by Amos Oz
And while we are on the subject of money, write and tell me how much more you need. Do you really want me to give him a donation for the redemption of Hebron? I don’t care. I’ll buy him Hebron. And then I’ll buy him Nablus. When is his birthday? In exchange I shall ask you to reveal to me the secret of this paragon. How did he manage to win and hold you? I have authoritative assurances from two private investigators that you have apparently never betrayed him (if we leave out of account the love ticket you sent me with a price tag of a hundred thousand dollars on it, which is enough to put us both into the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest price ever paid for a screw that never happened). Incidentally, in his latest (for the time being) demand for payment, your Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz hints that I it was who “reduced you to sin.” Such stories are apparently common currency in the background from which he comes. It is not difficult for me to imagine what you have told him about our life together. Stories of Beauty and the Beast.
What do you see in him? What does Boaz see in him?
“A bitter, wild boy,” you wrote to me, whose hatred has given him “astonishing physical strength.” I remember the way he used to sleep at night: all huddled up in a heavy blanket pulled up over his fair hair like a cub dug into a hole. I remember the candy bed in the garden. The graveyard for butterflies. The maze and the amusement park he made for the tortoise. His tiny hands on the steering wheel of my car. The tank battles we fought on the rug, and how he washed my pipe out once with soap and water. How he ran away into the wadi after one of your suicides. And how I came home one night and found a green lighter, not mine, on the kitchen table and started to punch you and suddenly he appeared in the kitchen in his spaceman pajamas and asked me quietly to stop because you were weaker. When I said to him, “Get into bed,” and went on hitting you, he picked up a little potted cactus and threw it at me, and it hit me on the cheek and I let go of you and grabbed hold of him in a frenzy and beat his golden head over and over again against the wall. I had my pistol in my pocket and I could have fired at the two of you that night and then put a bullet in myself. In fact I did, and, ever since, the three of us have been a dream.
I want you to know that in all these years not a month has gone by without my receiving a report on you and Boaz from Zakheim and the detectives. And everything I know, including his violence, I like a lot: this tree is growing a long way from the rotten apples. We don’t deserve him, either of us. Neither of us deserves anything, apart from a bullet in the brain. Perhaps it’s only your black devil who deserves something. To be buried in the Patriarchs’ Tomb in his Hebron. And the sooner the better.
What did you see in him, Ilana? What does Boaz see in him?
If you give me a convincing answer, you’ll get the promised check.
Your sudden concern for my health (or your eagerness for an inheritance) is, as usual, touching. But please don’t exaggerate: I’m still on the map. Despite those operations. But without the whisky and the pipe, so that from your poetic arsenal only the pen and the spectacles remain, and it is true that I sometimes move them an inch to the left or two inches to the right on my desk. Just as you described in your letter. Although I do not smash glasses or throw things on the fire. Instead of your snow and the empty glass and the empty bottle, you can use the weeping willow outside my window. The black and white are fine, as long as you employ the idea with restraint and not in your usual overexuberant style.
I will nevertheless pour myself a tot of whisky now, before I sample the cure you prescribed for me, to bang my head against the corner of the desk until the pain stops.
Your
Dragon
***
GIDEON NICFOR LONDON
BOAZ HAS TURNED UP HERE REQUESTS FROM YOU FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR PURCHASE OF GLASSBOTTOMED BOAT TO SET UP OWN BUSINESS SHARM ALSHEIKH PLUS ONE THOUSAND TO BUILD TELESCOPE THERE FOR TOURISTS HAVE REPLIED NEGATIVE FOR YOUR INFORMATION MANFRED
***
PERSONAL ZAKHEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL
GIVE IT TO HIM IDIOT ALEX
***
GIDEON NICFOR LONDON
NOW HES ASKING FIVE THOUSAND FOR APARTMENT IN OPHIRA ZANDS MEN HAVE DISCOVERED HE IS LIVING AT A GAS STATION THERE WITH TWO SWEDISH GIRLS ONE FRENCH DITTO AND A BEDOUIN HAVENT GIVEN A PENNY YOU HAVE NO CASH HERE AND I HAVENT MANAGED TO REALIZE PROPERTY GO HAVE YOUR HEAD EXAMINED MANFRED
***
PERSONAL ZAKHEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL
MANFRED DO ME A FAVOR MAKE ME A LOAN AGAINST THE ZIKHRON PROPERTY AND GIVE HIM WHAT HES ASKING TELL HIM ITS THE LAST TIME ALEX
***
GIDEON NICFOR LONDON
LOAN REFUSED MANFRED
***
PERSONAL ZAKHEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL
YOURE FIRED ALEX
***
GIDEON NICFOR LONDON
THANK GOD FOR THAT TELL ME WHO TO HAND PAPERS OVER TO ZAKHEIM
***
PERSONAL ZAKHEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL
YOUR RESIGNATION NOT ACCEPTED YOU ARE A BEAST ALEX
***
GIDEON NICFOR LONDON
CARRYING ON ON CONDITION YOU DISCONTINUE SOCIAL ASSISTANCE TO NEEDY OF GREATER ISRAEL INCLUDING NEGATIVE REPLY TO BOATS AND APARTMENTS IN SHARM DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DMITRI KARAMAZOV OR KING LEAR MANFRED
