by Amos Oz
Tsefania Beit-Halachmi: poet. His real name, so far as I know, is Avraham (Bumek) Schuldenfrei. Author of Rhyming Life and Death. Wrong about one thing.
Berl Katznelson: in the picture hanging on the wall at the cultural centre he looks crafty and kindly.
Miriam Nehorait: culture lover. Makes sticky fruit compote. Children on her estate call her Mira the Horror behind her back.
Yechiel Nehorai: husband of Miriam Nehorait. Was run over nine years ago when he was a Zionist emissary in Montevideo.
Yuval Dahan/Dotan: very young poet. Not happy.
Dr Pessach Yikhat: veteran teacher or deputy head of a regional educational department. Takes a dim view of current trends in literature.
Joselito: Rochele Reznik’s cat. Jealous. Can tell the time. And makes her feel guilty.
Uncle Osya: piano tuner. House painter. Once, many years ago, forgot the Author (who was still a child at the time) at the Pogrebinsky Brothers’ pharmacy. Some say that for a year or two he hid the niece of Leon Trotsky in his basement flat on Brenner Street.
Shmuel Mikunis: Member of the Knesset (Israel Communist Party). Once Uncle Osya nearly hit him, but later, when they both fell ill of the same disease in the same year, they became friends and even took care of each other.
Madame Pogrebinskaya (from the Pogrebinsky Brothers’ pharmacy): dragged the Author, who was still a child at the time, into a dark back room and showed him something and even explained in a whisper.
Short woman with glasses and a green-and-white-striped trouser suit: mother of Sagiv, who has never seen a real live writer close up, which is why it is very important for him to see the Author close up. Once spoke to Mrs Lea Goldberg at the grocer’s.
Sagiv: almost nine. Does not speak. Has no wish at all to see a writer, only wants to break free and run away, but his mother holds him very tightly by the arm, just above the elbow.
Lisaveta Kunitsin: neighbour. Optician. Once happened to peep and see something.
Lisaveta Shuminer: mother of Yerucham Shdemati. Died in Kharkov sixty-six years ago. Dreamed of being a famous singer. Her seventy-two-year-old son still sometimes dreams of her.
Aya (Jocelyn): daughter of Yakir Bar-Orian. Was once photographed in the nude in New York and is now married to a famous settler in Elon Moreh settlement.
Baby: son of the settler and Aya, grandson of Yakir Bar-Orian.
Arnold Bartok: petty party hack, gaunt and bespectacled. Sacked from the local branch and later fired from his part-time job sorting parcels in a private courier company. Interested in eternal life. Apparently only came to the literary event to mock the Author.
Ophelia: invalid mother of Arnold Bartok. Eighty-six. Paralysed from the waist down. Dependent on a chamber pot. Sleeps on the same mattress as her sixty-year-old son and insists on calling him Araleh, to annoy him, even though his name is Arnold and he’s already told her so a thousand times.
Thickset nightwatchman: stands and pisses.
Photographer from the days of sepia photographs: arranges everybody and tells them when to smile and when not to move please.
Miriam Nehorait’s cat: refused to listen to the photographer and moved when the picture was being taken, so came out with three or four tails.
Miriam Nehorait’s two married sons: gynaecologists in New York. One of them is married to Lisaveta Kunitsin’s daughter.
Yerucham Shdemati’s brother’s granddaughter: fourteen and a half years old, and they still ask her childish riddles.
Yerucham Shdemati’s doctor brother: told Yerucham Shdemati that his chances of recovery from the blood disease he is suffering from are remote.
Wives of Mr Leon and Shlomo Hougi, respectively: relegated to the kitchen because the film on TV is not for them.
Arad, 2006
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Epub ISBN: 9781409075417
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Published by Vintage 2010
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Copyright © Amos Oz 2007
Translation copyright © Nicholas de Lange 2009
Amos Oz has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
First published in Hebrew as Haruzei Hahayim Vehamavet by
Keter Publishing House Ltd, POB 7145, Jerusalem, Israel
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by
Chatto and Windus
Vintage
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099521020
