Fima - Amos Oz [50]
11. AS FAR AS THE LAST LAMPPOST
WHEN HE HAD FINISHED PREPARING HIS LAUNDRY, HE WENT TO the kitchen to get rid of Annette's cigarette butts. Opening the door of the compartment under the sink, he found die cockroach, Trotsky, lying dead on its back beside the overfull can. What had killed it? There were no signs of violence. And there was no question of a cockroach dying of hunger in this kitchen. Thinking about it, Fima concluded that the difference between a cockroach and a butterfly was only a matter of variation on a theme, certainly not enough of a difference to justify the fact that butterflies symbolized to us freedom, beauty, purity, whereas the cockroach was perceived as the embodiment of everything disgusting. So what was the cause of death? Fima recalled that in the morning, when he brandished his shoe over Trotsky's head and changed his mind, the creature had made no effort to escape its fate. Perhaps it was already sick then, and he did nothing to help.
Bending down, Fima gently picked up the cockroach in a piece of newspaper folded into a funnel. Instead of disposing of it in the trash, he dug it a grave in the flowerpot that stood on the windowsill with nothing growing in it. After the funeral he attacked the pile of dishes in the sink. He washed the plates and mugs. When he reached the frying pan, which was thick with congealed fat, he got tired of scouring it and decided that the pan would have to wait patiently with the rest of the dirty things until the next day. He could not make tea, because the electric kettle had boiled itself dry while he was peering into the abyss of evolution and searching for a common denominator. He went to piss, but his patience ran out and he pulled the lever in the middle to encourage his stuttering bladder. He lost the race again, but instead of waiting for the cistern to refill, he retreated, turning the light off behind him. Must try to play for time, he said to himself. And he added, If you know what I mean.
Shortly before midnight he put on the flannel pajamas that Annette had thrown down on the rug, got into bed, and enjoyed the clean sheets as he began reading Tsvi Kropotkin's article in Ha'arets. He found it academic and bland, like Tsvika himself, but he hoped it would help him get to sleep. When he turned the light out, he remembered the soft cry of pleasure full of childlike excitement that had suddenly burst from Annette's throat as her thighs tightened around his finger. Desire surged again, along with resentment and a sense of grievance. Almost two months had gone by since he had last slept with a woman, and now he had missed two on successive nights, even though he had actually had both of them in his arms. Because of their selfishness he would not be able to get to sleep now. For an instant he thought Yeri, Dr. Tadmor, was right to leave Annette, because he was suffocated by the lies. And almost at once he said to himself: You bastard. Unconsciously his hand began slowly comforting his penis. Then a stranger, a moderate, reasonable man whose parents were not even born yet, the man who would be in this room on a winter's night a hundred years from now, was watching him out of the darkness with eyes that seemed skeptical, only half-curious, almost amused. Fima let go of his penis and complained aloud:
"Don't you go judging me."
Then he added sardonically:
"Anyway, in a hundred years there won't be anything here. Everything will have been destroyed."
And he added:
"Shut up, you. Who was talking to you?"
At this they both fell silent,