My Michael

by Amos Oz

I did not venture to contradict him.

  My silence pleased Yehezkel, who took it as further evidence of my good taste. Like Michael, he considered that I was gifted with a sensitive soul. "You must excuse my indulging in sentiment when I say that you are as dear to me as a daughter."

  To Michael he would talk about the natural resources of the country. "The day is not far off when oil will be discovered in our land. Of this I entertain not the slightest doubt. I still recall how skeptical the so-called experts were about the verse in Deuteronomy, 'A land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper.' And now we have Mount Manara and we have Timna: iron and copper. I am quite convinced that soon we shall find oil, too. Its existence is explicitly mentioned in the Tosefta, and the ancient Rabbis were thoroughly practical and realistic men. What they wrote was based on scholarship, not mere sentiment. I believe, my son, that you are not just another unimaginative geologist; your destiny lies, I am convinced of it, among those who seek out and find new things...

  "But now I must stop wearing you both out with all this chatter. You are supposed to be on holiday, and here am I, foolish old man that I am, jabbering on about things which are part of your work. As if there were not intellectual effort enough waiting for you back in Jerusalem. What a long-winded old nuisance I am. Why don't you both go off to bed now, and wake up in the morning bright and fresh. Good night to you both, my dears. Sleep well, and don't pay any attention to the ramblings of an old man who lives alone and rarely has the chance to talk to anyone."

  The days were calm.

  In the afternoon we would stroll down to the municipal gardens, where we would meet old friends and neighbors who had all prophesied a great future for Michael and who were now pleased to share in his brilliant success. They were proud to shake hands with his wife and pinch his son's cheek, and tell amusing stories about the days when Michael was a babe in arms.

  Every day Michael bought me an evening paper. He also bought me color magazines. We were bronzed by the sun. A sea smell clung to our skins. The town was small, with whitewashed houses.

  "Holon is a new town," said Yehezkel Gonen. "It has not been restored to some ancient splendor, but sprang clean and pleasant out of the sands. And I, who remember its earliest days, take renewed pleasure in it daily—even though, of course, we haven't a fraction here of what you have in your Jerusalem."

  On the last evening the four aunts came from Tel Aviv to see us. They brought presents for Yair. They hugged him roughly and delivered brisk kisses. For once, they were all pleasant; even Aunt Jenia spared us her usual complaints.

  Aunt Leah was spokesman:

  "On behalf of us all, I think I can say that you haven't disappointed us in our hopes for you, Micha. Hannah, you should be glowing with pride at his success. I still remember how Micha's friends made fun of him after the War of Independence for not going off with them like a numskull to some kibbutz in the Negev. Instead he sensibly chose to go to Jerusalem to study at the University, and to serve his people and his country with his brains, with his talents, and not with his muscles like a beast of burden. And now that our Michael is nearly a doctor, the same friends who made fun of him then are coming to him to ask him to help them with their first steps at the University. The best years of their lives they have wasted like imbeciles, and now they are sick and tired of their kibbutz in the Negev, while our Micha, who was so smart right from the start, is in a position to hire those old braggarts, if he wants to, to move his furniture for him from the old apartment to the new one you're bound to be getting soon."

  When she said "kibbutz in the Negev" Aunt Leah screwed up her face; she pronounced the word "Negev" almost like a curse. Her last remark reduced all four aunts to gales of shrill laughter.

  "You should never feel scorn for any man," old Yehezkel said.

  Michael pondered for a moment, then agreed with his father, adding that in his opinion education does not alter a man's basic worth.

  This comment delighted Aunt Jenia. She drew attention to the fact that Michael's success had not gone to his head or affected his modesty.

  "Modesty is a very useful commodity. I have always maintained that a wife's duty is to encourage her husband on the road to success. It is only when the husband is a good-for-nothing that his wife is forced to follow the cruel path of fighting a man's fight in a man's world. Such has been my fate. I am glad that Micha has not inflicted a similar lot on his wife. And you too, my dear Hannah, you too should be glad, because in this life there is no greater satisfaction than a determined effort which achieves success, and will bring, I am sure, even greater success in the future. That has always been my creed from childhood on. All the troubles I have experienced have done nothing to weaken my faith; on the contrary, they have strengthened it."

