Fima had a vivid image of himself standing guard, alone in the dark, over the abandoned whalers’ camp. A faint lantern sways in the wind at the top of a pole, flickering, guttering in the black expanse, and there is no other light in all the length and breadth of the Pacific wastes extending northward to the Pole and southward to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. A solitary glowworm. Absurd. Its place does not know it. And yet, this precious radiance. Which it is your duty to keep alive as long as possible. It must not stop glimmering in the depth of the frozen expanse at the foot of the snow-covered glaciers. It is your duty to prevent it from being blown out by the wind. At least as long as you are here and until Yoezer arrives. Never mind who you are and what you are and what you have to do with whalers who never existed, you with your myopia, your flabby muscles, your floppy breasts, your ridiculous, clumsy body. The responsibility is yours.

But in what sense?

He put his hand in his pocket to look for a heartburn tablet, but instead of the little tin his fingers dredged up the silver earring, which sparkled for an instant as though bewitched in the light that came from the room behind him. As he hurled it into the deep darkness, he seemed to hear Yael’s sardonic voice:

“Your problem, pal.”

And with his face to the night, in a low, decisive voice, he answered:

“Correct. It is my problem. And I am going to solve it.”

And he smiled again. But this time it was not his habitual, sad smile of self-deprecation, but the astonished curled lip of a man who for a long time has been seeking a complex answer to a complex question and suddenly discovers a simple one.

He turned and went inside. At once he saw Yael, who was deep in conversation with Uri on the sofa, their knees touching. Fima had the impression that laughter had frozen on their lips as he entered. But he felt no envy. On the contrary, a secret joy welled up inside him at the thought that he had slept with every woman in this room, Shula, Nina, and Yael. And yesterday with Annette Tadmor. And tomorrow was another day.

At that moment he caught sight of Dimi kneeling on the carpet in a corner, a quaint, philosophical child, slowly revolving with his finger Baruch’s huge terrestrial globe, which was illuminated from within. The electric light painted the oceans blue and the land masses gold. The child seemed absorbed, detached, concentrating entirely on what he was doing. And Fima remarked to himself, like a man making a mental note of the whereabouts of a suitcase or an electric switch, that he loved this child more than he had ever loved any living soul. Including women. Including the boy’s mother. Including his own mother.