Fima did not take offense, but started to tell her the main points of his new article about the price of morality and the price of abandoning morality, and the different meanings of the term “price” for people with different value systems. Nina interrupted him: Right now we happen to be having a meeting here, the room’s full of people, we’ll talk some other time. He began to ask whether the meeting was about her ultrapious sex shop, but he thought better of it and said good-bye, and he held off for nearly a quarter of an hour before calling Tsvi Kropotkin and telling him about the article he had written in the night in reply to his. He was secretly hoping to score a pleasant telephonic victory: checkmate in four or five moves. But Tsvi was on his way to a class, he was late already: Why don’t we talk about it later, Fima, when we’ve had a chance to read your new gospel in the paper?

It occurred to him to call his father, to read him the facts about India, force him to admit his mistake, and tell him he’d left one of his cuff links behind. Unless the glowworm really was one of Annette’s earrings. He decided it was best to drop the idea of calling Baruch, so as not to get involved.

Since he had no one left to call, Fima stayed in the kitchen for a few minutes longer, picking up the crumbs from his breakfast to preserve the new clean look and admiring the gleaming new kettle. A little willpower, he thought, a little energy, a little elbow grease: it’s not that difficult to start a new chapter. Having arrived at this conclusion, he phoned Yael. He hoped that it would not be Ted who answered. And trusted to the inspiration of the moment to put words in his mouth and tell him what to say to her.