Once and for all to grab the bread knife and plunge it into her soft skin, into her veins and her arteries, and down deeper yet, to open her up, to rampage through the dark lymph of her and the fat and the cartilage, to the innermost nooks and crannies, to the marrow of her bones, to carve her till she screamed. He had had enough. He couldn’t go on any more in such againstness.

Thus Yonatan, so far from forgetting the words he had prepared for that evening, was suddenly repelled by them, and, indeed, by anything that could be said in words. If only he could draw what he felt, or play it on an instrument, or jot it down as a simple equation in clear mathematical terms.

“The coffee you made me,” he said. “I’m sorry. I forgot to drink it and it’s cold.”

“There’s more hot coffee on the stove. I didn’t drink mine either, because I was embroidering and thinking. I’ll pour us both some more.”

“What were you thinking about, Rimona?” Opening his eyes, Yonatan saw the flower of blue flame beneath the white-hot stove shield and, glancing down, the quick, nervous tremors that ran down Tia’s spine as she lay with outstretched paws by the heater.

“I was thinking,” said Rimona, “that maybe tomorrow they’ll finally fix the steam boiler in the laundry room. It’s been hard for us without it.”

“It really is about time,” said Yonatan.

“On the other hand,” said Rimona, “you can’t exactly blame anyone for it. Lipa has been sick. Your father’s not much better yet either.”

“My father keeps telling me I need a haircut. Do you think I do?”

“You don’t, but if you want one, get one.”

“I haven’t been sick once all winter. Except for this stupid allergy. Sometimes it makes people think I’m crying. Praise’a God who dries’a the tears of’a the poor. That’s what Bolognesi says whenever my eyes tear. Look at me, Rimona.”

“The winter isn’t over yet, Yoni, and you keep running back and forth all day from the tractor shed to the metal shop without a hat and with torn boots.”

“You’re wrong. Only one of them. Bolognesi said he’d fix the sole. You know, that whole tractor shed business isn’t for me.”

“But you once liked it.”

“So what if I did?” snapped Yonatan. “So once I did and now I don’t. What is it that you’re always trying to tell me without ever saying it? Or if you do start to say it, you stop right in the middle. Why don’t you come out with it and stop playing games? I’m asking you to talk. I promise not to interrupt. I’ll be quiet as a mouse and listen to every word. Go on.”