Free Rhyming Life and Death by Amos Oz Page B

bedside table, where he bends over and writes her a warm dedication, adding the name of jealous Joselito, then he bends over again and adds a drawing of a little flower and a bewhiskered cat’s face that, for some reason, looks crafty and scheming.
    Rochele says: Listen. I must apologise to you. I was wrong. When you brought me home I told you my curtains were at the cleaner’s. And they weren’t.
    And a moment later: No. Actually it’s not that I was wrong, but I didn’t tell you the truth. I’m sorry.
    Why did you do that? Was it because you were looking for an excuse to stop me coming upstairs? Were you a bit frightened? (His hand flutters for a moment, absent-mindedly, above her cheek. Not pityingly, or seductively, but something like late-night affection.)
    Yes. I was frightened. I don’t know. I felt shy with you. I honestly can’t say now if I really wanted you to come up but I was afraid, or if I was afraid to say to you simply, listen, it’s better if you don’tcome up, or if I was afraid to say I was afraid. I don’t even know now.
    Hearing these words he draws her head towards him, presses her to his shoulder and holds her tight, so she can’t escape. (Little frightened squirrel, please don’t run away from me.) Meanwhile he notices that now, maybe because she has untied her plait for the night and her thick long hair is streaming halfway down her back, she is suddenly looking much less unattractive.
    And like a shy girl, as his hand presses her head to his shoulder, she suddenly utters an unexpected question: Just now, I said, I don’t even know now. Shouldn’t I have said, Even now I don’t know?
    Hugging her shoulders he leans her back against the table and kisses her under the ear, an ambiguous, more or less paternal, kiss. But still he cannot stop the flow of his own words:
    Well, let’s see. You don’t even know now? Now you don’t even know? Even now you don’t know? Now you even don’t know? Now even you don’t know? No, do you even know now? Please cross out those that do not apply.
    Instead of which her lips tickle his neck, barely touching his skin, and only then does the Authorfinally realise that he should stop talking. So he abandons his wordplay and feels embarrassed about the bristles that must have grown since he shaved this morning and may be scratching her. But the bristles seem to inspire her to scrape the back of his neck with her fingernails, not gently this time but with a sudden force. In response, he turns her round so she has her back to him, draws her hair aside, rests his lips on the nape of her neck, and moves his tongue lightly back and forth over the fine hairs until they stiffen, and ripples run down her back. Then he turns her again and kisses her lips cautiously, tentatively, and at once the kiss becomes deeper, their tongues moving back and forth, kisses that simultaneously quench and excite the appetite. He breathes in her smells, among which he thinks he can make out a faint smell of mouthwash with an almost imperceptible hint of lemon-flavoured yogurt and bread. This cocktail of smells enchants and excites him more than any perfume in the world. For one fleeting moment he is worried about his own body odour and the smell that may be coming from his own mouth, and regrets not asking if he can take a shower first, but how could he have done that? And now it is too lateto ask her anything because she has started pressing herself against him and seeking out his chest with her lips, with a certain shyness yet with an urgency or passion that overcomes her shyness and sweeps away her inhibitions, as though her own body is driving her along and begging her not to hold it back.
    Now that she is pressing herself passionately against him he is anxious that she will be repelled or alarmed or even offended when she suddenly feels his erection through their clothes. But when she does discover it, far from