To Know a Woman (Harvest in Translation)

by Amos Oz

  "Should he come right away?"

  "Yes. No. Let him come in half an hour. So you and I can finish working out a plan for my musical apartments."

  When Duby arrived half an hour later in his mother's little Fiat, it was time for his father to leave for his volunteer shift at the hospital, which he would spend, he announced, in a horizontal position in a cubicle behind the nurses' station.

  Yoel sat Duby down in the comfortable armchair in the living room, and sat facing him on the sofa. He offered him a hot or cold drink or something stronger, but the curly-haired, skinny, short boy, who with his matchlike arms and legs looked more like a sixteen-year-old than someone who had served in a combat unit, politely declined. Yoel repeated his apology for being so rude the day before, and thanked him again for helping with the planting. He engaged Duby in light political discussion and then turned the conversation to cars. Duby, realizing at last that Yoel was having difficulty getting to the point, found a tactful way of helping him out:

  "Netta says you're working terribly hard on yourself to be the perfect father. That you've made it your, well, your ambition. In case you're dying to know what's going on, it's no problem for me to tell you that Netta and I talk to each other. We're not exactly going out together. Yet. But if she likes me, there's no problem. Because I like her. A lot. And that's all there is to it at this stage."

  Yoel spent a moment or two checking these things in his head, and however hard he tried he could find no error in them.

  "All right. Thank you," he said at last, with an uncharacteristic fleeting smile on his face. "Just remember that she's—"

  "Mr. Ravid. There's no need. I haven't forgotten. I know. Forget it. You're not doing her a favor."

  "What did you say your hobby was? Mechanics, is that it?"

  "It's my hobby and it's going to be my career. And you, when you said you were a government employee, you meant some sort of classified work?"

  "More or less. I used to assess certain types of merchandise, and merchants, and sometimes I used to buy as well. But that's all over, and now I've got a period of leisure. Which doesn't prevent your father's deciding that it's his duty to save me time by taking my car to the garage for me. Well, so be it. I wanted to ask you a favor. Something connected with mechanics, in a way. Look here. Take a look at this object: have you got any explanation of why it doesn't fall over? And how this paw is attached to the base?"

  Duby stood for a while with his back toward Yoel and the room and his face toward the shelf over the fireplace, saying nothing. Yoel suddenly noticed that the boy was slightly hunchbacked, or else his shoulders were not the same height, or his spine was slightly twisted. It's not exactly James Dean we're getting here. But on the other hand we're not exactly offering Brigitte Bardot, either. Ivria might have been quite pleased with him, actually. She was always saying that hairy muscle men of all sorts disgusted her. Between Heathcliff and Linton, she apparently preferred the latter. Or else she wanted to. Or she was only working on herself to. Or she was only deceiving herself. And Netta, and me. Unless not all our secrets are ultimately identical, as that pain in the neck of an electricity-inventing Pushkin from the North Galilee police used to say. He may really have believed right up to the end that I caught his daughter near the irrigation taps in the dark and raped her twice until she agreed to marry me. And after that he used to come and wave his story in my face about my lacking three things that are the foundation of the world: desire, joy, and pity, which according to Nakdimon's theory come as a package, and if you're missing, say, number two then you haven't got numbers one and three, and vice versa. And if you try to say to them, Look, there's also love, they put a thick finger to that bag of flesh hanging under their beady eyes, and they draw the skin slightly downward and say to you with a sort of bestial mockery: Sure. What else?

  "Is it yours? Or was it here before?"

  "It was here before," said Yoel, and Duby, still with his back turned to the man and the room, said softly:

  "It's beautiful. There may be some flaws, but it's beautiful. Tragic."

  "Is it right that the animal is heavier than the base?"

  "Yes, it is."

  "So how come it doesn't fall over?"

  "Don't take offense, Mr. Ravid. You're asking the wrong question. The laws of mechanics. Instead of asking how come it doesn't fall over, we should simply take note: if it doesn't fall over, that proves the center of gravity is over the base. That's all."

  "And what's holding it? Do you have a miraculous answer to that too?"

  "Not really. I can think of two ways. Maybe three. There may even be more. Why is it important to you to know?"