***
PERSONAL ZAKHEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL
OK RASPUTIN CALM DOWN I SURRENDER FOR TIME BEING ALEX
***
Mr. M. H. Sommo
7 Tarnaz St.
Jerusalem
7.6.1976
BY REGISTERED POST
Dear Mr. Sommo,
You are hereby warned not to address any further requests/ demands for financial favors, whether directly or through your wife or through your wife’s son, to my client Dr. A. A. Gideon, additional to the ex gratia payments you have already received from him.
Permit me hereby to draw your attention to the fact that my client has authorized me by cable to veto absolutely any transfer of funds extracted from him by means of emotional or other pressure. In plain words, you had better get it into your head that if there is anything else you want, there is no point in pestering Dr. Gideon, personally or via your relations. Try addressing yourself to me, and if you behave properly you will find me responsive. For your own good, sir, I suggest you bear in mind that we possess all the information we require to deal with any difficulties that may arise on your part in the future.
Your obedient servant,
M. Zakheim
Lawyer and Business Manager
***
Mr. M. Zakheim, Lawyer
Mr. Zakheim & Mr. di Modena
36 King George
By the Grace of G-d
Jerusalem
13th of Sivan 5736 (10.6.76)
LOCAL
Esteemed Mr. Zakheim,
First of all my respectful greetings to you on the occasion of the Festival of Shavuot!
Heaven forbid that you should think that I have any complaint or grievance against you. As it is written, “May He Who protects the simple protect me from suspecting the righteous or from casting aspersions.” On the contrary, I think that you do your job of acting for Professor Gideon as well as possible. Likewise I appreciate the efforts you made on our behalf to renew contact with Boaz, apologize for any distress that has been caused you, thank you for your trouble, and express my confidence that your virtuous actions will stand you in good stead.
Nevertheless, and with all due respect, you will forgive me for finding myself under the necessity to observe, in response to your letter, that you are disqualified from acting as an intermediary between me and my family and Professor Gideon. This is for the simple reason that you are completely identified with the other party, and quite rightly so as long as he is paying you for your pains. So, as it is written, “no to your sting and no to your honey,” Mr. Zakheim. If Professor Gideon should come to be persuaded out of the goodness of his heart to make a donation toward the rebuilding of the Land, with all due respe
ct you have no right of veto or locus standi, you do not belong in the picture, and I’ll thank you to step out of it.
On the other hand, if you decide that you would also like to contribute something toward our holy sacred cause, your contribution will be most welcome and will be accepted with appreciation and without too close a scrutiny.
Moreover I have made a note of your explicit hint about the material that you claim to have assembled against us. I was not unduly impressed, however, for the simple reason that we have nothing to hide. As it is written, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,” etc. Your explicit hint can only embarrass you, Mr. Zakheim. And I for my part, obedient to the command “You shall take no vengeance nor bear any grudge,” have decided to overlook it and consider it as though it never existed.
My dear Mr. Zakheim, I should have thought that you, as someone who came here perhaps from the Holocaust, would be the first to wish to strengthen the state and consolidate its borders. Without, save the mark!, assailing the honor or property of the Arab inhabitants. I should like to propose you for membership in our organization, the Jewish Fellowship Movement (I enclose a prospectus with full details). What is more, Mr. Zakheim, by virtue of the legal prowess you have displayed in the service of Professor Gideon, I have the honor to offer you hereby the position of legal representative of the Movement, either on a voluntary basis or in return for full and proper fees.
Moreover I hereby request you to accept the position of private property manager for me and my family, in light of the fact that with God’s help, and with your own deeply welcome help, part of the plundered property has been restored to us, and I am confident that the rest will come as well.
I am prepared to pay you for your trouble at the usual commission and a little over. We could even operate on a partnership basis, Mr. Zakheim, since I am intending to invest a good deal of money through our organization in certain business enterprises connected with the redemption of the liberated territories. A partnership between us should bring ample rewards to both parties, besides rewards for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. As it is written, “Will two walk together if they have not agreed?” My proposal, therefore, is that you should come over to our side, without of course abandoning your client Professor Gideon. Please think about this seriously. There is no urgency about replying. We are accustomed to waiting and do not believe in haste.
Professor Gideon may represent the achievements of the past, but it is my conviction that the future belongs to us. Take thought for the future, Mr. Zakheim!
