened by the thought that this mediocre scholar should now be head of the department and sit on the same chair as his illustrious predecessors, compared to whom he was a pygmy. At which point Fima suddenly remembered how, eighteen months ago, when he was admitted to Hadassah Hospital to have his appendix removed, Tsvika had enlisted the help of his brother the doctor. He had also enlisted himself and Shula; in fact the two of them had hardly left Fima's bedside. When he was discharged, Tsvi, with the Gefens and Teddy, had organized round-the-clock shifts to take care of him, and he had run a high fever, behaved like a spoiled child, and pestered them endlessly. And now, here he was not only hurting Tsvi but also interrupting him in the middle of shaving and maybe making him late for his lecture at the university. And just when he was on the point of becoming head of the department too. This very evening, Fima decided, he would call him again. He would apologize, but he would still try to explain his position all over again. But this time with restraint and cold, sharp logic. And he wouldn't forget to send a kiss to Shula.

Fima hurried to the kitchen, because he had the impression that before his conversation with Tsvika he put the new electric kettle on to boil, and by now it had probably gone the way of its predecessor. Halfway there he was stopped by the ringing telephone and found himself drawn in two directions. After a moment's hesitation he picked up the phone and said to his father:

"Just a moment, Baruch. There's something burning in the kitchen."

Rushing in, he found the kettle alive and well, shining happily on the marble countertop. So it was yet another false alarm. But in his haste he knocked the black transistor radio off the shelf and broke it. Returning, panting, to the phone he said:

"Everything's okay. I'm listening."

It turned out that the old man just wanted to tell him that he had found some workmen, who would be arriving the following week to replaster and paint the flat. "They're Arabs from Abu Dis village, so from your point of view it's strictly kosher, Efraim." Which reminded the old man of a charming Hasidic story. Why, according to Jewish tradition, are the righteous in Paradise permitted to choose between feasting on the Leviathan or on the wild ox? The answer is that there may always be some ultrafussy Jew who will insist on eating fish because he can't rely on the kashrut of the Almighty himself.

He went on to explain to Fima the ostensible point and the true point of this joke, until Fima had the impression that his father's distinctive smell had managed to infiltrate the telephone wires: it was an East European cocktail, combining a whiff of perfume with a lungful of unaired quilts, a smell of boiled fish and carrots, and the fragrance of sticky liqueurs. He was filled with revulsion, which he was ashamed of, and with the ancient urge to provoke his father, to challenge everything that was sacred to him until he lost his temper. And he said:

"Listen, Dad. Listen carefully. First, about the Arabs. I've already explained to you a thousand times that I don't think they're great saints. Can't you understand that the difference between us is not about kosher or nonkosher, or about Hell and Paradise; it's simply a matter of common humanity—theirs and ours."

Baruch agreed at once:

"Naturally," he intoned in a Talmudic singsong, "nobody would deny that the Arab too is created in the divine image. Except the Arabs themselves, Fimuchka: to our regret they do not comport themselves like human beings created in the image of God."

Fima instantly forgot his solemn