A Tale of Love and Darkness

by Amos Oz

  "I need to be on my own for a bit. Why don't you be on your own too?" And again: "I'll be back in a quarter of an hour."

  She always kept her word: she'd be back very soon, with a sparkle in her eyes and color in her cheeks, as though she had been in very cold air. As though she'd run all the way. Or as though something exciting had happened to her on the way. She was prettier when she returned than when she left.

  Once I followed her out of the house without her noticing me. I trailed her at a distance, clinging to walls and bushes, as I'd learned to do from Sherlock Holmes and from films. The air was not very cold and my mother did not run, she walked briskly, as though afraid she'd be late. At the end of Zephaniah Street she turned right and stepped out jauntily in her white shoes until she reached the bottom of Malachi Street. There she stopped beside the mailbox and hesitated. The young detective who was trailing her came to the conclusion that she went out to mail letters secretly, and I was bristling with curiosity and vague apprehension. But my mother did not mail any letter. She stood for a moment beside the mailbox, lost in thought, and then she suddenly put a hand to her forehead and turned to go home. (Years later that red mailbox still stood there, set into a concrete wall, and inscribed with the letters GR, for King George V.) So I cut through a yard that led me to a shortcut through a second yard, and I got home a minute or two before she arrived, a little out of breath, her cheeks colored as though she'd been in snow, with a mischievous, affectionate sparkle in her piercing brown eyes. At that moment my mother looked very much like her father, Grandpa-Papa. She took my head and pressed it lightly to her tummy and said something like this to me:

  "Of all my children, you're the one I love best. Can you tell me once and for all what it is about you that makes me love you the most?"

  And also:

  "It's especially your innocence. I've never encountered innocence like yours in all my life. Even when you've lived for many long years and had all sorts of experiences, your innocence will never leave you. Ever. You'll always stay innocent."

  And also:

  "There are some women who just devour the innocent, and there are others, and I'm one of them, who love innocent men and feel an inner urge to spread a protective wing over them."

  And also:

  "I think you will grow up to be a sort of prattling puppydog like your father, and you'll also be a man who is quiet and full and closed like a well in a village that has been abandoned by all its inhabitants. Like me. You can be both, yes. I do believe you can. Would you like us to play at making up a story now? We'll take it in turns to make up a chapter. Shall I start? Once upon a time there was a village that had been abandoned by all its inhabitants. Even the cats and dogs. Even the birds had abandoned it. So the village stood silent and abandoned for years upon years. The thatched roofs were lashed by the rain and the wind, the walls of the cottages were cracked by hail and snow, the vegetable gardens were overgrown, and only the trees and bushes went on growing, and with no one to prune them, they grew thicker and thicker. One evening, in the autumn, a traveler who had lost his way arrived in the abandoned village. Hesitantly he knocked at the door of the first cottage, and ... would you like to carry on?"

  Around that time, in the winter between 1949 and 1950, two years before her death, she began to have frequent headaches. She often had the flu and sore throats, and even when she recovered, the migraines did not go away. She put her chair near the window and sat for hours in a blue flannel dressing gown staring at the rain, with her book open upside-down on her lap, but instead of reading she drummed on its cover with her fingers. She sat stiffly staring at the rain or at some sodden bird for an hour or two hours and never stopped drumming on the book with all ten fingers. As though she were repeating the same piece over and over again on the piano.

  Gradually she had to cut down on the housework. She still managed to put away the dishes, tidy up, and throw out every scrap of paper and crumb. She still swept the apartment every day and washed the floor once every two or three days. But she did not cook complicated meals anymore. She made do with simple food: boiled potatoes, fried eggs, raw vegetables. Occasionally bits of chicken floating in chicken soup. Or boiled rice with canned tuna. She hardly ever complained about her piercing headaches, which sometimes continued for days. It was my father who told me about them. He told me quietly, not in her presence, in a kind of man-to-man conversation. He put his arm around my shoulder and asked me to promise to keep my voice down from now on when Mother was at home. Not to shout or make a racket. And I must especially promise not to slam doors, windows, or shutters. I must be careful not to drop pots or cans or saucepan lids. And not to clap my hands indoors.

  I promised, and I kept my word. He called me a bright boy, and once or twice he even called me "young man."

  My mother smiled at me affectionately, but it was a smile without a smile. That winter she got more wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.

  We had few visitors. Lilenka—Lilia Kalish, Lea Bar-Samkha, the teacher who wrote two popular books about child psychology—came over some days; she sat facing my mother, and the two of them chatted in Russian or Polish. I had the feeling they were talking about their hometown, Rovno, and about their friends and teachers who were shot by Germans in the Susenki Forest. Because occasionally they mentioned the name of Issachar Reiss, the charismatic headmaster whom all the girls in Tarbuth were in love with, and the names of some other teachers too—Buslik, Berkowski, Fanka Seidman—and of some of the streets and parks from their childhood.

  Grandma Shlomit came around occasionally, inspected the icebox and the larder, screwed up her face, had a brief whispered conversation with Father at the end of the corridor, outside the door of the little bathroom that was also the toilet, then peeped into the room where Mother was resting and asked her in a sweetened voice:

  "Do you need anything, my dear?"

