Journal of a UFO Investigator

You needn’t have worried, either, about your letter reaching me. Whatever you write, whatever you say, whatever you think will always find its way to me if you want it to. And you needn’t concern yourself with whether I’m real, as your allusion to Santa Claus would perhaps suggest. I am entirely real. So is Rochelle. You’ve always known that.

Still a sergeant in the Israel Defense Force, unscathed by this awful war, which I’m delighted we won but bitterly sorry it happened at all. It shouldn’t have happened. That night by the Makhtesh when you and I drank beer together and talked about plucking the cancerous thread from the fabric of time, I would have sworn nothing like this would ever happen again. But the Makhtesh is empty now. Not only is the disk gone—you know better than anybody, you were the one who flew it—but the tower it rested on has vanished. In a red mist, just as it came. The Makhtesh is nothing anymore but a crater in the desert.

Your friend Sandra Gilbert is right. They’re all wrong, all terrible. They don’t accomplish anything except that if you’re lucky, you’re still alive when they’re over, which is a real, if transitory, achievement. I was at the Wall with the paratroopers the day we took the Old City, and I saw all the praying and the crying. I did some of it myself, though I’ve never been what you call a religious man. But of course, as you say, you won’t find me in any of the photos. I’m not the sort of fellow who tends to appear on film.

And yes, Rochelle and I are together once more. (Though I think I will discreetly dodge your question about our sleeping arrangements.) We didn’t meet on that splendid day you wrote about, of Jews and Arabs dancing together in the streets of Jerusalem. I wasn’t even in Jerusalem that day. I’d been assigned to guard duty in Nablus, one of the Jordanian towns we’ve conquered and now are going to have to occupy, for longer than any of us cares to think. Nobody’s dancing in the streets there.

How Rochelle and I found each other—well, I’ll get to that in a minute. First I need to tell you this. My hat is off to you, that you didn’t let your father and his gabby fiancée send you back here this summer. When you came last year, you were on a mission, something only you could have accomplished. This summer you’d be one more tourist among the crowds of tourists, and I’d be delighted to see you, but we wouldn’t have one damned thing in common except UFOs, which you’ve stopped believing in even though you don’t know it yet and probably won’t for a long time.

Do me a favor. When you head off to college, don’t forget to take Sandra’s address. Write to her. Sooner than you write Rochelle, sooner than you write me. Yes, I know, she’s got a boyfriend, a college man. But you’ll be a college man yourself in a couple of days. And boyfriends are not always forever.

One morning, just about four weeks ago, the phone in our barracks rang, and it was for me. I think it must have been the exact same time you had your dream about the three men. Remember, the sun rises earlier here than where you are. It’s morning in Israel, while back in the States you’re still in dreamland.

It was Dr. Zeitlin from Hadassah, the one who treated your baby. Who found for her the healing none of the others could. He said: “Go across the old border that isn’t there anymore, borukh Hashem, thank God. Find Dr. Saeed Talibi.” And he gave me the address of Talibi’s office.

Probably you can guess the rest of the story. Who should I find in the good doctor’s office with him when I get to Salah ed-Din Street in East Jerusalem? You already know. You already can guess—part of it.

This is what gives me hope. An impossible hope, a hope that shouldn’t be there. I think, if I hadn’t seen that little girl with my own eyes—

A toddler, I would have called her. Except she could barely toddle. Hardly had the strength to walk; couldn’t do it at all without Rochelle’s helping, holding her hand. She breathed hard every step she took. But just her walking was a miracle.

She shouldn’t have grown so much since you flew with her in the disk. She wouldn’t if she were a human child. But their physiology is different; Talibi kept insisting on that.

Her eyes are still enormous. Rochelle has to put huge sunglasses on her whenever they go outside, so she won’t attract attention. Talibi seems to think they’ll shrink as she grows, in proportion to her face, so eventually she may be able to pass among human beings.

Who she meant by Mama, I don’t know. I don’t think it was Rochelle; she knows Rochelle’s not really her mama. I shook her hand, very gently. I said to her, in Hebrew, “Koreem lee Yehoshua,” I’m called Yehoshua.

I couldn’t believe it. I had to plop myself down into one of the office chairs, I was so flabbergasted. Talibi’s belly shook from laughing, he must have thought I looked so funny.

French also, Rochelle tells me. Those are all the languages we have among us, so we don’t know how many she knows. All that are spoken on this earth, I suspect. And even beyond.

She said to tell you she loves you. She doesn’t blame you for what happened; she knows it wasn’t your fault. She said, when you thirst, she will always dip her finger in water and cool your tongue. I don’t know what she meant, but that’s what she said. Even if there’s a gulf between you and her the size of the galaxy, she said, she’ll find a way to bring a cup to your lips—