And you have to see where each and every finger is positioned, he thinks, the way his thick little finger rests on the evasive line between her hip and her thigh. Another brushes over her hairline. Touching this place always arouses her, and he too, her man, must know this, although of course he may use a completely different touch to arouse her, in places no other man could even imagine, and with acts no other man has dared commit even though the desire is great. Such a man might like, for example, to traverse her entire body with little kisses down to the soles of her feet, to wrap his lips around her plump white toes, one after the other, very slowly, sealing his lips over each of them and sucking gently but persistently, then to run his tongue around each toe, biting it lightly and sensing its feathery down bristle, things Shaul has been passionately longing to do for years but has never dared, because it is not for him-it is for her and her man, and deep in his heart he knows that it is far more appropriate for them than for himself and her. He no longer asks himself why this is or when it was decreed-there would be no point in pursuing that question. That is simply how things were decided in some distant place, in that way in which delicate matters such as these are normally determined and sealed: a man simply knows what belongs to him and what does not, and the act of slowly licking and sucking her toes does not belong to him, period. Much like the journey in the opposite direction, during which he might have sharply but gently bitten her ankles, still beautiful and refined, then ascended with those same nibbles up to her calves, where he could have made circles with his tongue around the pinkish dimples behind her knees. But he prefers not to think of that now, not today, because today they are relaxed, she and her man, completely still but for that one finger of his that traces light circles on her quivering skin. It's the finger with the silver ring she bought him on the fifth anniversary of their love. She bought two identical ones, and she wears hers only there, in the apartment. How can he tell her?
Esti looks for him in the mirror but does not find him, and for a moment she is alone in the car, in another time, and for a moment there is a strange silence and there is tranquillity, and a hidden door that opens just a crack. She takes a bottle of water from her bag and twists the cap off with her teeth, and then his voice comes from behind her again. He is here. Mumbling to himself with his bowed head rocking a little. But she doesn't listen. She gently disconnects from him as she would unravel her fingers from those of a sleeping child. Delicate feelers stir within her: her refugee senses pick up warmth, the scent of a beloved body, a deep, scorched voice, and loud heartbeats that she can still hear sometimes, even after twenty years, even in a crowded street, like a faraway drumming, and she starts to fervently search around herself, barely able to stop herself from calling out the name.
His finger now hovers over her sunken navel, Shaul can see, and his fleshy thumb sinks lightly into the soft pillow of her stomach. These delicate touches awaken whispers and currents above and beneath her skin, and she contains their motion within her as she lies still, her eyes closed and her pupils clinging to her translucent eyelids. He has only to simply flutter his finger from her navel down to her hairline, barely touching, for the fire to instantly consume her, and perhaps this is what he will do, because deep inside he has not yet completely accepted her desire to lie absolutely quietly beside each other today. Just be together, Elisheva says without opening her eyes. Just recharge, she mumbles, picturing an intravenous drip of quietude and solace-"solace" is such a lovely word for her, Shaul thinks-for both of them, he revises. How blissful for us to find fulfillment together in the power of mere closeness, in merely knowing that I am lying beside him, that my body is satiated-not from the satisfaction of passion, but simply from the sweetness of knowing that he is with me quietly, leisurely, belonging, in this pleasure that gushes up from the heart and boils over and spills onto the sheets, requiring almost no touch, no bodily division, with the silent knowledge that we are a mature man and woman, full of love.
Shaul moans to himself, and Esti hears the moan and perks up. He is sprawled with his face buried in the rough, slightly dusty upholstery, his chest rapidly rising and falling. It has taken him years of drilling down through his thoughts to be capable of reaching this stage, this stratum, where he can hold them together like this for almost a whole hour, an entire encounter, without having them lunge at each other. When he was finally able to do this, he realized he had lost her forever. It was difficult for him to explain this even to himself, but he vaguely sensed that if she and the man were capable of being in a state of utter calm, without passionately throwing themselves at each other, this must mean that he, Shaul, had lost her. And his pain is no duller even now, when he sees them like this, taut- but unlike a drawn bow with its arrow-floating in the warm fluids of illusion as if they had plenty of time for themselves, as if when these fifty minutes were over, another eternity of long hours would naturally follow, more days and nights would come-yes, surely, another whole night together, something he believes they have never had for almost the entire life of their love.
Perhaps at the beginning they did, he whispers suddenly into the seat. Perhaps at the beginning they did what? she asks. Perhaps-at the beginning-they-had-a night. He leaps suicidally into her arms as they open for him. An entire-night-together. He is excited to hear the words outside himself for the first time, and watches them full of wonder as they float like shimmering bubbles of poison. Perhaps when they first started, when I still used to do reserve duty in Julis, he says, and waits for his heart to calm down and thinks he won't be able to take it. Although even when I was on duty there, I almost always managed to get away and come home at night, he chokes, and Esti bites her lip, afraid to even look at him so as not to break the thin web. Just to get three or four hours of sleep at home next to her, he ruminates with a flooded heart. Just to lie close to her body and fill myself up with her breath. He shuts his eyes and his entire body clings to her womanly flesh, which even in sleep brings the promise that tomorrow, as if straight out of her body, the sun will shine. And don't forget Tom, he reminds Esti hoarsely. After all, she couldn't possibly have left him alone there for a whole night, you know what a crazy mother she is. No-he waves his hand-it's com-
pletely against her nature to do something like that. I mean, to wait until Tom falls asleep and then leave the house? No, she didn't do that, he determines. Although, on the other hand, she could have waited until the boy fell asleep and then phoned Paul to come over-
Paul? Esti asks quietly.
Yes, that's his name.
He's not Israeli?
Not really, it's a long story. He's Russian, but his family is from France.
Go on, I didn't mean to interrupt-
He falls quiet again and tries to understand how he can be saying these things, how it can be that his dark words are coming out into the light and yet he is still alive. At once he storms the doorway that has suddenly opened for him in the endless corridor in which he has been bumping around for years; words spill out, cut off, confused, ashamed, squeezing out. But it's so unlike Elisheva, he mumbles, to do something like that. I mean, to bring Paul into our house. What if Tom had woken up suddenly and come to the bedroom in tears? No, of this he absolved her almost completely, always, and it is important to him that Esti knows that even inside the chaos of their revealed and hidden lives, he knows that Elisheva is an honest person, the most honest person he knows, and that she is even loyal, in her own way. This is truly difficult to explain, and he finds it strange that Esti is quiet now and does not ask him anything about it, as if she understands on her own that such a contradiction is possible. And it's absolutely clear to me, he says, that a person less honest than Elisheva would not be so tormented by these transitions-