Free Davita's Harp by Chaim Potok

quickly out of the porch and along the dunes and the beach.
    He must have seen me crossing the dunes. He straightened and turned and stood stiffly, watching me hurrying toward him.
    “That’s my castle,” I said. “Don’t touch it.”
    He turned his head slightly so that he was looking past me at the sea. He was about my height. He wore a fisherman’s cap and a short-sleeved white shirt and dark trousers rolled up to a little below his knees. His face had a stiff, pinched look. He was barefooted.
    “I wasn’t going to touch it,” he said. His voice was thin and quavery.
    “I don’t like anyone to touch it.”
    “But the water goes over it at night.”
    “No, it doesn’t. It only reaches the bottom part.”
    “Doesn’t that get broken?’
    “So I build it again. I still don’t like anyone to touch it.”
    “You built this by yourself?” he asked. All the time he talked he did not look at me directly but gazed past me at the sea. “Where do you get ideas for such a thing?”
    “From books and magazines. From my—imagination.”
    “Such things really exist?”
    “Sure they exist. In Spain. It’s a castle.”
    “Is Spain a country?”
    “Spain is a big country in Europe. Don’t you know about Spain? Don’t you see the newspapers?”
    He looked faintly uncomfortable. “The castle looks like pictures I’ve seen of places in Yerusholayim. You’ve never heard of Yerusholayim? It’s a very holy city. Jerusalem. The city of King David.”
    I thought I had heard of Jerusalem.
    “You’re my neighbor,” he said. “I see you on your porch. Do you come here every summer? I don’t like it here. There’s nothing to do.”
    “You can go to Coney Island and the boardwalk. You can swim.”
    “I don’t know how to swim. I don’t like to swim.”
    “Why did you come to a beach if you don’t like to swim?”
    “Everyone said I needed a rest. I needed—air. I needed to get away. Everyone said that.”
    “Do you live in New York?”
    “I live in Brooklyn.”
    “We just moved to Brooklyn. Just before we came here.”
    “My name is David,” he said, still looking past me to the sea. “David Dinn.”
    “My name is—Ilana.”
    “Ilana,” he said, then repeated it. “Ilana. That’s a Jewish name.”
    “It was my grandmother’s name.”
    “Are you Jewish?” he asked, turning to look directly at me.
    “Yes.”
    He seemed surprised. “I didn’t think you were Jewish.” “Well, I am. Is the baby a boy or a girl?” “The baby? Oh. A boy.”
    “I had a baby brother once. But he died. He got sick and he died.”
    “He’s not my brother. He’s my cousin. I’m here with my aunt and uncle. My father is too busy with his work to come to the beach. My mother is—my mother is dead.” His voice broke and his eyes brimmed with tears. “My mother was a great person and now everyone says she’s with the Ribbono Shel Olom, she’s with God.”
    “What does your father do?” I asked. “He’s a lawyer. He works in a big office in Manhattan.” “My father works in Manhattan. He writes for newspapers and magazines.”
    “Where do your parents come from?”
    “My mother is from Europe. My father is from Maine.”
    “Maine?”
    “The state of Maine. It’s a state north of—”
    “Your father was born in Maine? Where were his parents born?”
    “In Maine, too, I think.”
    “Your father is Jewish?”
    “No. My mother is Jewish.”
    He stared at me.
    There was a brief, tense silence.
    “I have to go back,” he said finally.
    “All right,” I said.
    He turned and went up along the beach and across the dunes to his house.
    During lunch I asked my mother if she had said Kaddish when her mother had died. “Yes.”
    “And your father?”
    She hesitated. “Yes.”
    “Did you say it when my brother died?”
    “No. I didn’t believe in it anymore.”
    We swam together a long time in the afternoon, and then I worked on my castle. I did not see David Dinn. Just before supper Jakob Daw