Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

“Billie?”

“Hello,” she said, extending her hand to Jacob. “We haven’t actually met, although I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Precisely what? Jacob wanted to ask, but instead took her hand and said, “And I’ve heard a lot about you.” A lie. “All good things, by the way.” The truth.

“I was upstairs helping Sam with his bar mitzvah apology, and it occurred to us that we don’t know what, exactly, qualifies as an apology. Does an apology require an explicit disavowal?”

Jacob shot Julia a look of check out the vocabulary on this one .

“Could he simply describe what happened and explain? Are the words I’m sorry strictly necessary?”

“Why isn’t Sam asking?”

“He’s walking Argus. And he asked me to.”

“I’ll come up in a bit and help out,” Jacob said.

“I’m not sure that’s necessary or, really, wanted . We just kind of need to know what’s meant by apology.”

“I think an explicit disavowal is required,” Julia said, “but no need for the words I’m sorry .”

“That was my instinct,” Billie said. “OK. Well, thanks.”

She turned to leave the room, and Julia called her back: “Billie.”

“Yes?”

“Did you hear any of the conversation we were having? Or just that Mark is nice?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you heard anything? Or you don’t know if you feel comfortable answering?”

“The latter.”

“It’s just that—”

“I understand.”

“We haven’t yet spoken with the boys—”

“I really understand.”

“And there’s a lot of context,” Jacob chimed in.

“My parents are divorced. I get it.”

“We’re just finding our way,” Jacob said, “just figuring things out.”

“Your parents are divorced?” Julia asked.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Two years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t blame myself for their divorce, and neither should you.”

“You’re funny,” Julia said.

“Thank you.”

“The divorce obviously didn’t get in the way of you becoming an amazing person.”

“Well, we’ll never know what I could have been otherwise.”

“You’re really funny.”

“I really thank you.”

“We know this puts you in an awkward position,” Jacob added.

“It’s fine,” Billie said, and turned to leave once again.

“Billie?” Julia said.

“Yes?”

“Would you describe your parents’ divorce as a loss?”

“For whom?”

“I want to change my wish,” Benjy said.

“Benjy?”

“I ought to go,” Billie said, turning to leave.

“You don’t have to go,” Julia said. “Stay.”

“I wished for you to believe Sam.”

“Believe him about what?” Jacob said, gathering Benjy onto his knee.

“I ought to,” Billie said, and headed up.

“I don’t know,” Benjy said. “I just heard him talking to Max, and he said he wished you believed him. So I made his wish my wish.”

“It’s not that we don’t believe him,” Jacob said, re-finding his anger at Julia for being unable to take Sam’s side.

“So what is it?”

“Do you want to know what Sam and Max were talking about?” Julia asked.

Benjy nodded.

“Sam got in trouble in Hebrew school because they found a piece of paper on his desk with some bad words on it. He says he didn’t do it. His teacher is sure that he did.”

“So why don’t you believe him?”

“We don’t not believe him,” Jacob said.

“We always want to believe him,” Julia said. “We always want to take the side of our children. But we don’t think Sam is telling the truth this time. That doesn’t make him a bad person. And it doesn’t make us love him any less. This is how we love him. We’re trying to help him. People make mistakes all the time. I make mistakes all the time. Dad does. And we all count on each other’s forgiveness. But that requires an apology. Good people don’t make fewer mistakes, they’re just better at apologizing.”

Benjy thought about that.

He craned his neck to face Jacob, and asked, “So why do you believe him?”

“Mom and I believe the same thing.”

“You also think he lied?”

“No, I also think people make mistakes and deserve forgiveness.”

“But do you think he lied?”

“I don’t know, Benjy. And neither does Mom. Only Sam knows.”

“But do you think he lied?”

Jacob put his palms on Benjy’s thighs and waited for the angel to call out. But no angel. And no ram. Jacob said, “We think he isn’t telling the truth.”

“Could you call Mr. Schneiderman and ask him to change my note?”

“Sure,” Jacob said, “we can do that.”

“But how would you tell him my new wish without saying it?”

“Why don’t you just write it and give it to him?”

“He’s already there.”

“Where?”

“The Wailing Wall.”

“In Israel?”

“I guess.”

“Oh, then don’t worry. I’m sure his trip was canceled and you’ll have a chance to change your wish.”

“Why?”

“Because of the earthquake.”

“What earthquake?”

“There was an earthquake in Israel last week.”

“A big one?”

“You haven’t heard us talking about it?”

“You talk about lots of things that you don’t talk about to me. Is the Wall going to be OK?”

“Of course,” Julia said.

“If anything’s going to be OK,” Jacob added, “it’s the Wall. It’s been OK for more than two thousand years.”

“Yeah, but there used to be three other walls.”

“There’s a great story about that,” Jacob said, hoping he would be able to remember what he’d just promised to deliver. The story had lain dormant since he was told it in Hebrew school. He couldn’t remember the telling, and he hadn’t thought about it since, yet there it was, a part of him — a part to be handed down. “When the Roman army conquered Jerusalem, the order was given to destroy the Temple.”

“It was the Second Temple,” Benjy said, “because the first was destroyed.”

“That’s right. Good for you for knowing that. Anyway, three of the walls went down, but the fourth one resisted.”

“Resisted?”

“Struggled. Fought back.”

“A wall can’t fight back.”

“Wouldn’t be destroyed.”

“OK.”

“It stood firm against hammers, and pickaxes, and clubs. The Romans had elephants push against the wall, they tried to set fire to it, they even invented the wrecking ball.”

“Cool.”

“But nothing, it seemed, would bring the fourth wall down. The soldier in charge of the Temple’s destruction reported back to his commanding officer that they had destroyed three of the Temple’s walls. But instead of admitting that they couldn’t knock down the fourth one, he suggested they leave it up.”

“Why?”

“As proof of their greatness.”

“I don’t get it.”

“When people would see the wall, they would be able to conjure the immensity of the Temple, the foe they defeated.”

“What?”

Julia clarified: “They would see how huge the actual Temple must have been.”

“Right,” Benjy said, taking it in.

Jacob turned to Julia. “Isn’t there some organization rebuilding destroyed synagogues in Europe from their foundations? It’s like that.”

“Or the 9/11 Memorial.”

“There’s a word for it. I heard it once … A shul . Right, shul .”

“Like synagogue?”

“Wonderful coincidence, but no. It’s Tibetan.”

“Where would you have learned a Tibetan word?”