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gentle, matronly lady to turn into her opposite? Meanness, rage, suspicion, violence – what was all that? What had caused such an explosion of awfulness? Had it always lain smouldering inside her? Had she simply managed to control it for all those years, and now, having shed the inhibitions of mental health, was she revealing the person she’d always wanted to be? Or had she really been taken over by a dybbuk? Was there a possibility that this dybbuk would invade me, too?
    Or do we, right from the start, like creatures in certain science-fiction movies, perhaps contain – hidden between the pia mater and the dura mater – a program coded for self-destruction? Who sets the timer? Who determines the length of the program?
    I had never given much thought to whether or not the heavens were inhabited by Someone different from the UFOs and the extraterrestrials that flew in them, but during the course of those long autumn afternoons, pondering this question for the first time, I reached a conclusion: the heavens are empty, or if they’re not, the entity that inhabits them is thoroughly uninterested in what’s going on in the world below. This was a being, I thought, who must have been distracted frequently while creating his little toy. How else to explain the fact that a person could bear such deterioration? That a life full of dignity and intelligence could be brought so low in just a few months? That memory could disappear just like that, as though a sponge had been passed over it? What hypocrites they must be, the people who talked about our dear Heavenly Father! What father would ever want such a fate for his children?

    Often, at night – trying to escape the constant clicking of your footsteps, the screech of your whistle, the squealing of unoiled hinges – I took refuge in the farthest corner of the yard.
    Seen from outside, the house really did look like a ghost ship. First I’d hear the jangling keys, and then I’d see you appear and disappear like a shadow behind the lighted windows; and all the while, the roar of the heavy goods traffic on the highway mounted to my ears, echoing the lonesome barking of the dogs in the scattered country houses.
    On windy nights, the black pines above my head creaked and groaned like the masts on a ship.
    I crouched at their feet, and at last, I was able to cry – in anger more than sorrow. From weeping, I passed to kicking; I struck their trunks violently with my feet, and then I punched the bark until blood ran down my wrist. ‘Let me die!’ I screamed into the wind, raising my voice so that my words would be carried high and far. ‘Let her die! Carry her off, destroy her, pulverise her! If you don’t want her, then at least take me! Yes, if You exist, You up there, let me die!’ Then I threw myself on the ground and hugged Buck, who’d been standing terrified at my feet, wagging his tail.

    One morning, on waking up from one of those alfresco nights, I was afraid my prayers had been heard. I’d slept later than usual, and when I went back into the house, an unusual stillness reigned. There was no sound of shuffling feet, no whistle, no jangling keys, no cursing. Nothing.
    After a few minutes of incredulous waiting, I carefully cracked the door of your room, afraid that I would find your body there. The same fear tugged at me as I searched through every room in the house, but there was no trace of you.
    Then, followed by Buck, I went out into the yard, but you weren’t among the geraniums, nor in the woodshed, nor even in the garage. You couldn’t have taken the car, because your keys had gone missing some time ago; therefore, if you’d left, you had to have done so on foot, although your coat was in its usual spot, and so was the handbag you were never without.
    I was about to go to the police and report your disappearance when the telephone rang. It was the fruit vendor. He’d stopped you while you were crossing an intersection – barefoot and wearing only your