In bed, by the glow of the radio, which was playing late-night music, he kissed her tenderly a few times. The doctor in Haifa had advised that since her pregnancy was not a routine one, she must refrain from completed sex. She moistened her palms with saliva and began stroking Azariah’s penis between them. Almost at once his sperm jetted upon her fingers, and he buried a high, sharp cry in her hair. Once at peace, he kissed her in the corners of her eyes.

By the time she returned from the bathroom, he was already sleeping like a child. She turned off the radio and lay down wide awake beside him, listening as peacefully as the earth itself to Efrat breathing in the dark. As soon as Efrat had fallen asleep, she did too.

Much later, near midnight, Srulik passed by on his nocturnal stroll. He turned off the sprinkler that Azariah had forgotten to tend to on the lawn.

20

By four, Azariah was out of bed and off to work in the tractor shed. After changing the radiator in a D-6 and fixing an oil leak in one of the combines, it occurred to him to remove the picture of the Minister of Welfare that he had clipped from an illustrated magazine during the winter. In place of Dr. Burg, he put up a colorful picture of the sea, which had been much on his mind as the summer heat grew more intense.

Rimona was off to work in the laundry room two hours later.

“So how’s everything?” asked Hava. “Are you sure you’re all right? Nothing hurts? Just remember you’re not to carry anything.”

“I made you a pot of orange marmalade yesterday,” said Rimona. “Please don’t forget to look for it. I left it on the marble counter in your kitchen.”

In the metal shop a barefoot Bolognesi donned his welder’s mask and set to work repairing chicken cages. Sparks flew in all directions. “By day’a drought consume’a me an’ frost by night,” he mumbled.

Etan R. had made some far-reaching changes in the cowshed. Now that stubborn Stutchnik was gone at last and there was no one to stand in the way of progress, he lost no time in streamlining the operation. Both his girlfriends worked alongside him, and the lunacy of the late-night milking had been relegated to the dustbin of history. The three of them now began the milking at the eminently civilized hour of nine p.m. On finishing around twelve, they would go for a starlit dip in the pool, open a bottle of wine, and let nature take its course.