To Know a Woman [antikvár]

Yoel picked the object up from the shelf and inspected it closely. His eyes ached. The real-estate agent, thinking he had not heard the question, repeated it: "Shall we go and take a look around the back?" Even though he had already made up his mind, Yoel was in no huny to reply. He was in the habit of pausing before answering, even simple questions such as "How are you?" or "What did it say on the news?" As though words were personal possessions that should not be partéd with lightly. The agent waited. In the meantime there was a silence in the room, which was stylishly furnished: a wide, deep-pile, dark-blue rug, armchairs, a sofa, a mahogany coffee table, an imported television set, a huge philodendron in the appropriate corner, a red-brick fireplace with half a dozen logs arranged in crisscross fashion, for show rather than use. Next to the passthrough to the kitchen, a dark dining table with six matching high-backed dining chairs. Only pictures were missing, where pale rectangles were visible on the walls. The kitchen, seen through the open door, was Scandinavian and full of the latest electrical gadgets. The four bedrooms, which he had already seen, had alsó met with his approval. With his eyes and fingers Yoel explored the thing he had taken off the shelf. It was a carving, a figurine, the work of an amateur: a feline predator, carved in brown olivewood and coated with several layers of lacquer. Its jaws were gaping wide and the teeth were pointed. The two front legs were extended in the air in a spectacuiar leap; the right hind leg was alsó in the air, still con-