“I can’t. I can’t think about anything else. That dog keeps howling at me, those brown eyes so obedient, so tame, so happy to be the center of attention, and wagging his tail, and giving a warm lick to anyone who bent over him. Even when Ronen was tying his legs together, he gave Ronen a lick. And his ear came off and fell on the ground like a slice of bread. I keep hearing him crying all the time in my head, and maybe he really is still alive, dying in a puddle among the rocks in the wadi, crying and waiting for the vet. In the night God will come and kill me for it. The best thing for me is not to go to sleep at all. Or he’ll kill me because I hate them and it’s forbidden to hate your parents. Who told them to have me? I didn’t ask for any favors. There’s nothing to do around here anyway. Whatever you do turns out badly. It’s all just trouble and shouting. Whatever I do, just trouble and shouting. You were married to my mother once and then you didn’t want her. Or she didn’t want you. Trouble and shouting. Dad says it happened because you’re a little like a clown. He said it to me in English. They don’t have much use for me either. What they need is to always have peace and quiet in the flat and everything to be tidy and in the right place and not to slam the door. Every time a door slams, she yells at me and Dad. Every time some pen isn’t where it’s supposed to be, he yells at me and Mom. Every time the top of the toothpaste isn’t screwed on properly, they both yell at me. No, they don’t yell; they just point out. Like this: It would be preferable if, in future . . . Or he says to her in English, Do something so that child doesn’t get under my feet. And she says, It’s your child, sir. When you were little, Fima, didn’t you ever wish deep down that your parents would die? Didn’t you want to be an orphan and free like Huckleberry Finn? Weren’t you a little clown?”

Fima said:

“Every child has thoughts like that at one time or another. It’s natural. But they don’t really mean it.”

Dimi said nothing. His albino eyes began to blink again fast, as though the light was hurting them. And he added:

“Say, Fima, you need a child, don’t you? How’d you like it if we went away together? We could go to the Galapagos Islands and build ourselves a cabin out of branches. We could catch fish and clams, and grow vegetables. We could track the thousand-year-old tortoises that you told me about once.”