"I don't like anyone to be dead, Papa. It's like a big forest and it goes on and on and never ends."It rained most of the night. I lay in bed and listened to the roar of the wind-lashed surf and wondered how far up the beach it was. I thought I could hear it just below the dunes, foaming and boiling and reaching for our cottage. My mother came into my room and held me and cradled me in her lap and sang to me softly in a language I did not understand. I fell asleep inside her warmth.
"Sometimes things happen to people and they change," my mother said."They do things they didn't do before?""Yes."I found as the weeks went by and winter approached that my mother had been right: I was no longer clearly remembering the look and cut of my father's clothes. At times I could not even recall his face. My mother said that was natural; but it frightened me to be losing my memory of my father.
Religion is a dangerous fraud, Ilana, and an illusion. It prevents people from seeing the truth and expressing their discontent, and sometimes it inflames the heart so that people follow horrible ideas like fascism."I especially like the shul.""Yes. I know.""I like the singing."She said nothing."I don't like the wall in the middle."I had learned a strange lesson: walls are laws to some people, and laws are walls to others. Do you wear your glasses when you read and write? Always remember to do that so you can see the world sharply and truthfully. Truth is often very painful, but it alone will save us. How is our little bird? Does it still nest peacefully in our harp? Ilana Davita, sooner or later birds grow weary and close their eyes. Some fall from the heavens while in flight, dropping like stones to the earth, others run into a mountain, a hour, a tree. Still others are caught in the talons of a bird of prey. And still others simply fall asleep, and sleep on and on and on.
Care for our bird and do not let is close its eyes. It is wrong to face this world with one's eyes closed, no matter how deep the weariness.Good-bye, Davita. Be discontented with the world. But be respectful at the same time.
