The Collected Stories

and their heads met accidentally. Yabloner fell into a playful mood and said, “Deborah, let’s trade eyeglasses.”
    “What for?” Deborah Soltis asked.
    “Oh, just like that. Only for a little while.”
    The two lovers exchanged reading glasses, but he couldn’t read with hers and she couldn’t read with his. So they replaced their own glasses on their own noses—and that was the most intimate contact the two ever achieved.
    Eventually, I stopped going down to East Broadway. I sent my articles to the newspaper by mail. I forgot Joel Yabloner. I didn’t even know that he was still alive. Then one day when I walked into a hotel lobby in Tel Aviv I heard applause in an adjoining hall. The door to the hall was half open and I looked in. There was Joel Yabloner behind a lectern, making a speech. He wore an alpaca suit, a white shirt, a silk skullcap, and his face appeared fresh, rosy, young. He had a full set of new teeth and had sprouted a white goatee. I happened not to be especially busy, so I found an empty chair and sat down.
    Yabloner did not speak modern Hebrew but the old holy tongue with the Ashkenazi pronunciation. When he gesticulated, I noticed the sparkling links in his immaculate shirt cuffs. I heard him say in a Talmudic singsong, “Since the Infinite One filled all space and, as the Zohar expresses it, ‘No space is empty of Him,’ how did He create the universe? Rabbi Chaim Vital gave the answer: ‘Before creation, the attributes of the Almighty were all potential, not actual. How can one be a king without subjects, and how can there be mercy without anyone to receive it?’ ”
    Yabloner clutched his beard, glanced at his notes. Once in a while, he took a sip from a glass of tea. I observed quite a number of women and even young girls in the audience. A few students took notes. How strange—there was also a nun. She must have understood Hebrew. “The Jewish state has resuscitated Joel Yabloner,” I said to myself. One seldom has a chance to enjoy someone else’s good fortune, and for me Yabloner’s triumph was a symbol of the Eternal Jew. He had spent decades as a lonely, neglected man. Now he seemed to have come into his own. I listened to the rest of the lecture, which was followed by a question period. Unbelievable, but that sad man had a sense of humor. I learned that the lecture had been organized by a committee which had undertaken to publish Yabloner’s work. One of the members of the committee knew me, and asked if I wished to attend a banquet in Yabloner’s honor. “Since you are a vegetarian,” he added, “here is your chance. They will serve only vegetables, fruits, nuts. When do they ever have a vegetarian banquet? Once in a lifetime.”
    Between the lecture and the banquet, Joel Yabloner went out on the terrace for a rest. The day had been hot, and now in the late afternoon a breeze was blowing from the sea. I approached him, saying, “You don’t remember me, but I know you.”
    “I know you very well. I read everything you write,” he replied. “Even here I try not to miss your stories.”
    “Really, it is a great honor for me to hear you say so.”
    “Please sit down,” he said, indicating a chair.
    God in Heaven, that silent man had become talkative. He asked me all kinds of questions about America, East Broadway, Yiddish literature. A woman came over to us. She wore a turban over her white hair, a satin cape, and men’s shoes with low, wide heels. She had a large head, high cheekbones, the complexion of a gypsy, black eyes that blazed with anger. The beginnings of a beard could be seen on her chin. In a strong, mannish voice she said to me, “
Adoni
[Sir], my husband just finished an important lecture. He must speak at the banquet, and I want him to rest for a while. Be so good as to leave him alone. He is not a young man any more and he should not exert himself.”
    “Oh, excuse me.”
    Yabloner frowned. “Abigail, this man is a Yiddish writer and my friend.”
    “He may be a writer and a friend, but your throat is overstrained. If you argue with him, you will be hoarse later.”
    “Abigail, we aren’t arguing.”
    “
Adoni,
please listen to me. He doesn’t know how to take care of himself.”
    “Well, we shall talk later,” I said. “You have a devoted wife.”
    “So they tell me.”
    I took part in the banquet—ate the nuts, almonds, avocados, cheese, bananas that were served. Yabloner again made a speech, this time about the author of