“I have a chance of finishing relatively early this evening. Come straight to my office after the clinic, and we’ll go to the concert at the YMCA. Or we’ll go and see that Jean Gabin film. Then we’ll go back to my place. Don’t be gloomy.”

23

Fima Forgets What He Has Forgotten

FIMA RETURNED TO THE KITCHEN. HE WOLFED DOWN ANOTHER four slices of Nina’s fresh black Georgian bread thickly spread with apricot jam. The defense minister said:

“I urge all of us not to resort to all sorts of dubious shortcuts.”

Slightly mispronouncing the last word. And Fima, with his mouth full of bread and jam, echoed him:

“And all of us urge you not to report to all sorts of tubeless chalk-huts.”

He immediately recoiled from this petty wordplay. As he turned off the radio, he apologized to Rabin:

“I must run. I’m late for work.” And, chewing a heartburn tablet, for some reason he pocketed Annette’s earring, which he had found in the ashtray among Nina’s cigarette butts. He put on his coat, taking particular care not to trap his arm in the lining of the sleeve. And because the bread had not assuaged his hunger, and because in any case he counted it as breakfast, he went into the café opposite his flat for a bite of lunch. He could not remember if the name of the proprietress was Mrs. Schneidmann or simply Mrs. Schneider. He decided it was Schneidermann. As usual, she did not take offense. She beamed at him with a cheery sparkle in her childlike eyes, which reminded him of a rustic Russian icon, and said:

“It’s Scheinmann, Dr. Nisan. Never mind. It’s not important at all. The main thing is, God should give good health and prosperity to all Jewish people. And peace should come at last to this dear country of ours. It’s hard to take so many deaths all the time. Today the stewed beef for the doctor, or the chicken today?”

Fima thought about it, and ordered the stew and an omelette, and a mixed salad, and a fruit compote. At another table sat a small, wrinkled man who struck Fima as glum and unwell. He was lazily reading Yediot Aharonot, turning the pages, staring, picking his teeth, and turning the pages again. His hair seemed to be stuck to his forehead with engine grease. Fima weighed for a moment the chances that it was just he himself, glued to that table since yesterday or the day before, and that all the events of the night and the morning had never taken place. Or that they had happened to somebody else, who resembled him in some ways and differed from him in a few details that didn’t matter.