Fima

  The old man suddenly gave a little whistle, as though in amazement at Fima's wisdom or his own foolishness. He coughed, he groaned, he may have intended to interject a few words, but Fima was already carried away: "Why the hell are we all brainwashed into believing that the concept of human equality is something alien to Judaism, a flawed goyish commodity, tainted Christian pacifism, whereas the muddle-headed mishmash brewed up by some messianic rabbi, the grandfather of Gush Emunim, who has cobbled together a patchwork of scraps from Hegel, Judah Halevi, and Rabbi Loew of Prague, is suddenly considered to be the pure elixir of Judaism, straight from Mount Sinai? What is this? Sheer lunacy! Thou shalt do no murder' is alien to Judaism, according to you, it's untouchable? Christian pacifism. Whereas Rabbi Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, that proto-Nazi, is all of a sudden the genuine Jewish heritage! Let me tell you, Dad, Yosef Haim Brenner had more Jewishness in his little finger than all your frock-coated fossils and your psychopaths with their knit skullcaps. One group pisses on the state and says it's illegitimate because the Messiah hasn't come yet; the other group pisses on the state and says it's just a temporary scaffolding that we can dismantle now that the Messiah's standing at the gate. Both groups piss on Thou shalt do no murder' because they've got more important fish to fry: banning autopsies, or discovering the tomb of our ancestress Jezebel."

  "Fimuchka," his father sighed, "have a heart. Fm an old Jew. All these mysteries are beyond me. I may be an anachronism—who knows? My own dear son is like a golem that has turned against its creator. Don't be angry, my dear; I only used the word 'golem' because you saw fit to mention Rabbi Loew of Prague. I liked it a lot, as a matter of fact, what you said about the universal charts. Amen, so be it. You scored a bull's-eye there. The only problem is, maybe Your Reverence can tell us which shop you go to buy such charts. Can you enlighten me? Will you do your father a real favor? No? Never mind. I shall tell you a deep and wonderful thing that Rabbi Loew of Prague once said as he walked past the cathedral. By the way, do you know the original meaning of 'real favor'?"

  "All right, all right," Fima conceded. "So be it, then. You spare me the story of Rabbi Loew and in exchange I'll give in over those painters of yours. Send them on Sunday morning, and that's that." And to forestall his father's reply, he hurriedly employed the words his friend had uttered earlier: "We'll talk about the other things when we see each other. I really must run along now."

  He intended to chew a heartburn tablet and go down to the shopping center to have the broken radio fixed or to replace it if necessary. But suddenly there appeared before his eyes, so vividly that he could almost touch it, the image of a frail, myopic East European Jew wrapped in a prayer shawl, wandering in a dark forest, muttering biblical verses to himself, hurting his feet on the sharp stones, while softly and silently the snow fell, a night bird gave a sinister shriek, and wolves howled in the darkness.

  Fima was gripped by fear.

  The moment he put the receiver down, it occurred to him that he had not asked his father how he was. He had forgotten his intention of taking him to the hospital for tests. He had even forgotten to notice whether the old man still had a whistle in his chest. He fancied he had heard a little squeak, but he was not certain: it might have been nothing but a slight cold. Or his father might just have been humming a high-pitched Hasidic tune. Or perhaps the noise had come from some fault in the telephone line. All systems were running down in this country and no one cared. This too was a byproduct of our obsession with the Territories. The ironic truth was that, as some future historian would discover, it was really Nasser who won the 1967 war. Our victory condemned us to destruction. The messianic genie that Zionism had managed to seal in the bottle popped out the day the ram's horn was sounded at the Wailing Wall. He laughs longest. Moreover, to pursue this line of reasoning resolutely to its bitter end, without flinching from the most unpalatable truth, perhaps the ultimate conclusion was that it was really Hitler, not Nasser, who had the last laugh. When all's said and done, he continues to persecute the Jewish people ruthlessly. Everything that is happening to us now has its origin one way or another with Hitler. Now what was I going to do? Make a phone call. It was something urgent. But who to? What about? What is there left to say? I also am lost in die forest. Just like that old saint.

