“You’re a real one for opening your mouth in the first place,” Itzie said. “What do you open your mouth all the time for?”

“I didn’t bring it up, Itz, I didn’t,” Ozzie said.

“What do you care about Jesus Christ for anyway?”

“I didn’t bring up Jesus Christ. He did. I didn’t even know what he was talking about. Jesus is historical, he kept saying. Jesus is historical.” Ozzie mimicked the monumental voice of Rabbi Binder.

“Jesus was a person that lived like you and me,” Ozzie continued. “That’s what Binder said—”

“Yea?... So what! What do I give two cents whether he lived or not. And what do you gotta open your mouth!” Itzie Lieberman favored closed-mouthedness, especially when it came to Ozzie Freedman’s questions. Mrs. Freedman had to see Rabbi Binder twice before about Ozzie’s questions and this Wednesday at four-thirty would be the third time. Itzie preferred to keep his mother in the kitchen; he settled for behind-the-back subtleties such as gestures, faces, snarls and other less delicate barnyard noises.

“He was a real person, Jesus, but he wasn’t like God, and we don’t believe he is God.” Slowly, Ozzie was explaining Rabbi Binder’s position to Itzie, who had been absent from Hebrew School the previous afternoon.

“The Catholics,” Itzie said helpfully, “they believe in Jesus Christ, that he’s God.” Itzie Lieberman used “the Catholics” in its broadest sense—to include the Protestants.

Ozzie received Itzie’s remark with a tiny head bob, as though it were a footnote, and went on. “His mother was Mary, and his father probably was Joseph,” Ozzie said. “But the New Testament says his real father was God.”

“His real father?”

“Yea,” Ozzie said, “that’s the big thing, his father’s supposed to be God.”

“Bull.”

“That’s what Rabbi Binder says, that it’s impossible—”

“Sure it’s impossible. That stuff’s all bull. To have a baby you gotta get laid,” Itzie theologized. “Mary hadda get laid.”

“That’s what Binder says: ‘The only way a woman can have a baby is to have intercourse with a man.’ ”

“He said that, Ozz?” For a moment it appeared that Itzie had put the theological question aside. “He said that, intercourse?” A little curled smile shaped itself in the lower half of Itzie’s face like a pink mustache. “What you guys do, Ozz, you laugh or something?”

“I raised my hand.”

“Yea? Whatja say?”

“That’s when I asked the question.”

Itzie’s face lit up like a firefly’s behind. “Whatja ask about—intercourse?”