B002FB6BZK EBOK (83 page)

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.