  On the morning of our return to Jerusalem Yehezkel did something I shall never forget. He climbed up on a stepladder to a high cupboard and brought down a large box, from which he extracted an old watchman's uniform, faded and crumpled. He also pulled out of the chest the old watchman's hat, the kolpak, which he put on his grandson's head. The hat was so big it almost came over the child's eyes. Grandpa himself put on the watchman's uniform, over the pajamas he was wearing.

  All that morning, until it was time to leave, the two of them stormed round the apartment enacting battles and maneuvers. They sniped at each other with sticks from entrenched positions behind the furniture. They called out "Zalman" to each other. Yair's face was lit with frenzied joy as he discovered for the first time the delights of power, and the old private obeyed every command with steadfast devotion. Yehezkel was a happy old man on that final morning of our last visit to Holon. For a single searing moment I felt that the scene was familiar, as if I had already seen it long, long before. It was like a blurred copy of a much sharper, much clearer original. I could not remember where or when. A cold shiver ran down my spine, and I felt a strong compulsion to put something into words, to warn my son and my father-in-law perhaps against a danger of fire or electrocution. But there was no suggestion of either of these risks in their game. I felt an urge to suggest to Michael that we leave immediately, that very minute, but I could not bring myself to say this. It would have sounded foolish and rude. What was it that made me feel so uneasy? Several flights of fighters had flown low over Holon that morning. I do not think that was the reason for my feeling of unease. I do not think "reason" is an appropriate word to use in this context. The aircraft engines roared. The windowpanes rang. I felt that this was by no manner of means the first time.

  Before we left, my father-in-law Yehezkel kissed me on both cheeks. As he did so, I noticed that his eyes seemed changed, as if the clouded pupils had spread to cover the whites. His face was gray, too, his cheeks drooping and furrowed, and the lips which touched my forehead were not warm. His handshake, by contrast, was amazingly warm; it was firm and almost frantic, as if the old man were trying to give me his fingers as a present. Four days after our return to Jerusalem all this came back to me with a blinding flash when, towards evening, Aunt Jenia arrived to inform us that Yehezkel had collapsed by the bus stop opposite his home.

  "Last night still, only just last night poor Yehezkel came home to us to visit," she gabbled apologetically, almost as if to dispel an ugly suspicion. "Only last night he came to visit us and didn't complain of any discomfort. On the contrary. He talked to me about a new medicine for infantile paralysis which has just been discovered in America. He was ... normal. Quite normal. And then suddenly this morning right in front of the eyes of the Globermans next door he fell on the floor by the bus stop." Suddenly she sobbed, "Micha an orphan!" As she sobbed she curled her lips like an elderly scolded child. She clasped Michael's hand to her shriveled breast, stroked his forehead, then stopped.

  "Micha, how can it be that a man suddenly, just like that, for no reason, on the sidewalk, just like a bag or a parcel falls from your hands, just like that on the sidewalk, and ... it's terrible. It's ... it's not right. It's disgus
ting. As if poor Yehezkele was just a bag or a parcel, to fall like that and burst open ... it's ... think what it looks like, Micha ... the shame of it ... with the Glober-mans next door sitting back watching from their veranda like in a box in the opera and total strangers coming and lifting by the arms and legs out of the way not to block the traffic and then going and taking up his hat and his glasses and the books he dropped all over the road ... And you know where he was going anyway?" Aunt Jenia raised her voice to a shrill, outraged wail. "He was only just going out to the library to return some books and he never even meant to take the bus and just by chance he fell down right at the bus stop, opposite the Globermans'. Such a gentle man, such a sweet ... such a gentle man, and suddenly ... just like in the circus, I tell you, like in a movie, a man is walking along peacefully in the middle of the road and suddenly someone comes up from behind and with a stick on the head they hit him and he just folds up and collapses like if a man was just a rag doll or something. I tell you, Micha, life is just a filthy heap of dung. Leave the child with the neighbors or somewhere, quick, and come back with me to Tel Aviv. Leahle is left all alone there, Leahle with her two left thumbs, to do all the arrangements. And thousands of formalities. A man passes on and with all the formalities you'd think he was going abroad at least. Bring your coats or something and let's go. I'll just go round to the drugstore in the meantime and call for a taxi, and ... yes, Micha, please, a dark suit or at least a jacket, and hurry up, both of you, please. Micha what a disaster oh what a terrible disaster Micha."

