This is how we met.
One winter morning at nine o'clock, I was coming down the stairs and slipped.
A strange young man grabbed my elbow.
His hands were strong and he had tremendous self-control.
I saw short fingers and flat nails.
It was a pale finger with a slightly darkened joint area.
He quickly stopped me from falling, and I leaned on his arm until the pain subsided.


I didn't know what to do.
Because it's embarrassing to suddenly fall down in front of strangers.
Eyes that seem to search and ask questions and sinister smiles.
When he held me, I could feel the warmth of his fingers through the sleeves of the blue wool dress my mother had knitted for me.
It was winter in Jerusalem.
--- pp.8-9

It is impossible for an ordinary person to tell a thorough lie.
They say that lies always reveal themselves.
It's like a blanket that's too short.
If you try to cover your feet, your head will be exposed, and if you cover your head, your feet will stick out.
People create complex excuses to hide something without realizing that the excuse itself reveals an unpleasant truth.
On the other hand, the complete truth is completely destructive and brings no results.
What can ordinary people do? All we can do is stand quietly and watch.
All we can do is stand quietly and watch.
--- p.44

From now on, I remembered that no man in the world was closer to me than this man.
I tossed and turned until dawn on this used double bed that I had bought for practically nothing from the previous tenant in this apartment.
The bed was decorated all over with arabesque carvings and had shiny brown stains.
Like most old furniture, this bed was unnecessarily wide.
It was so wide that I once woke up and thought Michael had gotten up and gone out.
He was deep in his bed far away.
He almost certainly came to me at dawn.
Sensual and passionate.
He appeared dark, flexible, and quiet.
--- p.60

I used to wake my husband up from his sleep.
Burying myself under his blankets, clinging to his body with all my might, squeezing the self-control I wanted from him, our night became more intense than ever.
I was amazed by Michael's body and his own.
He was guided by the colorful methods he had read about in novels.
Painful methods roughly learned from movies.
Everything that came out of the whispers of giggling schoolgirls I heard during puberty.
Everything I know and guess about the most exciting and painful dreams of men.
Everything my own dreams taught me.
The trembling flame of brightness.
A wave of burning spasms rising from the depths of an icy pool.
A pleasantly soft fall.

--- p.263