Udi’s Anat was pregnant. So was Rimona. Her Haifa gynecologist, Dr. Schillinger, said that anything could happen. The conception, to be sure, was against his better judgment, but statistics, if you asked him, was still a primitive science. However, he did not wish to take any responsibility for deciding whether the pregnancy should be continued. Perhaps it would turn out well after all. Srulik heard of all this from Hava, who had insisted that it was her right and duty to go with Rimona to the doctor and hear what he had to say, Rimona herself being so hopelessly distracted.

Each day, when she came back from her work in the laundry, Rimona found on the marble counter in her kitchen oranges, grapefruit, jars of honey, dates, or fresh cream that Hava had smuggled into the house. Once, finding a record of Mississippi blues instead, she recalled that it was Yonatan’s birthday.

Every Thursday, Rimona baked Hava and Yolek a cake for Amos’s weekend visit. Sometimes, on a Saturday night, Major Chupka dropped by. He would sit for a while with the family, Yolek, Hava, Rimona, Azariah, and Amos, drink a cup of coffee, put away a few sandwiches, and say little. Yonatan was seldom mentioned. Each in his own way had concluded that nothing terrible had happened. But Yolek, once, waking from his lethargy, snapped, “What’s going on? That rascal is still busy? Not coming today either? About time he grew up!”

One Saturday night Chupka maneuvered Srulik outside to talk with him in private. He had some news, or rather, a rumor, that he preferred to share with Srulik alone. “It’s like this: One of our boys, Yotam from Kfar Bilu, was down in the Negev this week with two other fellows to check out a new back road that the Bedouin have run from Bagpipe to Donkeyfoal Mountain. Where you cross Scorpion Gulch, there’s a track that’s never used any more. What we call the Nowhere Trail. They came upon a civilian jeep and a half-naked character with a Father Time beard sweating away trying to change a tire. He wouldn’t let them help out. In fact, he began to swear at them. So they said we’ll be seeing you and drove on.”

“So?”

“Wait a second. Listen to this. Yotam swore to me that he saw someone off in the distance who looked a little like Lifshitz, only with longer hair and a black beard. When they got near the jeep, only the old man was around. This other guy had scuttled off into the rocks like a lizard.”

“And then what?”

“Nothing. The old man called them psychopaths and said that no one was with him. That they must have been seeing things. He even waved a pistol at them and swore at their mothers.”

“And then?”

“Nothing. They just drove off.”

“And your man? He’s sure it was Yonatan?”