  Aunt Jenia left. I could hear her anxious footsteps on the stairs and on the stone-paved yard below. I remained standing just as I was when she walked in, leaning on the ironing board and holding a hot iron. Michael spun around and dashed to the balcony as if he meant to call after her "Auntie Jenia, Auntie Jenia."

  A moment later he came in again. He closed the shutters, silently shut the windows, and then went out to lock the kitchen door. As he came along the passage he uttered a low sound. Perhaps he had suddenly caught sight of his face in the mirror by the coat-stand. He opened the closet, took out his dark suit, and transferred the trouser belt. "My father has passed on," he said softly, not looking at me. As if I had not been there while his aunt was talking.

  I put the iron down on the floor of the closet, put the ironing board away in the bathroom, and went to Yair's room. I stopped him playing, wrote out a note, and sent him with it to the Kam-nitzers. "Grandpa Yehezkel is very ill," I told him before he left. A twisted echo of my words came back to me from the stairs, as Yair excitedly proclaimed to all the children in the house: "My Grandpa Zalman is very ill and my parents are going to make him get better soon."

  Michael put his wallet in his inside pocket and buttoned up the jacket of the dark suit which had once belonged to my late father, and which my mother had altered to fit him. Twice he buttoned it up wrongly. He put on his hat. By mistake he picked up his battered black briefcase, then put it back with an irritated gesture.

  "I'm ready to go," he said. "Perhaps some of the things she said were rather uncalled for, but she's quite right. It shouldn't have happened like that. It's not right. To take an honest, upright old man, not very strong and his health none too good, and suddenly throw him down on the sidewalk in the middle of town in broad daylight, like a dangerous criminal. It's indecent, I tell you, Hannah, it's cruel, it's ... cruel. Indecent."

  As Michael said the words "cruel, indecent," his whole body began to shake. Like a child waking up in the night in winter and finding, instead of his mother, a strange face peering at him out of the dark.

  26

  MICHAEL ABSTAINED from shaving during the week following the funeral. I do not think he did this out of respect for religious tradition, or even in deference to his father's wishes (Yehezkel had used to describe himself as a practicing atheist). He may have felt that it would have been degrading to shave during his week of mourning. When we are hemmed in by grief we sometimes find trivial things bitterly degrading. Michael had always hated shaving. Dark bristles covered his jaws and gave him a furious expression.

  With his bristles Michael seemed to me like a new man. At times I had the feeling that his body was stronger than it really was. His neck had grown lean. There were wrinkles around his mouth which suggested a cold irony which was not in Michael. There was a tired look in his eyes as if he had been worn out by hard manual labor. My husband in his days of mourning had the look of a grimy laborer from one of the little workshops in Agrippa Street.

  Most of the day Michael would sit in an armchair wearing warmly lined slippers and a light gray dressing gown with dark gray checks. When I put the daily paper in his lap he bent over to read it. If the paper fell on the floor he did not trouble to pick it up. I could not tell whether he was pensive or vacant. Once he asked me to pour him a glass of brandy. I did as he asked, but he seemed to have forgotten. He stared at me in surprise and did not touch the drink. And once, after listening to the news, he remarked: "How strange." He said no more. I did not ask. The electric light shone yellow.

