‚If Simon could hear you now, he’d have you punished. I’d rather not imagine how.‛ ‚It’s not going to be Simon who rules for the next ten years, Tzadika. It’s going to be my Jonathan.‛ ‚Well, then Jonathan should punish you!‛ Tzadika cried. ‚A man must punish his wife for saying these kinds of things. If he is man enough!‛ ‚He is man enough!‛ ‚Then, Yedida, tell him what you’re telling me!‛ ‚I’ll tell him not to make an alliance with the Romans against the Greeks! It will hit us in the back!‛ ‚How can it hit us and what back are you talking about?‛ ‚I’m talking about the end of Judea.‛ ‚Why are you worried about things that might never come to pass?‛ ‚They came to pass before. They will again.‛ And so the sisters-in-law continued their bickering while the other Maccabees slept.
Galia He‟s hitting my poor metal fence with a tool to remove old chipped paint before he applies fresh coats of primer and paint. I don‟t know the name of the tool in his hand, but I know it‟s metal because the sound of metal on metal has the kind of fury that only metal can evince from a man, by making him fuse with the metal of the tool the way he would with the metal of a weapon. I stand behind him for a long time before he turns his head and acknowledges me with a nod and a half smile. He turns back to the fence, raises his hand with the tool, and extracts another cry of defeat from the railing. 104