It was a sultry midweek afternoon in Jaffa and we were chaperoning our offspring from one set of dark mauve shadows to another, like a family of gypsies fleeing before invisible pursuers. From my wife’s parents’ place in a new section at the edge of town, we had driven to my wife’s sister’s place in Bat Yam. From there we accompanied my sister‑in‑law to the beach where her husband was teaching his son to fish and swim under the surface of the frantic sea. My sister‑in‑law was not entirely happy with this arrangement.
“Why?!” she screamed.
Rising above the white collared waves, her son laughed, and her husband, too. I would have intervened but was constrained from doing so. Even though it is family, I still felt like a bystander. Besides, why stir an already boiling pot? Only the angel to whom I am married attempted to becalm her sister, in a tone that would have consoled the Biblical Job.
“They’ll be alright,” she assured her.
At that moment, my sister‑in‑law’s husband, a thickly built, muscular fellow with as many hairs as the original Esau, lifted his son in the air and flung him into the sea near the rocks that, as legend has it, were left there ages ago by some ancient Greek deity. His son, our nephew, was screaming, though his father was signalling to us that he was really enjoying himself. The boy’s mother, stranded on the shore, and refusing even to negotiate with the foamy froth at her feet, appeared about to faint.
“Stop it! Stop it!” she...
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