It was very bad that he had forgotten to take precautions that morning. What if he got Annette Tadmor pregnant? He’d have to jump aboard a tramp steamer again and run away. To Greece. To Nineveh. To Alaska. Or to the Galapagos Islands. In the dimness of Annette’s womb, in a dark labyrinth of moist tunnels, his blind seed was now forcing its way with ridiculous tail-movements, jerking to and fro in the warm liquid, a sort of round, bald Fima-head, possibly wearing a microscopic wet cloth cap, ageless, brainless, sightless, and yearning out of the depths for the hidden source of warmth, nothing but a head and a tail and the urge to thrust and nestle, to ram the crust of the ovum, in every respect resembling its father, who longed to cocoon himself once and for all deep in the feminine slime and there snuggle up cosily and fall asleep. Fima was filled with worry but also a strange jealousy of his own seed. Under a yellow streetlight in front of the Yeshurun Synagogue he stopped and peered at his watch. He could still catch the second showing at the Orion. Jean Gabin certainly wouldn’t let him down. But where exactly was he supposed to pick Annette up? Or was it Nina? Or where were they supposed to pick him up? It looked as if this evening he was doomed to let Jean Gabin down. A boy and girl, young and noisy, passed him as he shuffled slowly past Beit Hama’alot, near the old parliament building. The boy said:

“All right, so let’s both give in.”

And the girl:

“It’s too late now. It won’t make any difference.”

Fima quickened his pace, hoping to steal some more snatches of their conversation. For some reason he needed to know what sort of concessions they were talking about and what it was that would make no difference now. Had they also forgotten to take precautions this evening? But suddenly the boy wheeled around furiously, leaped to the curb, and waved his arm. At once a taxi stopped, and the boy bent over and started to get in without so much as a glance at his partner. Fima realized immediately that in another moment or two this girl would be left abandoned in the middle of the wet street, and he already had some opening words ready on the tip of his tongue, cautiously encouraging words that would not alarm her, a sad, wise sentence that would make her smile through her tears. But he did not get the chance.

The girl called out:

“Come back, Yoav. I give in.”