When he got up at nine o'clock on Passover morning he padded to the bathroom in his crumpled clothes, shaved, took another long, thorough shower, put on clean white sports clothes, and went outside to see how his new plants, the pomegranate, the two olive trees, and the date palm, were feeling. He gave them a light watering. He plucked out, here and there, tiny tips of new weeds that had apparently sprouted during the night, after his careful search of the previous day. While the coffee was percolating he dialed the Krantzes' number to apologize to Duby for possibly treating him rather rudely. At once he realized that he would have to apologize twice, the second time for waking him up from his holiday sleep-in. But Duby said, It's nothing, it's only natural you should worry about her, it doesn't matter, though you ought to know that actually she's quite good at worrying about herself. By the way, if you need me again for the garden or anything, I've got nothing special to do today. It was nice to you to call, Mr. Ravid. Of course I'm not angry.
Yoel asked when Duby's parents were due back, and when he learned that Odelia was expected back from Europe the following day and that Krantz was returning from his sortie to Eilat that same evening in order to be home in time to turn over a new leaf again, Yoel thought that the expression "a new leaf" was unsatisfactory, because it sounded flimsy, like paper. He asked Duby to tell his father to give him a call when he got back; there might be a little something for him.
Then he went into the garden and looked at the bed of carnations and snapdragons for a while, but he could not see what else he could do there, and he said to himself: Enough. On the other side of the fence the dog Ironside, sitting in the street in a formal pose, with his legs together, was trying to follow with a speculative gaze the flight of a bird whose name Yoel did not know but which thrilled him with its brilliant blue color. The truth is that there can be no new leaf. Only perhaps a prolonged birth. And birth is a form of parting, and to part is hard, and anyway who can part all the way? On the one hand you continue being born to your parents for years upon years, and on the other hand you start giving birth even before you have finished being born, and so you get caught up in disengagement battles to the front and the rear. It suddenly occurred to him that there was reason to envy his father, his melancholy Romanian father in the brown striped suit, or his unshaven father in the filthy ship, both of whom had vanished without a trace. And what was it that stopped you from vanishing without a trace too, during all those years, assuming the identity of a driving instructor in Brisbane or living as a trapper and fisherman in a forest north of Vancouver, in a log cabin you built for yourself and the Eskimo mistress who so annoyed Ivria? And what is it that prevents you from vanishing now? "What a fool," he said affectionately to the dog, who had suddenly decided to cease looking like a china ornament and become a hunter, standing on his hind legs and resting his front paws on the fence, presumably in the hope of catching the bird. Until the middle-aged neighbor opposite whistled to him and took the opportunity to offer Yoel the season's greetings.
All of a sudden Yoel felt sharp hunger pangs. He remembered that he had eaten nothing since lunch the previous day, because he had fallen asleep fully dressed. And he had had nothing but coffee this morning. So he went next door and asked Ralph if there was any of last night's veal left, and if he could have the leftovers for breakfast. "There's some Waldorf salad left too," Annemarie said cheerfully, "and some soup. But it's very highly seasoned, and it might not be a good idea to have it first thing in the morning." Yoel chuckled, because he remembered right then one of Nakdimon Lublin's rhymes, "Muhammad said: Make no mistake, When my belly's empty I could swallow a snake." Without troubling to reply he simply gestured Bring out whatever you've got.
It seemed as though there was no limit to his eating capacity on that festival morning. Having demolished the soup and the leftover veal and salad, he did not hesitate to ask for breakfast as well: toast and cheese and yogurt. When Ralph opened the door of the refrigerator for a moment to get out the milk, Yoel's well-trained eyes spotted a pitcher of tomato juice and he shamelessly asked if he could demolish that too.
"Tell me something," Ralph Vermont began. "Heaven forbid that I should try to rush you, I just wanted to ask."
"Ask ahead," said Yoel, with his mouth full of cheese on toast.
"I wanted to ask you, if you don't mind, something like this: Are you in love with my sister?"
"Right now?" Yoel muttered, startled by the question.
"Now too," Ralph specified, calmly but with clarity, like a man who knows where his duty lies.
"Why are you asking?" Yoel hesitated, as though playing for time. "I mean to say, why are you asking instead of Annemarie? Why isn't she asking? Why does she need a go-between?"
"Look who's talking," said Ralph, not sarcastically, but blithely, as though amused by the sight of the other's blindness. And Annemarie, almost devoutly, with her eyes nearly closed, as though in prayer, whispered:
"Yes. I am asking."
Yoel ran his finger slowly between his neck and his shirt collar. He filled his lungs with air and let it out slowly. Shame, he thought, shame on me, for not gathering any information, not even the most basic details, about these two. I haven't got a clue who they are, where they sprang from or why, what they're after here. But he refrained from telling a lie. The true answer to their question he did not know yet.
"I need a little more time," he said. "I can't give you an answer right away. It needs some more time."
"Who's rushing you?" Ralph asked, and for a moment Yoel thought he saw a swift flash of paternal irony cross his middle-aged schoolboy's face, which life's sorrows had left no trace on. As if the placid face of an aging child was only a mask, and for an instant a bitter or sly expression had been revealed underneath it.
Still smiling affectionately, almost stupidly, the overgrown farmer took Yoel's broad, ugly hands, which were brown as bread with garden soil under the fingernails, between his own pink, abundantly freckled hands, and placed each of them slowly and gently on one of his sister's breasts, so accurately that Yoel could feel the stiffened nipple in the exact center of each hand. Annemarie laughed softly. Ralph sat down clumsily, with a chastened air, on a stool in a corner of the kitchen, and asked sheepishly:
"If you do decide to take her, do you think I ... that there'll be some room for me? Around the place?"
Then Annemarie released herself and got up to make the coffee, because the water was boiling. While they were drinking it, the brother and sister suggested that Yoel watch the comedy that they had seen the previous evening on the VCR, and he had missed because he had fallen asleep. Yoel stood up and said, Perhaps in a few hours' time. I've got to go and take care of some business right now. He thanked them and left without explaining, started the car, and drove out of the neighborhood and the city. He felt good, well, inside, within his body, within the sequence of his thoughts, as he had not for a long time. It might have been because he had satisfied his huge appetite by eating a lot of delicious things, or because he knew exactly what he had to do.