  "No, thank you."

  "Then why don't you lie down?"

  "I'm fine like this. Thank you."

  "Aren't you cold? Shall I light the heater for you?"

  "No thanks, I'm not cold. Thank you."

  "What about the doctor? When did he call?"

  "I don't need the doctor."

  "Really? Nu, and how exactly do you know you don't need the doctor?"

  Father said something to his mother in Russian, sheepishly, then immediately apologized to both of them. Grandma told him off:

  "Be quiet, Lonya. Don't interfere. I'm talking to her, not to you. What an example, excuse me, you're setting for the child."

  The child hurriedly got out of the way, although once he did manage to hear Grandma whispering to Father when he saw her to the door:

  "Yes. Play-acting. As though she deserves the moon. Just stop arguing with me. You'd think she was the only one who has a hard time here. You'd think the rest of us are living in the lap of luxury. You should open her window a bit. A person could literally suffocate to death in there."

  Nevertheless, the doctor was called. He was called again not long afterward. Mother was sent to the clinic for thorough tests and even had to spend a couple of nights at Hadassah Hospital, in its temporary premises at Davidka Square. The tests were inconclusive. A fortnight after she came back from the hospital, pale and drooping, our doctor was called again. Once he was even called out in the middle of the night, and I was woken by his kind voice, thick and rough like wood glue, joking with Father in the corridor. By the side of the sofa that opened out at night into a narrow double bed, on Mother's side, all sorts of packets and jars appeared, vitamin pills, migraine pills, something called APC, and bottles of medicine. She refused to lie in bed. She sat quietly on her chair by the window for hours on end, and sometimes she seemed in a very good mood. She spoke gently and kindly to Father that winter, as though he were the patient, as though he were the one who shuddered if anyone raised their voice. She got into the habit of speaking to him as though to a child, sweetly, affectionately, sometimes she even spoke to him in baby t
alk. Whereas to me she spoke as one might speak to a confidant.

  "Please don't be angry with me, Amos," she would say, piercing my soul with her eyes. "I'm not having an easy time of it right now. You can see for yourself how hard I'm trying to make everything all right."

  I got up early and swept the floor before I went to school, and twice a week I washed it with soapy water and wiped it dry. I learned how to chop up a salad, butter bread, fry an egg for my supper, because Mother generally suffered from slight evening sickness.

  As for Father, he suddenly showed signs of cheerfulness at this time, for no apparent reason, which he made every effort to disguise. He hummed to himself, chuckled for no reason, and once, when he didn't notice me, I caught sight of him leaping and jumping in the yard as though he had been stung. He often went out in the evening and came back only after I was asleep. He had to go out, he said, because my light went out at nine and in their room Mother couldn't stand the electric light. Every evening she would sit in the dark in her chair by the window. He tried sitting with her, next to her, in silence, as though he were sharing her suffering, but his cheery, impatient nature didn't let him sit motionless like that for more than three or four minutes.

  49

  AT FIRST Father withdrew to the kitchen in the evenings. He tried to read, or to spread out his books and note cards on the worn oilcloth and work a little. But the kitchen was too small and cramped, and he felt confined there. He was a man who thrived on company, he loved arguing and joking, he loved light, and if he was made to sit on his own night after night in that depressing kitchen, with no clever wordplay, no historical or political debate, his eyes misted over with a sort of childish sulkiness.

  Mother suddenly laughed and said to him:

  "Go and play outside for a bit."

  She added:

  "Only take care. There are all sorts of people out there. They're not all as kindhearted and straightforward as you are."

  "Shto ty ponimayesh?" Father exploded. "Ty ne normalnaya? Vidish malchik!"

  Mother said:

  "Sorry."

  He always asked her permission before he went out. He never went out before he had finished all the chores: putting the shopping away, washing up, hanging out the wash, bringing in the wash. Then he would polish his shoes, take a shower, splash on some of the new aftershave he had bought for himself, put on a clean shirt, carefully choose a suitable tie, and, still holding his jacket, he would bend over my mother and say:

  "Are you really sure you don't mind if I go out to see some friends? Have a chat about the political situation? Talk about work? Tell me the truth."

  Mother never objected. But she adamantly refused to listen when he tried to tell her where he was going.

  "Just try not to make too much noise when you come in, Arieh."

  "I will."

  "Good night. Off you go."

  "You really don't mind if I go out? I won't stay out late."

  "I really don't mind. And you can come home when you like."

  "Do you need anything else?"

  "Thank you. No, I don't need anything. Amos is here to look after me."

  "I won't be late."

  And after another little hesitant silence:

  "All right then. So is that OK? I'm off? See you soon. Hope you feel better. Try to get into bed, don't fall asleep in the chair."

  "I'll try."

  "Good night then? See you? I promise I won't make a noise when I come in, it won't be late."

  "Go."

  He straightened his jacket, adjusted his tie, and left, humming as he walked past my window in a warm voice but hair-raisingly out of tune: "So long is the road and so winding the way, you're farther away than the moon..." Or "What are they saying, your eyes, your eyes, without ever saying a word..."

