Fima - Amos Oz [89]
On their way to the bed Fima was glad that Nina was nearsighted, because there was a momentary glimmer in the ashtray she had stubbed her cigarette out in, and Fima deduced it must be Annette's lost earring.
Nina drew the curtains, rolled back the bedspread, straightened the pillows, and removed her glasses. Her movements were plain and sparing, as if she were getting ready to be examined by her doctor. When she began undressing, he turned his back to her and hesitated a while before he realized that there was no way out of this, he would have to remove his own clothes too. It never rains but it pours, he said to himself. And he slipped quickly between the sheets so she wouldn't notice his slackness. Remembering how he had disappointed her last time, on the rug at her house, he was overcome by shame. He pressed himself tightly against her, but his penis was as limp and unfeeling as a crumpled handkerchief. He buried his head between her heavy, warm breasts as if he were trying to hide from her inside her. They lay motionless, clinging to each other tightly like a pair of soldiers in a trench under shellfire.
And she pleaded in a whisper:
"Don't talk. Don't say anything. I feel good with you just like this."
He had a clear mental image of the butchered dog writhing and oozing the last of his blood with a whimper under a low stone wall among wet bushes and trash. As though in a profound slumber, he murmured between her breasts words she did not hear: Back to Greece, Yael. We'll find love there. And compassion.
Nina glanced at her watch: half past eleven. She kissed him on the forehead, and shaking his shoulder she said affectionately:
"Wake up, boy. Stir yourself. You fell asleep."
She dressed jerkily, put on her thick glasses, and lit another cigarette, not blowing the match out but shaking it.
Before she left, she joined the two parts of the broken radio with a faint click. She turned the knob until the voice of Defense Minister Rabin suddenly filled the room:
"The side that displays the most stamina will win."
"There, that's fixed," said Nina, "and I've got to go."
Fima said:
"Don't be angry with me. I've had a suffocating feeling for days now. As if something awful is going to happen. I hardly sleep at night. I sit writing articles as if there was somebody listening. Nobody's listening and everything seems lost. What's going to become of us all, Nina? Do you know?"
Nina, who was already in the doorway, turned her bespectacled, vixen's face toward him and said:
"I have a chance of finishing relatively early this evening. Come straight to my office after the clinic, and we'll go to the concert at the YMCA. Or we'll go and see that Jean Gabin film. Then we'll go back to my place. Don't be gloomy."
23. FIMA FORGETS WHAT HE HAS FORGOTTEN
FIMA RETURNED TO THE KITCHEN. HE WOLFED DOWN ANOTHER four slices of Nina's fresh black Georgian bread thickly spread with apricot jam. The defense minister said:
"I urge all of us not to resort to all sorts of dubious shortcuts."
Slightly mispronouncing the last word. And Fima, with his mouth full of bread and jam, echoed him:
"And all of us urge you not to report to all sorts of tubeless chalk-huts."
He immediately recoiled from this petty wordplay. As he turned off the radio, he apologized to Rabin:
"I must run. I'm late for work." And, chewing a heartburn tablet, for some reason he pocketed Annette's earring, which he had found in the ashtray among Nina's cigarette butts. He put on his coat, taking particular care not to trap his arm in the lining of the sleeve. And because the bread had not assuaged his hunger, and because in any case he counted it as breakfast, he went into the café opposite his flat for a bite of lunch. He could not remember if the name of the proprietress was Mrs. Schneidmann or simply Mrs. Schneider. He decided it was Schneidermann. As usual, she did not take offense. She beamed at him with a cheery sparkle in her childlike eyes, which reminded him of a rustic Russian icon, and said:
"It's Scheinmann, Dr. Nisan. Never