It’s so sad and cold to be young and a man, especially in the winter. They have this thing inside that’s always hungry and thirsty. Always gnawing at them. And making them suffer. It’s not just wanting to have sex. It’s something else too. Something harder and more lonely. Because the sex part is simple. It’s over with the minute they come, like a wound you heal with saliva. But this other thing is cruel. It hardly ever leaves them alone. Maybe only when they fall asleep. Or when there are grave developments and they smell a whiff of war. The smell of death makes up for what they’re missing. It gives them some kind of pleasure. But what can it be that is always so hungry and thirsty. That has to spear antelopes over and over again. As though they had been given a promise that was never kept. A promise by an evil wizard who won’t and can’t keep it. And it’s not just Zaro or Udi or Yoni. It’s Yolek too. And my father when he was alive. And Ben-Gurion shouting over the radio.

And even Bach, the tears in whose music I love. How bad, how sad he feels because he too was made that promise that wasn’t kept. When I listen to Cantata 106, it’s like being a child alone in a dark, deserted house without its mother. In a forest. In a wilderness. In the taiga, in the tundra, as Yoni says. First begging, come back, how could you leave me, then ashamed to be begging and boastful. What do I care, if I have to be alone, then I will be, I’m big and strong enough to spear an antelope. Just at the end there’s that part where he almost seems to touch himself, where he murmurs, don’t cry, don’t cry, everything has a reason, soon pa will come to explain, soon ma will be home.

I brought kerosene. I lit the heater. And now it’s burning with a lovely blue flame in the room where Zaro is sleeping. It has a nice crackle too. Just as the ad said. The Whispering Stove, it was called.

Azariah’s hands are digging deeper into the cave beneath his pillow. He likes it when he’s called Zaro. But there isn’t any heater in the bedroom where Yoni is sleeping. I’d better cover him with another blanket. And feel his head. It’s hot. And dry. And Zaro’s nose is all stuffed. I’m a little chilly myself. I have this habit of pulling my hands into my sleeves to keep them warm. If Efrat loses her bottle and looks for it in her sleep, a black sorceress will come and put it ever so gently back in her mouth. Go back to sleep, my little Efrat.