Fima - Amos Oz [147]
So what was the source of the smell?
Since he had stopped living here after his military service, his nostrils had recoiled from it every time he came back to visit the old man. It was a faint whiff of something malodorous, half hidden always behind other scents. Was it a trash can that needed emptying? Dirty laundry lingering too long in the basket in the bathroom? Some defect in the plumbing? Mothballs in the wardrobes? Faint cooking odors of thick, oversweet Eastern European food? Fruit that had sat too long in the fruit bowl? Water in vases that had not been changed although the flowers were changed regularly twice a week? Behind the elegance and tidiness there was always a sourness hovering, minimal and latent admittedly, but persistent, like mold. Was it an uneradicable relic of the opaque, glassy politeness that had spread and frozen here between his father and his mother, and not ceased even with her death? Was there any chance that now it would evaporate?
One would think, Fima mused ironically, that in your own flat in Kiryat Yovel the air is perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, you with your Trotskyite kitchen and your bottle of worms on the balcony and your decrepit lavatory.
He stood up and opened a window. After a moment he closed it again. Not because of the cold but because he felt sorry to lose this doom-laden smell, which he would probably never be able to recall once he allowed it to disperse. Let it stay a few more days. The future was just beginning. Yet it would have been nice to sit in the kitchen now, over a glass of steaming Russian tea, and argue with the old man late into the night. Without mockery or levity. Like a pair of intimate adversaries. Far from Hasidic tales and all the casuistry, the witticisms, the anecdotes, the clever wordplay. Not provoking the old man, not annoying him with impieties. No, with real affection. Like a pair of surveyors representing two countries in a dispute but themselves working together with amicable professionalism on the precise demarcation of the border. As one man to another. Sorting out at last what has been from what is from what is over and done with, and what might still be possible here if we only devote ourselves to it with all our strength.
But what is it that he must sort out with his father? What is the border that needs demarcation? What does he need to prove to the old man? Or to Yael? Or to Dimi? What docs he need to say that is not a quotation, or a paradox, or a refutation, or a clever wisecrack?
The inheritance neither weighed him down nor lifted him up. True, he knew nothing about cosmetics, but the fact was he had no real understanding of anything. There might even be a certain advantage in that, although Fima could not be bothered at this moment to try to think what it as. Moreover, he had no needs. Apart from the most simple, basic needs: food, warmth, and shelter. He had no desires, either, except perhaps a vague desire to appease everybody, to heal disputes, to sow some peace here and there. How could he do that? How docs one bring about a change of heart? Soon he would have to meet the employees of the business, find out about their working conditions, sec what could be improved.
The upshot was that he needed to learn. And learning was one thing he did know about. So he would learn. Gradually.
He would make a start tomorrow. Although in fact tomorrow was already here: it was past midnight.
He pondered whether to get into his father's bed and sleep there, fully dressed. After a moment he decided that it was a pity to waste this unique night. He ought to explore the flat. Discover its secrets. Start to acquire a preliminary orientation in the ways of the new realm.