“Yes, it’s true, these things become part of us. Even your stories are already becoming part of me. You know, at the time, while it was happening, I was thinking about a photo I once saw. It’s a famous photograph, I think, these resistance fighters caught by the Nazis and about to be shot—someone had a camera. And you see this young woman’s face, held up high, facing death, refusing to be afraid, have you ever seen it?”

  He shook his head. His eyes seemed darker.

  “And I thought, I’m going to die but my death is useless, unlike hers. And I felt sorry for myself and begged, though I’d sworn to myself at first that I wouldn’t. Then suddenly they were gone, because one of them was afraid of actual murder, and he made the one who nearly killed me stop. I thought, They’re gone and I’m alive. I waited for someone to find me. In the end it’s nothing but chance. The drugs, the window, the kitten. They never found that kitten, though I asked everyone to keep an eye out for her. She was a tiny gray ball of fur, with a tiny little tongue licking my hand.”

  My eyes filled with tears, thinking about the kitten. Khalid was sad, too, but in the lines of his mouth I saw the edges of anger. I looked into his eyes and I understood that even if he loved me and wanted me, there were parts of him I would never know, could never know. I longed to transform the moment into something else, something immutable and blessed, but I didn’t know how. Humans were clumsy creatures. Clumsily, we consoled each other as best we could.

  NOAH’S DIARY, JANUARY 10, 1989.

  In the news: man, we are in the mire.

  Dear Mom,

  What would you say if you saw me now? You’d say, “Well, Noah, at least you’ve kept your own hands clean, even if you’re part of the criminal military machine.” You’d say, “Noah, you’re a stupid fool, trying to punish me by signing up. I’m dead, you can’t punish dead people.” You’d say, “I didn’t want to die. It’s true I didn’t hire a bodyguard, but who in this country doesn’t get death threats once they decide to fight the system?” You’d say, “Serves you right, the hard times you’ve had in the army.”

  Actually, Mom, it hasn’t been so bad. It could have been a lot worse. The army isn’t evil, Mom. Training isn’t evil. It’s just stupid. All these kids come full of eagerness and love for their country and a desire to serve and give everything they have, and before long they’re nothing but deflated, bored, disgusted people in uniform, torn between wanting to do the right thing and saving their arse. The only exceptions are the good boys who will never stop trying to please whoever it is they think will one day approve of them, and the total jerks, who fall in love with it all and can’t wait for more because they’ve waited all their lives to bully people. Is that the idea, to separate the good boys and the jerks from the rest of us? So that they can run the army while the rest of us drudge along after them? No, it’s not that logical. Anyone looking for logic in the army will be disappointed.

  That’s why you turn yourself off—so you won’t be bothered by the absence of logic, and you figure later you’ll turn yourself back on, but it turns out not to be so easy. A sort of emotional fatigue takes over, because a person gets tired of caring, just tired, that’s what it is. But now I wonder whether it stays with you forever, that tiredness—maybe you think it’s going to be temporary but then you realize it’s who you are now. I don’t know, I guess I’ll have to wait and find out. The real problem isn’t the army, Mom. The army is just a neutral thing. The real problem is that all we do in this country is fight and die and fight some more. And along the way we’re becoming brutes. The things that are going on in the intifada … if you were alive, Mom, you’d have a nervous breakdown. A million lawyers wouldn’t be enough for all the cases coming up now. I just try to block it all out. You can’t survive otherwise.

  Mom, I’m sorry I took your chocolate crêpe and gave you the cheese, I know you were just giving me yours to be nice. I’m sorry I never told you what I thought about what you were doing. Most of all, I’m sorry I didn’t defend you to my friends and their parents. I’d defend you now, but since you died no one’s said anything against you, at least not to me. I wish they would, but they just get embarrassed if I bring the subject up.

