Fima - Amos Oz [20]
"Okay," said Ted. "Fine. Come right on up. Just bear in mind that we're a bit busy this evening."
Fima took this as a hint that he shouldn't come, and that whatever happened he shouldn't stay till past midnight as he usually did. He was not offended; he even gallantly offered to come some other time. But Ted firmly and politely stood his ground.
"Half an hour will be fine."
Fima was particularly glad it was not raining, since he had no umbrella, and he did not want to visit the woman he loved looking like a drowned dog. He also noticed that it was getting colder, and decided that it might snow. This made him even happier. Through the window of the bus, somewhere near Mahane Yehuda Market, by the light of a street lamp, he saw a black slogan scrawled on a wall: ARABS OUT! Translating into German and substituting Jews for Arabs, he felt an upsurge of rage. On the spot, he appointed himself president and decided on a dramatic step. He would make an official visit to the Arab village of Deir Yassin on the anniversary of the massacre there and deliver a simple, trenchant statement amid the ruins of the village: Without going into the details of which side is more to blame, we Israeli Jews understand the depth of the suffering that the Palestinian Arabs have undergone during these past forty years, and to put an end to it we are willing to do anything that is reasonable, short of committing suicide. Such a speech would immediately echo through every Arab hovel; it would fire the imagination and might help to start the ball rolling. For a moment Fima hesitated between "start the ball rolling" and "achieve a breakthrough." Which would make a better heading for the short article he intended to write next morning for the weekend paper? Then he rejected them both and dropped the idea of the article.
In the elevator, on the way up to the sixth-floor flat in Beit Hakerem, he made up his mind to be calm and cordial this time, to try to talk to Ted as equal to equal, even on political topics, though normally he was very quickly irritated by the other's way of talking, his slow, balanced speech, his American accent and sort of desiccated logicality, his way of buttoning and unbuttoning his expensive knit jacket, like an official spokesman from the State Department.
Fima stood at the door for a couple of minutes without pressing the bell. He rubbed his soles on the doormat so he wouldn't bring any mud into the flat. While he was in the middle of this ball-less game of soccer, the door opened, and Ted helped him out of his overcoat, which had been turned into a snare by the rip in the lining.
"What foul weather," Fima said.
Ted asked if it was raining outside.
Even though it had stopped before he left the clinic, Fima replied pathetically: "Raining? A deluge, more like."
Without waiting to be asked, he advanced straight into Ted's study, leaving a trail of damp footprints across the hall. He proceeded steadily between piles of books, diagrams, sketches, and printouts on the floor until his progress was blocked by the massive desk on which stood Ted's word processor. He peered without permission at a mysterious green-and-black graph that was flickering on the screen. Joking about his hopelessness with computers, he began to urge Ted politely, as if he himself were the host