'I don't have to talk to you.'
'That's your privilege,' said Daniel, 'but I'll be back in an hour with papers of my own, along with a minyan of police officers to help me deliver them. Your neighbors are sure to be intrigued.'
Malkovsky stared down at him, clenching and unclenching those massive fists.
'Why are you harassing me!' he demanded, but his resistance had started to fizzle, indignation giving way to naked fear.
'As I told you, Rabbi-'
'I'm not a rabbi!'
'-your history makes it necessary for me to speak with you concerning some crimes that have taken place since you've immigrated to Israel.'
'This is stupid talk. There is no history. I don't know what you're talking about.' Malkovsky opened his hands, turned them palms-down, and passed one over the other in a gesture of closure. 'G'nuk. Enough.'
'No, not g'nuk, not until we talk.'
'There's nothing to talk about. I'm a permanent resident. My papers are in order.'
'Speaking of papers,' said Daniel. He removed a handbill from his pocket, unfolded it, and gave it to Malkovsky.
The immense man stared at it, lips formed into a silent O. With one hand he crumpled the paper; with the other he covered his face. 'Lies.'
The hand opened and the paper ball dropped to the floor.
'There are others, Mr. Malkovsky, hundreds of others, plastered to walls, kiosks, all over town. It's just a matter of time.'
'Lies,' said Malkovsky. 'Sinful gossip.' He turned, half-faced the wall, pulling at his beard, ripping loose long, wiry strands of hair.
Daniel took Malkovsky's arm, feeling his fingers sink into softness. A clay man, he thought. A golem.
'We need to talk,' he said.
Malkovsky said nothing, continued to shred his beard. But his posture had slackened and he allowed Daniel to lead him outside, to a quiet corner of the courtyard shaded by pepper trees in terra-cotta planters. The outdoor lighting was dim, weak orange spotlights casting electric blemishes upon the pint's knurled countenance.
'Tell me everything,' said Daniel.
Malkovsky stared at him.
Daniel repeated: 'Tell me.'
'I was a sick man,' said Malkovsky, as if by rote. 'I had a sickness. a burden the yetzer horah cast upon my shoulders.'
Self-pitying hypocrite, thought Daniel. Speaking of the
Evil Impulse as if it were divorced from his free will. The sight of the man, with his beard and peyot and religious garments. dredgeo up feelings of revulsion that were almost overwhelming.
'You've transferred that burden to the shoulders of oth-ers,' he said coldly. 'Very small shoulders.'
Malkovsky trembled, then removed his glasses, as if clarity of perception were painful. Unshielded, his eyes were small, down-slanted, restlessly evasive.
'I've worked hard to repent,' he said. 'True tshuva-last Yom Kippur, my rebbe praised my efforts. You're afrummer mensh, you understand about tshuva.'
'A necessary part of tshuva is vidduy ' said Daniel. 'Full confession. All I've heard from you is self-pity.'
Malkovsky was indignant. 'I've done a proper vidduy. My rebbe says I'm making good progress. Now you forget about me-leave me alone!'
'Even if I would, others won't.' Daniel pulled out another handbill, set it down on Malkovsky's broad lap.
Malkovsky pounded his chest and began uttering the Yom Kippur confession in a high, constricted whisper. Stood there torturing his beard, spitting out a litany of transgressions.
'We have trespassed, we have dealt treacherously, we have stolen, we have spoken slander, we have committed iniquity
When he reached the last offense, he put a finger in his mouth and bit down upon it, eyes closed* kipah askew. Breathing rapidly and noisily.
'Did you ever,' asked Daniel, 'do it with any of your own children, or did you limit yourself to the children of others?'
Malkovsky ignored the question, kept praying. Daniel waited, repeated his question. Let the big bastard know he wouldn't be getting off with lip service.
A while later, Malkovsky answered.
The library was the best room in the house.
The living room was boring-all those couches and paintings and furniture, and stuff under glass bells that you weren't allowed to touch. When he'd been real little the maids wouldn't let him go in there at all, and now that he was nine he didn't even want to.
The kitchen was okay if you wanted food or something, but otherwise it was boring. The extra bedrooms in
