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things I needed. I knew she was keeping everything to herself, including the lost manuscript of The Messiah, and to me she threw only the crumbs: dried shrimp legs, empty shells, castrated quotations from his books. Ah! Ignorant opportunist, guardian of a treasure she can’t begin to appreciate. How utterly irresponsible of Bruno to leave it in her hands!

I was boiling mad at her because I had to return to Israel the followingweek and I hadn’t come up with anything important yet. I spent days on end inside her, talking about him to her almost bestial delight; my skin was peeling off like flowered wallpaper, and still she hadn’t agreed to give me any tips. In the evenings I used to join the widow Dombursky in the parlor. She sat there mending the sheets and linens, and squinting at me narrowly while I wrote page after page on the antique sewing machine that served as my table and read the pages over to myself. But I found out that without “her” I can’t write. I’m dependent on her, and this was the most humiliating thing.

The following day I didn’t dip my toe in from morning till night. I strolled along the sandy beach instead, studying the magnificent lilies growing there, amusing myself with the idea of launching, right here in Narvia, a modest shell collection, and pursuing my interest to the point of some expertise. Later I walked over to the lighthouse and climbed the spiral staircase all the way to the top. I don’t like to boast, but I was told in the village that there weren’t many tourists with the fortitude to make the dizzying climb to where part of the wall drops into the sea and the stairs practically wind over the water. Later I discovered that to get from the top floor to the small balcony where the light projector is you have to climb a narrow ladder that juts high over the sea. Unfortunately, it was getting late and I had to forgo this thrilling part of my little excursion.

And so I went back to the beach and spent an interminable afternoon sitting in my chair, utterly alone and freezing cold in an easterly wind, glaring at “her,” and cursing the ill luck that brought us together.

And the widow grumbles openly now. She thinks I’m crazy, or that I’m an American spy, or both. They’re very sensitive around here on account of the demonstrations in the nearby village. And she’s also angry with me for leaving the light on so late at night (I’m probably sending coded messages to American bombers), and besides, I think she saw me throw the flowers into the sea yesterday.

I admit it was stupid of me. A cheap bribe. A small bunch of violets I bought from a kid in the village. I figured that since she doesn’t have flowers, no scented ones anyway, and a certain woman I know loves violets … Well, anyway, last evening on the beach … it was strangely thrilling … maybe because I suddenly missed her very much. I threw the violets into the sea, one by one, the silly woman, who happens to be pretty bright, if inconsistent and always illusive, she loves you, she loves you not … it was partly to forget her that I came here in thefirst place; I had made up my mind on the subject come what may, and planned my liberation like a military campaign, allotting a certain interim for depression, another for the despair I knew would follow, and finally—a period of convalescence—everything was planned out, but somehow nothing worked … what a woman … she destroyed my entire life and the life of my angel Ruthy, and gave me this damned unquenchable thirst, this disgust with myself, with my whole life, with my writing. She called me a traitor. Go ahead, write for the timid, she said, throwing me out, and in parting she gave me the book, one last sweet blow, as cruel and demanding as she is, and left me for another man … and another … men who throw caution to the winds, who ardently allow themselves to be devoured and sacrificed, and in the end are abandoned like me, she leaves us no choice—I did come here to forget.

And I think I fell asleep. Because of the blinding sand and the extremely boring waves “she” slyly rolled my way. I fell asleep and dreamed again about Ayala. About our first meeting after we broke up, when I demanded to see her so I could tell her what Bruno’s book had meant to me. She listened in silence, all perfect circles of smooth, bronzy skin, and her black hair in a sexy little bun on top of her head. This was one of the rare occasions when she didn’t deride me or make nasty remarks. I sensed that it might be my hour of glory and began to get carried away. But as usual I wound up telling her more than I intended and I felt as if I were on trial. Soon her look of fascination faded. She sighed, went to get her red nail polish, and started painting the toenails of her plump little feet. Casually she asked about Ruthy, and muttered something to the effect that Ruthy was a “real saint” to take me back after all I’d put her through (as if she had nothing to do with it!). As she bent over her toenails her breasts were exposed, and I swore inwardly that I would never humiliate myself by begging her. She refused, of course, when I did. Slyly I brought the subject back to Bruno, and did in fact manage to win some of her softer looks. Moreover, I caused her large spiritual lids to droop. How I love it when she looks like that, more distant and mysterious than ever. She asked how Ruth’s treatments were coming along, and I said there were still