  You should have agreed to that trip, even though I’m not sure it was such a great idea. Can you imagine the four of us in a hotel in Venice? Dad would be planning our day second by second, you’d fight with him because you’d want to wander aimlessly down the streets, Sonya would want to spend about six hours staring at one fresco, and I’d just want to sit in a café and soak up the sun and maybe strike up a conversation with someone interesting.

  Still, Dad wanted it a lot and you should have made the effort.

  I’m forgetting what you looked like, it’s weird. Sometimes I had the feeling you didn’t like Sonya, that you resented the way she came into our family. You once told Dad she was spoiled, I overheard you. But you were always so careful to hide what you felt, you were so careful with what you said. You were like Dad that way, but for different reasons. He’s careful because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone and he wants what he says to be the right thing. You were just secretive, Mom. Did you become secretive because you were a lawyer, or did you choose to become a lawyer because you were secretive? Is that why you worked alone, because you didn’t trust anyone? If you hadn’t worked alone, maybe you’d be alive now. I remember once you had a fit of laughter, I don’t even remember why. You laughed so hard your jaws hurt and you were clutching your stomach.

  That’s all I have to say. I miss you and I’m also sorry you had to miss out on the rest of your life. I think you’d want me to get justice done and find your killer, but Dad refuses to tell me what he knows. I begged and begged but you know how stubborn he is. He says you wouldn’t want me to get involved. I think he’s wrong but we can’t ask you, can we? I’m still a bit mad at you, Mom.

  LETTER TO ANDREI, JULY 1, 1957

  Darling, I am now more worried than I have been in a very long time, for it’s been three months without a word! I’ve made many friends here, because you know everyone is friendly. Even when you go on the bus, within seconds perfect strangers strike up conversations with one another, revealing their life stories or complaining about a hundred things. I cannot imagine a more plaintive people! Complaining is a national sport. So different from what I’m used to, and I must say it’s very amusing.

  But even though I meet so many people all the time, no one truly understands me, and only you are in my heart. Sometimes I laugh and everyone thinks I’m happy. They don’t know that my heart is breaking. When I sing, though, at the café, all my longing comes out and it infects the entire room. Oh, our Russian songs are so sentimental!

  Our play is now in repertory. We take a month off, then go on for a month, and so on. It’s not always uniform. It depends on so many things, too silly and complicated to get into. There is always squabbling in the arts. I suppose there is squabbling everywhere. Rivalry, jealousy, gossip, petty resentments. Feingold now has several enemies, for he is not always diplomatic. I stay away from it all.

  My greatest joy is our Kostya. He is so responsible and kind-hearted. I think I forgot to tell you in my last letter: he won three top prizes at school. In this small country, where there is such a need for people to fill all sorts of roles, he could do anything he wanted with his life. He could go into politics or law or medicine or the humanities—every day he reminds me more of you. No matter what happens, I will always have you with me, in this way. That is the great gift you and fate gave me. My love. I am filled with dread. Where are you, my Andrusha?

  SONYA

  We dressed with the sobriety of adults returning to the serious business of life after a temporary suspension of everyday rules—or at least of ordinary experience.

  Khalid phoned someone he knew and asked him to drive me to Central Station. A stocky, healthy-looking man showed up in a taxi. His rather dour wife was sitting beside him in the passenger seat, and they had brought their two little boys as well. The boys sat quietly side by side on the backseat. The family was secular or possibly Christian: the man’s wife was not wearing a head covering and her long black hair was gathered into a purple clasp. Khalid had told them I was related to Iris Nissan, and as a result the driver was very well disposed toward me—or maybe he was just being effusive because I was Khalid’s friend, or because he was an Arab and I was a guest.

  Our parting was necessarily formal. Khalid spoke to his friends through the car window, then shook my hand. I got into the car and shut the door. Khalid waved good-bye as we drove off.

