He’d always felt happy there. The same was true of several such places on the homestead; the old mill up by the stream, for example, with its gaping, half-collapsed walls, gray with age, which he should have demolished but had allowed to remain. The wall of what had presumably once been a threshing mill in the forest on the other side of the river. The small house below it, of which only the cellar remained, an overgrown hollow in the field with the odd stone from the foundation wall protruding from the scrub. Just why he felt content in these places, he couldn’t really tell. And it wasn’t often he visited them, there was never enough time, but when, on mornings such as this, he went to them, he always thought that he ought to do so more often. Everything looked different from there. Probably due just as much to the fact he wasn’t working as the mood these places produced in him. When he worked, he was in the landscape, it served his purpose and was therefore part of him. When he wasn’t working, and was at peace with himself, he stood outside it.
He halted at the top of the rise, which still lay in the shadow of the mountain, and looked out. There was a sap in the landscape in the mornings, he thought. The grass was damp, the shadows deep, the light of the sun’s rays rich. In just a few hours, when the dew had evaporated, the shadows had dispersed, and the light was clear and transparent, this same landscape would have a hint of desolation about it. The sap was there because something was just beginning, it had a freshness, a power that would later be employed in enduring through something that just wore on and on.
Far off he saw a figure emerge from the door and cross the farmyard to the cow-house. He removed his hat and scratched his scalp. A straw had worked loose, it had been rubbing against his skin all morning, and he pushed it back in among its fellows before replacing the hat and walking off to retrieve his pack.
He covered the last leg so that he could be seen from the windows. Barak always came out to meet him, it had been one of their rituals, and something Barak always looked forward to. His pleasure as his father caught him running and tossed him up in the air. His anticipation, his furtive glances at the pack, which he couldn’t conceal even though he wanted to.
With a thumb under each strap of the pack, his hat pushed back on his neck, a white shirt that wasn’t so white anymore, black trousers, and a crumpled black jacket, he strode out across the field. When he was a few hundred yards from the house, he suddenly noticed that there was a man on the roof. But the door opened just at that moment, and he forgot all about it. Barak had begun his long sprint, and Lamech stood smiling and waiting for him.
When Barak was only ten yards away, and Lamech already kneeling down to catch him, he suddenly slackened his pace.
“Hello Dad!” he said, and stopped in his tracks.
Lamech stood up. Even though he realized that Barak felt too old to be tossed in the air, he took two quick paces forward, gripped Barak under the arms, and lifted him up in front of him.
“Hello, young man!” he said.
Barak’s eyes flashed with pleasure. But then they grew embarrassed and his glance wavered to the side.
Lamech set him down on the ground again.
“Everything been all right here?” he asked.
Barak nodded.
“Everything all right at the market?”
Lamech nodded, and they began to walk toward the house.
Barak looked up at him.
“Have you bought a new hat?” he asked.
Lamech nodded.
“Have you bought anything else?” Barak asked.
Lamech nodded again.
Nothing more was said until they reached the house. Lamech took off his pack, hung his new hat by the side of the old one, and walked, pack in his hand, into the kitchen, where Anna was sitting at her breakfast.
“Hello, Father,” she said. “Have you had a good time?”
Lamech nodded, leaned the pack up against the leg of the table, pulled out his chair, and sat down.
“What’ve you brought us this year, I wonder?” Anna said with a smile.
Her whole body brightened.
“We’ll have to see,” said Lamech.
Anna laid her hand on his arm as she passed him. She put down her glass and plate on the sideboard, lifted the bucket, poured water into the big pot, set it on the plate above the oven, and bent down, opened the door, and pushed in some logs, straightened up, and stood with her back to the work surface.
He was rather embarrassed about the present he’d found for her. As always, he’d bought presents for Barak and Noah on the first day of the market, but those for Milka and Anna were purchased only on the last, in a flurry of haste, with Obal and Tarsis standing impatiently at his side. To make good this discrepancy, he’d always spent more money on their presents.
Out in the hallway a door opened, it was Milka, they heard her take off her boots and jacket, and Lamech could see how Barak squirmed in his seat on the other side of the table.
“Ah, so you’re back,” she said as she came in.
“I’ve got a few small gifts for you all,” he said, and put the pack between his legs and loosened the flap.
“Who’s first?”
“Shouldn’t we wait for Noah?” said Barak.
Anna laughed.
“He’ll be asleep until the afternoon, little brother. And you won’t be able to wait that long!”
“I certainly could,” said Barak.
“Noah can have his present later,” said Lamech. “Here’s one for you.”
He handed a package to Milka, who squeezed it a bit before undoing the ribbon.
“It’s soft this year,” she said. “What can it be?”
She undid the paper and found something furry in her hands.
Lamech smiled as her hands turned and examined it.
“What is it?”
“A muff,” said Lamech.
“A what, did you say?”
“A muff. It’s for putting your hands into. Look.”
He snatched the muff away from her and pushed a hand into each end of it.
“But, my dear,” Milka said and laughed. “How can I work with that on my hands?”
“It’s for when you’re not working,” said Lamech.
She looked at him.
“Ah, yes,” she said. “Well, thank you anyway! It’s so lovely and soft.”
“Anna,” said her father, and handed her the next package. “It’s just a toy,” he added, so as not to raise her expectations.
But she was pleased with it, he could tell.
“What is it?” Barak asked.
“A bird,” Anna said, and held it out so they could see. A gold-colored metal bird on a little box was what he’d found for her.
“If you turn the handle there,” said Lamech, pointing to one side, “it’ll start singing.”
“Really!” said Anna.
She turned the small key until it would go no further. When she released it, the key began to turn round and the bird to dip its head, while a strange, almost inaudible sound emanated from it. A kind of monotonous squeak.
“It’s singing,” said Anna.
“It’s supposed to be a nightingale,” Lamech said. “But it doesn’t sound quite right.”
“It’s lovely,” said Anna. “Thank you so much.”
“And now you,” said Lamech, looking at Barak. “What have we here.”
A proper present at last, he could see them thinking as Barak unwrapped it. A hunting knife with a silver sheath.
“Can I try it out now?”
“Off you go, then,” said Milka.
Shortly afterward they saw him go through the garden and disappear into the forest on the other side.
It was some way into the afternoon before Lamech remembered the man he’d seen on the roof that morning. He went into the kitchen to ask Milka, but she wasn’t there, and he put his head round the living room door. When he saw Noah sitting in a chair with the mechanical bird on the table in front of him, so engrossed in its tiny movements and insipid song that he didn’t even notice him, he quickly stepped back so that he wouldn’t be discovered. He didn’t want to own the anger he felt rising inside him at the sight of Noah, because he also felt pity for him, and the notion that it wasn’t Noah’s fault was always present in his mind. But even so. It was his business if he lived in a world of his own, but that he actually seemed to like the artificial world he’d constructed and moved about in was harder to accept.