“Why on earth don’t you speak up? Why? Do something! Involve yourself! Make your voice heard! Or do you love that circus clown more than your own son? I suppose it was me who put out the welcome mat, who let him come barging into this booby hatch like some kind of wild animal. Hold it a second! Don’t answer yet! I’m not finished. Why do you always interrupt me in the middle of what I’m saying? Why do you always try to gag everybody? Why must you always work out in advance your logical answers with all their pros and cons and ifs and buts before you’ve even heard what’s being said to you? Oh, yes, you try to look tolerant. You pull that patient, politic face of yours as if you were really listening, but you’re not listening at all, because you’re too busy thinking of your next squelch, with its firstly and its secondly and its thirdly, and all its quotes and bon mots. For once in your life, shut up and listen, because I’m talking about Yoni’s life and death, not about the future of the labor movement. And don’t try to butt in, because there’s no answer you can give. I already know by heart the one you’re about to give me. I know your whole repertoire. If it weren’t so pathetically disgusting, I’d recite the whole text of it, complete with the corny jokes and the pauses for applause. The smartest thing you can do right now is waive your sacred right of reply and shut up. As if it weren’t already written all over your face, the whole shyster spiel. Oh, when it comes to that, you’re a champion all right! A champion? You are God Almighty! But the fact that Yoni’s life is being ruined right in front of your nose—about that, Mr. God Almighty, you couldn’t care less! You never did care and you never will. If anything, it’s you who planned it in cold blood. Because Yoni is a blot on your lily-white escutcheon, isn’t he? Because he’s too confused, and too nihilistic, and too inarticulate. While that clown you’ve dragged into his life is God’s gift to man, a gift you’ll promote bit by bit, as they say in your trade, until you can put him to your own use. And find a chance to dump Yoni. Why, if we all dropped dead tomorrow—not only Yoni but Amos, and me too—you’d carry on as usual so quick the whole world would pass out with admiration for your courage. You’d even write some heartrending piece for the papers and make political hay out of it, wouldn’t you, because who could be cruel enough to attack a poor bereaved widower and his halo of grief? We’ll lie rotting in our graves, and you’ll be more of a martyr than ever. You’ll even be able to adopt that little cockroach legally. What do you care as long as you have your spotless reputation? You, and your big fat ideas, and your place in history, and all your j’accusational speeches! A nasty, wicked old man who saw his own son being carved up in front of his eyes and never even bothered to—”