To Know a Woman (Harvest in Translation)

by Amos Oz

  Yoel turned the photograph over, examined the date, and tried to calculate how much time had passed between the day it was taken and the sudden death of Chief of Staff Elazar. He imagined himself at that moment a limbless cripple, a sack of flesh topped by a head that was neither a man's nor a woman's but of some more delicate creature, more delicate than a child even, bright and wide-eyed, as though knowing the answer and secretly delighted at its almost unbelievable simplicity. Almost unbelievable; yet here it was almost in front of your eyes.

  Then he went to the bathroom and took two new rolls of toilet paper out of the cabinet; he fitted one of them beside the seat and left the second as a spare in the other bathroom. He collected all the towels and threw them in the laundry basket, except for one, which he used to clean the washbasins before throwing it in as well. Then he hung up fresh towels in place of the old ones. Here and there he noticed a long woman's hair, held it up to the light to identify it, threw it in the toilet, and flushed it away. In the medicine cabinet he discovered a small oilcan which belonged outside in the shed, so he went to put it away there. On the way it occurred to him to oil the hinges of the bathroom window, and then those of the kitchen door, then those of the wardrobes, and while he was holding the oilcan he went around the house looking for other things he could oil. Finally, after oiling the electric drill itself and the hinges of the glider in the garden, he noticed that the can was empty and now there was no need to put it away in the shed. As he went past the living-room door he had a slight shock, because for an instant he thought he noticed a faint, almost imperceptible movement among the furniture in the dark. Apparently it was merely a rustling of the leaves of the giant philodendron. Or the curtain? Or something behind it? The movement ceased the moment he switched on the light in the room and peered in every corner, but seemed to stir again slowly behind his back when he switched it off and turned to leave the room. So he crept barefoot to the kitchen, without putting the light on, almost without breathing, and stared into the sitting room for a moment or two beyond the passthrough. There was nothing there but darkness and silence. Perhaps just a faint smell of overripe fruit. But as he turned to open the door of the refrigerator he sensed a sort of rustling again behind his back. He spun around very quickly and switched all the lights on. Nothing there. So he switched them off and went outside, as stealthily as a robber, crept around the house, peeped cautiously through the window, and almost managed to catch something stirring in the darkness in a corner of the room. Which ceased the moment he looked, or the moment he thought he had seen something. Was there a bird trapped in the room, fluttering and struggling to get out? Had the cat from the shed got into the house? Perhaps it was a lizard. Or a snake. Or just a draft stirring the leaves of the potted plant. Yoel stood there among the bushes patiently peering into the darkened house. The sea won't run away. It suddenly occurred to him that it was reasonable to suppose that instead of a screw there might be a long thin sliver sticking into the left hind paw which was an extension of the stainless-steel base. And that was why from above there was no sign of any nail or screw. The same cunning with which the artist had captured such a magnificent, tragic leap had made him decide in advance to make a base with a protruding lug all of a piece with it. This solution seemed logical and pleasing to Yoel, but its disadvantage was that there was no way of checking whether it was right or wrong without splitting the paw in question open.

  The question therefore presented itself whether the constant agony of a blocked leap, an arrested takeoff, which never ceased for a moment yet was never achieved, or never ceased because it was never achieved, was harder or easier to bear than the smashing of the paw once and for all. To this question he could find no answer. What he did find was that meanwhile he had missed most of the television news. So he abandoned the rest of his ambush, went back indoors, and switched on the television. While the set was warming up there was only the voice of the newscaster describing mounting difficulties in the fishing industry, migrations of fish, defections among the fishermen, the indifference of the government, and when the picture finally appeared the report on this subject was more or less finished. There was nothing on the screen but a twilight sea, green-gray, empty of ships, looking almost congealed, with just a few gentle foam-flecked waves flickering and disappearing in one corner of the picture as the man read the weather forecast, and the temperatures expected for the next day appeared over the sea. Yoel waited for two additional news items to conclude the magazine, watched a commercial, and when he saw that there was another to follow he got up, switched it off, put Bach's "Musical Offering" on the record player, and poured himself a brandy. For some reason he visualized the simile Le Patron had used at the end of his phone call: a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. He sat down on the telephone stool with the glass of brandy in his hand and dialed Arik Krantz's home number. His idea was to borrow Krantz's second car, the small one, for half a day or so, in order to leave his own car for Avigail when he went to the office at ten the next morning. Odelia Krantz told him in a voice seething with stifled animosity that Arye wasn't in and she had no idea when he would be back. If ever. Nor did she particularly care whether he came back or not. Yoel deduced that they had had another fight, and tried to recall what Krantz had told him while they were sailing the previous weekend, something about the redheaded bombshell he had fired into outer space in a hotel by the Dead Sea, totally oblivious of the fact that her sister was his wife's sister-in-law or something of the sort, more or less, and as a result he had been put on red alert. Odelia Krantz asked if she could give Arye some message, anyway, or leave him a note. Yoel hesitated, apologized, finally said: "No. Nothing special. Actually, why not, you could tell him I called and ask him to call me back if he gets in before midnight." And saw fit to add: "If it's not too much trouble. Thank you." Odelia Krantz said: "Nothing's too much trouble for me. But perhaps I could know with whom I have the pleasure?" Yoel knew how ridiculous was his unwillingness to pronounce his own name on the telephone, but nevertheless could not overcome a slight hesitation before he gave her his first name, thanked her again, and said good-bye.

  Odelia Krantz said: "I'll be right over. I need to talk to you. Please. We don't know each other, but you'll understand. Just for ten minutes?"

  Yoel said nothing. He hoped he would not have to use a lie. Noticing his silence, Odelia Krantz said: "You're busy. I understand. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to invade you. Perhaps we can meet some other time. If possible." And Yoel said warmly: "I'm very sorry. Just at the moment it's rather difficult for me." "Never mind," she said. "It's difficult for all of us."

  Tomorrow is another day, he thought. And he stood up and took the record off, then went outside and walked in the dark as far as the end of the street to the fence around the citrus grove and stood there watching a rhythmic red flashing above the outline of the roofs and the trees, perhaps from warning lights on top of some tall mast. Just then between the blinks a line of milky-blue light flickered, moving slowly across the sky, as in a dream, a satellite, or perhaps a meteor. He turned and went back. That's enough, he muttered to the dog Ironside, who barked lazily at him on the other side of his fence. He intended to go home, to see if the house was still empty, if he had remembered to switch the record player off, and he also thought of pouring himself another glass of brandy. But to his utter amazement he found himself standing not at his own house but, by mistake, at the Vermonts' front door, and it gradually dawned on him that he must have absentmindedly rung the bell, because as he turned to beat a retreat the door opened and the man who looked like a large pink healthy Dutchman in an advertisement for choice cigars roared three times in English, "Come in." Yoel, having no alternative, obediently went in.

  22

  He went inside and blinked on account of the green aquariumlike light that suffused the living room: a light that seemed to be filtered through jungle foliage or rising from the ocean depths. The beautiful Annemarie, with her back toward him, was leaning over the coffee table a
rranging photographs in a heavy album. As she leaned over, her fine shoulder blades stretched the skin, and she struck Yoel as less seductive than childishly touching. Clutching her gold-colored kimono to her chest with a thin hand, she turned toward him and exclaimed happily in English: "Wow, look who's here!" adding in Hebrew: "We were beginning to be afraid that you found us repulsive." At that moment Vermont thundered from the kitchen: "I bet you'd care for a drink!" and began to reel off the options.

  "Sit down over here," Annemarie said gently. "Relax. Breathe deeply. You look so tired."

  Yoel asked for a Dubonnet, not so much because he was drawn to the taste of the drink as because of the sound of the name. Which in Hebrew made him think of bears. Or perhaps because a tropical forest dripping with mist and water was growing on three of the room's walls. It was a series of outsize posters, or else wallpaper or painting. The forest was a dense one, with a muddy track winding among the tree trunks under the leafy canopy. On either side of the track grew dark bushes, and among the bushes there were mushrooms. Yoel associated the word "mushrooms" with truffles, even though he had no idea what truffles looked like, had never set eyes on one; all he knew about them was that the word "truffle" sounded to him like "tearful." The greenish watery light in the room was filtered through the forest foliage. It was a trick of lighting, intended to give the room a sense of softness and depth. Yoel said to himself that everything, the wallpaper covering three of the walls, and the effect of the light combining with it, was indicative of poor taste. Nevertheless, for some childish reason, he could not contain the emotion aroused in him by the sight of the wetness sparkling at the base of the conifers and oak trees, as though the forest were full of fireflies. And a hint of still waters, a stream, a brook, a rivulet, meandering with flashes of brilliance through the lush dense greenery, among shadowy plants that might have been blackberries or red currants, although what red currants and blackberries might be Yoel had not the faintest idea; even their names he knew only from books. But he found that the light in the room helped his tired eyes. It was here, this evening, that it finally became clear to him that the white-hot summer light might be one of the reasons for his aching eyes. In addition to his new reading glasses, he should buy some sunglasses too.

  Vermont, freckled, ebullient, brimming with assertive hospitality, poured Yoel a Dubonnet, and Camparis for himself and his sister, muttering all the while something about the secret beauty of life and how brainless bastards waste and destroy the secret. In the background, Annemarie put on a record of Leonard Cohen songs. And they talked about the political situation, the future, the approaching winter, the difficulties of the Hebrew language, and the advantages and disadvantages of the supermarket in Ramat Lotan as against the rival establishment in the neighboring residential development. The brother declared in English that for some time now his sister had been saying that Yoel ought to be photographed and blown up into a poster to show the whole world the image of the sensual Israeli male. Then he asked Yoel if he didn't find Annemarie an attractive girl. Everybody found her attractive, and even he himself was enchanted by Annemarie; he guessed that Yoel was not indifferent to her charms either. Annemarie asked, What's all this, the beginning of a blue evening? Preparing the ground for an orgy? And she angered her brother by saying, as though revealing the most secret cards to Yoel, that Ralph was actually dying to marry her off. At least, one part of him was, while another part—but that's enough, we mustn't bore you. Yoel said:

  "You're not boring me. Go on."

  And, as though to please a little girl, he added:

  "You really are very pretty." For some reason these words were easy to say in English, and impossible in Hebrew. In company, in the presence of friends and acquaintances, his wife had sometimes said to him in English, casually, with a laugh, "I love you." But it had been only rarely and always when they were alone and always in utter seriousness that the same words left her mouth in Hebrew. Yoel had shuddered to hear them.

  Annemarie indicated the photographs that were still scattered all over the coffee table and that she had been busy arranging in an album when Yoel arrived on his surprise visit. These were her two daughters, Aglaia and Thalia, now aged nine and six respectively; she had had them by different husbands, and she had lost them both in Detroit, at an interval of seven years, in two divorce suits in which she had also lost all her possessions, "down to my last nightie." Then they had turned the two little girls against her, so that they could be made to come and see her only by force, and the last time, in Boston, the older girl had not let her so much as touch her, while the younger one had spat at her. Her two ex-husbands had ganged up against her; they had jointly hired a lawyer and plotted her ruin down to the last detail. Their scheme was to drive her to suicide or out of her mind. If it hadn't been for Ralph, who had literally saved her—but she must apologize for talking so much.

