“But listen. Seriously. The time has come to stop feeling like a nation. To stop starting to walk. Let’s cut that crap. ‘A voice called to me and I went.’ ‘Wherever we are sent—we’ll go.’ These are semifascistic motifs. You’re not a nation. I’m not a nation. Nobody is a nation. Not in the morning and not in the evening. And by the way, we’re really not a nation anyway. At most we’re a sort of tribe.”

“There you go again with your ‘we.’” Tsvi chuckled. “You’re a little too far out, Fima. Just make up your mind: Are we ‘we’ or aren’t we? In a hanged man’s house you shouldn’t throw the rope after the bucket. Never mind. I’m sorry, but now I really must hang up and run. By the way, I heard that Uri will be back this weekend. Why don’t we fix something up for Saturday night? See you.”

“Of course we’re not a nation,” Fima insisted, deaf and aflame with self-righteousness. “We’re a primitive tribe. Scum, that’s what we are. But those Germans, and the French and the British too, have no right to talk down to us. Compared to them we’re saints. Not to mention the rest of them. Have you seen the paper today? The way Shamir went on yesterday in Netanya? And what they did to that old Arab at Ashdod Beach?”

When Tsvi apologetically hung up, Fima continued to harangue the indifferent, bloated gargle emanating from the phone:

“In any case, we’ve had it.”