“Nonsense,” said Yonatan. “They go all around the Arctic Circle. In Siberia. In Scandinavia. Even in Canada. Did you read this week that whales are becoming extinct?”

“You told me about it. I didn’t bother reading because it’s nicer when you tell me.”

“Now look at the heater!” said Yonatan angrily. “It’s going out already. Rain or no rain, I must get the kerosene before it starts smoking.”

Rimona, her back softly curved against her chair, kept her eyes on her embroidery like a diligent schoolgirl at her homework.

“Take the flashlight.”

Yonatan picked it up and left in silence. Then he came back, filled the heater tank, and went to wash his hands, but the engine-oil stains around his nails refused to come off.

“You got all wet,” said Rimona gently.

“Never mind,” said Yonatan. “It’s all right. I wore my old brown jacket as you told me to. Don’t worry about me so much.”

With Tia fast asleep at his feet, he spread the latest issue of Chessworld on the table and concentrated so hard trying to solve a difficult problem that he forgot about the cigarette he was holding until an ash fell on its pages. As he relit the cigarette, a wave of tiny tremors ran through Tia’s fur from head to tail. Her ears stiffened momentarily, then dropped again. But Rimona kept her peace. So fragile was the silence between them that now and then the tick of the bulky tin alarm clock reached him from the bedroom.

Rimona had narrow hips, small, firm breasts, and long hands and fingers. From the rear, her thin, clean lines made her look like a girl at the onset of puberty, like a well-bred product of a finishing school, one who had been taught to stand erect, never to wriggle her behind, to sit ramrod-straight with her knees kept together, and always to do dutifully just what she was told. On the rare occasions when Rimona lifted her long hair to wear it in a high bun, baring the light nap on her neck, Yonatan would beg her to let it down again, for the nakedness of it was so naked that it shamed him. Nearly always her dark, widely set eyes had a veiled look. So did her lips, which, chill and shaded, reflected an imperturbable calm. Not even when she spoke, not even when she smiled, did it vanish. And, in any event, she smiled infrequently, the smile beginning not on, but around, those lips and spreading slowly, hesitantly to the corners of her eyes. It always made her seem like a little girl who has just been shown something that little girls are not supposed to see.