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PARTISAN REVIEW
The story goes like this
After about three years it became clear that she could not give him chil–
dren either. The widower, sad ly, divorced her and married her cousin
instead. Because of the shame and grief she was suffering her parents
gave her permission to join her brother and sister-in-law who had set–
tled in Israel, and live there under their supervision. Her brother rented
a room for her on the roof of a building in Bat Yam and arranged for
her to work in a sewing shop. The money she had received from the
divorce he deposited in a savings account for her. And so, at the age of
twenty, she was a single girl again. She enjoyed being on her own for
much of the time. Her brother and his wife kept an eye on her, but in
fact it was unnecessary. Sometimes she baby-sat for them in the evening
and sometimes she went out with somebody or other to a cafe or the
cinema, without getting involved. She was not attracted by the thought
of being put on her back again with her nightdress rolled up; and she
could easily keep her own body quiet. At work she was considered a
serious, responsible worker and in general a lovely girl. One night she
happened to go to the cinema with a quiet, sensible young man, an
accountant who was distantly related to her sister-in-law. When he es–
corted her home he apologized for not flirting with her; it wasn't
because he didn't find her attractive, heaven forbid, but, on the contrary,
because he didn't know how to go about it. In the past some gir ls had
made fun of him for this, he exp lained, and he even laughed at himself
a little, but it was the plain truth . When he said this, she suddenly felt a
sort of pleasant inner roughness at the nape of her neck in the roots of
her hair that radiated warmth towards her shoulders and armpits,
which is why she suggested, Let's meet again on Tuesday at eight
o'clock. Almost joyfully Albert said: I'd like that.
The miracle of the loaves and the fishes
There was also sex for money. It happened in a low-roofed
backpackers' hostel in Kathmandu. She had a dark voice like a muffled
bell,
not unlike a fado-singer's bitter wistfu ln ess. She was a tall,
