Fima

At the turning to Bayit Vagan stood a young man in an army windbreaker, a submachine gun over his shoulder and surrounded by buckets of flowers. He suggested that Fima take a bunch of chrysanthemums for the weekend. Fima asked himself if this wasn't a settler from the Territories, who grew his flowers on other men's land. He immediately decided that someone who was prepared to make peace with Arafat should not excommunicate his own domestic opponents. Although he could see the argument for excommunicating. But he could find neither hatred nor anger in his heart, perhaps because of the radiant light. Jerusalem this morning seemed to be a place where all should respect the different opinions of others, and so he put his hand in his pocket and found three one-shekel coins, no doubt the change he had been given last night by his new minister of information. He pressed the flowers to his chest as though to protect them from the cold.

"Pardon?" said Fima. "Did you say something? I'm sorry, I didn't hear it."

The boy selling the flowers said with a broad smile:

"All I said was have a good weekend. Good Sabbath."

"Absolutely," Fima agreed, laying the foundations for a new national consensus. "Thank you. And a good weekend to you too."

The air was cold and vitreous, even though there was no wind. As though the light itself contained a dazzlingly clear arctic ingredient. The words "dazzlingly clear" afforded Fima a strange, secretive thrill. One must avoid malice, he thought, even when it disguises itself as principle. He ought to repeat to himself over and over that the real enemy was despair. It was vital not to compromise with despair, not to submit to it. Young Yoezer and his contemporaries, the moderate, reasonable people who will lead their carefully modulated lives here in Jerusalem after us, will be astonished at the suffering we brought on ourselves. But at least they won't remember us with contempt. We didn't give in without a struggle. We held on in Jerusalem as long as we could, against incomparably superior odds and stronger forces. We did not go under peacefully. And even if we were overcome in the end, we still have the advantage of Pascal's "thinking reed."

So it was that, excited, unkempt, and mud-spattered, at a quarter past ten in the morning, clutching a bunch of chrysanthemums and shivering with cold, Fima rang Ted and Yacl's doorbell. When Yael came to the door, wearing gray corduroy trousers and a burgundy sweater, he said to her without any embarrassment:

"I happened to be walking past and I decided to look in just for a minute, to wish you a good Sabbath. I hope I'm not disturbing you? Shall I come back tomorrow? I've got the painters in next week. Never mind. I brought you some flowers for the Sabbath. Can I come inside for a minute or two?"

28. IN ITHACA, ON THE WATER'S EDGE

"ALL RIGHT," SAID YAEL, "COME IN. JUST BEAR IN MIND THAT I'VE got to go out shortly. Hang on, let mc button your shirt properly. Tell me, when did you change it last?"

Fima said:

"You and I have to talk."

Yael said:

"Not again."

He followed her into the kitchen. On die way he peeked into the bedroom. He was vaguely hoping to see himself still sleeping in the bed since the night before last. But the bed had been made and spread with a dark blue woollen counterpane. On either side of it were twin lamps on matching bedside tables, and on each table a solitary book and, as in a hotel, a glass of water and a note pad and pencil. There were even identical alarm clocks.

Fima said:

"Dimi isn't well. We can't go on pretending there's nothing the matter with him. You'd better put the flowers in water; they're for you, for the Sabbath. I bought them from a settler. Besides which, it's your birthday around the end of February. You wouldn't make me a cup of coffee, would you? I've walked all the way from Kiryat Yovel and I'm half frozen to death. My upstairs neighbor tried to murder his wife at five this morning: I rushed upstairs to help and only made a fool of myself. Never mind. I've come to talk to you about Dimi. The other night, when you went out and I looked after him…"

"Look here, Efraim," Yael cut in, "why do you have to meddle in everybody's lives? I know Dimi isn't doing well. Or that we're not doing well with him. You're not telling me anything I don't know. You're not doing too well yourself, if it comes to that."

Fima understood from this that he ought to say good-bye and go. But he sat down on a low kitchen bench, looked up at Yael with doglike devotion, blinked his brown eyes, and started to explain that Dimi was an unhappy and dangerously lonely child. Something had come out the other evening while he was looking after the child, ho point in going into details, but he had formed the impression that the boy might be, how to put it, in need of some help.

Yael plugged the kettle in. She put instant coffee into two glasses. Fima had the feeling she was opening and closing more doors and drawers than was necessary. She said:

"Fine. Great. So you came to give me a lecture on childhood and its problems. Teddy's got this friend, a child psychologist from South Africa, and we consult him occasionally. So just stop looking for disasters and things to worry about. Stop pestering everybody."

When Yael mentioned South Africa, Fima had difficulty fighting back the sudden urge to explain his scenario about what was going to happen there in the near future, when the apartheid regime was toppled. He was convinced there would be a bloodbath, not just between whites and blacks, but also between whites and whites and blacks and blacks. Who could tell if a similar danger did not exist in Israel, too? But the word "bloodbath" struck him as a tired cliché.