  Michael was very quiet in the days following his father's death. Our house was quiet, too. At times it seemed as if we were all sitting waiting for a message. If Michael said anything to me or to his son, he spoke softly, as if it were I who was in mourning. At night I wanted him very much. The feeling was painful. All the years we had been married I had never felt how degrading this dependence could be.

  One evening my husband put on his glasses and stood leaning over with his hands on his desk. His head was bent, his back drooping. I came into the study and saw Yehezkel Gonen in my husband. I shuddered. With his bent head, his sloping shoulders, his unsteady bearing, Michael seemed to be acting his father. I recalled our wedding day, the ceremony on the roof terrace of the old Rabbinate building opposite Steimatsky's bookshop. Then, too, Michael had looked so much like his father that I had mistaken each for the other. I have not forgotten.

  Michael spent his mornings sitting on the balcony, following with his gaze the antics of the cats in the yard below. There was calm. I had never seen Michael in a state of calm before. He had always been rushing to catch up with his work. Pious neighbors came in to express their sympathy. Michael received them with cold politeness. He eyed the Kamnitzer family and Mr. Glick through his glasses like a stern schoolteacher staring at a pupil who has let him down, until their condolences stuck in their throats.

  Mrs. Zeldin came in hesitantly. She had come to suggest that Yair should stay with her until the period of mourning was over. A grim smile played round Michael's mouth.

  "Why?" he said. "It is not I who have passed on."

  "Heaven forbid, perish the thought," said his visitor, startled. "I only thought, perhaps..."

  "Perhaps what?" Michael cut in sternly.

  The old schoolmistress was taken aback. She hurriedly took her leave. As she went out, she apologized as if she had offended us.

  Mr. Kadishman arrived, wearing a black serge suit, a solemn expression on his face. He announced that he had enjoyed a slight acquaintance with the deceased through Miss Leah Ganz. Despite a certain difference in their political outlooks, he had always held the deceased in the deepest respect. The deceased had been one of the few honest men in the Labor Movement. Not one of the hypocrites, but one of the misguided. "He is not lost, but gone before," he added.

  "He is certainly not lost," Michael agreed coldly. I suppressed a smile.

  The husband of Michael's friend from Tirat Yaar appeared at the door. He declined to enter, out of a natural delicacy of feeling. He wished to convey his sympathy. He asked me to tell Michael he had called. On Liora's behalf as well, of course.

  On the fourth evening we had a visit from the professor of geology and two assistant lecturers. They sat on the sofa in the living room, facing Michael's armchair. They sat with stiff backs and with their knees together, considering it improper to lean back. I sat on a stool by the door. Michael asked me to make coffee for our three guests and a
glass of tea for him, without lemon because of his heartburn. He inquired about a survey of Nahal Arugot in the Negev. When one of the young men started to speak, he turned his face to the window with a sudden, violent spasm, as if a spring in him had broken. His shoulders shook. I was alarmed, because I had a feeling that he was convulsed with laughter which he was unable to suppress. Then he turned his head back again. His face was tired and expressionless. He apologized, and demanded that they resume what they had been saying. "Please don't leave anything out; I want to hear everything." The young man who had been speaking took up his remarks precisely where he had left off. Michael shot me a gray look, as if he were amazed by some detail in my appearance he had never noticed before. A night breeze banged the shutter against the wall of the house. It seemed as if time were taking on visible features. The electric light. The pictures. The furniture. The shadows cast by the furniture. The trembling line between the light patches and the shadows.

  The professor suddenly came to life and interrupted his assistant's remarks:

  "The outline you drew up for us at the beginning of the month has not proved disappointing, Gonen. The facts agree with your hypothesis. Hence our mixed feelings: we are disappointed at the results of the drilling, but at the same time impressed by your thoroughness."

  Then he added an involved observation about the thankless-ness of practical as against theoretical research. He stressed the importance of creative intuition for both kinds of research.

  Michael observed drily:

  "Winter will soon be upon us. The nights are growing longer. Longer and colder."

  The two assistants looked at each other, then glanced sideways at the professor. The old man nodded energetically to show that he had grasped their hint. He stood up and said solemnly: