The Place Will Comfort You Read Online Free PDF Page A

they get to try. In chapter 9 they have a test. What happens?”
    She lifts the loaf and squeezes it like an accordion. I grab the bread and box it.
    â€œIf you’d have stayed in class you would know. They get it right! They offer everything correctly. A fire comes forth from HaShem and eats the offerings. And all the people rise in song and fall, because they got it right.”
    She says, “So why’d they fall?”
    â€œThat’s just the bowing.”
    â€œYou said fall.”
    â€œThat word in the Torah just means bow. A sudden bow that looks like falling. From the reverence.”
    She says, “For such a easy word as fall you have to learn a explanation? I feel sorry for you that you’re not exempt.”
    The fragrance of the mimeographs wafts over the air. A trapped fly struggles in a tiny burst; this is the nature of the sound which says the clock’s tin hand is straining in a tricky nock, and out.
    â€œGo watch TV.”
    â€œFor real? What if she walks in?”
    â€œThe rules are just for me.”
    Her sandals slap over our tiles, then are muffled by our carpet. The television knob clicks smartly and releases seltzer noise. The fizz acts up in six new ways, then smoothes into the trill and prance and festive kindergarten teacher’s voice of an Arabic commercial meant for kids. The orphan has chosen Lebanon TV. Next come Loony Toons, two, rich and quick, carnival ruckus on each side of a chase. Big deal. It’s nothing I can’t watch on the National Channel, later, an extra row of printed exclamations coursing below, Hebrew flowing above the Arabic.
You see how tables turn, my lucky duck!
    Though I smooth the pages of Leviticus back at my work station, my thoughts stay on translation. Why do we translate the Toons for Arabs, along with us, but they translate only for themselves? Because Israel has Arabs living in her, but the Arab countries, no Israelis. Also they wouldn’t like to do a favor for the children of our nation. And we? Do we translate every program for the Arabs? How could I truly know? I would have to watch every single show on the National Channel, all day. No mother would allow it. But the answer doesn’t matter when I don’t need translation in the first place, since I understand the Toons as they are said:
Tha-tha, that’s all
—
    The ending is cut short. The orphan has switched somewhere else, a sterner place, Jordan TV. A string orchestra slices its rows with slanting notes while a kingly voice keens. The orphan turns this up. The singer and strings complete their job, slow down, and stop. A newer Arabic music gallops in, and just as quickly halts.
    Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon to you,
a welcoming voice says, but not in Arabic. No. Otherwise, explain how I know what he just said. The greeting may have come out in their sounds, but that is our language, here. Hebrew is what he’s speaking, with an Arab accent. Jordan is talking so we’ll understand. An enemy reaches out.
    The orphan has pushed our rocking chair from its belongful spot. The curved base rocks over the smashed nap of our carpet, in front of our TV. The screen is showing a man who I can see is Arab, polite and serious in a pinstripe suit behind a desk. The number on the dial says it’s Jordan, but I recognize every word.
    In a secret address broadcast to the Israeli cabinet today, United States president, Jimmy Carter, vowed to withdraw all aid within a fortnight if no reforms are seen in Israel’s policy of gross coercion and brute force.
    The orphan is laughing and clapping her hands. “Oh, good one,” she says. “Very clever. Try a little harder, liar. Lying Arab liar.”
    â€œWho is he talking to?”
    â€œWho do you think? Me and you.”
    â€œWhy? What’s happening? What are they going to do?”
    â€œLike you never saw this before?”
    â€œWhat was it that he said? What did it