Being begotten by the begetted begetist whose begattable begettance begatted Big Beggeters and their Big Beggeterers begotally, whose begettability was begotted by other begotterers begatally, and yet other begatterers besides, whose begottance, begettance, or begattance begetally begot he who begat he who beget the begotting of the begotist so burdened with the begatting of the begatist beburdened again with the begetting of this Benjamin, the Ur or First Benjamin, a son of his father’s old age, the oldest known ancestor of the namedafter latterday Benjamin whose first wife’s, the first wife of Benjamin the First otherwise known as Benjamin I, name was Barba, who was out back in the shade of the far mountains gathering fruit from the familytree when this Benjamin he entered his dwelling after a day long and hard herding the flock and there on the floor, which was dirt and, as they commenced with the congress of knowing each other, mud, knew Batya, who was the handmaiden and daughter of this Barba and Benjamin, too, knowing her now for only the first time and in doing so actually making her his second wife: him entering her, him wounding her, then sickening her, having her now vomit out of her mouth the flowing lacey finery of a wedding gown, also her shroud; and verily Batya before she died, or as she died, bore Benjamin Adam, her brother, as well, who he was harnessed to the land as was his father, Benjamin, who had handed over to this Adam his firstborn son as Barba was barren the flock and his land and the sun and moon, the stars and the sands and the mountains, too, and this Adam begat Seth, and this Seth beget Enosh, and this Enosh begot Kenan who lived seventy years before bearing Mahalalel, who lived for eighthundred and ninetyfive years and bore Jared, who beared Enoch who walked with God for only threehundred years, as it’s said, before he was no more, leaving behind Methusaleh whose span was to be threefold that of his father’s, and Lamech and landed Noah, who, once arrived, only to depart again in a wander through ten more deluded, deluging generations, through Shem fathered Arpachshad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, then Avram, who as Avraham fathered a people whose first recorded ancestor, generations later, to be born out onto the landmass known to them as Europa was named Matthew, who was harnessed to the soil as was his father, Yeshu, who had handed over to this Matthew his firstborn son the management of the land of one Count Chmielnicki, say, and verily Matthew begot Mark, and Mark beget Luke, and Luke begat through a Hava who was then the most beautiful woman in the world that was their small village or town of only ten houses around a dirt and mud courtyard and its barren tree (this the fruit of a marriage for which, incredibly, neither were put to death) a John who he verily fell like an apple from favor in the eyes of the Count, though the current Count was almost blind, though the Countess then current, with whom his father Luke had also slept, oversaw all business matters, and though John held a note of credit, nothing helped, he was soon illiterate, without harvest one cold season and bankrupt, in debt to all and so sold himself over to the Other Side, here where he met a woman named Judith whose father had owned and operated the SRO establishment in which John lodged, Judith née Eisenstein who, Judy, bore him Peter who he went on to establish, own and operate an enormously successful lace factory, which would go under as lace began to be made by machine in the early years of the next century dawning, then married Ruth née Stern her name was who would love less him than his money, who bore him before leaving him after yet another bankruptcy Paul, who was raised by his father and who survived him and was himself deep in debt and so went and married another unattractive, wholly repellent though ostensibly moneyed Affiliated woman whose name has been withheld to save her the embarrassment and, too, to assure for at least this Chronicler a shaded place in the World to Come (suffice to say, she was a Lerner, of one of the foremost litigious families known to greater New York), who bore him a doctoring son he insisted on naming Jeb, who grew up then went and wed a Deborah née Jacobson and begat with her Hanna, who she was raised by this Deborah her mother and, after Jeb was hit by a bus in the Park on his way to visit his mistress so way up on the Upper East Side as to be Spanish Harlem, a mensch named Gary Hyman, some hold, though others hold Hymen, whom she, Hanna, anyway called Dad, Aba, a Hymen of the Upper West Side Hymans and not of the Downtown Hymans or Hymens, the ones, the Upper West Side ones, with all of those laser surgery franchises and that son of theirs, Gary’s brother Seymour Hymen or Hyman, a graduate of whatever school, with whatever degree MBA, anyway, very impressive, do you know them, and if you do will you say Shalom for me — though she, Hanna, was, in the matter of her paternity, until at least the night before her batmitzvah, none the wiser, not to be confused with Weiser, which was a surname of second cousins (her mother’s), Hanna whose last name she returned to being Senior after her true father, Jeb, assumed only after the breaking of the news, her subsequently tearful batmitzvah, then the exiling of Gary who’d explained it all to her out to Venice, the one they have now in California, and a new stepfather soon obtained, name of Arnold, Arnie a seller of electronic and personal computing components on commission to friends whom she and her mother loved dearly; Hanna who knew no one, Hanna didn’t know anything, until she knew one Israel Israelien, who’d become converted as much through his love of her as through his love of her people and the incredible tax breaks that came with it all, Israel who was three years her senior as she was three years his junior Senior as they’d tell their Fridaytime guests and then laugh, and so it came to pass that Hanna bore Israel over the period of eighteen years daughters, twelve of them, too many of them if not to love then to at least know by face or by name, and to any degree of difference, or intimacy: and verily they were Rubina and Simone and Liv and Judith and Dina and Natalia and Gillian and Asa and Isabella and Zeba and Josephine and Batya again known as Bat, following whose birth Hanna finally bore Israel their thirteenth, a son, this lastborn of theirs and their only male to be named Benjamin Israelien, known to us as Ben and less often as B, born to them upon the Sabbath at fullsize, at full intelligence, too, whatever there is, who’s born mature already, with glasses and hairy, another beard in the immediate family.