  So saying, she stopped. Her chin was dropped at an angle on her chest and she wept without making a sound, looking like a bird with a broken neck. Ralph Vermont put his arm around her shoulders, and after a moment's hesitation Yoel, sitting to her left, made up his mind and took her little hand in his; he sat looking at her fingers without saying anything until her sobs began to subside. He, who for several years had not so much as touched his own daughter. And the boy in this picture here, the brother explained in English, taken on the beach in San Diego, that's Julian Aeneas Robert, my only son; I lost him too in a complicated divorce suit ten years ago in California. So my sister and I were left alone, and here we are. What would you like to tell us about your own life, Mr. Ravid? Yoel, if you don't object? Has your family also split up? I've heard tell that in Urdu there's a word that if you write it from right to left it means adoration, and if you write it from left to right it means loathing. Same letters, same syllables, just depends which way. For God's sake, don't feel you've got to repay one personal story with another. It's not a business deal, just an invitation to get it off your chest, as they say. There's a story about some old rabbi from Europe who said the soundest thing in the whole world is a broken heart. But you mustn't feel obligated to trade one story for another. Did you eat already? If not, there's some excellent veal pie left over that Annemarie can warm up in two shakes. Don't be shy. Eat. Then we'll have coffee and watch a good film on the VCR, just as we always promised you."

  But what could he tell them about? His neighbor's guitar, that started playing like a cello at night after he died? So he said:

  "Thank you both. I've already eaten." And he added: "I didn't mean to disturb you. Please forgive me for intruding like this without warning."

  Ralph Vermont roared in English: "Nonsense! No trouble at all!" And Yoel asked himself why it is that other people's disasters always seem a little exaggerated or ridiculous, too complete to be taken seriously. Nevertheless he was sorry for Annemarie and her pink, overfed brother. As though replying belatedly to the previous question but one, he smiled and said: "I had a relative—he's dead now—he used to say that everybody has the same secrets. Whether it's really true or not I don't know, and I believe there's even a small logical fallacy there. Once you compare secrets, they stop being secrets, so they're ruled out by definition. But if you don't compare them, how can you know if they're the same or different? Never mind. Let's drop it."

  Ralph Vermont said in English:

  "It's goddam nonsense, with all due respect to your relative or whoever."

  Yoel settled more comfortably in the armchair and stretched his legs out on the footrest. As though preparing himself for a deep and prolonged rest. The slim, childlike body of the woman sitting opposite him in a gold-colored kimono, with both hands repeatedly clutching its folds to her bosom, aroused in him images he preferred to thrust away. Her nipples squinted this way and that under the enfolding silk, and with every movement of her hand they trembled as though they were burrowing underneath the kimono, as though they were kittens wriggling and struggling to get out. He imagined his own broad, ugly hands ro
ughly clasping those breasts and putting an end to their convulsions, like catching warm chicks. The stiffening of his member troubled him and even hurt him, since Annemarie did not take her eyes off him and he was unable to reach down unobtrusively and ease the pressure of his tight jeans on his erection, which was trapped at an angle. He imagined he noticed the shadow of a smile between brother and sister when he attempted to raise his knees. And he almost joined them in smiling, except that he was not certain if he had really noticed or only imagined what had passed between them. For a moment he felt rising within him the old complaint that Shealtiel Lublin used to voice against the tyranny of the sexual organ, which pushes you around and complicates your whole life, and doesn't let you concentrate and write the poems of Pushkin or invent electricity. His desire spread upward and downward from his loins, up his back toward his neck, and down his thighs to his knees and right down to his feet. The thought of the breasts of the beautiful woman sitting opposite him stirred a slight shiver around his own nipples. His imagination showed him her childlike fingers giving him rapid little pinches on his back and on the back of his neck, as Ivria used to do when she wanted to speed up his beat, and because he was thinking about Ivria's hands he opened his eyes and saw Annemarie's hands slicing triangles of quivering cheesecake for him and her brother. Suddenly he noticed a number of brown blotches on the back of her hand, from the pigment that was inescapably concentrating because of the aging of the skin. At once his desire went limp and instead there came gentleness and compassion and sorrow and also memories of her weeping a few minutes earlier and the faces of the girls and the boy that the brother and sister had lost in their divorce suits. He stood up and said he was sorry.