"Try to understand, Effy. I know the way you've always thought of me. Yacl Levin, the little girl from Yavne'el. A bit foolish, even if she is rather sweet. Nice, but limited. Yet our experts, as well as the Americans, believe that my project may develop into something. I matter to them. That's why I've decided to go. I don't matter to you, even if you are in love with me. Or in love with being in love with me. Or so absorbed in your own things that you can't spare the time or effort to stop loving me.
"If you like, you can come over. I'll send you a ticket. Or your father can pay. And if you don't like, we'll see what time will tell. I deliberately haven't mentioned my deepest pain. The thing that you think can be put right in a moment. I'm not saying anything about that, nor are you. Maybe it's just as well we'll be apart. Sometime I think that only a real blow, a disaster, could bring you back out of your fog: your newspapers, your arguments, your news bulletins. Once you were deep, now you seem to be living superficially most of the time. Don't be offended, Effy. And don't start looking for ways of contradicting everything I've written, of producing counterclaims, of dismantling it brick by brick, of defeating me. I'm not your enemy. Defeating me won't help you. Maybe my trip to America will be the shock that will bring you back to yourself. Okay, that's a cliché. I knew you'd say that. Once I've gone, you'll be free to fall in love. Or you can go on being in love with me without having to put up with my laundry drying in front of the radiator in the bedroom in the winter. And something else: Try to concentrate. Try not to babble on all day long, fussing and correcting everyone and everything. Don't become just a sore throat. Anyway, there's nobody out there listening. Maybe you should go and look for Liat or Ilia? Go back to Greece? Sometimes when I happen to stay at work for a couple of days, working alone all night, grabbing a snack to save time, suddenly I have…"
Fima refolded the truncated letter and replaced it in its envelope, then put the envelope back in the folder from die Ministry of the Interior, Department of Local Government. He replaced the folder in the bottom drawer. It was after half past three. A cock was crowing far away, a dog was barking persistently in the dark, and the blind man was still tapping with his stick in the empty street. After a moment he thought he heard the muezzin calling in the village of Beit Safafa. He got back into bed, switched out the light, and started composing in his mind the missing ending. After a moment he fell asleep. He had had a long day.
19. IN THE MONASTERY
IN HIS DREAM URI APPEARED IN THE MIDDLE OF A SNOWSTORM TO summon him to take his leave of Annette, who was dying of a complication of childbirth in a British naval hospital. They made their way on a sledge through a white forest until they reached a building that vaguely resembled the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem. Wounded and dying people with crushed limbs blocked their way, rolling on the floor in the corridors, groaning, bleeding. Uri said, They're only Cossacks; you can step on them. Eventually behind the monastery they discovered a pleasant little garden containing a Greek tavern with a vine-shaded terrace and tables set for a meal. Among the tables stood a sort of litter. When Fima parted the velvet curtains, he saw his wife making love tearfully but eagerly with a dark, shriveled man who was lying underneath her uttering feeble moans. Suddenly, in a flash of horror, it dawned on him that she was copulating with a corpse. The corpse was the Arab youth from the news bulletin, the one we murdered in Gaza with a bullet through the head.
20. FIMA IS LOST IN THE FOREST
AFTER WRITING IN HIS NOTEBOOK HE DOZED TILL SEVEN O'CLOCK. Rumpled, disheveled, hating his body's night smell, he forced himself to get up. He skipped the exercises in front of the mirror. He shaved without cutting himself. He drank two cups of coffee. The very thought of bread and jam or yogurt gave him heartburn. He vaguely remembered that he had to deal this morning with some matter that could not be put off, but for the life of him he could not remember what it was, or why it was so urgent. So he decided to go downstairs to his mailbox to fetch the letter he had seen in it last night, and also to bring up the newspaper, but not to spend more than a quarter of an hour on it. Then he would sit down at once to work uncompromisingly on the article he had not managed to finish in the night.
When he turned on the radio, he found that most of the news was over. Some bright spots were expected during the day. Along the coastal plain there was a possibility of scattered showers, whereas in the northern valleys there was still a serious risk of frost. Drivers were warned of the danger of skidding on wet roads and were asked to reduce their speed and avoid braking abruptly or turning too sharply.
What's the matter with them, Fima grumbled. Why can't they leave me alone? What do they take me for? A driver? A farmer from the northern valleys? A swimmer on the coastal plain? Why arc we asked and warned, when somebody ought to assume the responsibility and say, I ask, I warn. It's sheer madness: everything is falling span in this country, and they arc worried about a frost. In fact, applying the brakes abruptly plus a very sharp turn might just save us from disaster. But even that is doubtful.
Fima turned off the radio and called Annette Tadmor: he owed her an apology for his behavior. At the very least he should show some interest in her welfare. For all he knew, her husband might have had enough of his Italian operetta and returned sheepishly in the middle of the night, lugging a couple of suitcases, falling to the ground and kissing her feet. Was it possible that she had confessed to him what had happened? Was the husband liable to show up here with a loaded pistol? Out of habit or morning vagueness, Fima dialed Tsvi Kropotkin's number by mistake. Tsvi chuckled and said that although he was actually in the middle of shaving he had already asked himself what had become of Fima this morning: had he forgotten us? Tsvi's sarcasm eluded Fima.
"What do you mean, Tsvika? Of course I haven't forgotten you. I never would. I just thought for a change I shouldn't call you too early. You see, little by little I'm improving. There may be some hope for me yet."
Tsvi promised to call back in five minutes, as soon as he had finished shaving.
After half an hour Fima swallowed his pride and called Tsvi again:
"Well? So who's forgotten whom? Can you spare me a couple of minutes?" And without waiting for an answer he said that he needed some advice about an article he'd started writing in the night, and now this morning he wasn't certain he still agreed with himself. The question was this. Two days ago in Ha'arets there was a report of a speech by Günter Grass to a student audience in Berlin. It was a courageous, decent speech. Grass had denounced the Nazi period and gone on to denounce all trendy parallels between the atrocities of our own day and Rider's crimes, including the often-heard comparison with Israel and South Africa. So far so good.