Fima stood up, chastened and humble, muttered an apology, started to look for his coat, and suddenly said shyly:
"It's February, Yaeclass="underline" it'll be your birthday soon. I've forgotten. Perhaps you've already had it? I don't remember the date. I don't even have a three-phase system to give you."
"It's Friday, February 16, 1989. The time is 11:10 A.M. So what?"
"You said we all want something from you and you have nothing more to give."
"Surprise, surprise: so you've managed to take in half a sentence after all."
"But the fact is, I don't want anything from you, Yael. On the contrary, I want to find something that will give you a little pleasure."
"You have nothing to give. Your hands are empty. In any case, don't you worry about my pleasure. It so happens I have a real feast every day, or nearly every day. At work, at my drawing board, or in the wind tunnel. That's my life. That's the only place where I really exist a little. Maybe you ought to start doing something, Efraim. That's the whole of your problem: you don't do anything. You just read the papers and get worked up. Why don't you give private lessons, volunteer for civil defense, do some translating, give lectures to soldiers about the meaning of Jewish ethics."
"Somebody, I think it was Schopenhauer, wrote that the intellect divides everything up, whereas intuition restores the oneness that was lost. But I'm telling you, Yael, that our farce doesn't divide into two but, as Rabin always says, into three. Schopenhauer and the rest of them ignore the Third State. Wait, don't interrupt. Just give me two minutes to explain it to you."
But then he fell silent, even though this time Yael had not interrupted him.
He said:
"I'll give you everything I have. I know it's not much."
"You have nothing, Effy. Just the scraps you shnorr from the rest of us."
"Will you come back to me? You and Dimi? We can go to Greece."
"And live on nectar and ambrosia?"
"I'll get a job. I'll work as a salesman for my father's firm. A night watchman. A waiter even."
"Sure, a waiter. You'll drop everything."
"Or else we could go and live in Yavne'el, the three of us. On your parents' old farm. We can grow flowers in hothouses, like your sister and her husband. And we'll get the fruit orchard going again. Baruch will give us some money, and little by little we'll bring the ruins back to life. We'll have a model farm. During the day Dimi and I will look after the livestock. We'll build a study for you with computers, a drawing board. And a wind tunnel, if you'll explain what that is. In the evening, toward sunset, we'll go and see to the orchard together. The three of us. As it begins to get dark, we'll collect honey from the beehives. If you really want to take Teddy with you, I won't object. We'll have a little commune. We'll live without lies, and without the faintest shadow of spite. You'll see: Dimi will develop and really start to flourish. And you and I…"
"Yes, of course, you'll get up at half past four every morning, with your boots and your mattock and your hoe, a song in your heart and a plant in your hand, to drain the swamps and conquer the wasteland single-handed."
"Don't poke fun, Yael. I admit I have to learn from scratch how to love you. So okay, little by little I'll learn. You'll see."
"Of course you will. You'll take a correspondence course. Or study at the Open University."
"You'll teach me."
With sudden, timid courage he added:
"You know very well that what you said earlier isn't the whole truth. You didn't want the baby cither. You didn't even want Dimi. I'm sorry I said that. I didn't mean it. It just slipped out. But I want Dimi. I love him more than my own life."
She stood over Fima as he slumped on his bench, stood in her worn corduroy trousers and threadbare red sweater, as though she was straining with all her might not to hit his plump face. Her eyes were dry and flashing, and her face was wrinkled and old, as if it were not Yael but her mother who was bending over him, smelling of black bread and olives and plain toilet soap. And she said with wonder, with a strange taut smile, speaking not to him and not to herself but into space: