by Amos Oz
There was a news item in Ha’arets that seemed to hint at a slight softening in the government’s position. A kind of sign of readiness to rethink at least one element in the official line. Fima saw in this a confirmation of his theory about tiny movements. He therefore convened the Revolutionary Council for a short morning meeting in Tsvika’s seminar room at the Mount Scopus campus. He announced that he had changed his mind and decided to put off flying to Tunis. This time the peace process must begin not with an operatic overture, in the style of Begin and Sadat, but with an exchange of small gestures that might gradually break down the barriers of hatred and anger. Or set in motion the first stirrings of an emotional détente. Joycean ripples rather than Shakespearean breakers. Tropisms rather than cataclysms. The proposal on the agenda is the following: The PLO agrees to assist in the rescue of the remaining Jews of Ethiopia. Or Yemen. We send a letter of thanks to their Tunis headquarters, thus opening up a chink in the deadlock. Tsvi is wrong to hope for US pressure. And Uri Gefen is definitely wrong in maintaining that the situation has to get much worse before there can be any change for the better. Both attitudes express the tacit inclination of the doveish left to wait resignedly for a change in reality instead of getting up and doing something. Even if it is something limited.
He suddenly felt a longing for Uri’s presence: his broad shoulders, his jokes, his deep warm laughter, his youth leader’s manner, his peasantlike habit of hugging your shoulders, punching you in the stomach, and saying, for instance, Come here, you Salman Rushdie; where have you been hiding yourself? And after a furtive sniff and an ostentatious wrinkling of the nose, When did you last change your shirt? For Ben Gurion’s funeral? And then again: All right, get on with it, if there’s no alternative: give us your lecture on Christian ascetic sects. But first help yourself to a slice of this smoked ham. Or have you turned Muslim on us?
The longing for Uri’s warm voice and body brought with it a desire to rest his own pale fingers on his friend’s huge freckled hand, gnarled like a stoneworker’s, and to generate flashing sparks of wit that would cause the discussion to take amazing turns at every point. Like three weeks ago, at the Kropotkins’, when Shula was voicing her fear of Islamic fundamentalism, and Fima interrupted her and dazzled everyone by arguing that our feud with the Arabs is merely a hundred-year-old episode, a mere dispute over land, whereas the real danger always was and still is the bottomless chasm between the Jews and the Cross. Despite his longing, Fima hoped that Uri was still in Rome. He dialled Nina’s office, and hung on patiently until the secretary passed him Nina’s tobacco-charred voice saying, Yes, Fima, but make it short; I’m in a meeting. He tried to tempt her into going out with him that evening, to see the late showing of the film with Jean Gabin at the Orion. I made a real ass of myself two nights ago, he said, but tonight I’ll be on my best behaviour. You’ll see. Promise.
Nina said:
‘As it happens, I’ve got rather a long day today. But why not call me here at the office between seven-thirty and eight and we’ll see how things look. Meanwhile, Fima, just count how many socks you have on.’
Fima did not take offence, but started to tell her the main points of his new article about the price of morality and the price of abandoning morality, and the different meanings of the term ‘price’ for people with different value systems. Nina interrupted him: Right now we happen to be having a meeting here, the room’s full of people, we’ll talk some other time. He began to ask whether the meeting was about her ultra-pious sex shop, but he thought better of it and said good-bye, and he held off for nearly a quarter of an hour before calling Tsvi Kropotkin and telling him about the article he had written in the night in reply to his. He was secretly hoping to score a pleasant telephonic victory: checkmate in four or five moves. But Tsvi was on his way to a class, he was late already: Why don’t we talk about it later, Fima, when we’ve had a chance to read your new gospel in the paper?
It occurred to him to ring his father, to read him the facts about India, force him to admit his mistake, and tell him he’d left one of his cuff links behind. Unless the glow-worm really was one of Annette’s earrings. He decided it was best to drop the idea of ringing Baruch, so as not to get involved.
Since he had no one left to call, Fima stayed in the kitchen for a few minutes longer, picking up the crumbs from his breakfast to preserve the new clean look and admiring the gleaming new kettle. A little willpower, he thought, a little energy, a little elbow grease: it’s not that difficult to start a new chapter. Having arrived at this conclusion, he phoned Yael. He hoped that it would not be Ted who answered. And trusted to the inspiration of the moment to put words in his mouth and tell him what to say to her.
‘It must be telepathy,’ Yael exclaimed. ‘I was just telling Teddy to give you a ring. You’re barely half a minute ahead of us. It’s like this. Teddy and I are going to a conference at the Aircraft Industry. We can’t be back till this evening. I don’t know what time. Our neighbour is collecting Dimi from school and looking after him for the rest of the day. Could you be a dear and pick him up from her after work? Put him to bed and keep an eye on him till we get home? He’ll have had his supper, and he’s got the key in his pocket? What would we do without you? Sorry, I’ve got to hang up now. Teddy’s calling me from downstairs that they’ve come to pick us up. You’re wonderful. I’m off now. Thanks a million and see you late tonight. He can have half a Valium tablet if he can’t get to sleep. Help yourself to anything you fancy in the fridge.’
Fima cherished the words ‘see you late tonight’, as though they contained a secret promise. After a moment he laughed at himself for being so pleased, and set to work tidying the heap of newspapers and dusty magazines at the foot of his bed. But his glance fell on an old article by Yehoshaphat Harkabi and he started reading it and thinking about the failure of the Jewish revolt against the Romans. He thought the analogy with our own times was brilliant and original, if in some respects simplistic.
In the bus on his way to work he saw a woman, an immigrant from an Arab country, sobbing on the back seat, while a little girl, probably her daughter, aged seven or eight, comforted her by repeating over and over again, ‘He didn’t do it on purpose.’ At that instant the word ‘purpose’, good purpose, bad purpose, not on purpose, suddenly seemed to contain one of the secrets of existence: love and death, loneliness, desire, and jealousy, and the wonders of light and forest, mountains, plains, and water – is there or is there not a purpose in these things? Is there or is there not a purpose in the basic similarity between you and the lizard, between a vine leaf and your hand? Is there or is there not a purpose in the fact that your life is trickling away day by day between burned-out kettles and dead cockroaches and the lessons of the Great Revolt? The word ‘trickling’, which he had stumbled across many years before in Pascal’s Pensées, struck him as cruelly apposite, as though Pascal had selected it after delving into his, Fima’s, life, just as he himself studied the life of Yoezer even though Yoezer’s parents were not yet born. And what might the wizened Sephardic señor dozing on a wicker stool in front of the haberdashery shop think of Pascal’s gamble, in which, according to its author, the gambler cannot lose? And can a wager which one can only win properly be called a gamble? And by the way, would His Worship please explain Hiroshima or Auschwitz? Or the death of the Arab child? Or the sacrifice of Ishmael and Isaac? Or the fate of Trotsky? I am that I am? Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? His Worship is silent. His Worship is dozing. His Worship is smiling. His Worship is amused. Amen. Meanwhile, Fima missed his stop and had to get off at the next one. Despite which, he did not forget to thank the driver and say good-bye. As he always did.
At the clinic he found Tamar Greenwich alone. The two doctors had gone to sort something out at the tax office and would not be back till four o’clock or so. ‘Yesterday, when you didn’t come to work,’ Tamar said, ‘it was a really crazy day. And today it’s completely quiet. There’s nothing to do except answ
er the phone. We could have an orgy. Only your shirt’s buttoned up wrong. You’ve missed a button. Tell me, Fima, can you think of a river in Eastern Europe, three letters beginning with B?’
She was sitting on his chair at the reception desk, bent over a crossword magazine. She had stern square shoulders like an elderly sergeant major, a stout body, and a kindly, open face, and her splendid silky hair was soft and gleaming. Every visible patch of her skin was covered with freckles. Presumably they also covered the parts that were concealed. The unusual trick of pigmentation that gave her one green eye and one brown one made him feel not amusement at her expense but wonder and even a certain awe. He himself might have been born with one of his father’s ears and one of his mother’s. He might have inherited out of the evolutionary abyss the lizard’s tail or the cockroach’s feelers. Kafka’s story about Gregor Samsa, who woke up one morning to find he had turned into a giant cockroach, seemed to Fima to be neither a parable nor an allegory, but a realistic possibility. Tamar did not know the story, but vaguely recalled that Kafka was a poor Yugoslav who was killed fighting against the bureaucrats. Fima could not contain himself: he told her all about Kafka and his various love affairs. Once he was certain he had whetted her appetite, he went on to give her a summary of the plot of Metamorphosis. He told her that the Hebrew title of the story was not an accurate translation, but he failed in his effort to explain what was wrong with it and how the title ought to be translated.
