From out of nowhere, at least to Sheldon’s mind, Rhea asked, ‘Why don’t you go to synagogue anymore?’
Sheldon leaned back in his own chair and then rubbed his face.
‘Why are you punishing me?’
‘I’m not. I really want to know.’
‘It’s not like I made you go. I’m entirely fair.’
‘I want to know why. Is it because of Dad?’
‘Yes.’
‘You stopped believing in God when Dad died?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘What then?’
How many of their conversations took place right here? Right in this very spot over a period of twenty years? All of them? It seemed that way. It was as though there were no apartment upstairs. No kitchen. No den or bedroom. Sheldon just sat here, year after year, being interrogated by various women. The antiques changed, the women aged, but Sheldon was always there, fixing timepieces, answering questions. The only conversation he remembers having in the apartment was the one with Saul.
‘You know what Yom Kippur is?’ he’d answered.
‘It’s the day of atonement.’
‘You know how it works?’
‘You ask for forgiveness.’
‘You ask for two kinds of forgiveness,’ Sheldon explained. ‘You ask God to forgive you for your trespasses against Him. But you also ask people to forgive you for your trespasses against them. You do the second in Jewish tradition because, according to our philosophy, there is only one thing God can’t do. He can’t forgive you for what you do to other people. You need to ask forgiveness from them directly.’
‘Which is why there is no forgiveness for murder. Because you can’t ask forgiveness from the dead.’
‘Right.’
‘Why did you stop going to synagogue, Papa?’
‘Because in 1976, the year you arrived on my doorstep, and a song about a sinking ship was on the radio, I took you to temple on Yom Kippur, and I waited for God to apologise to us for what he did to your father, and he never did.’
Chapter 18
It was a good night. They found a dry and secluded spot in from the shoreline and out of view from the road and nearby houses. It was still best not to light a campfire, which was a pity, but they managed well without it.
Paul was willing to take off the horns, but would not give up the world’s most unusual crusader outfit. This seemed to Sheldon the least weird decision of the day.
Lying close together, Sheldon whispered, ‘You wake me if you hear any trouble.’ And then they both fell into a glorious, restful sleep.
By six o’clock the sun was so high that its warmth stirred them. The fresh air had probably done them both some good, but the ground had not been kind to Sheldon. He was stiff and sore and grumpy. It felt as though rigor mortis was getting an early start on him. Worse yet, there was not a drop of coffee to be found anywhere.
It did not take them long to break camp. There was little to gather up, and they hadn’t left much of a footprint in the forest. They weren’t being tracked, after all, and since they’d made it through the night without being caught under searchlights, it likely meant that no one had witnessed the tractor’s final moments.
Within an hour they have made their way through the thicket of evergreens to a reasonably large road that holds the promise of passing motorists. After about twenty minutes on that road, Sheldon feels winded.
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. I need a rest.’ Sheldon eases himself down gently in the high grass by the side of the road. Paul, who was up ahead, comes walking back towards him.
‘Don’t get old,’ he says to Paul. ‘If Peter Pan shows up, just go.’
Paul is standing tall with his wooden spoon, magic dust bunny, and woollen hat. He looks good. The way a young boy is supposed to look.
Sheldon looks at his watch. It has bright white hands, and insists that it is only eight o’clock in the morning.
‘Come here,’ says Sheldon.
He waves him over and the boy comes. ‘Do this.’ Sheldon sticks up his thumb to hitchhike.
Paul doesn’t quite get it, and his thumb angles off towards Germany over his extended index finger. ‘It’s more… sort of towards Finland. Like this.’ He reaches over and fixes Paul’s thumb, tucks in his extra appendage, then tilts the whole hand-and-thumb arrangement backwards and down the road a bit. ‘Good. Let’s hope this isn’t an obscene gesture up here.’
Paul stands looking down the road for a couple of minutes, and nothing happens. In the meantime, Sheldon catches his breath and stands up again. He walks over, stands beside Paul, and says, ‘Right, now we start walking backwards. If we’re lucky, we’ll go backwards in time, before yesterday and the day before. Before you were born, all the way back to at least 1952, when Saul was born.
‘We could stop for lunch in 1977. I knew an excellent sandwich shop in 1977.’
They cover several kilometres on a road that winds northward. There are few signs of civilisation, other than the perfect ribbon of road running alongside the green strip of grass that edges the forest.
Sheldon has placed two pencils in his lips, insisting he is a walrus. To entertain Paul, he has started walking like one. Before long, however, Sheldon stops.
‘Big walrus thirsty. Little walrus thirsty? Big walrus also needs to pee again. Big walrus is eighty-two years old with a bladder the size of a lima bean.’
Sheldon makes the universal symbol of an old man chugging a beer.
Paul intuitively understands and nods. Yes, he says, he too would like to be an old man chugging a beer.
‘Right. Then it’s time to scare up a ride. Enough of this playing around.’
Sheldon then says to Paul, ‘Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to count down from ten and when I do, a car will show up and offer us a ride to a place that has ice-cold Coke in a bottle. OK?’
Sheldon nods for both of them.
‘Right. Here we go.’ He stops, looks down the road, and starts to count.
‘Ten.’
Paul stops and looks at him.
‘Nine.’
Nothing happens.
‘Eight.’
A bird poos directly in front of Sheldon, which makes Paul laugh, but Sheldon raises a finger and says, ‘Concentrate.’
‘Seven.’
The cool breeze blows off the river, accompanied by a chilling cloud that makes Sheldon close his eyes just for a moment and blissfully forget the world.
‘Six.’
Nothing.
‘Five.’
Sheldon sticks his thumb out higher and with more confidence.
‘Four.’
He closes his eyes and concentrates. Really focuses his mental energies. On what, he’s not entirely sure. He tries to imagine the Swedish women’s volleyball team slowing down and asking directions to heaven. He is partly
