As he said this, he had an image of Yael’s face twisted with shock and disgust when she turned the light on in her bedroom a couple of hours previously and found him sleeping fully dressed under her blanket, clutching her nightie. She had raised her voice in exasperation, Quick, Teddy, come and see this. As if some insect, some kind of Gregor Samsa, had crept into her bed. He must have looked utterly stupid, if not demented, when he woke in a daze, stretched, and sat up, ail rumpled from sleep, and hopelessly tried to explain to them what had happened. As if hoping that if he could explain himself, they would take pity on him and let him curl up and go back to sleep. But he only succeeded in becoming more and more embroiled in his explanation, claiming at first that Dimi had not been feeling very well, then weakening and changing his line of defense, presenting a contrary version of events: Dimi had been fine but he himself had felt unwell.

Tobias, as usual, maintained his self-control. He pronounced a single frosty sentence:

“This time, Fima, I think you’ve gone a bit too far.”

And while Yael put Dimi to bed, Ted phoned for a taxi and even helped Fima to get his arm into the tricky sleeve, fetched his shabby cap, accompanied him downstairs, and personally gave the driver Fima’s address, as though to make certain beyond all doubt that he would not change his mind and come knocking on their door again.

And in fact, why not?

He owed them a full explanation.

At that moment, standing naked and sticky in his bathroom, he made up his mind to get dressed at once, call for a taxi, march back in there, wake them up, and talk to them earnestly, till dawn if necessary. It was his duty to alert them to the child’s misery. To misery in general. To activate them. Confront them with the full urgency of the danger. With all due respect to jet-propelled vehicles, our first responsibility is to the child. This time he would not give in, he would also open the taxi driver’s eyes on the way there, shattering all stubbornness and heartlessness: he would counteract all that brainwashing and force everyone to recognize at long last how close disaster was.