Without looking up from her crossword Tamar said:
‘But what was he trying to say? That the father was a bit of a murderer? Maybe he was trying to be funny, but it doesn’t amuse me at all. I’m in exactly the same situation myself. Not a day goes by without him poking fun at me. He never misses an opportunity to humiliate me. Actually, yesterday, when you weren’t here, he hardly insulted me at all. He treated me almost like a human being. He even offered me a throat pastille. Can you think of a bird in seven letters ending with L?’
Fima peeled an old orange he found under the counter: he managed to avoid cutting his fingers though he did rather massacre the orange. Handing a few segments to Tamar, he replied:
‘Maybe he wasn’t feeling well yesterday, or something.’
‘Do you have to joke about it too? Can’t you see it’s painful. Why don’t you talk to him about it? Can’t you ask him why he’s always so cruel to me?’
‘It must be seagull,’ said Fima. ‘But why did you get involved with that monster in the first place? He hates the human race in general and women in particular.’
Tamar said:
‘You must understand, Fima. It’s not up to me.’
‘Disentangle yourself,’ Fima said. ‘What is there to love in him anyway? Or maybe it’s not him you’re in love with but your own unrequited affection?’
‘Philosophising,’ said Tamar. ‘When you try to be clever, you’re a real idiot, Fima.’
‘Yes, an idiot,’ Fima said, and a shy smile spread on his lips. ‘I know. And yet I think I’ve found the answer for you. Bug.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Tamar. ‘Why don’t you just keep quiet for a while and let me finish this crossword?’
‘Bug, sweetheart. The Eastern European river in three letters. Incidentally, historically speaking, the river Bug …’
‘Stop it, Fima. Once in a blue moon I say two words about myself; why do you have to go changing the subject and speaking historically? Why can’t you listen for a moment? I can never get a word in. With anyone.’
Fima apologised. He hadn’t meant any harm. He’d make her a glass of tea and get himself coffee, and then he’d shut up like a clam. He’d help her do her crossword and not philosophise at all.
But once they were sitting down together drinking, Fima could not restrain himself. He started outlining his peace plan to Tamar. This very night he would call a meeting of the cabinet and describe ruthlessly to the ministers the surgery they must apply at once to rescue the state. When he said ‘surgery’, he suddenly had a vivid image of the expression of Prussian arrogance on Gad Eitan’s face. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Dr Eitan was not only an excellent gynaecologist but also the clinic’s anaesthetist. As the need arose, he anaesthetised his own patients and Wahrhaftig’s.
Tamar said:
‘My misfortune, Fima, is that I can’t stop loving him. Even though I haven’t got one chance in a million with him, even though I’ve known for a long time that he’s a cruel man and that he loathes me. What can I do when all the time, for years now, I feel that underneath his cruelty there’s a hurt little boy hiding, a lonely little boy who doesn’t hate women, he’s frightened of them, he’s afraid that he just won’t be able to stand another blow? It may be just cheap psychology. Or maybe he’s still in love with his wife who left him? Maybe he’s waiting for her to come back to him? Maybe the reason he’s so poisonous is because inside he’s full of tears. Or do you think I’ve just seen too many romantic films? Often, when he torments me, I feel he’s really calling out to me like a little boy lost. Try arguing with your feelings. What’s a country in Africa, eleven letters, third letter E, eighth letter also E?’
