She was sitting on his chair at the reception desk, bent over a crossword magazine. She had stern square shoulders like an elderly sergeant major, a stout body, and a kindly, open face, and her splendid silky hair was soft and gleaming. Every visible patch of her skin was covered with freckles. Presumably they also covered the parts that were concealed. The unusual trick of pigmentation that gave her one green eye and one brown one made him feel not amusement at her expense but wonder and even a certain awe. He himself might have been born with one of his father’s ears and one of his mother’s. He might have inherited out of the evolutionary abyss the lizard’s tail or the cockroach’s feelers. Kafka’s story about Gregor Samsa, who woke up one morning to find he had turned into a giant cockroach, seemed to Fima to be neither a parable nor an allegory, but a realistic possibility. Tamar did not know the story, but vaguely recalled that Kafka was a poor Yugoslav who was killed fighting against the bureaucrats. Fima could not contain himself: he told her all about Kafka and his various love affairs. Once he was certain he had whetted her appetite, he went on to give her a summary of the plot of Metamorphosis. He told her that the Hebrew title of the story was not an accurate translation, but he failed in his effort to explain what was wrong with it and how the title ought to be translated.

Without looking up from her crossword puzzle, Tamar said:

“But what was he trying to say? That the father was really a murderer? Maybe he was trying to be funny, but it doesn’t amuse me at all. I’m in exactly the same situation myself. Not a day goes by without his poking fun at me. He never misses an opportunity to humiliate me. Actually, yesterday, when you weren’t here, he hardly insulted me at all. He treated me almost like a human being. He even offered me a throat lozenge. Can you think of a bird in seven letters ending with L?”

Fima peeled an old orange he found under the counter: he managed to avoid cutting his fingers though he did rather massacre the orange. Handing a few segments to Tamar, he replied:

“Maybe he wasn’t feeling well yesterday, or something.”

“Do you have to joke about it too? Can’t you see it’s painful. Why don’t you talk to him about it? Can’t you ask him why he’s always so cruel to me?”

“It must be sea gull,” said Fima. “But why did you get involved with that monster in the first place? He hates the human race in general and women in particular.”

Tamar said:

“You must understand, Fima. It’s not up to me.”