P8

P8

But he carried within his mind the memory of his daughter's face and she hadn't changed nearly as much in the twenty-one years of chronological time that he did. Tentatively, he asked, "Judith? Are you Judith?"

His daughter's face crinkled up in a way that Benjamin could not mistake, and this time there were tears, perhaps the first tears she had shed over all that time. Judith sobbed, "Father, I'm so sorry!"

Benjamin pulled his daughter indoors. They embraced for a long time, and Judith wept as she had never done so in her life. She realized that her father had done nothing,  nothing, to deserve the silence she had inflicted on him all those years. Judith had rationalized to herself that she  was punishing her  father for refusing to emigrate to  Palestine, but  that was  nothing more than a huge lie she had made herself believe all that time, and Judith marvelled at her own capacity for self-deception.

When Benjamin and Judith separated from their long embrace, the strange woman held out her  hand to  Judith. "I am Laura," she introduced her self. "I am your father's wife."

"Life goes on," Benjamin offered, as though in explanation.

Judith was mildly shocked by the news. "Father. We have so much catching up to do, it seems."

"Then let us do  so, beloved  daughter, over  a cuppa." So the three shared afternoon  tea in  the  large common  room of  the lighthouse. It was the  place  that once  held  a Teletype,  a machine that gave the family their orders directing the Clarinet antenna for a strategic bombing run by the Royal Air Force.

Benjamin told Judith he was old enough to retire, but operating the lighthouse was not so physically demanding. He said he still enjoyed making his  meteorological observations  and publishing articles from his  field in  various professional  journals. At certain hours during the day he and Laura  would guide tourists about the lighthouse  grounds and  even take  them to  the top, something Benjamin  forced  himself  to do  despite  a  bit  of arthritis in his knees.

Judith, for her part,  was necessarily  vague on  answering her father's questions about how she  managed to travel  to Israel, since she  herself  didn't  know the  mechanics  of  that. But everything else she related, in reverse order, starting from the recent Six Day War back to the birth of her adopted nation.