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PARTISAN REVIEW
remembering a morning of love in a hotel in Eilat in the springtime. She
didn't feel like a swim and she didn't feel like getting up. They stayed in
bed with the air-conditioning on, sated with night games, she in half a
bikini and he stark naked, their skin still pink and hot from the beach
yesterday. Breakfast in bed and a game of rummy, laughing at nothing
at all, looking for a rhyme for stowaway. Throwaway. Go away. I stow
away, you stowed away, he has stown away. Then, with pencil and
paper, listing palindromes. Collapsing with laughter at this too. Noon.
Boob. Poop. Toot. (As in, toot if you've pooped.) Whoever found a new
word could demand a forfeit. In the course of this game Dita discovered
something she had never noticed before, that Rico could write with
either hand. I've never seen anything like that before; let's see now if you
can write with your toes. He tried and scribbled and made her laugh.
He explained that he was not born ambidextrous, he was actually born
left-handed, but his parents made him write with his right hand and
even punished him if he didn't. Especially his mother, because where she
came from left-handedness was considered a handicap, a sign of poor
upbringing, the mark of a bad family background. They forced me to be
right-handed, and the result is that now I can write with either.
She took them both and placed them here and here, let's see which of
them is more left-handed. They ended up playing at deflowering the vir–
gin and seducing the monk, until they fell asleep. Later they showered
and went down, famished, to look for a fish restaurant. In the evening
they went for a swim. Now, remembering, she wanted him. She went to
a film with Giggy Ben-Gal and they ate in a pub, and then went back to
his place. When she got back it was nearly one o'clock, but she found
the old man waiting up for her. Was he worried? Was he jealous? He
made her a snack which she didn't eat because she wasn 't hungry. But
she sat in the kitchen with him for half an hour and he told her some–
thing about how drab life was in those days and even a little, in pass–
ing, about Rico's mother. Finally, filled with nocturnal courage, he
revealed to her that he had a girlfriend, not exactly a girlfriend, a lady
friend, who worked in the Property Tax Board, not a lady friend either
really but an undefined sort of relationship. Dita was curious to know
whether he had touched his "undefined relationship" yet, but she didn't
feel she could ask. Interesting, why did he tell me? It came out as though
he was writing a word, rubbing it out, and writing another one on top
of it, and that reminded her of his son. And his way of putting his hand
between his collar and his neck sometimes for no reason at all, or
explaining things as though he were threading beads. Is he left-handed