  Khalid’s friend took a roundabout route in order to circumvent the walls. Instead, we had to pass two checkpoints, but we had no difficulties at either one; the soldiers or border guards peeked into the car, checked our papers, and waved us through. No doubt God had sent the checkpoint angels to help us. The little boys beside me were very still and solemn; it seems that a protective passivity almost instinctively descends upon children when they know their parents are themselves vulnerable. I had to suppress a strong desire to lift one of them onto my lap and hold him close.

  Because of the detour, it took us over an hour to reach Central Station, and I was distressed at having put these people to so much trouble. I insisted on paying—“lil-uwlaad,” I mumbled in embarrassment, hoping I was saying it correctly. The man wasn’t keen on taking payment but his wife firmly said, “Shukran” before he had a chance to refuse.

  The bus for Tel Aviv was just about to leave. It was only half-full, and I was grateful to have two seats to myself, for I desperately needed anonymity and privacy at the moment. There were several things I had to sort out.

  If Khalid wanted me, if he loved me, I would take a sabbatical and rent a room in Mejwan. I’d start learning Arabic immediately; it wouldn’t take me long. Kostya could stay in the house or sell it, it would be up to him. If Khalid didn’t want me, I’d know at once. I’d know it from his first e-mail, if there was one—I’d know late tonight or tomorrow morning. I didn’t want to think about what it would be like if he didn’t want me. But I’d need to be on my own, I’d need to mope in a cheap rented room downtown, where my surroundings matched my unhappiness. I would need the freedom to feel wretched, without Kostya hovering over me and suffering on my behalf.

  Khalid had insisted on using a condom this time. Even when I thought I’d never marry I hoped to have a child one day: possibly by finding a sperm donor and hiring a hearing person to help—maybe even Ma’ayan. She was reliable and she’d be good with children. Now I wanted Khalid’s child, but it was possible that even if he loved me he would not want to have a family with me. For one thing, we’d have to move—for if one were to be honest with oneself, peace was not going to descend upon us anytime soon, and a child with mixed parents would encounter endless difficulties. I could apply for a job in Britain and Khalid could study there, do his doctorate.

  But even if Khalid wanted to see me again, it would probably take him a long time to decide how far he was willing to go with the relationship; he wasn’t like me. Maybe in general men took longer in these matters.

  I shut my eyes and drifted into a bizarre, chaotic dream. Nava was in Khalid’s room, looking down at the two of us as we lay naked on the bed. She was wearing her usual moccasins and ankle socks, but a beautiful African gown had replaced her shorts, and she was young and healthy in the dream. Khalid and I were feeling a little conceited because we were so content, and we weren’t paying proper attention to her. She was talking about the numeral two, and in the dream I could hear her, but Khalid couldn’t. “Two will often take you by surprise,” she said. “But in fact there are exactly eight integer solutions of x2+4=y3.” I was glad Khalid couldn’t hear her. There were mourners downstairs who had come to mourn Khalid’s mother, and they’d accidentally let in several stray cats. I had to go down and feed the cats, make sure they were safe, but then it seemed that they weren’t cats at all but miniature lions, and I’d have to put them in cages and return them to the wild. Then Khalid turned to me and said, “You have your mother’s eyes.” I said, “You’ve never seen her,” and he said, “Yes, I have: I peeked inside your ID.”

  I emerged from the dream and shook it off with a sense of relief. “You have your mother’s eyes”—that was what Eli had written in the margins of a student exam when he tried to seduce me outside the law building. I remembered being surprised by that comment, because he’d known my mother, whose eyes were round and blue, while mine were like upside-down Vs and very dark. If anything, my eyes bore a slight resemblance to his.

  Eli … why was I thinking about Eli, when I wanted only to sink back into the sweet memory of Khalid’s kisses? His style, for example, was different from Matar’s. He was less hesitant and cautious—though of course the encounter with Matar had taken place under very different circumstances.

  I was thinking about Eli because of what Khalid had said. Do you resemble any of your mother’s friends?

