And where was the snow of last night?
It was as if it had never been.
It had gone without a trace.
The barren hills to the south of Jerusalem stood purged, flooded in blue radiance, so that it was almost possible to make out silvery flashes on the underside of the leaves of distant olive trees along the ridge of Beit Jalla. It was a cold, sharp light, crystal clear, sent to us perhaps as an advance against the distant days when suffering would end, when Jerusalem would be freed from its torments, and the people who took our place would live their lives calmly, considerately, rationally, and with good taste: then the light of the sky would be like this forever.
It was bitter cold, but Fima, in his yellowing winter undershirt, did not feel it. He stood leaning on the railing, filling his lungs with the winelike air, marveling at the fact of suffering in the midst of such beauty. A minor miracle had occurred below him in the back yard. An eccentric, impatient almond tree had decided suddenly to flower, as though it had got its calendar mixed up. It was covered with tiny glowworms that had forgotten to switch themselves off at the arrival of dawn. Myriad raindrops sparkled on the pink blossoms. The glittering almond tree reminded Fima of a slim, pretty woman who has cried all night and not wiped away her tears. This image caused him childlike joy, and love, and a longing for Yael, for all women indiscriminately, with the bold resolution to open a new chapter in his life, starting this morning: to be from now on a rational, straightforward man, a good man, freed from falsehood and all pretense. So he put on a clean shirt and Yael's sweater. With a boldness that surprised him he climbed the stairs and firmly pressed the upstairs neighbors' bell. After a few moments Mrs. Pizanti opened the door in a dressing gown half unbuttoned over her nightdress. Her wide, childlike face struck Fima as distorted, or even beaten. But perhaps that was more or less what anyone waked from sleep looked like. Behind her, in the pale neon light of the entrance hall, her husband's eyes were glittering. He was a hirsute, athletic-looking individual, much taller than his wife. She asked anxiously if something had happened. Fima said:
"Sorry. Nothing. I thought maybe something fell down in your flat? Or broke? I just thought, I imagined, I heard… something like that? I must have been mistaken. Perhaps it was just an explosion a long way off. Perhaps the Messianic Faithful dynamited the Temple Mount and turned it into a Vale of Tears."
"Sorry?" said Mrs. Pizanti, staring at Fima with bewilderment and some apprehension.
Her husband, an x-ray technician, replied from behind her back in a tone that struck Fima as not entirely honest:
"Everything's a hundred percent in here, Dr. Nisan. When you ring the bell, I think maybe you have some problem. No? You are short something? Out of coffee again? Blown a fuse? I come and change it for you?"
"Thank you," Fima said, "that's very kind of you. I've got plenty of coffee and the electricity is working fine. It so happens my telephone is out of order, but I'm quite pleased, actually; it means I can have some peace and quiet at last. Sorry to bother you so early in the morning. I just thought… Never mind. Sorry. Thank you."
"No problem," said Pizanti expansively. "We always get up at sixfifteen anyway. If you need to make phone call, just feel free. On the house. If you like, I come down and check your contacts. Maybe something come loose."
"I was thinking," Fima said, appalled at the words he heard coming out of his own mouth, "of calling a lady friend of mine who may have been waiting for me since last night. Two lady friends, actually. But right now I think it wouldn't be such a bad thing to let them wait. It's not urgent. I'm sorry I disturbed you."
As he was on the point of leaving, Mrs. Pizanti said hesitantly:
"It could be something fell down outside from the wind. Some washtub or something. But with us everything is fine."
These words convinced Fima that he was being lied to. But he forgave his neighbors, because he had no reason to expect them to tell him about the fight they must have been having, and also because he himself had not told the truth about calling his girlfriends. When he was back in his flat, he said:
"What a fool you are."
But he forgave himself too, because he had meant well.
He did his exercises in front of the mirror for ten minutes or so, shaved, dressed, combed his hair vaguely, boiled some water in the new electric kettle, made his bed, and for once managed all these activities without mishap. He hit her, he thought, he may even have banged her head against the wall; he might have killed her; who knows, he might well do it one of these days, perhaps this very morning. What Hitler did to us didn't finish in 1945; it still goes on, it seems it always will. Dark things go on behind every door. Acts of cruelty and desperation. Underneath this whole state, hidden insanity is simmering. Three times a week our long arm catches the murderers in their dens. We can't get to sleep before we have inflicted a little pogrom on the Cossacks. Every morning we kidnap Eichmann and every evening we nip Hitler in the bud. In basketball we defeat Chmielnicki and in Eurovision we avenge Kishinev. But what right do I have to interfere? I'd be happy to gallop up on a white charger and rescue that Pizanti woman, or the pair of them, or the whole state, if only I knew how. If only I had some idea where to start. There's Baruch with his Trotsky goatee and his carved walking stick; he does his bit to put the world straight by handing out donations and grants, whereas all I ever do is sign petitions. Maybe I should have persuaded that policeman last night to let me in to see Shamir? For a heart-to-heart chat. Or introduced Shamir to my taxi driver?
It occurred to him that he ought to sit down and compose a short but heartfelt appeal to the hawkish right. To suggest to them, in Ha'arets, the broad outline of a partial national consensus. A sort of new deal between the moderates and the nonmessianic hawkish element, which might be willing despite everything to swallow a return of some of the Territories were it not for what it sees as the left's tendency to uncontrolled appeasement. The taxi driver was right: Our worst mistake over the past twenty years has been not to take seriously the sensibilities of Pizanti and his wife and hundreds of thousands of other Israelis like them, in whom the Arabs stir genuine feelings of anger, fear, and suspicion. Such feelings surely deserve not contempt but a gradual rational effort to allay them by means of intelligent argument. Instead of reasoning with them, we emptied a chamberpot full of patronizing ridicule on them. It would make sense therefore to try to draw up an agreement that would define the precise limits of our, the moderates', willingness to make concessions to the Arabs. So that they don't imagine, like Baruch, that we arc, so to speak, advertising a going-out-of-business sale. So that they know what we, the left, are even prepared to go to war for again, if it turns out that the Arab side is reneging or taking us for a ride. In that way, we may be able to mollify some of the hawks and bring about a thaw.
The word "thaw" reminded him that he had forgotten to light the heater. Bending down, he was relieved to discover that there was enough kerosene left. After lighting the heater, he felt the need to consult Tsvi Kropotkin before he sat down to compose his appeal. In his enthusiasm he did not care if he disturbed Tsvi in the middle of shaving again, because he felt his new idea was potentially fruitful and beneficial and indeed very urgent. But once again the telephone was silent. Fima thought the silence was, if anything, less deep than last night. A sort of intermittent rumbling sound, like the grinding of teeth, was almost audible. A moaning from the depths. Fima diagnosed faint signs of life, a first indication of recovery. He felt sure the instrument was not dead but merely in a very deep coma, and that now, even if it had not recovered consciousness, it was beginning to make a feeble response, a faint groan of pain, a slight pulse giving grounds for hope. Even taking into account the fact that the fridge had just started rumbling in the kitchen. It was therefore possible that the hope was not premature.