  21. BUT THE GLOWWORM HAD VANISHED

  AND BECAUSE HE HAD FORGOTTEN TO LOCK THE DOOR WHEN HE brought the newspaper up earlier in the morning, and because he was absorbed in a futile attempt to reassemble the radio, he suddenly looked up and saw Annette Tadmor standing in front of him, in a red coat and a navy beret worn at an angle, which made her look like a French village girl. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were glowing from the cold outside. She looked childlike, meek, pure, and painfully attractive. He instantly recalled what he had done to her two days earlier and felt unclean.

  The smell of her expensive perfume, tinged perhaps with a faint hint of liquor, aroused in him a mixture of regret and desire.

  "I've been trying to call you all morning," she said, "but the phone's always busy. Sorry to burst in like this. Til only stay a minute, really. You don't happen to have a drop of vodka, do you? Never mind. Listen. I must have left an earring here. I was in such a muddle. You must think I'm crazy. The nice thing about you, Fima, is that I actually couldn't care less what you think of me. As if we were brother and sister. I can hardly remember a thing of what I burbled on about. And you're so kind, you didn't laugh at me. You haven't found one, have you? Silver, longish, with a little sparkling stone?"

  Fima hesitated, made up his mind, tossed aside the newspaper that was occupying the armchair, and seated Annette in its place. At once he stood her up again and worked her arms loose from the sleeves of her red coat. This morning she looked beautiful and clever. He hurried to the kitchen to put the kettle on and check if there was any of his father's Cointreau left. On his return he said:

  "I dreamed about you last night. You were so lovely and glad because your husband had come back to you and you forgave him for everything. Now you're even lovelier than you were in the dream. Navy really suits you. You ought to wear it more often. What do you say we draw a veil over what happened the day before yesterday? I'm so ashamed of myself. Your presence put me in a spin, and I seem to have behaved like the famous Tearful Rapist. I hadn't been with a woman for over two months. Not that that's any justification for behaving like a swine. Will you teach me how to make amends?"

  Annette said:

  "That's enough. Stop it. You're making me cry again. You've helped me so much, Fima; you're such a good listener, you've got so much understanding and empathy. I don't think any man in the whole world has ever listened to me the way you did. And I was so weird, so selfish, so absorbed in my own problems. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings."

  She added that she had always been a great believer in dreams. It was a fact that that very night, when Fima was dreaming of her, Yen had really called from Milan. He sounded a bit low. He said he had no idea what would happen, that time would tell, and she should try not to hate him.

  "Time..." Fima began, but Annette laid her hand over his mouth.

  "Let's not talk. We talked enough the other night. Let's just sit quietly for a minute or two, and then I'll be on my way. I've got a million and one things to do in town. But I like being near you."

  They were silent. Fima sat on the arm of her chair, his own arm barely touching her shoulder, ashamed of the mess, the long-sleeved undershirt thrown over the sofa, the bottom drawer he had not closed last night, the empty coffee cups on the desk, the newspapers everywhere. He mentally cursed the stirrings of desire, and swore to himself that this time his behavior would be above reproach.

  Annette said, thoughtfully, to herself rather than to him:

  "I have wronged you."

  These words almost brought tears to his eyes. Ever since he was a child, he had felt sweetness and joy whenever a grownup said things like that to him. He had difficulty resisting the urge to go down on his
knees before her, exactly like her husband in his dream. Although, to be strictly accurate, it had not been in a dream but in his thoughts this morning. But he saw no difference.

  "I have some good news for you," he said. "I've got your earring. I found it on the very armchair you're sitting in. I'm such an idiot: when I opened my eyes this morning, in the first glimmer of dawn, I thought it was a glowworm that had forgotten to switch itself off."

  Emboldened, he added:

  "You know, I'm an extortioner. I won't let you have it back for nothing."

  Annette burst out laughing. She went on laughing while he leaned over her. Pulling him toward her by his hair, she kissed the tip of his nose, as though he were a baby.

  "Will that do? Can I have my earring back now?"

