Fima aimed a fork at his forehead, at his temple, at the back of his head, and tried to guess or sense what it must feel like the instant the bullet pierces the skull and explodes: no pain, no noise, perhaps, so he imagined, perhaps just a searing flash of incredulity, like a child prepared for a slap in the face from his father and receiving instead a white-hot poker in his eye. Is there a fraction, an atom of time, in which illumination arrives? The light of the seven heavens? When what has been dim and vague all your life is momentarily opened up before darkness falls? As though all those years you have been looking for a complicated solution to a complicated problem, and in the final moment a simple solution flashes out?

Here Fima croaked angrily to himself, Just stop fucking up your mind. The words “dim and vague” filled him with disgust. He got up and went out, locking the door of his flat behind him and taking particular note of which pocket he put the key in. In the entrance hall of the block of flats he spotted the white of a letter through the slit of his mailbox. But the only key in his pocket was his front-door key. The key to the mailbox was presumably still lying on his desk. Unless it was in the pocket of another pair of trousers. Or on the corner of the kitchen counter. After a moment’s hesitation he shrugged; the letter was probably nothing but the water bill or the phone bill, or else just a handbill.

While he lunched on a salami omelette, a salad, and a fruit compote in the café across the road, he was startled to see, through the window, that the light was on in his flat. He thought about this awhile, weighed the faint possibility that he was in both places at once, but preferred to assume that the problem had been repaired and the current had been restored. Glancing at his watch, he decided that if he went up to the flat, switched off the light, found the key to the mailbox, and got the letter, he would be late for work, so he paid for his meal, saying, “Thank you, Mrs. Schoenberg.” As usual, she corrected him:

“It’s Scheinmann, Dr. Nisan.”

“Of course,” Fima replied. “I’m sorry. How much do I owe you? I’ve already paid? Well, all I can say is it can’t have been an accident. I must have wanted to pay twice, because your schnitzel—it was schnitzel, wasn’t it—was especially tasty. I’m sorry. Thank you. Good-bye. I must run now. Just look at this rain. Aren’t you looking a little tired? Or unhappy? It’s probably just the weather. It’ll brighten up soon. See you tomorrow.”