Five thousand men, Fima thought, five thousand of us simply refusing to do our reserve service in the Territories—that’s all it would take. The whole occupation would collapse. But it’s just those five thousand who have turned into experts on roof tiles. Those bastards are right when they say that all they need to do is play for time. At the end of her story she’ll go to bed with me. She’s working herself up to it.

“For a few winters,” Annette continued, a sly, bitter line appearing at the corner of her mouth, as though she could read his mind, “he spends one night a week in Beer Sheva, because he’s been asked to teach some course or other at the medical school there. Thoughts of other women in his life never crossed my mind. I just didn’t think it was in him. Especially since even his home consumption had dwindled over the years, if you know what I mean. What would he do with a mistress? Just as it would never have occurred to me to imagine that he was, let’s say, a Syrian spy. It was simply impossible. I knew everything about him. At least, that’s what I thought. And I accepted him as he was, including that sarcastic whistle that I was convinced by now wasn’t really a whistle and definitely wasn’t sarcastic. On the other hand—I’m embarrassed to tell you this, but I really feel like telling everything—eight years ago, in the summer, I went to stay with a cousin of mine in Amsterdam for three weeks and I had a whirlwind romance with a stupid blond security officer from the embassy, twenty years younger than me. A real animal in bed, if you know what I mean, but the guy soon showed himself to be a narcissistic half-wit. It might make you laugh to know that someone thinks women get a kick out of having their stomachs smeared with honey. Just imagine! In a word, he was just a disturbed child. Not worth my good husband’s little finger.”

Fima ordered her another vodka without her asking, and, yielding to his hunger pangs, another plate of bread and cheese for himself. The last. In his mind he resolved to be patient and gentle. Not to pounce on her. To drop politics. To talk only about poetry and loneliness in a general sort of way. Above all, to be patient.