  Fima said:

  "That's more than I deserve. You've got some change coming."

  And to his own astonishment he suddenly clasped her knees and dragged her body down to the floor, desperately dizzy with lust, not stopping for her clothes but forcing his way blindly, with a sleepwalker's confidence, thrusting into her almost at once, feeling as though it was not his penis but his whole being that was being enfolded and dissolved in her womb. He ejaculated with a roar. When he finally surfaced again, feeling drained and as weightless as a sunbeam, as if he had left his bodily mass inside her, he was horror-struck at the realization of how he had degraded both himself and her yet again. He knew that this time he had shattered it all forever. Then Annette began slowly, tenderly stroking his head and neck, until he shuddered deliciously and his skin quivered.

  "The Tearful Rapist," she said.

  And she whispered to him:

  "Hush, child."

  And again she asked if there was any vodka. For some reason Fima was afraid she might be chilly. Clumsily he attempted to rearrange her clothing. And tried to say something. But once again she hastily placed her hand over his mouth, and said:

  "Quiet now, little chatterbox."

  As she stood combing her beautiful hair in the mirror, she added:

  "I'm off now. I've got a million and one things to do in town. Just let me have my earring back: I've earned it honestly. I'll call you this evening. We'll go see a film. There's a brilliant French comedy with Jean Gabin at the Orion."

  Fima went to the kitchen and poured what was left of the Cointreau into a glass for her. He rescued the kettle from boiling dry at the very last minute. But try as he might, he could not discover what he had done with the earring. He swore he would turn the flat upside down and return her magic glowworm safe and sound that evening. As he escorted her to the door, he muttered abjectly that he would never forgive himself.

  Annette laughed.

  22. "I FEEL GOOD WITH YOU JUST LIKE THIS"

  THEY PASSED ON THE STAIRS. NO SOONER HAD ANNETTE LEFT HIM than Nina Gefen appeared, with her austerely cropped gray hair, carrying a heavy shopping basket, which she deposited firmly on his desk among the papers and yogurt jars and dirty coffee cups. Roughly she lit a Nelson, not blowing die match out but shaking it. She shot twin lances of smoke from her nostrils. Fima unconsciously grinned. The turnover of his female visitors suddenly made him think of the procession of lady friends who were always trooping in and out of his father's flat. Maybe the time had come for him to sport a cane with a silver band?

  Nina asked:

  "What's so funny?"

  Her nostrils must have picked up a whiff of perfume through her cigarette smoke. Without waiting for his reply she added:

  "The red lady I bumped into on the stairs was also grinning like a cat who got the cream. Have you had a visitor by any chance?"

  Fima was on the point of denying it. Since when did he have visitors? There were eight flats in the building. But something stopped him from lying to this fragile, embittered woman who looked like a cornered vixen, this woman whom he sometimes called "my lover" and whose husband he loved. He looked down and said defensively:

  "A patient from the clinic. Somehow we became quite friendly."

  "Are you opening a branch of the clinic at your home?"

  "It's like this," Fima said, while his fingers attempted in vain to rejoin the two parts of the smashed radio. "Her husband's sort of left her. She came to me for some advice."

  "Broken hearts mended here," Nina said, meaning to sound witty but sounding close to tears instead. "Saint Fima, patron saint of grass widows. If it goes on like this, you'll soon be seeing visitors by appointment only."

  She went into the kitchen and took out of her shopping basket a bag full of sprays and cleaning materials, which she placed for the time being on the edge of the counter. Fima had the impression that her lips, closed on a cigarette, were trembling. She unpacked various provisions she had brought him, opened the door of the refrigerator, and recoiled in horror.

  "What a filthy mess," she exclaimed.

  Fima explained sheepishly that he had actually done a radical cleaning but had not had time to do the fridge.

  And when was Uri coming back?

  From the bottom of the shopping basket Nina extracted a small plastic bag.

  "Late Friday night. I.e., tomorrow. I suppose you can both hardly wait. Well, you can have your honeymoon on Saturday night. Here, I've brought you the book about Leibowitz. You ran away and left it on the rug. What's going to become of you, Fima? Just look at yourself."

