Little Dov turned around; there was a man in the motorboat beached alongside his boat and propped on two stays; the man was hammering something.
“Are you trying to insult me?” Little Dov asked.
“God forbid!” the man said. “It’s enough that you feel insulted just because we fish in the same bay.”
“You don’t know how to fish,” Little Dov said. “You try, but what of it? If you didn’t have a motorboat, you’d never catch anything.”
“You too will have a motorboat one day,” the other said soothingly. “Come here and have a drink with me.”
“Okay,” Little Dov said. He jumped out of his boat and went over. Accepting the bottle and the mug the man handed to him, he poured himself a drink, tossed it down, then placed the bottle on the boat’s wooden rail. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I couldn’t sleep in the house,” the man said. “I don’t have air-conditioning yet and it’s suffocating inside. So I thought to myself, why not take a blanket and try sleeping in the boat? But I get bored when there’s nothing to do, so I started spiking these shoes.” He heaved into sight the one he was holding — a heavy army shoe with spikes in it. “This boat rocks terribly, Dov, whenever I take it away from shore. Maybe if I drive spikes into the soles I can stand better on my feet.”
“If you had a normal boat, it wouldn’t rock so hard,” Little Dov said, pouring himself another drink.
“You’re right. But then I wouldn’t be making as much as I do. Look at these shoes; nobody gave them to me. I had to earn the money and then go and buy them. And I had to pay twelve pounds for them here in Eilat, even though in Jerusalem or Haifa the same kind of shoes cost only seven or eight. I didn’t come to Eilat because I wanted to, Dov.”
“Lemme see the shoe,” Little Dov said.
He took the shoe and weighed it in his hands for a few seconds before giving it back. “It looks like a shark’s mouth,” he said. “The problem is that none of you guys came here of your own free will. The police sent you here, and I know why. Everyone knows why. You, Yehuda, were caught stealing. Your friend Moses was banished for smuggling and for killing two Arabs on a street in Jerusalem five years ago. Supposedly in self-defense. As for that bastard who’s your third partner, God only knows what he did, but he sure deserved a cooler place than Eilat.”
“God’s not the only one who knows,” Yehuda said. “He himself also knows why he got sent here; he butchered a certain bloke who got in the way of his business. He’s very strong, Dov. Problem is, he doesn’t know his own strength. I worry about him sometimes.”
Little Dov saw Esther come out of the water and start walking slowly in their direction across the stretch of white sand.
“I’ll be off now,” he said to the man. “Thanks for the drink.”
“Hey, Dov!” Yehuda said. “One more thing. Don’t play too much bouncy-bouncy with the little woman. Conserve your energy; you’ll need it tomorrow for rowing your boat.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Little Dov said. “I’ve got energy to spare!” Suddenly he spun around, grabbed the man by the neck, and dragged him out of the boat. He hit him twice in the face with his fist, and when the man fell to the ground, he kicked him in the head. “This has nothing to do with your fishing here or your motorboats,” he said. “You insulted my wife.”
Yehuda rose slowly to his feet. He touched his head with his hands and then looked at them: they were wet with blood. “Dov Ben Dov,” he said under his breath, “you don’t even know, boy, how much I pity you.”
“Your shoe,” Little Dov said, kicking with fury the shoe lying in the sand. “So you can stand on your feet, you fucking thief! Come, Esther!”
They got into the jeep and drove back to the dark highway leading to the airport.
“Just like your brother,” Esther said. “He can’t control himself either.” She moved closer to him. “I don’t want to lose you, Dov. Promise me you won’t fight with any of those men again.”
He didn’t answer her; he drove in silence, his hands clenched on the steering wheel, and it was then that she first noticed how strongly he and his brother resembled each other in everything they did; the way they talked, the way they moved u2026 But she was too tired to think it through; she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder and didn’t wake up even when he gathered her in his arms and carried her inside. After placing her on the bed, he turned around and gazed at his brother and Israel sleeping in one corner; he listened for a while to their heavy, tired breathing, then he undressed Esther and covered her with a sheet. But the hot body lying alongside his own prevented him from falling asleep; after three wakeful hours, when the night was nearing its close, he covered Esther’s mouth with his hand and took her quickly and in silence. Afterward he drew the sheet, wet and heavy with his sweat, over his own body.
“Esther, don’t be angry at me for doing it in his presence,” he said to her just before dozing off. “He’s my brother and I love him the same as you.”
LITTLE DOV WOKE AT SIX IN THE MORNING; HE GOT up quietly, without waking Esther, covered her with the sheet, and, shoes in hand, tiptoed to the front door to pick up the bottle of milk and bring it to the kitchen. He put the water on to boil for coffee and hunched over the stove, his shoes in one hand, the morning paper in the other, waiting for the kettle to start rumbling. The water was beginning to boil when his brother appeared.
“Sleep well?” Little Dov asked him.
“I took some sleeping pills I found,” Dov said. “For a man who rarely sleeps I slept like a log. Only my head is still woozy from the pills.”
“That’ll pass when you have some coffee,” Little Dov said. “Did you see a doctor?”
“What for? Is a doctor gonna slip into my bed at night and play with me, so I’ll fall asleep more easily?” He poured himself a cup of coffee and carried it over to the kitchen table. He looked out the window at the red, dusty earth and the bay reflecting the sun; its glare was so bright his eyes began to hurt. “Aren’t you late today?” he said. “What about all those stories you hear about fishermen getting up before dawn?”
“I overslept,” Little Dov said. “I didn’t set the alarm clock so it wouldn’t wake you.”
“It’s not the alarm clock but my jeep that’s to blame,” Dov said. “I won’t let you borrow it again. You need your rest. I know you, sweetie. You don’t like to waste the night on sleep.”
“I love her,” his brother said. “That’s why I married her.”
“Good,” Dov said. “I’ll drive you to your boat. Then I’ll go to the airport. What time does the first plane land?”
“Seven sharp. But there won’t be any tourists on it. They catch later planes. Or they take the bus from Be’er Sheva.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dov said. “I’ll talk to this guy who’s supposed to help me.”
“Can we leave right now, Dov?”
“Yes. Let me just find my sunglasses.”
He got up and went to their room. Israel was still sleeping; he stepped over him, picked up the canvas bag, set it on the table, and began to go through it. Finally, he found a pair of cheap sunglasses and placed them on his forehead. He walked over to the bed and shook Esther gently awake. She opened her eyes and covered herself with the sheet.
“Esther,” he said softly, “tell Israel I’ll be back around ten. Tell him I’ve gone to the airport to talk to that guy who’s supposed to help us.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “But why don’t you wake him up and tell him yourself?”
He moved his mouth closer to her ear. “I want him to sleep as long as he can. You fall asleep more easily than we do. You have a cleaner conscience.”