Fima did not ask himself what he would do with all these things, but he pondered on what someone like himself understood of the manufacture and sale of cosmetics. And since the Hebrew language does not tolerate such constructions, he corrected himself mentally: the manufacture of cosmetics and their sale.

And suddenly he said to himself:

“It doesn’t tolerate? So let it not tolerate!”

At ten o’clock, after he had conducted Dimi to a bedroom and told him a short adventure story about the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece, he sent all his friends home. He dismissed all their entreaties and protests. No, thank you very much, there was no need for anyone to stay the night. No, thank you very much, he did not want to be driven to his flat in Kiryat Yovel either. Nor did he have any desire to stay with any of them. He would spend the night here. He wanted to be alone. Yes. Absolutely. Thank you. No. Absolutely. No need. Kind of you to offer anyway. You’re all wonderful people.

When he was left alone, he was tempted to open a window to let in some fresh air. On second thought he decided not to, but instead to close his eyes for a while and try to discover the precise composition of the strange smell of this flat. A smell of doom. Although there was no apparent connection between the smell and the sad event that had taken place here earlier in the day. The flat had always been kept spotlessly clean and tidy. At least outwardly. Both before and after his mother’s death. Twice a week a home helper came to polish everything, the candlesticks, the brass lamps, the silver goblets that were used for religious rituals. His father had taken a cold shower every morning, summer and winter. And the flat had been redecorated regularly every five years.

So what was the source of the smell?

Since he had stopped living here after his military service, his nostrils had recoiled from it every time he came back to visit the old man. It was a faint whiff of something malodorous, half hidden always behind other scents. Was it a trash can that needed emptying? Dirty laundry lingering too long in the basket in the bathroom? Some defect in the plumbing? Mothballs in the wardrobes? Faint cooking odors of thick, oversweet Eastern European food? Fruit that had sat too long in the fruit bowl? Water in vases that had not been changed although the flowers were changed regularly twice a week? Behind the elegance and tidiness there was always a sourness hovering, minimal and latent admittedly, but persistent, like mold. Was it an uneradicable relic of the opaque, glassy politeness that had spread and frozen here between his father and his mother, and not ceased even with her death? Was there any chance that now it would evaporate?