“No. I’ve got a headache.”
“Is it still so hot outdoors? I think I’ve sweated out all the salt I ever ate in my life.”
“It’s more bearable by the sea. I saw lots of people going toward the beach for an evening swim. Whole families with baby carriages.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s not ten yet.”
Dov sat up on his makeshift bed. In a glint of light coming through the window Israel saw the drops of sweat on his forehead. There was a grimace on his face, and he was breathing heavily.
“We’ll have to buy some salt pills tomorrow,” Dov said. “And take them after each meal. Salt is supposed to strengthen your bones. That’s what the doctors say. I’d believe them if I could find at least one who could help me. I don’t believe there’s one like that in the whole world. They all agree about one thing: sleeping pills are bad for you. Their like-mindedness is really praiseworthy. Haven’t we got any more sleeping pills?”
“No,” Israel said. “We ran out of them in Tel Aviv. You asked me that in Be’er Sheva already.”
“The worst thing is that if you don’t sleep for two or three nights, everybody thinks that on the fourth night you’re going to sleep like a log,” Dov said. “And sure enough, the fourth night you drop into a dead stupor. But what about the fifth night and the sixth? Among all those goddamned doctors, there wasn’t one who knew how to help me. They give you pills that work for the first two or three nights, and then they’re no good anymore. I have to lie there sweating and listen to others snore. Then I have to drink coffee throughout the day in order to stay on my feet, and at night again I can’t fall asleep. At night, when you think about something, things appear much sharper and more real than by day. My old Pop can sleep easily, because he knows he’s a God-fearing man and will go straight to heaven when he dies. But when I finally kick the bucket, I’ll have to answer for several things. Devils will feed me sleeping pills, but those probably won’t work either.”
“You can’t sleep because you don’t really want to,” Israel said. “Maybe you’re afraid to sleep.”
“I once fell asleep early and dreamed that I was among many people. Everyone was eating something and I was terribly hungry, so I went up to each of them in turn and asked for a bit of food, but they all refused to share with me what they had. I vividly remember approaching each and every person, but they only laughed at me. I knew that I’d die if I didn’t eat something soon and I told them that, but they just kept on laughing. That’s what I remember best: my terrible hunger and their laughter when I begged them for food. All the people I ever knew were there: my friends, my enemies, my brother, my mother, my father. And they all laughed at me.” He paused. “That was the worst dream I ever had, Israel. And I don’t know how many times more I’m going to have it. As long as I live, I guess.”
“So that’s why,” Israel said.
“What?”
“That’s why you can’t sleep. You’re afraid of having that dream. Don’t you ever dream of your wife?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“She’s with another man,” Dov said. “And I’m standing by their bed, looking at them, unable to turn away. And they laugh at me. Dina and that man. And I can’t leave. I don’t know why, but I can’t. Something’s forcing me to stand there and look at them, and listen to their laughter. I have to watch everything that man does with my Dina.”
“When did you first have that dream?”
“When she first left me,” Dov said. “Let’s go somewhere and have a beer. I know I won’t fall asleep.”
“We have no money,” Israel said. “We spent it all on gas and the dinner in Be’er Sheva.”
“How come we have no money?” Dov asked. “Didn’t you drive that tourist around all day, using up gas?”
“You didn’t understand me,” Israel said. “What I meant was, can we afford to waste money in bars? Think about it, Dov. One day we’ll have to settle our accounts with your fat friend and pay him for the jeep. I don’t think he’s going to drop dead before winter.”
“I can’t sleep,” Dov said helplessly, like a child telling his mother that he has a toothache. He lit a cigarette and Israel again saw his face: tired, mask-like, covered with sweat. “I know I won’t sleep. I’ll lie like this all night and listen to my brother having his way with Esther. Let’s go someplace and have a beer. There isn’t any left in the fridge. You deserve it. A man who has been bouncing around all day in that jeep under the scorching sun shouldn’t stint himself a bottle of beer.”
“Do you still think about her?” Israel asked quickly. “About Dina, your wife?”
“I already told you. Isn’t that goddamn dream enough?”
“Maybe you should talk more about it and get it out of your system,” Israel said. “Rich people go to doctors and tell them their dreams, and the doctors just sit there nodding their heads and then pocket their fee. Maybe it would help you.”
“Days aren’t so bad,” Dov said, “but at night I always think about her. At night the past begins to unfold itself in my mind. I’m the only man in Israel who has his own movie theater, but it’s one I can never leave. That’s how I spend my nights, watching replays of the past. And the more I think about everything, the more certain I am the breakup was my fault. But that’s not so bad. The worst thing is that I know that if she came back to me, I’d go on behaving exactly the same way as before. I don’t even have the strength to tell myself it would be different this time. Man learns all the time and from everything, but not from love. Don’t believe it if someone tells you he learned something from being in love. Maybe women can carry over the experience they amass from one affair into the next, but men don’t know how to. Men are fools who want to begin everything anew with every new woman. All men. Except for me.”
“You should go back to her, Dov.”
“What about the bastard she’s carrying?”
“You should keep that child. She’s your woman. Later she’ll have your kid, and the first one will stop bothering you.”
“I’d have to wait,” Dov said. “I’d have to wait until she gave birth to this one and then to mine. It would be a year before I’d see my kid. That year would be unbearable for both of us.”
“You should go back to her,” Israel said. “Sure, it’ll be hard. But you can stand a lot.”
“I can’t stand myself,” Dov said. “And she knows that. She had enough time to get to know me well.” He lay down again, resting his head on his hands. Israel couldn’t see his face; the only thing he saw was a bright little star in the corner of the window. “You know, I was unfaithful to her once,” Dov said. “When she went away for three days to visit her mother. I remember begging her not to go, but she had made up her mind and she was so obstinate it was like talking to a wall. And she left. In the evening when I returned home from work and opened the closet to take out a new sheet, I saw her dresses hanging there. I caught her smell and after that I just couldn’t fall asleep. Finally I got up, gathered up all those dresses and piled them on the bed next to me, but that didn’t help either. I lay there knowing I wouldn’t sleep. So I got up again, went out, and came back with some girl I picked up in the street. And I began screwing her on top of those dresses. Then I turned on the light and saw she didn’t look like my wife at all. Because, you know, somehow I had expected her to look like Dina when I turned on the light. You know, it’s like when there’s a kid, a little boy, who’s pretending to be a girl, and everybody laughs at him and tells him he’s a boy. I looked at that girl and I went mad; I started hitting her and she began to scream. People told Dina about it and that’s when she left me the first time.” He fell silent, and then said, “Turn on the light, Israel. We’ll have lots of darkness yet. Enough to smother us.”