Eventually he made his way to the utility room, a kind of open cubicle formed by closing in a balcony with opaque glass. He fed a heap of towels into the washing machine, pushed his duster in too, read and reread the instructions, and surprised himself by getting the machine to work. To the left of the washing machine stood the sterilizer, with the instructions printed on a panel in English: 200° centigrade, 110 minutes. Fima decided not to put this machine on yet, even though it contained a couple of pairs of scissors and several forceps, as well as some stainless-steel bowls. Perhaps it was because the temperatures struck him as lethal. Going into the lavatory, he inhaled with a strange pleasure the pungent cocktail of disinfectant smells. He tried to empty his bladder but failed, perhaps because of his thoughts about drowned infants. Angrily he gave up, cursed his penis, zipped up, returned to Tamar, and, resuming their earlier conversation, said: “Why don’t you try breaking off contact? Just ignore his rudeness? Signal nothing from now on except utter indifference? I dusted and tidied everything and put the washing machine on. As if he was thin air, that’s the way to treat him.”

“How can I, Fima? I’m in love with him. Why can’t you understand? But there is one thing I ought to do, really: instead of looking glum, I ought to slap his face. Sometimes I have a feeling he’s just waiting for me to do it. I think it might do him good.”

“The truth is”—Fima grinned—“he’s earned himself an honest slap from you. What is it Wahrhaftig says: ‘like in a civilized country.’ I’d really enjoy seeing that. Even if in principle I’m not keen on violence. There, I’ve found it for you.”

“Found what for me?”

“Your African country. Try Sierra Leone. I didn’t put the sterilizer on because it was almost empty. A waste of electricity.”

Tamar said:

“Stop loving him. That’s the only thing that would save me. Stop just like that. But how do you do it? You know everything, Fima. Do you know that too?”

He laughed, shrugged his shoulders, muttered something, regretted it, finally pulled himself together and said: