“I don’t understand it either. Look. An hour and a half ago, at the office, I suddenly had a feeling that you were in trouble. That something bad had happened to you. Maybe you were ill, lying here alone in a fever. I tried to call, but your phone was always busy. I thought perhaps you’d forgotten to put the receiver back, once again. I dashed out in the middle of quite an import ant meeting about an insurance company that’s gone broke, and came running straight to you. Or, rather, I stopped on the way to do some shopping for you, so you wouldn’t starve to death. It’s almost as though Uri and I have adopted you as our child. Except that Uri seems to get a kick out of the game, whereas all I get is depressed. The whole time. Again and again I get this feeling that something terrible has happened to you, and I drop everything and come running. Such an awful feeling, as though you were calling out to me from far away: Nina, come quick. There’s no explanation. Do me a favor, Fima; stop stuffing yourself with bread. Look how fat you’re getting. And, anyway, I haven’t got the strength or the inclination right now for your earth-shattering theories about Mitterrand and the British Labour party. Save it for Uri, for Saturday night. All I want you to say is what’s wrong. What’s happening to you? Something strange is going on that you’re keeping from me. Even stranger than usual. As if you were slightly drugged.”

Fima obeyed immediately. He stopped munching the piece of bread he was holding and put it down absent-mindedly in the sink like an empty cup. He began to stammer that the wonderful thing about her was that with her he felt hardly any embarrassment. He wasn’t afraid of appearing ridiculous. He didn’t even care if he was miserable or stupid in her presence, as happened the other night. As if she were his sister. Now he was going to say something trite, but so what? Trite wasn’t necessarily the opposite of true. What he wanted to say was that for him she was a good person. And that she had the loveliest fingers he had ever seen.

Still with her back to him, bending over the sink, picking out the piece of bread Fima had put there, scrubbing the ceramic and the taps, carefully rinsing her hands, Nina said sadly:

“You left a sock at my place, Fima.”

And then:

“It’s ages since we slept together.”

She stubbed out her cigarette, clutched his arm with her exquisitely shaped hand, like that of a young girl from the Far East, and whispered:

“Come now. I have to be back in the office in less than an hour.”