  And indeed Fima had omitted to tuck his shirttail in after Annette, and the bottom of his yellowing flannel undershirt was showing below the chunky sweater.

  Nina emptied the fridge, ruthlessly throwing out ancient vegetables tuna, moldy remains of fossilized cheese, an open sardine can. She attacked the shelves and dividers with a cloth soaked in detergent. Fima meanwhile buttered several thick slices of the fragrant black Georgian bread she had brought with her, spread them generously with jam, and started munching voraciously. All the while he delivered a brief lecture on the lessons to be learned in Israel from the collapse of the left in England, Scandinavia, and in fact all over northern Europe. Suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he said in a different voice:

  "Look, Nina. About the night before last. No, it was the night before that. I burst in looking like a half-drowned dog, I talked nonsense, I jumped on top of you, I upset you, and then I ran away without explaining. Now I'm ashamed. I can't imagine what you must think of me. I just wouldn't like you to think that I don't find you attractive or something. It's not that, Nina. On the contrary. I do, more than ever. I'd simply had a bad day. This just isn't my week. I feel that I'm not really living. Just existing. Creeping from day to day. Without sense and without desire. There's a verse in the Psalms: My soul droops with sorrow. That about sums it up: drooping. Sometimes I have no idea what I'm doing hanging around here like last year's snow. Coming and going. Writing and crossing out. Filling in forms at the office. Putting my clothes on and taking them off again. Making phone calls. Bothering everybody and driving you all crazy. Needling my father on purpose. How come there are still people who can stand me? How come you haven't sent me to Hell yet? Will you teach me how to make amends?"

  Nina said:

  "Be quiet, Fima. Just stop talking."

  Meanwhile she arranged the new provisions on the shelves of the now gleaming refrigerator. Her frail shoulders were trembling. From behind she looked to Fima like a small animal trapped in a cage, and he felt tenderness for her. Still with her back toward him, she continued:

  "I don't understand it either. Look. An hour and a half ago, at the office, I suddenly had a feeling that you were in trouble. That something bad had happened to you. Maybe you were ill, lying here alone in a fever. I tried to call, but your phone was always busy. I thought perhaps you'd forgotten to put the receiver back, once again. I dashed out in the middle of quite an import ant meeting about an insurance company that's gone broke, and came running straight to you. Or, rather, I stopped on the way to do some shopping for you, so you wouldn't starve to death. It's almost as though Uri and I have adopted you as our chi
ld. Except that Uri seems to get a kick out of the game, whereas all I get is depressed. The whole time. Again and again I get this feeling that something terrible has happened to you, and I drop everything and come running. Such an awful feeling, as though you were calling out to me from far away: Nina, come quick. There's no explanation. Do me a favor, Fima; stop stuffing yourself with bread. Look how fat you're getting. And, anyway, I haven't got the strength or the inclination right now for your earth-shattering theories about Mitterrand and the British Labour party. Save it for Uri, for Saturday night. All I want you to say is what's wrong. What's happening to you? Something strange is going on that you're keeping from me. Even stranger than usual. As if you were slightly drugged."

  Fima obeyed immediately. He stopped munching the piece of bread he was holding and put it down absent-mindedly in die sink like an empty cup. He began to stammer that the wonderful thing about her was that with her he felt hardly any embarrassment. He wasn't afraid of appearing ridiculous. He didn't even care if he was miserable or stupid in her presence, as happened the other night. As if she were his sister. Now he was going to say something trite, but so what? Trite wasn't necessarily the opposite of true. What he wanted to say was that for him she was a good person. And that she had the loveliest fingers he had ever seen.

  Still with her back to him, bending over the sink, picking out the piece of bread Fima had put there, scrubbing the ceramic and die taps, carefully rinsing her hands, Nina said sadly:

  "You left a sock at my place, Fima."

  And then:

  "It's ages since we slept together."

  She stubbed out her cigarette, clutched his arm with her exquisitely shaped hand, like that of a young girl from the Far East, and whispered: