How did she know to ask that? he wondered. How did she ask that question at precisely the right moment, the right point in his chain of thoughts and terrors? Because that is the thing that has remained fresh and new ever since things were first revealed to him in their true light. It is the point to which he can always return, even in his sleep, in the greatest desperation, when he needs to refuel his passion for her, and it is the minute that never ends, the eternal present that has been going on for ten years: Shaul and Elisheva are in the kitchen of their old house on Rachel Imenu Street, chopping vegetables for a salad, as they do every evening, chatting about how the day went and what will happen tomorrow and who paid what and who will take Tom to the dentist, when all of a sudden the door swings open to reveal a man Shaul has never seen before. He walks straight into the kitchen and says, with a heavy Russian accent, that he can't take it anymore.
No, no. Not so fast. Better to rewind and play it again, slowly and in the correct order. Shaul stands there wearing Elisheva's floral apron, holding a small bunch of dill ready to be chopped, and looks at Elisheva questioningly with a slightly amazed smile: Perhaps it's a prank or a joke? But why would she play a joke on him? Even so, he still tries to solve this nightmare in a positive way: maybe it's some aggressive marketing campaign for a vacation package to Izmir, or maybe the cable company is offering a new deal. But it seems pretty clear that that's not it. The man stands in their kitchen, filling it with his presence, with his quiet bearishness, and he is serious and somber, so somber that his tanned face is pale. Shaul also notices that his fingers are shaking a little, which must be a good sign, because it means the man is afraid of confronting him. Although, on the other hand, perhaps it says something about how acute his condition is. Meanwhile, the two of them, Shaul and he, do not move, and that's good too, because the stranger's element of surprise is becoming less of an advantage. Although, on the other hand, he is still in Shaul's kitchen rather than Shaul being in his kitchen. The man is slightly taller than him, but much more solid and broader, with a thick neck and a large face. He is not handsome but certainly powerful, no longer a young man, several years older than Shaul, ten at least, and he looks a little sad even, and here is where Shaul begins to sense that he's right for her. She likes the ones with sober and grave expressions.
And it is his graveness which is in fact most confusing, because you can tell just by looking at him that he deliberated a lot before taking this step, that he carefully evaluated the chances and the risks, and if he still decided to burst in here-the word "burst" is exaggerated; the truth is that he knocked on the door, so hesitantly in fact that they barely heard him, and Shaul went to open the door, and the guy said, Excuse me, and asked if Elisheva was home, and she called out from the kitchen, Yes, who is it? Come in, please, in a surprised and cheerful voice, the voice she had back then, and the man murmured something to Shaul and walked past him with a kind of apologetic bow and went into the kitchen-and if all that has happened, it must mean the man estimated he would get what he wanted, and that means Shaul will lose.
But what did "lose" mean? And how could he lose his life like this to a complete stranger? If indeed he is a complete stranger to Elisheva too, and this Shaul still cannot determine. But let's assume he really does lose, and that after the brief confrontation which will shortly occur-but how? Will they throw punches? Use knives? Like two deer locking antlers? — Shaul may have to leave this house. What would become of everything then? What would become of the house? And Elisheva? And the seven years of mortgage they still owe? And the large salad bowl and the silly apron Shaul is still wearing around his waist? Action must be taken now, immediately, and he surreptitiously grasps the edge of the table and clears his throat to restore his power of speech, and demands that the man explain what he is doing here. He already knows that this is a mistake, because he should have just gotten up and grabbed him by the shirt collar and thrown him down the stairs (although there were only two in that house), but instead, by the mere fact of his prolonged silence, it was as if he had already entered into negotiations over something, and had seemingly granted him what little legitimacy he needed as a stranger from the outside.
The man has still not moved. He sinks his head between his shoulders, and his entire posture is that of an overgrown foster child who has tired of being shifted around and uprooted and has come and planted himself down somewhere, with some family, wordlessly proclaiming that this is his final station, that he will not budge from here. Listen, he whispers to Elisheva without looking up, listen, I'm really sorry, but it's just no longer bearable. He falls silent and bows his head, and his lower jaw drops.
Slowly, almost stealthily, Shaul removes his apron. He regrets that he is not wearing shoes or something more solid than the brown plaid slippers. They were a gift from his parents for some anniversary, two matching pairs, his and hers, which his dad had gotten hold of in one of the barter transactions he advocated as a way of resisting income tax. But at least the slippers represent a silent, forceful declaration that they belong to each other, Elisheva and he, that they are far more like each other than Elisheva could ever be like a man with a heavy jaw and dark baggy eyes and a doglike and bitter look in his eyes, a man who makes a surprise infiltration into someone else's kitchen and demands Elisheva for himself. Shaul already realizes that he's not such a big hero, that he seems to have already used up most of his reserves of courage with his melodramatic bursting into the kitchen, and now he is trembling no less than Shaul, because most likely he has never been in such a situation either.
Out of embarrassment or weakness, the man leans against the fridge, but it seems to Shaul as if he has already taken this stance before, with this same fridge, as if he's used to standing there like that, among all the notes and the phone numbers and the pizza magnets. Shaul is amazed to think of how many times he himself has touched that same fridge without suspecting that perhaps an hour or two earlier, in his absence, another man had touched it for a minute. At once his mind becomes crowded with treacherous furniture, tables, bureaus, and couches that conspire against him, not to mention the double bed and even the air in the house-who knows how many times this man has touched them all and then left and closed the door behind him softly, without leaving any footprints? Elisheva herself walks in this space and breathes it inside her, and Shaul suddenly understands the significance of her soft touch, the way she always caresses everything she touches, any item or furnishing, even mugs and teaspoons that she holds with softly drawn fingers and a slight linger, which until now has always secretly delighted him. The man, with a mouth that looks torn from being stretched, says he doesn't have the strength to wait any longer, that he's losing his mind.
And Elisheva? What is she going through? Shaul doesn't look at her. Strange how he can't bring himself to turn his head to her, and the man can't either, so neither of them knows what she is showing them; they are both temporarily equal to each other in their inability to turn their heads and look at her. Shaul resents the unfounded comparison with a stranger, with someone who is an immigrant in every sense of the word, and he tosses a sighed question into the air: Does Elisheva even know him? The stranger, for the first time since coming in, manages to turn his head with great effort, beating Shaul to it, and looks straight at her. This causes Shaul to look too, and he sees with surprise how from the weary Elisheva of 8 p.m., another woman suddenly shines out from beneath her married skin. This is a woman Shaul does not know. She is transparent and light, and her thin silhouette twitches inside his Elisheva like a dragonfly caught in a paper lantern, and all at once he is filled with an unknown strength and is willing to fight for her and be killed and even kill. But then he thinks perhaps this internal revelation of hers is not intended for him but for the strange man, who is practically subdued by the image of the illuminated dragonfly, his slightly crude face turning soft and weak, the face of a man looking at a particularly beloved scene. Shaul has no doubt of this, and Elisheva smiles softly and says yes, she knows him.