Fima refolded the truncated letter and replaced it in its envelope, then put the envelope back in the folder from the Ministry of the Interior, Department of Local Government. He replaced the folder in the bottom drawer. It was after half past three. A cock was crowing far away, a dog was barking persistently in the dark, and the blind man was still tapping with his stick in the empty street. After a moment he thought he heard the muezzin calling in the village of Beit Safafa. He got back into bed, switched out the light, and started composing in his mind the missing ending. After a moment he fell asleep. He had had a long day.

19

In the Monastery

IN HIS DREAM URI APPEARED IN THE MIDDLE OF A SNOWSTORM TO summon him to take his leave of Annette, who was dying of a complication of childbirth in a British naval hospital. They made their way on a sledge through a white forest until they reached a building that vaguely resembled the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem. Wounded and dying people with crushed limbs blocked their way, rolling on the floor in the corridors, groaning, bleeding. Uri said, They’re only Cossacks; you can step on them. Eventually behind the monastery they discovered a pleasant little garden containing a Greek tavern with a vine-shaded terrace and tables set for a meal. Among the tables stood a sort of litter. When Fima parted the velvet curtains, he saw his wife making love tearfully but eagerly with a dark, shriveled man who was lying underneath her uttering feeble moans. Suddenly, in a flash of horror, it dawned on him that she was copulating with a corpse. The corpse was the Arab youth from the news bulletin, the one we murdered in Gaza with a bullet through the head.

20

Fima Is Lost in the Forest

AFTER WRITING IN HIS NOTEBOOK HE DOZED TILL SEVEN O’CLOCK. Rumpled, disheveled, hating his body’s night smell, he forced himself to get up. He skipped the exercises in front of the mirror. He shaved without cutting himself. He drank two cups of coffee. The very thought of bread and jam or yogurt gave him heartburn. He vaguely remembered that he had to deal this morning with some matter that could not be put off, but for the life of him he could not remember what it was, or why it was so urgent. So he decided to go downstairs to his mailbox to fetch the letter he had seen in it last night, and also to bring up the newspaper, but not to spend more than a quarter of an hour on it. Then he would sit down at once to work uncompromisingly on the article he had not managed to finish in the night.