Fima - Amos Oz [138]
"When exactly did it happen?"
"At midday. Four hours ago."
"Where?"
"At home. He was sitting in his armchair drinking Russian tea with a couple of old ladies who had come to ask him for a donation to some charity. The Blind Society or something. They said he was just starting to tell a joke or a story, when he suddenly groaned and passed away. Just like that. Sitting in his armchair. He didn't have time to feel anything. And since then we've all been searching for you."
"I see," said Fima, putting his coat back on. It was strangely sweet to feel his heart filling not with grief or pain but with a surge of adrenaline, of sober, practical energy.
"Where is he now?"
"Still at home. In the armchair. The police have been. There's some sort of a delay about moving him—it doesn't matter right now. The woman downstairs, who's a doctor, was there within a couple of minutes, and she checked that it was all over. Apparently she was a close friend of his too, Tsvi and Teddy and Shula are supposed to be waiting for you there. Nina is going there straight from her office as soon as she's finished making all the arrangements and dealing with the formalities."
"Good," said Fima. "Thank you. Let's go there."
After a moment he added:
"What about you, Uri? Straight from the plane? You just dropped your luggage off and came looking for me?"
"We didn't know where you'd got to."
Fima said:
"I ought to make you a cup of coffee at least."
Uri said:
"Forget it. Just concentrate for a moment and think carefully if there's anything you need to take with you."
"Nothing," Fima replied at once in a military tone, with uncharacteristic firmness. "No time to waste. Let's get moving. We'll talk on the way."
30. AT LEAST AS FAR AS POSSIBLE
IT WAS A QUARTER PAST FIVE WHEN URI PARKED HIS CAR ON BEN Maimon Avenue. The sun had sunk behind the pines and cypresses, but a strange grayish light full of vague flickers still hovered in the sky, a light that was neither day nor night. Upon the avenue and the stone buildings lay a fine, heart-gnawing Sabbath eve melancholy. As if Jerusalem had stopped being a city and returned to being a bad dream.
The rain had not resumed. The air was saturated, and Fima's nostrils picked up the tang of rotting leaves. He recalled how once when he was a child, at such a time as this, at the onset of the Sabbath, he was riding his bicycle up and down the dead street. Looking up at this building, he saw his mother and father standing on the balcony. They were stiffly erect, of similar height, both dressed in dark clothes, standing very close to each other but not touching. Like a pair of waxworks. And he had the impression that they were both in mourning for a visitor whose arrival they had long since despaired of and yet whom they continued to expect. For the first time in his life he sensed the depth of the shame concealed in the silence that lay between them, all through his childhood. Without any quarrels or complaints or disagreements. A polite silence. He got off his bicycle and asked shyly if it was time for him to come in.
Baruch said:
"As you wish."
His mother said nothing.
This memory awoke in Fima a pressing need to clarity something, to ask Uri, to make inquiries. He had the feeling that he had forgotten to check the thing that mattered most. But what it was that mattered most he did not know. Although he sensed that now his ignorance was thinner than usual, like a lace curtain behind which dim shadows moved. Or a threadbare garment that covers the body but no longer warms it. While he knew in his bones how much he longed to continue not knowing.
As they climbed the stairs to the third floor, Fima put his hand on Uri's shoulder. Uri seemed tired and gloomy. Fima felt a need to encourage, with this touch, his large friend, who had once been a well-known combat pilot and still went around with his head thrust aggressively forward, a sophisticated airman's watch on his wrist, and his eyes sometimes giving the impression that he saw everything from