  Yoel was in no hurry to reply. He was used to weighing his answers, even to such simple questions as How are you or What did it say on the news. As though words were personal possessions that one should not part with. The boy waited. Meanwhile he inspected Ivria's photograph, which had reappeared on the shelf, as mysteriously as it had vanished. Yoel knew that he ought to find out who had taken it away and who had put it back and why, but he also knew that he would not do it.

  "Netta's mother? Your wife?"

  "She was," Yoel specified punctiliously. And he replied belatedly to the previous question: "Actually it doesn't make much difference. Forget it. It's not worth breaking it just to find out how it's held together."

  "Why did she kill herself?"

  "Who told you such a thing? Where did you hear that?"

  "That's what people say. Even though no one knows exactly. Netta says—"

  "Never mind what Netta says. Netta wasn't even there when it happened. Who would have thought that rumors would start here? In point of fact, it was an accident, Duby. An electric cable broke. After all, they spread all sorts of rumors about Netta too. Tell me something: do you have any idea who Adva is, the girl who wants to rent Netta a room that apparently she inherited from her grandmother, on the roof somewhere in old Tel Aviv?"

  Duby turned and scratched his curly hair. Then he said quietly:

  "Mr. Ravid. I hope you won't be angry at me for what I'm going to say to you. Stop spying on her. Stop following her around. Leave her alone. Let her live her own life. She says you're always working to be the perfect father. It would be better if you stopped. Excuse me for, well, for being frank. But I don't think you're doing her a favor. Well, I've got to go now, I've got one or two things to do at home because my mother's coming back from Europe tomorrow and my dad wants everything to be shipshape and above suspicion. Actually it's good that we had this talk. Good night now."

  And so, a fortnight later, the day after the first of her examinations, when Yoel saw his daughter in front of the mirror adjusting the dress he had bought her the day he heard about the disaster in Bangkok, which smoothed out her bony angles and made her look erect and lithe, he decided to keep his mouth shut for once. He did not say a word. When she got in from the date at midnight he was waiting for her in the kitchen and they chatted a little about the imminent heat wave. Yoel made up his mind to accept the change and not stand in her way. He felt it was his right to make this decision on his own behalf and on Ivria's. He also decided that if his mother or his mother-in-law attempted to interfere by so much as a word he would react so strongly that they would both lose any desire to interfere again in Netta's affairs. From now on he would be tough.

  A few days later, at two o'clock in the morning, he finished reading the last few pages of the book about the Chief of Staff, and instead of turning the light out and going to sleep, he went to the kitchen to have a drink of cold milk, and he found Netta sitting there in an unfamiliar dressing gown reading a book. When he asked her, And what is your ladyship reading, she answered him with a half-smile that she was not exactly reading, but reviewing for an exam, going over her work on the history of the Mandate period. Yoel said:

  "That's one subject that I can actually help you with a little, if you like."

  Netta replied:

  "I know you can. Shall I make y
ou a sandwich?" And without waiting for his reply, without any connection to her question, she continued:

  "Duby gets on your nerves."

  Yoel thought for a while and replied:

  "You'd be surprised. I think he's bearable." To which Netta replied in a voice that, to his astonishment, almost sounded happy:

  "You'd be surprised, Dad, but that's just what Duby said about you. Almost the same words."

  On Independence Day the Krantzes invited him, his mother, his mother-in-law, and his daughter for a barbecue in their garden. Yoel surprised them by not being evasive, simply asking if he could bring along his neighbors, the brother and sister. Odelia said, Sure. Toward the end of the evening Odelia informed Yoel, in a corner of the living room, that during her European trip she had actually fooled around a little, twice, with different men, and she had seen no reason to keep it secret from Arye; and actually, since she had told him, their relationship had improved and you could say that for the time being they were relatively reconciled. No small thanks to you, Yoel.

  For his part, Yoel remarked modestly:

  "What did I do? All I wanted was to get home safely."