  Her insomnia came from her migraine. The doctor prescribed all kinds of sleeping pills and tranquilizers, but none of them helped. She was afraid of going to bed, and spent every night in her chair, draped in a blanket, with a cushion under her head and another one hiding her face; perhaps she tried to sleep like that. The slightest disturbance made her start: the wailing of lovesick cats, distant gunfire in Sheikh Jarrah or Isawiya, the muezzin's call at dawn from a minaret in Arab Jerusalem, across the border. If Father turned out all the lights, she was afraid of the dark; if he left a light on in the corridor, it made her migraine worse. Apparently he would get back shortly before midnight, in high spirits but full of shame, to find her sitting awake in her chair, staring dry-eyed at the darkened window. He would ask if she wanted some tea or hot milk, beg her to get into bed and try to go to sleep, and offer to sit up on the chair instead, if that would help her to get some sleep at last. Sometimes he felt so guilty that he got down on his knees to put some woolen socks on her, in case her feet were cold.

  When he came home in the middle of the night, he probably showered thoroughly, singing to himself cheerfully, shamelessly out of tune, "I have a garden, and I have a well," catching himself in the middle and silencing himself at once, covered with shame and confusion, getting undressed in a guilty silence, putting on his striped pajamas, gently repeating his offer of tea or milk or a cold drink, and perhaps trying once more to induce her to lie down in bed, next to him or instead of him. And begging her to banish her bad thoughts and think pleasant thoughts instead. While he got into bed and curled up under the blanket, he suggested all sorts of pleasant thoughts that she might think, and ended up falling asleep like a baby with all those pleasant thoughts. But I imagine that he would wake up, responsibly, two or three times in the night to check on the patient in her chair, bring her her medicine and a glass of water, straighten her blanket, and go back to sleep.

  By the end of the winter she had almost stopped eating. Sometimes she dunked a dry rusk in a glass of tea and said that was enough for her, she was feeling a little queasy and had no appetite. Don't worry about me, Arieh, I hardly ever go out. If I did eat, I'd get fat like my mother. Don't worry.

  Father said sadly to me:

  "Mother isn't well, and the doctors can't discover what's wrong with her. I wanted to call in some other doctors, but she wouldn't let me." And once he said to me:

  "Your mother is punishing herself. Just to punish me."

  Grandpa Alexander said:

  "Nu, what. Mental state. Melancholia. Whims. It's a sign that the heart is still young."

  Auntie Lilenka said to me:

  "It can't be easy for you either. You're such a bright, sensitive child. You'll be a writer one day. And your mother says you're a ray of sunshine in her life. You really are a ray of sunshine. Not like someone whose childish selfishness allows him to go out and gather rosebuds at such a time, without realizing that he's only making matters worse. Never mind. I was talking to myself there, not to you. You're a rather lonely child, and you may be even more lonely than usual right now, so whenever you need to have a heart to heart with me, don't hesitate, please remember that Lilia is not just a friend of Mother's but, if only you let me, a good friend of yours too. A friend who doesn't just see you the way grown-ups see children, but is a real kindred spirit."

  I may have understood that when Aunt Lilia said "go out and gather rosebuds" she was referring to Father's habit of going to see friends in the evening, although I couldn't see what rosebuds she thought grew in the Rudnickis' cramped apartment, with the bald bird and the pine-cone bird and the herd of raffia animals behind the glass doors of the sideboard, or in the miserable, run-down apartment that was all the Abramskis could afford, and that they had almost stopped cleaning and keeping tidy since they went into mourning for their son. Or perhaps in those rosebuds of Aunt Lilia's I guessed at something that was impossible. And that may be why I refused to understand it or to make a connection with Father's meticulous polishing of his shoes or his new aftershave.

  Memory deludes me. I have just remembered something that I completely forgot after it happened. I remembered it again when I was about sixteen, and then I forgot it aga
in. And this morning I remembered not the event itself but the previous recollection, which itself was more than forty years ago, as though an old moon were reflected in a windowpane from which it was reflected in a lake, from where memory draws not the reflection itself, which no longer exists, but only its whitened bones.

  So here it is. Here and now, in Arad on an autumn day at half past six in the morning, I can suddenly see perfectly sharply the image of me and my friend Lolik walking down Jaffa Road near Zion Square, one cloudy lunchtime in the winter of 1950 or 1951, and Lolik punches me lightly in the ribs and whispers, Hey, take a look at that, isn't that your Dad sitting in there? Let's scamper before he spots us and realizes we've cut Avisar's class. So we made off, but as we went, I saw my father through the glass front of Sichel's Café, sitting just inside, laughing, with a young woman who had her back to the window, and holding her hand—she was wearing a bracelet—to his lips; and I ran away from there, I ran away from Lolik, and I haven't quite stopped running since.

  Grandpa Alexander kissed every lady's hand. Father did it sometimes, but otherwise he just took her hand and bent over it to look at her wristwatch and compare it with his own, he was always doing that, to almost everybody, watches were his hobby. That was the only time I ever skipped a class, and I did it this time especially to go and see the burned-out Egyptian tank they put on display in the Russian Compound. I would never cut a class again. Ever.