Moonstruck sunflowers. (short story) (The Keys to the Garden: Israeli Writing in the Middle East)

For years Mula Youssuf had harbored a desire to see the sea, ever since the time Haim Dalal had used incantations to bring rain to Rafsanjan. Those had been years of relentless drought. After three barren winters the wells and aqueducts--which flooded the fields and even the city, when all was right--were nearly dry. With the onset of summer the sun had shortened the distance between itself and the drought-stricken, had scorched the carcasses of beasts in the fields, had seared the parched trees. When it had dried even the tears in the eyes of the citizens, when a burning dust had…