"Are you going to tell them, Fima?"
Fima thought about it. All through the confession he had not stopped stroking the albino hair. As in a bad dream he felt that the dog and Dimi and he had become one. In the same psalm where it says, "Their mind is gross like fat," it also says, "My soul droops with sorrow." He declared earnestly:
"No, Dimi, I'm not going to tell."
The boy peered obliquely up at him. His rabbit's eyes through the thick lenses seemed agonized yet full of trust, as though he was trying to demonstrate what he had described earlier in the eyes of the dog. So this is what love is.
Fima shuddered as though outside, from the depths of the darkness, wind, and rain, his ears had caught an elusive echo of a howl.
He stroked the little Challenger's head and dragged him inside the chunky sweater. As though he were pregnant with him. After a moment Dimi freed himself and asked:
"But why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you agree not to tell them?"
"Because it wouldn't help Winston, and you've already suffered enough."
"You're okay, Fima."
And then:
"Even though you're a rather funny man. Sometimes they call you a clown behind your back. And you really are a little like a down."
"Now, Dimi, you're going to have a glass of milk. And tell me where I can find that Valium your mother said you're to take."
"I'm a little like a clown too. But I'm not okay. I should have said no. I shouldn't have let myself be carried away by them."
"But they made you do it."
"Still, it was murder."
"You can't tell," Fima ventured. "Maybe he was only wounded."
"He lost a lot of blood. A whole sea of blood."
"Sometimes you can bleed a lot even from a scratch. Once, when I was little, I was balancing on a wall and fell off, and I bled a huge amount from a tiny little gash on my head. Granpa Baruch nearly fainted."
"I hate them."
"They're just children, Dimi. Children sometimes do very cruel things, simply because they don't have enough imagination to know what pain is."
Dimi said:
"Not the children. Them. If they could have chosen, they wouldn't have had me. And I wouldn't have chosen them either. It's not fair: you can choose who you marry but you can't choose who your parents are. And you can't divorce them cither. Fima?"
"Yes."
"Shall we take a flashlight and some bandages and iodine and go and look for him down in the wadi?"
"In this darkness and rain there isn't a hope of finding him."
"True," said Dimi. "You're right. We haven't got a hope. But let's go and search anyhow. So at least we'll know we tried and failed." As he said this, he looked to Fima like a pocket-sized edition of his self-possessed, rational father. Even his intonation was a reflection of Ted's: the quiet voice of a well-balanced, solitary man. Dimi wiped his glasses as he added: "Tslil's family are also to blame. Why did they go abroad and leave their dog behind when he was sick? They could have taken him. They could have made some arrangements for him at least. Why did they throw him out on the trash heap like that? The Cherokees have a law that you mustn't throw anything away. Even a broken pot they keep in the wigwam. Anything you've ever used you mustn't get rid of. It might still need you. They even have a sort of ten commandments, or less than ten, and die first one is, Thou shalt not throw out. I have a chest in the storeroom full of toys from when I was so high. They're always shouting at me to throw them out, who needs them, they just take up space, they're just gathering dust, but I don't agree. Throwing away is like killing,' said Snow Daughter to Whispering Wind Lake, tightening her delicate fingers round the wolfstone."
"What's that?"
"It's a story about a Cherokee girl. Whispering Wind Lake was the chief of the banished tribe."
"Tell me."
"I can't. I can't think about anything else. That dog keeps howling at me, those brown eyes so obedient, so tame, so happy to be the center of attention, and wagging his tail, and giving a warm lick to anyone who bent over him. Even when Ronen was tying his legs together, he gave Ronen a lick. And his ear came off and fell on the ground like a slice of bread. I keep hearing him crying all the time in my head, and maybe he really is still alive, dying in a puddle among the rocks in the wadi, crying and waiting for the vet. In the night God will come and kill me for it. The best thing for me is not to go to sleep at all. Or he'll kill me because I hate them and it's forbidden to hate your parents. Who told them to have me? I didn't ask for any favors. There's nothing to do around here anyway. Whatever you do turns out badly. It's all just trouble and shouting. Whatever I do, just trouble and shouting. You were married to my mother once and then you didn't want her. Or she didn't want you. Trouble and shouting. Dad says it happened because you're a little like a clown. He said it to me in English. They don't have much use for me either. What they need is to always have peace and quiet in the flat and everything to be tidy and in die right place and not to slam the door. Every time a door slams, she yells at me and Dad. Every time some pen isn't where it's supposed to be, he yells at me and Mom. Every time the top of the toothpaste isn't screwed on properly, they both yell at me. No, they don't yell; they just point out. Like this: It would be preferable if, in future… Or he says to her in English, Do something so that child doesn't get under my feet. And she says, It's your child, sir. When you were little, Fima, didn't you ever wish deep down that your parents would die? Didn't you want to be an orphan and free like Huckleberry Finn? Weren't you a little clown?"