we're waiting for it, I'll tell you a true story about how Jabotinsky once met the anti-Semitic interior minister of tsarist Russia, Plehve. And d'ye know what Jabotinsky said to him?"
"It was Herzl, Dad. Not Jabotinsky."
"It would be better for you, Mister Wise Guy, if you didn't take the names of Herzl and Jabotinsky in vain. Take your shoes off when you approach their hallowed ground. They must turn in their graves every time you and your friends open your mouths to pour scorn on Zionism."
Fima, suddenly beside himself with fury, forgot his vow of self-restraint and almost gave in to the dark urge to pull his father's goatee or smash his untouched teacup. He exploded in a wounded roar:
"Baruch, you are blind and deaf. We're the Cossacks now, and the Arabs are the victims of the pogroms, yes, every day, every hour."
"The Cossacks," his father remarked with amused indifference. "Nu? What of it? So what's wrong with us being the Cossacks for a change? Where does it say in Holy Scripture that Jew and gentile are forbidden to swap jobs for a little while? Just once in a millennium or so? If only you yourself, my dear, were more of a Cossack and less of a shlemazel. Your child takes after you: a sheep in sheep's clothing."
Having forgotten the beginning of their conversation, he explained all over again, while Fima furiously crushed matchsticks one after another, the difference between a shlemiel and a shlemazel and how they constituted an immortal pair, wandering hand in hand through the world. Then he reminded Fima that the Arabs have forty huge countries, from India to Abyssinia, whereas we have only one tiny country no bigger than a man's hand. He began telling off the names of the Arab states on his bony fingers. When he enumerated Iran and India among them, Fima could no longer endure in silence. He interrupted his father with a plaintive, self-righteous howl, stamped his foot, and exclaimed petulantly that Iran and India are not Arab states.
"Nu, so what? What difference docs it make to you?" the old man intoned in a ritualistic singsong, with a sly, good-natured chortle. "Have we managed at last to find a satisfactory solution to the tragic question of who is a Jew, that we need to start breaking our heads over the question of who is an Arab?"
Fima, in despair, leaped from his chair and rushed to the bookcase to fetch the encyclopedia, hoping at last to silence his father forever with a crushing defeat. However, as in a nightmare, he could not for the life of him imagine in which article to start looking for a list of the Arab states. Or even which volume. He was still fuming and frantically pulling out one volume after another, when he suddenly noticed that his father had got to his feet, quietly humming a Hasidic melody, mingled with a slight dry cough, and had picked up his hat and stick, and in the midst of taking his leave was furtively slipping folded money into his son's trouser pocket.
"It's just not possible," Fima muttered. "I simply can't believe it. This isn't happening. It's crazy."
But he did not attempt to explain what exactly was not happening, because his father, standing in the doorway, added:
"Nu, never mind. I give up. So forget about the Indians. Let's call it thirty-nine states and have done with it. Even that is more than enough and far more than they deserve. We must never let the Arabs come between us, Fimuchka. We won't give them that satisfaction. Love, so to speak, always overcomes discord. My taxi is probably waiting outside, and we mustn't stand between a man and his work. And we never got onto the real subject. Which is that my heart is weary. Soon, Fimuchka, I shall be going on my way, signed God Almighty. And then what will become of you, my dear? What will become of your tender son? Just think, Efraim. Apply your mind to it. After all, you are a thinker and a poet. Think carefully and tell me, please: Where are we all going? For my sins I have no other children. And you and
"It was Herzl, Dad. Not Jabotinsky."
"It would be better for you, Mister Wise Guy, if you didn't take the names of Herzl and Jabotinsky in vain. Take your shoes off when you approach their hallowed ground. They must turn in their graves every time you and your friends open your mouths to pour scorn on Zionism."
Fima, suddenly beside himself with fury, forgot his vow of self-restraint and almost gave in to the dark urge to pull his father's goatee or smash his untouched teacup. He exploded in a wounded roar:
"Baruch, you are blind and deaf. We're the Cossacks now, and the Arabs are the victims of the pogroms, yes, every day, every hour."
"The Cossacks," his father remarked with amused indifference. "Nu? What of it? So what's wrong with us being the Cossacks for a change? Where does it say in Holy Scripture that Jew and gentile are forbidden to swap jobs for a little while? Just once in a millennium or so? If only you yourself, my dear, were more of a Cossack and less of a shlemazel. Your child takes after you: a sheep in sheep's clothing."
Having forgotten the beginning of their conversation, he explained all over again, while Fima furiously crushed matchsticks one after another, the difference between a shlemiel and a shlemazel and how they constituted an immortal pair, wandering hand in hand through the world. Then he reminded Fima that the Arabs have forty huge countries, from India to Abyssinia, whereas we have only one tiny country no bigger than a man's hand. He began telling off the names of the Arab states on his bony fingers. When he enumerated Iran and India among them, Fima could no longer endure in silence. He interrupted his father with a plaintive, self-righteous howl, stamped his foot, and exclaimed petulantly that Iran and India are not Arab states.
"Nu, so what? What difference docs it make to you?" the old man intoned in a ritualistic singsong, with a sly, good-natured chortle. "Have we managed at last to find a satisfactory solution to the tragic question of who is a Jew, that we need to start breaking our heads over the question of who is an Arab?"
Fima, in despair, leaped from his chair and rushed to the bookcase to fetch the encyclopedia, hoping at last to silence his father forever with a crushing defeat. However, as in a nightmare, he could not for the life of him imagine in which article to start looking for a list of the Arab states. Or even which volume. He was still fuming and frantically pulling out one volume after another, when he suddenly noticed that his father had got to his feet, quietly humming a Hasidic melody, mingled with a slight dry cough, and had picked up his hat and stick, and in the midst of taking his leave was furtively slipping folded money into his son's trouser pocket.
"It's just not possible," Fima muttered. "I simply can't believe it. This isn't happening. It's crazy."
But he did not attempt to explain what exactly was not happening, because his father, standing in the doorway, added:
"Nu, never mind. I give up. So forget about the Indians. Let's call it thirty-nine states and have done with it. Even that is more than enough and far more than they deserve. We must never let the Arabs come between us, Fimuchka. We won't give them that satisfaction. Love, so to speak, always overcomes discord. My taxi is probably waiting outside, and we mustn't stand between a man and his work. And we never got onto the real subject. Which is that my heart is weary. Soon, Fimuchka, I shall be going on my way, signed God Almighty. And then what will become of you, my dear? What will become of your tender son? Just think, Efraim. Apply your mind to it. After all, you are a thinker and a poet. Think carefully and tell me, please: Where are we all going? For my sins I have no other children. And you and
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