Fima’s eyes explored the recovery room through the open door, the reception area, the desk, as though he was looking for an answer to her question. An air conditioner. Reproductions of a Degas and a Modigliani. Two unpretentious plants in hydroponic gravel. A white fluorescent tube. Pale green wall-to-wall carpet. A clock with Roman numerals. A telephone. A combined coat and umbrella stand. A basket full of magazines. A few magazines lying on the table. A blue leaflet: ‘Osteoporosis – Accelerated Deterioration of the Bones: A Guide for Women. Which women are especially vulnerable? High-risk groups: Underweight women. Women with fine bone structure. Women who have had their ovaries removed. Women who have undergone radiation therapy and ceased to produce oestrogen. Women who have never been pregnant. Women with a family history of the condition. Women who have been on a low-calcium diet. Women who smoke. Women who do not take sufficient physical exercise, or whose consumption of alcohol is excessive, or who suffer from hyperthyroidism.’
He peered at another explanatory leaflet, in purple this time, on the table in front of him. ‘My Little Secret … the Menopause: Hormone-Replacement Therapy. What is the menopause? What are female hormones and how are they produced? What are the characteristic signs of the onset of the menopause? What are the changes resulting from decreased production of female hormones? Comparative graph of oestrogen and progesterone. What are hot flushes and when can you expect them? What is the connection between oestrogen, high blood-fat levels, and heart disease? Is it possible to improve your ability to cope emotionally with the changes in your body at this time of life?’
Fima contented himself with reading the main headings. Tears of compassion suddenly flooded his eyes, not for a specific woman, Nina, Yael, Annette, Tamar, but for womanhood in general. The separation of humankind into two sexes struck him as an act of cruelty and an irreparable injustice. He felt that he had a share in this injustice and was therefore partly to blame, because he had sometimes unintentionally benefited from its consequences. Then he thought for a while about the punctuation of the leaflet and how it could be improved. Whoever left these leaflets here foolishly forgot that men sometimes come to the clinic, including religious men: problems of infertility and so forth. Pamphlets like these might embarrass them. Women might even be embarrassed, waiting and watching a man reading this kind of literature. Then he recalled that it was he himself who put the pamphlets out: he had never looked at them before. Also, despite the risk of embarrassment or tactlessness, various pictures, ornaments, and souvenirs were displayed on the walls and shelves bearing messages of thanks from grateful patients. They signed their dedications only with their initials or with their first name and the first letter of the surname, like that brass dish from Carmela L, ‘in eternal gratitude to the dedicated and wonderful staff’. Fima had not forgotten this Carmela, because one day he heard that she had killed
herself. Even though she always struck him as somebody outstandingly courageous and cheerful. The mayor of Jerusalem ought to ban the use of the word ‘eternal’, at least within the city limits.
He began to comb the map of Africa in his mind from north to south, from Egypt to Namibia, and then again from east to west, from Madagascar to Mauretania, looking for the country that was holding up Tamar’s crossword puzzle. While he did so, he conjured up a vision of Gad Eitan, the arrogant catlike Viking, as a miserable unloved child wandering forlornly through the jungles and deserts of Africa. He could not find the answer. But he asked himself whether those who come after us, Yoezer and his contemporaries, living here in Jerusalem a hundred years from now, would also be solving crossword puzzles. Would they too suffer the humiliation of unrequited love? Would they button their shirts up wrong? Would they be condemned to a lack of oestrogen? Would abandoned children in a hundred years continue to roam forlornly around the Equator? Fima could feel sadness gripping him. In his sadness he was ready to lean over and hug Tamar. To press her wide face to his chest. To stroke her beautiful hair, which was gathered in a chaste bun at the back, like a pioneer’s in the previous generation. If he were to suggest that she sleep with him here and now, on the sofa in the recovery room, she would no doubt turn red and white in alarm, but in the end she would not refuse him. After all, they would be alone till four o’clock at least. He could give her pleasure such as she had never known in her life, and draw forth laughter, pleas, sobs, whispered requests, low groans of surprise, sounds that would produce in him too the sweetest thrill he knew: the joy of altruism. So what if she was not pretty? Good-looking women only made him feel humble and submissive. Only the unwanted and rejected were capable of igniting in him that spark of generosity that always fuelled his desire. But what if she wasn’t protected? What if she got pregnant here, of all places, in this abortion inferno?
