One would think, Fima mused ironically, that in your own flat in Kiryat Yovel the air is perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, you with your Trotskyite kitchen and your bottle of worms on the balcony and your decrepit lavatory.

He stood up and opened a window. After a moment he closed it again. Not because of the cold but because he felt sorry to lose this doom-laden smell, which he would probably never be able to recall once he allowed it to disperse. Let it stay a few more days. The future was just beginning. Yet it would have been nice to sit in the kitchen now, over a glass of steaming Russian tea, and argue with the old man late into the night. Without mockery or levity. Like a pair of intimate adversaries. Far from Hasidic tales and all the casuistry, the witticisms, the anecdotes, the clever wordplay. Not provoking the old man, not annoying him with impieties. No, with real affection. Like a pair of surveyors representing two countries in a dispute but themselves working together with amicable professionalism on the precise demarcation of the border. As one man to another. Sorting out at last what has been from what is from what is over and done with, and what might still be possible here if we only devote ourselves to it with all our strength.

But what is it that he must sort out with his father? What is the border that needs demarcation? What does he need to prove to the old man? Or to Yael? Or to Dimi? What does he need to say that is not a quotation, or a paradox, or a refutation, or a clever wisecrack?

The inheritance neither weighed him down nor lifted him up. True, he knew nothing about cosmetics, but the fact was he had no real understanding of anything. There might even be a certain advantage in that, although Fima could not be bothered at this moment to try to think what it as. Moreover, he had no needs. Apart from the most simple, basic needs: food, warmth, and shelter. He had no desires, either, except perhaps a vague desire to appease everybody, to heal disputes, to sow some peace here and there. How could he do that? How does one bring about a change of heart? Soon he would have to meet the employees of the business, find out about their working conditions, see what could be improved.

The upshot was that he needed to learn. And learning was one thing he did know about. So he would learn. Gradually.

He would make a start tomorrow. Although in fact tomorrow was already here: it was past midnight.