The Same Sea by Amos Oz Page B

never mind. Tomorrow in Patna station
he will buy cards and stamps and post them. Never mind,
he wanted to say. Never mind that you took my father, such a thin,
childlike man, into the shower to see your body. Let him see it. Never
mind. I like the idea. And you took his hand and placed it here and there
to feel. Never mind that he saw you, never mind that he touched. After all,
he recoiled at once and fled to wander dazed on the boulevard among tattered
papers in the rain. No harm done. Never mind. After all, when I was a baby
his wife suckled me and changed my diaper, and lulled me to sleep on her
tummy, and now my wife does the same to him. Soon he will become a baby.

He adds sugar and stirs then adds more sugar
    Dubi Dombrov is waiting at ten in the morning in Café Limor for a date
which will never materialize because it has not been arranged. He leafs
through a newspaper, glancing repeatedly at his watch as though she is
already late. In fact his morning is fairly clear: there is nothing in his schedule
except some postponed chores, insurance premiums, bills, a dermatologists fee
and accumulated parking tickets. On this December morning you can see,
through the window, a pair of Russian girls by a road sign, laughing, ogling
a biker in gloves and black leathers whose Suzuki roars between his thighs
like a bull. At the entrance to the Odeon salon for "Bridal Styling—let us
give you the finishing touch" stands a man in a dinner jacket and bow tie,
wailing on a fiddle, his eyes seemingly closed. A penguin washed up in
the Levant. There is also a grasshopper of a Hasid in the street, pestering
passersby, soliciting them to put on
tefillin.
Dubi Dombrov, with a pale-green
silk scarf round his neck, orders a cup of coffee with a slice of jam cake
and fishes out the script of
Nirit's Love,
to polish it up: Far from the city far
from Café Limor stands an old village house, adjoining the cemetery, with
a tiled roof and chimney stack, thirty to forty fruit trees, some beehives and
a dovecote, all surrounded with a stone wall, drowned in the shade of dense
cypress trees. Here is where she will come for a few days and nights to
sweeten his solitude. True, he is a pretty repulsive guy, that is why she feels
sorry for him, but inside he is deep. Before her eyes, in the course
of three days and nights, he will shine through brilliant and pure, he will
slough off his hideous crust, be purged of the dross of defects, humiliations
and lies, and stand before her like a candle whose light quivers gently among
heaps of junk. Here in Café Limor, because of the low clouds, the shadow
is gradually lapping up the puddles of feeble electric light as though sucking it
up through a straw. Wait for me. Wait just a bit. Maybe this Giggy will
wangle us a grant from that fund that his father is one of the trustees of and
you and I together will come up with a production that will leave everyone
stunned and we'll walk away with a load of prizes and make tons of dough,
and then you and I. Or else. Or I could drop everything and go off tomorrow
to the Himalayas too, to shed my dead skin and set out in search of a spark.
He pours another spoonful of sugar into his coffee, which has soaked up
three spoonfuls already, stirs, and forgets to drink it. Should he go to her
right now. Should he suggest that they make a fresh start. Wait for me. Wait
just a bit. Or perhaps first he should send her a subtly worded love letter so
she'll see he's not just another stud but above all a spiritual being. With
thumb and forefinger he signals to the waiter to bring him a short espresso,
and he continues to leaf through the script, sniffing and rooting around,
leaving coffee stains on the pages and his sleeve, and pencilling notes in
the margins, while his other hand absentmindedly adds sugar and stirs,
then adds more sugar and stirs again.

Adagio
    From morning to evening the light shines outside, not realizing
that it is light. Tall trees inhale silence with no