Like Friday with Robinson Crusoe
Black Box“Like Friday with Robinson Crusoe” is a repeated expression for the uneasy closeness between Boaz Brandstetter and Alexander A. Gideon: Boaz tends to Alexander with careful, almost wordless devotion, yet their connection also acquires the unexpected form of a lesson. The comparison holds service and distance together rather than resolving one into the other.
The Expression and Its First Use
The phrase first follows a catalogue of Boaz’s care for Alexander. He fits shutters and replaces a broken pane, lays a lambskin rug in the toilet, buys medicines at the pharmacy in Zikhron, and brings fresh mint each day to dispel the smells of illness. The work is attentive and specific; the relationship, however, remains strained by silence. Boaz stubbornly limits conversation to greetings, and the narrator describes his manner as tense and submissive. The allusion to Friday casts him as a devoted attendant, while the details show that his service is practical, sustained care rather than a single gesture.
A Refrain Across Changing Roles
The expression returns in a different setting: during Alexander’s lucid afternoons, Boaz sometimes comes upstairs and Alexander teaches him spelling and basic syntax. The scene shifts the emphasis from care given to care received—or, more precisely, from one kind of attention to another. Boaz has been maintaining Alexander’s surroundings and attending to his bodily needs; now Alexander offers instruction. Yet the repeated phrase preserves the earlier imbalance of silence and service even as the two share a new activity.
Narrative Significance
The recurrence makes the expression a compact frame for a relationship that neither speech nor a simple exchange of favors can explain. In the first scene, Boaz’s silence accompanies daily tasks; in the second, he enters Alexander’s room to learn from him. The comparison therefore links bodily care with teaching, while leaving their emotional distance visible. Its force lies in that contrast: Boaz’s presence is constant, but conversation remains spare, and the lesson does not erase the silence that defines their companionship.