  47

  At the end of May the very same cat had another litter of kittens on the same old sack in the garden shed. There was a fierce quarrel between Avigail and Lisa; they did not speak to each other for five days, until Avigail nobly undertook to apologize to Lisa, not because she admitted she was in the wrong, but purely out of consideration for Lisa's condition. Lisa in her turn consented to a truce, but not before she had a slight attack and was taken to Tel Hashomer Hospital for two days. Although she did not say it, and even said the contrary, it was clear that she believed the attack had been caused by Avigail's cruelty. The middle-aged doctor took Yoel into the consulting room and told him that he agreed with Dr. Litwin's opinion that there was a certain, not very significant, deterioration. But Yoel had long since despaired of understanding their language. The two old ladies, after their reconciliation, resumed their joint voluntary activities in the mornings as well as their evening yoga classes, and they also took on a new involvement, with the Brother to Brother Association.

  Then, in early June, right in the middle of the matriculation examinations, Netta and Duby moved together into the rented room in the penthouse apartment on Karl Netter Street. One morning the closet in the master bedroom was empty, the pictures of poets were gone from the walls, Amir Gilboa's skeptical smile stopped provoking in Yoel a constant urge to repay the face in the picture in its own coin, and the collections of thistles and sheet music had vanished from the shelves. If he had trouble sleeping at night and he found himself making his way to the kitchen in search of a glass of cold milk, he was reduced to drinking it standing up and going right back to bed. Or picking up the big flashlight and going outside to see how his plants were growing in the dark. After a few days, when Duby and Netta had settled in, Yoel, Lisa, and Avigail were invited to see the sea from their window. Krantz and Odelia came too, and when Yoel happened to see, under a vase, the check that Krantz had left for Duby, in the sum of two thousand shekels, he locked himself in the bathroom for a moment and wrote a check made out to Netta for three thousand and slipped it underneath Krantz's when no one was looking. Later that afternoon, when he got home, he moved his clothes, papers, and bedding from the stiflingly small study to the empty master bedroom, which also had the benefit of air-conditioning, like the grannies' bedrooms. The unlocked safe was left behind in Mr. Kramer's study. It did not make the move with him to his new bedroom.

  In the middle of June he learned that Ralph had to return to Detroit in the early autumn but that Annemarie had not yet made up her mind. Give me another month or two, he said to the brother and sister, I need a little more time. He could barely conceal his surprise when Annemarie replied coolly, Sure, you can decide whatever you like whenever you like, but then I have to ask myself if I am interested in you, and if so, in what capacity. Ralph is dying for us to get married and then to adopt him as our child. But I'm not so sure right now that it's my cup of tea, a setup like that. And you know, Yoel, you're the opposite of a lot of men: you're very considerate in bed but out of it you're rather boring. Or else you're beginning to find me a little boring. And you know that for me the most precious man is Ralphie. So let's both give it some more thought. And then we'll see.

  It was a mistake, thought Yoel, to see her as a child-woman. Even though she, poor thing, obediently acted out the role that I imposed on her. And now it turns out that she's really a woman-woman. Why is it that this realization makes me recoil? Is it really too difficult to reconcile desire with respect? Is there really a contradiction between the two, which is why I could never have had that Eskimo mistress? Maybe, in point of fact, I was lying to Annemarie, without lying to her. Or else she was lying to me. Or we both were. Let's wait and see.

  Sometimes he remembered how he had received the announcement that winter night in Helsinki. When precisely did it begin to snow? How he broke his promise to the Tunisian engineer. How he disgraced himself by failing to notice whether the cripple was coming toward him in a motorized wheelchair or whether there was someone pushing him: he had made a fatal and irreparable slip by failing to discover who, if anyone, was moving the wheelchair. Only once or twice are you granted a special moment that everything else depends on, the moment for which you have been trained and prepared throughout those years of activity and cunning, a moment that might allow you, if you seize it, to discover something about the matter without knowledge of which your whole life is merely a sterile sequence of arrangements, organization, evasions, and troubleshooting.

