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wiry nest, embarrassed by its own presence in the open air.
    I quickly find my nightshirt and my nightcap, cover my nakedness, bury myself beneath the blankets and pray that soon, God willing, I will sleep forever in the ground.
    Sometime during the night, I am awakened by the pressure of Ola’s body next to mine. She burrows against my belly in the tiny bed. Drowsily, I welcome her under the covers, uncertain exactly who she is. The bed is so small, she must struggle for some time to find a comfortable position. Neither of us is more than a little awake. Her skin is clammy with fever. I sense that if she could, she would hide here, disappearing into me, as though my heavy bulk were a hollow mountain and her restless scramblings beneath the covers an attempt to find the opening of a cave. Finally, she raises her bottom against my abdomen,but because that is not comfortable, she gradually wiggles southward until we are pressed together, with only my stiff erection between us.

11
    The Mama and Papa are astonished at the recovery she is making. Although she is still quite ill, gone are the flaring tantrums, the hallucinations, and the wretched self-abasements. Radiant now with a low fever, Ola lies in the plump white bed, attended to by a coterie of my granddaughters’ rag dolls. Twice daily, her mother scuttles a fat crablike hand, red and raw, over Ola’s brow, then off to church she scurries to thank the virgin mother and her rabbinical son for her daughter’s miraculous recovery.
    Upon her return, she ascends backwards up the staircase, carrying a large tray heavy with crisp hot toast, apple-orange marmalade, and milk-boiled sausages piled high. Ola is all giggles when her mother enters, and I stand unobtrusively in a corner, like a burglar or an objectionable suitor, waiting until I can safely step from behind my curtain. Not that there is any likelihood of my being seen or caught but, still, it’s best that Ola’s conspiratorial winks and smirks pass unregarded behind her mother’s rounded back. If only out of kindness for the poor woman. Why add fear for Ola’s sanity to her already heavy bag of motherly concern? She leaves the room, content and relieved, and Isit, straight backed, in a bedside chair, while Ola picks, in frustration, at her food.
    For her father, Ola has nothing but contempt. He has only to stick his doughy face into the room, mustaches flying, and all the gaiety of a moment before disappears. Ola’s glare is black and her arms are crossed and these are the only answers she gives to his habitual “How’s my princess faring today?” The unfortunate fellow stands in an eternity of silence, half in the room, half out, waiting for her reply. Then his face darkens as well, closing up as tightly as his daughter’s. The family resemblance is never more apparent than in these minutes of stone-faced glowering. He purses his moist lips, runs his tongue along the underside of his large bristling mustache, and mutters, “All right, then,” unable to look at her. “We’ll see you.” And he departs for another day.
    “Ola, he’s your father,” I tell her.
    Her hair is braided and she looks at me through glasses so thick that her eyes resemble two large beetles trapped beneath the lenses. “He’s a murderer,” she says bitterly.
    “But he isn’t,” I say. “He hasn’t killed anyone.”
    “The war’s not over yet.”
    “Ola. Be reasonable.”
    “He’s profiting from someone else’s death, isn’t he? Aren’t we all? It’s just as bad.”
    “Until my sons or even my daughters can reclaim it, what point is there in letting the house stand empty? The soldiers would only put their horses in it.”
    “But no one asked you.”
    “How could they, child? I was dead.”
    “You only say this because you think I’m going to die. The truth is, you hate having us here.”
    She is right, of course, on both counts. She reads my thoughts apparently as quickly as they cross what’s left of my