Rivka's cowed, housebound mother finally sets out to haul her wayward daughter home. On the bus into the desert, she eats an apple with a rotten core. A blessing given can also be withheld. Sure enough, Rivka's wicked boyfriend turns out to be a gentle charmer, a grandson of Holocaust victims, who nurtures apples in the desert by trapping the cold night air in little plastic tents. Horticultural details ground the metaphor and give it point.
Biblical allusions add resonance.
Rivka's break liberates her mother, who recognizes that her own marriage has been a loveless sham. Lucidity brings dignity, if not happiness. In ''The Homesick Scientist,'' much has been taken from an old man who has spent his life in a desert village. The gentle, inconclusive weighing of expectations, disappointments, time and memory, is utterly convincing. Most of Liebrecht's characters share a tragic view.