  Maybe Eli made that comment about my eyes because he was trying to ward off an unconscious fear, to deny a buried suspicion. On the other hand, if in any remote corner of his being he thought I might be his daughter, surely he would not have tried to seduce me. Of course, his arm around my waist may have been nothing but a manifestation of the sort of compulsive flirting for which he was famous. Maybe he never meant for it to go further; maybe he knew I would not give in.

  What if it was true—what if his fear was founded in fact? It seemed impossible: how could someone like Eli be related to me? Even if he was my mother’s lover … well, the timing was about right; I was born shortly before his first marriage. My mother’s periods were no longer regular, and she had not had one in several months when she conceived. Eli, who was in his early twenties at the time, could have easily been persuaded that she was too old to have a child. And maybe in those days he was not quite as careful as he became later, after his first wife’s abortion. He had written about that abortion extensively in his books; it was a turning point in his thinking.

  But surely my mother would have known if it was him, and she’d have told me: why wouldn’t she? She would have told him, too, and asked for child support. It was more likely that my father was someone with a family, and she didn’t want to ruin his marriage and career. Her experience with the Russian physicist may have decided her against a replay of that doomed situation. For I no longer believed her claim that there were too many potential candidates to choose from, as if she’d slept with dozens of anonymous men. She was quite picky, actually, and she often told us about the men she’d rejected. Teeth in bad shape. Dandruff. Cracked nails. The smallest things were reason enough to dismiss an offer. Instead, she would invite her unsuccessful suitors for supper. If they couldn’t have her, at least they would be treated to a sample of my brother’s cooking.

  It was possible, though, that my mother knew my father was Eli but wanted to protect me from him. Given his views on parenthood, she may have felt that I would only be hurt by his inevitable rejection.

  All the same, it seemed very unlikely. We were so dissimilar—though now that I thought of it, the way he organized his papers at the end of each class, with a determined defiance of lackadaisical tendencies, was nearly identical to my own brisk offensive on my briefcase. And maybe, if I really thought about it, if I really wanted to think about it, there were some other things, too: his sense of humor, his careful logic, his love of teaching. He was a patient teacher; he was informal and friendly in the classroom, and respectful of even the most annoying or rude students. He liked people; he was almost never seen alone. Though he slept with all and sundry, he needed one loyal, close person in his life at any given time. His spontaneity, his refusal to be intimidated, his quiet way of rebelling: these personality traits were familiar. Oh—he could be so cruel, though! But we are not created in our parents’ image. I remembered a funny sticker I’d seen somewhere, showing a sloppy hippie kid and a conservative father in a suit glaring at each other. ANY GENETIC RESEMBLANCE IS UNINTENTIONAL, it said.

  It would take some getting used to, if it was true. I remembered a film I had once seen about the grown daughter of a womanizer. Daddy Nostalgia, it was called. Scenes from the movie came forcefully back to me.

  On the spot I decided to pay Eli a visit and question him. I was suddenly very impatient: it was imperative that I see him immediately. What if he died of a heart attack during the night and I never had another chance? Besides, if Eli was the person I’d been waiting for all these years, I had waited long enough.

  I phoned Kostya and entered, Going to Eli’s to ask if he’s my father, don’t wait up.

  To my astonishment, Kostya replied, I can tell you. Yes.

  I stared at the words on the little screen. I can tell you. Yes. Kostya knew. Kostya knew and he hadn’t told me.

  I turned to the window and looked out into the darkness. Beyond the darkness were the hills, beyond the hills houses, inside each house furniture, bodies, vases. The highway blocked out the walls and chasms. What I needed was a wall of light, a blinding light that would leave nothing out: nothing to find, nothing to search for. Inside it, every dead and living body would surface like a digit in a unique system that negates all the systems preceding it. I would float up to the wall, buoyed by the light, I would be the keeper of the wall.

  I had trusted my family: my mother, my brother. I thought I knew them inside out, and in the end I had missed the most basic thing there was. In the end I was profoundly stupid. I had lived with three adults who were keeping a secret from me—for Iris must have known as well—and I’d never noticed.