Nadav let the image linger in his mind of Isaac’s anointed head, his severed neck, his redder blood. He stood within the image, feeling it, breathing it, frozen and fixed within its frame. Then, in a single leap, he stepped out of the image, kicking the desk chair he was standing on to the floor beneath his hanging feet.

And thus on that drab evening in New Jersey late in 1946, when he was not yet forty-seven years old, Nadav Landsmann took his own life, because no one else would take it.

Chapter 10 The Book of Hurricane Job

CHAPTER 10

THE BOOK OF HURRICANE JOB

I.

1. ONCE THERE WAS a man from the land of New Jersey, and William Landsmann was his name, and that man was simple and forthright, and feared God and shunned evil. 2. And William Landsmann lived with his wife in a good house in New Jersey, and his son and his son’s wife and his three grandchildren lived nearby, and his possessions included a car, and much clothing, and many blue and white china dishes, and furniture, and many boarding passes, and seven thousand slides of his travels in distant lands. 3. For William Landsmann was wont to wander the earth, and to travel up and down in it, and to find those struggling with God in many lands across many seas. 4. And upon each day when he returned from his journeys, he did bring his film in to be developed, and rendered into slides. 5. And then did William Landsmann cause a light to project the slides upon a screen inside his house, and he did look upon them with the light, and saw that they were good.

6. One day the sons of God presented themselves before the God of heaven and earth, and the adversary came among them. 7. God said to the adversary, “From whence do you come?” And the adversary answered God, and said, “From wandering and roaming across the earth.” 8. And God said to the adversary, “Have you taken note of my servant William Landsmann? There is none like him on earth: a simple and forthright man, who fears God and shuns evil.” 9. The adversary answered, “Does William Landsmann fear God for naught? Look, you have guarded him, and blessed his household and all that he has. You have blessed his possessions so that they depict the world entire. 10. But lay your hand upon all that he has, and he shall surely curse you to your face!” 11. And God said to the adversary, “Behold, all that he has is in your power, but upon his slides do not put your hand.” 12. And the adversary went out from the presence of God.