Next to him on the kitchen table was an open package of butter biscuits. Unconsciously his fingers reached for it, and he started eating the biscuits one by one. While Yael passed him his white coffee, he described to her in a somewhat oblique way what had taken place two nights previously, and how he had come to fall asleep in her bed while Dimi was still awake at one in the morning. It wasn't very fair of you two, either, having a night out in Tel Aviv and not even bothering to leave an emergency phone number. Suppose the child had a bilious attack? Or electrocuted himself? Or poisoned himself? Fima got into a muddle because he did not want to give away, even indirectly, the business about the dog sacrifice. Nevertheless, he muttered something about the way the neighbors' children made Dimi's life a misery. "You know, Yael, he's not like the rest of them, he wears glasses, he's so serious, he's an albino, he's shortsighted, you could almost say he's half-blind, he's very small for his age, maybe on account of some hormonal disturbance that you ought to be doing something about, he's hypersensitive, he's an internal — no, that's not right — an introverted child — even that isn't exactly the right word — perhaps it's soulful or spiritual; it's hard to define. He's creative. Or, more accurately, he's an original, interesting, you might even say a deep child."

From that Fima moved on to the difficulties of growing up in a time of universal cruelty and violence: every evening Dimi watches the TV news; with us, every evening murder is trivialized on the screen. He also talked about himself when he was Dimi's age: he too had been an introverted child, he too had had no mother, and his father had systematically tried to drive him insane. And he said that apparently the only emotional bond that this child had formed was with him of all people, even though Yael knew perfectly well that he had never seen himself as the fatherly type, fatherhood had always scared him to death, nevertheless he sometimes had the feeling that this had been a tragic mistake, that things could have been totally different, if only…

Yael cut him short again. She said frostily:

"Finish your coffee, Efraim. I have to go."

Fima asked where she had to go. He'd be happy to go with her. Anywhere at all. He had nothing to do this morning. They could continue their conversation. He believed it was vital and quite urgent. Or would it be better if he stayed behind and waited for her to come back, and then they could continue? He didn't mind waiting. It was Friday, his day off, the clinic was closed, and on Sunday he had the painters coming in, so the only prospect facing him at home was the depressing task of dismantling and packing. What did she think? Could she spare him Teddy for an hour or two on Saturday morning, to help take down the… Never mind. He knew this was all ridiculous and irrelevant. Could he do some ironing till she came back? Or fold the laundry? One day, some other time, he'd like to tell her about a thought that had been preoccupying him recently, an idea that he called the Third State. No, it wasn't a political idea. It was more an existential idea, if one could still say "existential" without sounding corny. "Remind me sometime. Just say 'the Third State,' and I'll remember at once and explain it to you. Though it may be stupid. It's not important right now. After all, here in Jerusalem almost every other character you see is half prophet and half prime minister. Including Tsvika Kropotkin, including Shamir himself, that Brezhnev of ours. It's less like a city than a lunatic asylum. But I didn't come here to talk about Shamir and Brezhnev. I came here to talk about Dimi. Dimi says you and Teddy call me a clown behind my back. It may surprise you to learn that your son has taken to calling himself a clown too. Doesn't that shake you a little? I don't mind being called a clown. It suits somebody whose own father sees him as a shlemiel and a shlemazel. Although he's ridiculous too. The old man, I mean. Baruch. In some ways he's even more ridiculous than me or Dimi. He's another Jerusalem prophet with his own personal formula for salvation in three easy steps. He has a story about a cantor who gets stuck alone on a desert island for the High Holy Days. It doesn't matter. By the way, recently he's taken to whistling a bit. I mean wheezing. I'm rather worried. I may just be imagining things. What do you think, Yael? Maybe you could have a chat with him sometime, get him to go to the hospital for some tests? He's always had a soft spot for you. You might be the only person who can curb his Revisionist obstinacy. Which is a good illustration of what I meant about every other Jerusalemite wanting to be the Messiah. But so what? All of us must look ridiculous to an impartial observer. Even you, Yael, with your jet engines. Who needs jet engines around here when the only thing we are really short of is compassion and common sense? And all of us, including the impartial observer, are ridiculous when viewed by the mountains. Or the desert. Wouldn't you say that Teddy is ridiculous? That walking box. Or Tsvika? Only this morning I was reading a hysterical article of his, which tries to prove scientifically that the government is cut off from reality. As if reality lives in Tsvika's little pocket. Though there's no denying the government is full of people who are pretty dense, and some of them are quite unbalanced. But how did we get onto the government? That's what always happens to us: for once, we decide to have a serious chat about ourselves, about the child, about things that really matter, and somehow the government comes barging in. Where do you have to go in such a hurry? You don't have to go anywhere. It's a lie. Friday is your day off too. You're lying to me to get rid of me. You want me to leave. You're afraid, Yael. But what are you afraid of? Of facing up to thinking about why Dimi has started calling himself a little clown?"