Fima - Amos Oz [42]
"You are eunuchs too. You've forgotten where you came from and who put you where you are."
They lowered their voices.
Fima remembered how he had left Nina's house the previous night, how he had disgraced himself with her, how he had disgraced himself in Ted's study, how he had shamed himself and Yael in the hall in the dark. In fact, it would be quite nice to pick an argument with these two conspirators now. He could easily tear them to shreds. He guessed that Annette Tadmor had changed her mind, thought better of it, would not keep their date. Why should she? Her full, rounded form, her misery, her plain cotton frock like a schoolgirl's uniform, all stirred in him a hint of desire mingled with self-mockery: Just as well she changed her mind; she spared you another disgrace.
The young settler stood up and in two long strides he was at Fima's table. Fima was startled to see that the youngster had a gun in his belt.
"Excuse me, arc you by any chance Mr. Prag, the lawyer?"
Fima considered the question, and for a moment he was tempted to answer in die affirmative. He'd always had a soft spot for Prag.
"I don't think so," he said.
The settler said:
"We've arranged to meet someone we've never seen. I thought perhaps it was you. I'm sorry."
"I'm not," Fima declared forcefully, as though firing the first shot in a civil war, "one of you. I think you're all a plague."
The young man, with an innocent, sweet smile and a look suggesting Jewish solidarity, said:
"Why not save expressions like that for the enemy? It was groundless hatred that brought down the Temple. It wouldn't hurt all of us to try a little groundless love for a change."
A delicious argumentative thrill went through Fima like wine, and he had a devastating reply poised on his tongue, when he caught sight of Annette in the doorway, looking around vaguely, and he was almost disappointed. But he was obliged to wave to her and drop the settler. She apologized for being late. As soon as she was sitting opposite him, he said that she had arrived just in time to rescue him from the Hezbollah. Or, rather, to rescue the Hezbollah from him. He went on to unburden himself of the essence of his views. Only then did he remember to apologize for ordering without waiting for her. He asked what she would like to drink. To his surprise she said a vodka, and then began to tell him all about her divorce, after twenty-six years of what she had considered to be an ideal marriage. At least on the surface. Fima ordered her vodka, and another coffee for himself. He also ordered some bread and cheese and an egg sandwich, because he still felt hungry. He continued to listen to her story, but with divided attention, because in the meantime a bald man in a gray raincoat had joined the next table. Presumably their Mr. Prag. Fima had the impression that the three of them were scheming to drive a wedge into the state prosecutor's department, and he tried to intercept their conversation. Hardly aware of what he was saying, he remarked to Annette that he could scarcely believe what she had said about being married for twenty-six years, because she didn't look a day over forty.
"That's sweet of you," Annette answered. "There's something about you that radiates kindness. I believe that if only I can tell the whole story from beginning to end to someone who's a good listener, it may help me to sort out my ideas. To grasp what's happened to me. Even though I know that once I've told the story, I'll understand even less. Have you the patience?"
The politician said:
"Let's try to play for time at least: it can't do any harm."
And the man in the raincoat, presumably the lawyer Prag:
"It may look very easy to you. In fact, it isn't."
"As if Yeri and I had been standing quietly for a long time on a balcony," Annette said, "leaning on the railing, looking down on the garden and the woods, shoulder to shoulder, and suddenly, without any warning, he grabs me and throws me off. Like an old crate."
Fima said:
"How sad."
Then he said:
"Terrible."
He laid his hand on hers,