— How can you… that’s insane…
— Cut off your breasts…?!
— Whatever you say…
— I promise.
— It’s too strong for me but I’ll get over it.. I’m in love… Give me time…
— You can take who…?
— That’s fine with me.
— Whatever you say.
— All right.
— Not now.
— Not now.
— So do I.
— Never. Don’t you dare.
— All right. Later.
— Then I’ll never come home again.
— No. Right away. In ten minutes. I had one foot out the door when you called.
— Don’t call again. Promise me.
— I’m hanging up.
— I’m hanging up.
— I’m hanging up.
— I’m hanging up.
— No. He’s asleep. There’s only his father.
— I swear by the girls.
— You’ll pay for this.
— Enough. I’ve hung up…
— It was for me, Tsvi.
— Yes. It was her. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have stayed so long. But everything will be all right. If she calls again, tell her that I’m gone. Don’t talk to her. Goodbye, Mr. Kaminka. I don’t know if we’ll meet again.
— Yes. Perhaps at the airport. You’re flying back Monday night?
— Perhaps. That’s a good idea. For sure.
— I’ll wait for you there at five.
— I’ll live. I’ll wait for you at five. Don’t worry about me. And in the meantime, good luck. Enough, I’d better get going. I’m so sorry. I didn’t even mean to drop in. I just happened to pass by, I knocked like a bird, and you went and heard me…
FRIDAY, FOUR TO FIVE P.M
We did not sober up, casting off our blindness, until my father was served up in a dish. He lay in it, large and distended from cooking, in a pale grayish aspic, while we sat there as silent as fish.
“I wonder if I should confess that today I actually felt a twinge of impatience to see you. I wasn’t late this time either, did you notice?”
“Of course.”
“Of course… of course… I needn’t have asked. Here I am, I suppose you must be thinking, caught more and more in your net, corked in your test tube, pigeonholed in your file cabinet… and yet, if I may comment in a brief parenthesis, your optimism is premature. How long is it now that I’ve been coming to you? Two or three months… and each time I’ve said to myself, well, this is the last: it’s time to end the game, pay the bill and say goodbye. And apropos the bill, by the way, I haven’t asked you yet what you charge for the right to blabber away here… and for the honor, of course…”
“One thousand five hundred.”
“Not bad… not bad at all… but not unreasonable either. Really not so steep. Some of your colleagues are far more avaricious. I’ll pay the bill, then, and we’ll part amicably. Oh, I’ll pay it, don’t worry about that. That is, I think I will… yes, I believe I may… after all, why shouldn’t I? You deserve it… if only for having controlled yourself and never made me get to the point. But do you really think I can be trusted to pay you?”
“I think you can be.”
“Good for you. Blessed are the faithful. No, don’t be alarmed. You needn’t think that I take your confidence in me as an undiluted compliment. But I will pay you. And after that, we’ll see…. The main thing is to have done this too. To have been through it. Because two people can’t conduct a civilized conversation nowadays without sooner or later broaching the subject of I and My Shrink, or My Shrink and I. With a mysterious smile and a gleam in one’s eye one trades experiences, technical details, fees, descriptions of offices… But broaching it only, mind you. It’s no disgrace to admit it anymore, but there’s still a limit to what can be revealed. And so now I’ll be able to join the fun too with my own little adventure. I too was there. And what I found was part shopworn clichés, part sophisticated jargon and part slightly original rephrasing of old, familiar problems. A fifty-minute beauty treatment for one’s dried-out ego… but harmless. And incapable of causing any harm. With your kind permission, then, I’ll withdraw my previous objections.”
“Then you did have objections?”
“Up to a point. And please rest assured that I’m perfectly aware of what they meant. My friends couldn’t wait to tear into me and explain that any resistance in these matters simply reflects on the resister. I’ve run into that kind of sophistry before… the automatic incorporation of all opposition to a system into the system itself. Oh, it’s very clever… but as I was saying, I’m officially willing to withdraw my objections as a gesture of social good will. I’ve paid good money for the privilege of finding out that the system can’t do any harm… at least not at the hands of the charming young gentleman who has taken me on this brief tour of it… and has been kind enough to listen patiently to a stranger like me without betraying the least sign of boredom… except, of course, for glancing at his watch once or twice during each session. Yes, and who has been so careful not to be provoked by me… is that a smile I detect?”
“Is that another provocation?”
“Perhaps. As you like. But I see that it’s simply water off a duck’s back. You’re an expert at the time-honored technique of returning all questions to the asker for further embellishment. A man who won’t commit himself. Who takes care never to involve himself. (Perhaps, I might add in a small parenthesis, because there isn’t much to involve, eh?) But still… a fair and by no means unintelligent person whom I’ve done my best to entertain. Normality incarnate has listened to me sympathetically, and since it’s offered me a cozy easy chair, a quiet, civilized room and a suitable time… well, then…”
“Suitable? How so?”
“I mean the time of day that you agreed to see me at, Friday afternoon from four to five. Is there a pleasanter one? Tel Aviv has quieted down, the banks are shut, the buses have nearly stopped running, the crowds are gone, there are less women in the streets too… many less. The stores are closed also, though not all of them. Here and there you still can find some old irreligious grocer to sell you a squashed hallah and a liter of milk, or some boutique that goes merrily on selling its flimsy, latest-fashion sport shirts. It’s a time for the nut and flower vendors, their stalls surrounded by the heavy weekend papers piled high on the sidewalks… a lovely in-between time in which the old week is slowly being packed away. What we haven’t managed to do in it will never get done in it now, and the possibilities of the new week don’t seem very pressing yet. Even the stock exchange goes into the deep freeze for forty-five long, intractable hours… and yet it’s still a weekday… a sacred one, though. The sad, stupid Sabbath with its hymns and sermons and long looks hasn’t arrived yet with that oppressive sense that you’re somehow losing out if you don’t do something in a hurry. It’s a time when, rain or shine, I like to cruise the streets of the north side, not far from the sea… to run into the slow singles walking more erectly now because the world suddenly weighs on them less… into the lost souls of all sexes whom life has excused from the compulsory family meal… a most pleasant time to come to see you, and above all, to leave your office at. It came as a great surprise that you agreed to take me at it… in no small measure that’s why I chose you… I’m just curious to know whether I’m the week’s last case or whether you go on working like a beaver right into the Sabbath…”
“Would you like to be the last case?”
“Love to. I’m dying to be the last. I’ve thought several times of hiding behind the stairway to see if anyone came after me, but I didn’t want to involve you in a scandal with the neighbors. Yes, I’d be thrilled to know I was the last… to be able to think that as soon as I walked out of here the door opened and in came your wife sighing, ‘The weekend at last! Is that curly, handsome queer of yours gone? Come, there’s cauliflower for supper!’ ’’