Yoram Kaniuk - The Last Jew

And Lionel will sit at night and tell about his mother and Rebecca will want to weep and won't be able to, and then that moment will end as it began, with uncertainty, and one of them will go out, Sam or Boaz, and a few days later, a siren will be heard and Talya's friend from the adjutant's office won't come this time because he didn't come back from the last war, and they'll search for Boaz and Noga to give them orders, and Noga will laugh with a belly full of a fetus and none of them knows who the father is, revenge of a woman who found her father dead in a room and loved a violent lad and stopped loving him to live in Henkin's house and turn into a product of national mourning until Boaz came and betrothed her to Jordana and Sam and Licinda, in whose veins Melissa lived and this time declared a revolt, and Rebecca pleaded, Give me Boaz, don't bring a son into the world, who's the father of the son? And Noga is silent, withdrawn, in love with her swollen belly, will bring a son into the world and they won't know who the father is. Joy filled her when they came to bring her a mobilization order that was needless because the computer was wrong. She had long ago passed the age and would no longer stay in a tent with Boaz and play licentious streetwalker in light of the headlights of the armored troop carrier in the desert, and Sam or Boaz, whoever came out of the room and they don't know who, or perhaps they do know and pretend they don't know, will go to the war that started, and again they wait for Rebecca's expected disaster, but she's silent, searching the sky to drill a hole in it, doesn't find it, is offended to her last disgrace, and Boaz or Sam, in a uniform, will go to the airport, three gigantic transport planes were parked there, emergency doors gaping open, a unit of young soldiers sat on what had once been a lawn. The sky is clear and no wind blows. The roar of the motors is ear-piercing. Officers and noncoms run back and forth, messengers come with flashes of orders, whistles are heard on all sides. And he stands there, in a battle uniform with sand stuck to it from a previous battle, washed but not ironed. The insignia of rank aren't conspicuous. The greenyellow eyes scare the recruits. He asks which of them was in the last war, and there isn't one who had fought then. He explains to them what they have to do: get into the planes and then parachute into another field, and from there to the front. The sun is beating down and he's sweating. He turns to a young soldier who looks pensive and handsome, with curly hair, and calls out: Soldier, get up! And the soldier gets up. Scared, you can see how scared he is. Run to the canteen and bring paper and pencils. And the soldier says: Yessir, and runs. The soldiers are sitting. Somebody starts humming, tomorrow when the army takes off its uniforms… The soldier comes back. The planes are roaring. A liaison officer comes and whispers something in his ear. First aid kits and stretchers are loaded onto the plane.

He orders the soldier who had returned and was standing at attention: Give every soldier a pencil and paper! They look at him in amazement, but nobody opens his mouth.

The soldier gives every one of the soldiers a pencil and paper.

They don't see that their commander is weeping, he's weeping with his eyes shut.

The sun beats down and the motors are ear-piercing.

May Jordana not love you, he says. And then he yells: This is an order, everybody has a pencil and paper. Everyone, every one of you now write a poem and give it to me with your first name, last name, serial number, and address.

He yells: That's an order! One soldier whispers: That commander was in all the wars, I'm not getting in trouble, and he starts writing. And the commander yells: You've got five minutes, so step on it!

And they write fast.

Forward! he yells.

He collects the poems, puts them in a manila file. Calls the sergeant. Sends him with the manila file. To put it in headquarters under the name of Schneerson until. The soldiers finish loading their gear and boarding the planes, once again a siren sounds. He follows them, swallowed up in the plane, and takes off.

And the moment up there doesn't end. They're still there, even though Boaz or Sam was swallowed up in the plane. And then everything ended and Noga gave birth to a son. Ebenezer died and was buried in Roots. Fanya R. will die after him. Lionel and Lily went back to America. Licinda will direct Sam's play at the national theater. Sam will stay or go, what do we know who's who. They came back. Three secretaries are trying to make order in the files of S.L.A. Ltd. Letters come from all over Israel, millions of dollars from the money of "Melissa Inc." And everything's desolate. Boaz sits and looks out the window. Sam is dusty inside him. As was said in the book Ebenezer quoted and that will be written in another few years, Rebecca will die on the seventh of Adar, the day of Moses' death, in nineteen eighty-four, a hundred years old she'll be at her death. After her burial Roots will be closed for lack of space. Next to Nehemiah her husband Rebecca will be buried. In the safe, along with the writings of the Captain, are the poems written by the soldiers, and Noga raises her son. He's got green-yellow eyes and he plays with the wooden birds once carved by a man named Ebenezer.

When the last of the Jews died, God held His breath a moment, and said: They're finished? And the director said: Yes. He said: There was something about them, what was it? And the director said: They loved You with all their heart. And He said: What a waste, and shut His eyes for another thousand years, that passed in retrospect, backward and forward. Marar is now in the lands of the town that was a settlement, the wine press is a museum like everything that never was, and Noga says to her son: Someday, if you write a poem, give it to me and I'll give it to your father. She didn't say who, and Boaz smiled and Licinda said: I know who the Captain was, he was the one poem of Joseph Rayna that took on flesh, stayed here and brought together the grandfather of the grandfather of my grandfather in the port of Amsterdam with the grandfather of the grandfather of your grandfather who was ascending to the Land of Israel.

And so, because of the baby whose father nobody knows, all these things had to happen, and in fact they didn't happen exactly like that, but it could have been the last of the Jews, it could also have been a dream and also rot and also a dying end, and anybody who tries to turn a dream into reality inherits disappointment, and Rebecca, who tried to turn anger into a dream, knew that better than the others, so she took vengeance on Nehemiah by letting his dream be a grandson whose father nobody knows and nobody knows when he'll be the Last Jew.