Finding Yossi, X

   

          

             The boy was crying.   

             Zohar found it difficult to get the boy alone, but when he did, he asked about his parents in Israel.  The boy pouted for a moment, and when Zohar fed him the beginning of the story of Yossi Kushner.  The boy began to wail.

            “Please, please,” Zohar pleaded.  “Keep it down.”

            Through curtains of tears, Yossi elaborated on the tale of his abduction, of being ferreted away from his parent’s on the kibbutz and taken to Holland, to live with his grandparents.  Details of the story were wrong.  Zohar imagined the boy was confused.

            “What kibbutz?  Do you know the name?”

            The boy did not.  Zohar searched the case file in his head to collaborate the information in his mind with the story he had just been told.  He was translating from Yiddish to Hebrew and back again as he scrolled through reassembled documents for dates, places, names.  His mind grew muddled and dark.

            “Do you want to go back to your parents in Israel?”

            “Yes… yes…” the boy cried.

            “Do you want me to take you?”