Light Fell by Evan Fallenberg Page A

them, sealed in their own hush-tone private world, but occasionally he would picture a festive meal with their nine collective children, later joined by daughters- and sons-in-law and hordes of grandchildren turning pirouettes and playing tag willy-nilly around the adults. They would all be charming, healthy, well behaved. They would come to their two grandfathers for advice or a gentle game of rummy, to share stories of classroom battles and triumphs or to play a soulful tune on a violin. As grandfathers, Yoel and Joseph would listen patiently, offer wisdom, and dole out silver coins or chocolates wrapped in colored tinfoil. When the children all left, the house would reverberate with their songs and laughter, so the grandfathers would never feel lonely.
    Still, he could never help imagining a different, less attractive scenario of Yoel moving past fifty, sixty, seventy. What would Joseph have found in him then? When would the man he loved—the uneven stubble of his beard a sign of insouciance and rebellion; the broad thickness of his chest, legs, fingers testimony to his strength and solidity; the receding hairline a sign of virility; the lines and creases in his face the badges of a life of enriching experiences and meaning— have become just an unkempt, fat, bald, wrinkled old man? When he began to discover Yoel’s foibles and flaws would he then have weighed them against Rebecca’s? Would his heart’s desire, the object of his love and longing, have turned into heart grief? Would their small, self-contained world have been able to sustain them? Since Yoel had opened new worlds to Joseph, his death signaled the eradication of love, the annihilation of intimacy, the end of hope.
    Joseph had not been prepared for the physical pain he felt at losing the boys. For years he had jealously watched Rebecca, always pregnant or nursing, her whole body caught up in creating and then providing for new life. His own body was useless to each new baby that arrived. But now it was as if each son had been severed from him like a limb, and he ached at their absence.
    The English Department threw him a farewell party at the end of the spring semester and the university president invited him to lunch and offered him a position whenever he wished. But Joseph was desperate to return to Israel and booked a flight that would launch him back into his life just as soon as he could grade the last exam. He bought extra luggage to haul all the gifts he had purchased for the boys. True to his word, Professor Gabison had an office and a course load waiting for him.
    From his first meeting with the boys Joseph recognized the enormity of his mistake. Time and distance had wedged him out of their lives; his gifts were paltry compensation, like the offering of a barely tolerated cousin from overseas. Moreover, the boys had grown spoiled and undisciplined. Where once they had been boisterous, now they were impossibly loud and wild. They argued with one another, paid little attention to their father, and generally did exactly what they pleased. He felt he did not know these children and, because he had nothing to do with their upbringing, could not criticize or correct. When he wrote Rebecca about it, offering to help devise a way to raise them successfully in tandem, though apart, he got no response. He gave up planning outings and packing food. The boys were unhappy no matter where he took them. Joseph tried again to form groups conducive to good behavior, suspecting it was Daniel who was instigating and modeling this conduct. But even without his lead they were frightfully contentious. It became more and more difficult to convince them to do things with him, and Joseph took to inviting them one at a time for fear of losing them completely. He did not wish to plead for their company, knowing this would make them less inclined to spend time with him, but there seemed to be no other way. He paid large sums of money he did not have for tickets to sporting