  Sometimes he thought about his eye fatigue and attached to it the blame for that missed opportunity. About why he had stumbled for two blocks in the snow that night instead of simply phoning from his hotel room. And how the snow showed blue and pink like a skin disease wherever the glow of the street lamps fell on it. And how he could have lost the book and the scarf, and what foolishness it was to shave while climbing Mount Castel in Le Patron's car, merely to arrive home without stubble. If he had insisted, if he had been really stubborn, if he had had the courage to risk a fight, even a rift, Ivria would probably have given up and agreed to name the child Rakefet. Which was the name he had wanted. On the other hand, there are times when you have to give up; Not every time, though. How much, then? What is the limit? "A good question," he suddenly said aloud, as he put down the hedge clippers and wiped away the sweat that was running into his eyes from his forehead. His mother said: "There you go again, Yoel, talking to yourself. Like an old bachelor. You will end up going mad if you don't do something with your life. Or else you'll be sick, heaven forbid, or you'll start to pray. The best thing is, you should go into business. For business you do have some talent, and I give you a little money to get started. Should I bring you some soda water from the refrigerator?"

  "Idiot," Yoel said suddenly, not to his mother, but to Ironside, who had burst into their garden and started to run around ecstatically, describing rapid loops on the lawn, as though the joy-producing sap had overflowed inside him. "Silly dog! Get away with you!" And to his mother he said:

  "Yes. If it's not too much trouble, get me a big glass of ice-cold soda. Better still, bring the bottle out here. Thanks." And he went on clipping.

  In the middle of June too, Le Patron telephoned: Not to tell Yoel what had come to light about the disaster in Bangkok, but to ask after Netta. No difficulties, he trusted, about her call-up? Had she had any more medical examinations recently? At the recruiting center, for example? Should we—htat is to say, should I—get in touch with the manpower branch of the military? Well, do you mind telling her to get in touch with me? At home, in the evening, not at the office. I've had a thought about giving her something to do here. In any case, I'd like to see her. Will you tell her that?

  Yoel nearly said, without raising his voice, Go to hell, Cordovero. But he controlled himself and refrained. He chose to replace the receive
r without saying a word. Then he poured himself a brandy, followed by another, though it was only eleven o'clock in the morning. Maybe he's right—that I'm just a refugee kid, nothing but soap fodder, and they rescued me and created a state and built this and that, and even took me into the heart of the heart. But he and they will not be satisfied with less than my whole life, with everybody's whole life, including Netta's, and I'm not giving them that. And that's flat. If your whole life is devoted to the sanctity of life, then that's not life, it's death.

  At the end of June, Yoel ordered garden lighting and a solar water heater, and at the beginning of August, even though negotiations with Mr. Kramer, the El A1 manager in New York, were still under way he hired workmen to widen the living-room window that looked out on the garden. He bought a new mailbox. And a rocking chair to place in front of the television. And a second television set, with a small screen, for Avigail's room, so that the old ladies could spend the evening there while he and Annemarie made themselves a dinner a deux. Ralph had started visiting the Romanian neighbor, Ironside's master, who, Yoel discovered, was also some kind of chess genius. Or the Romanian neighbor would visit Ralph for a return game. Yoel examined all these things several times, and could find no error in them. By the middle of August he knew that what he could get from selling the apartment in Talbiyeh would be almost exactly enough to buy Kramer's house in Ramat Lotan, provided the man agreed to sell it. Meanwhile he was beginning to behave proprietorially. Arik Krantz, whose duty it was to keep an eye on the house on behalf of Mr. Kramer, eventually found the courage to look Yoel in the eye and say: "Listen, Yoel, in a word, I'm your man, not his." As for the self-contained one-room apartment he had been thinking of renting, with a separate entrance and guaranteed privacy, so that he and Annemarie would have some space for themselves, he decided that he might not need it now after all, because Avigail had been invited to return to Jerusalem the following year to serve in a voluntary capacity as secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Tolerance. He put off the actual decision almost to the eve of Ralph's departure for Detroit. Maybe because one evening Annemarie said to him: Instead of all this, I'm going to Boston to lodge an appeal and put up one last fight for my daughters by my two lovely marriages. If you love me, why don't you go with me? You might even be able to help me. Yoel had not replied, but, as usual, had run his finger slowly between his neck and his shirt collar and held his breath for a while before releasing it slowly through a narrow gap between his lips.