Yours with great respect and in Jewish solidarity,
Michael (Michel-Henri) Sommo
***
Rahel Morag
Kibbutz Beit Avraham
Mobile Post, Lower Galilee
11.6.76
Dear normal Rahel,
And yet I still owe you a line or two. I didn’t answer you before because I was up to here in Boaz’s problems. No doubt you’ve put on your understanding-forgiving-Rahel look, and in your elder-sister tone you’re remarking to yourself that I haven’t been concerned about Boaz but, as usual, about myself. After all, ever since we were children you were always the one to save me from my crazes. “My dramas,” to use your term. And you’ll start feeding me a stew of that applied psychology you picked up from your child-care course. Until I go out of my mind and scream: Leave me alone! And then you’ll smile at me sadly, refrain as usual from taking offense, keep quiet, and let me reach by myself the realization that my outbursts only exemplify what you have been wise enough to diagnose already. That tolerant, pedantic wisdom of yours—which has infuriated me all these years, until I almost choke with rage and explode and insult you, thus giving you a perfect opportunity to forgive and also reinforcing your constant anxiety about my condition. Aren’t we a perfect team, the two of us? You see, I only meant to write you a couple of lines to thank you—you and Yoash—for being willing to drop everything and come to Jerusalem to help. And look what came out. Forgive me. Even though if it weren’t for my dramas, what connection would there be between the two of us? And where would you send your salvos of crushing kindness?
As you know, Boaz is okay. And I am trying hard to calm down. Alec’s lawyer hired some investigators, who discovered that he was working on some sort of tourist boat on the Sinai coast and didn’t need any of us. I managed to persuade Michel not to go to him in the meantime. You see, I accepted your advice to leave him alone. As for your other advice, to forget Alec for good and to refuse his money, don’t be angry if I tell you you don’t understand a thing. Give my regards and thanks to Yoash and kisses to the children.
Your intolerable
Ilana
Best wishes to all of you from Michel. He is starting to extend the flat with the money we got from Alec. He’s already got permission to add two rooms on the back, into the yard. Next summer you’ll be able to come and stay with us for a break, and I’ll be on my best behavior.
***
From world-wide press reviews of The Desperate Violence: A Study in Comparative Fanaticism by Alexander A. Gideon (1976).
“This monumental work by an Israeli scholar sheds new light—or, rather, deep shade—on the psychopathology of various faiths and ideologies from the Middle Ages to the present day. . . .”
Times Literary Supplement
“A must . . . an ice-cold analysis of the phenomenon of messianic fervor in both its religious and its secular guise . . .”
New York Times
“Fascinating reading . . . vital for an understanding of the movements that have shaken and still shake our century . . . Professor Gideon describes the phenomenon of faith . . . any faith . . . not as a source of morality but as its precise opposite. . . .”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“The Israeli scholar maintains that all world-reformers since the dawn of history have actually sold their souls to the devil of fanaticism. . . . The fanatic’s latent desire to die a martyr’s death on the altar of his idea is, in the author’s view, what enables him to sacrifice the lives of others, sometimes of millions, without batting an eyelid. . . . In the fanatic’s soul, violence, salvation and death are fused into a single mass. . . . Professor Gideon bases this conclusion not on psychological speculations but on a precise linguistic analysis of the vocabulary which is characteristic of all fanatics of all ages and of all positions in the religious and ideological spectrum. . . . This is one of those rare books that force the reader to re-examine himself and all his views fundamentally and to seek within himself and his surroundings manifestations of latent sickness. . . .”
New Statesman
“Ruthlessly lays bare the true face of feudalism and capitalism. . . . With great skill he exposes the Church, Fascism, nationalism, Zionism, racism, militarism, and the extreme right. . . .”
Literatumaya Pravda
“You sometimes have the feeling as you read that you are looking at a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. . . .”
Die Zeit
***
To Dr. A. Gideon
Via Mr. M. Zakheim
Jerusalem
13.6.76
Dear Monk,
If only you had given me a hint seven years ago, at the trial, that you were not plotting to take advantage of my admitting adultery to take Boaz away from me I should have had no reason to object to the paternity test, which in any case would have been unnecessary. How much suffering could have been spared if you had only said two words then. But what’s the point of asking a vampire how he can drink fresh blood?
I am doing you an injustice. You forfeited your son because you wanted to spare him. You were even intending to donate a kidney to him. Even now you could photocopy these letters of mine and send them to Michel. But something interferes with your hatred. Something whispers to you like wind in dry grass, interrupting the arctic silence. I can remembe
r you with your friends having the usual ritual Friday-night argument: your long legs stretched out under the coffee table, your eyes only half opened, the rough suntanned skin of your arms, your pensive fingers slowly kneading some absent object. For the rest, a motionless fossil. Like a lizard watching an insect. Your glass precariously balanced on the arm of your chair. The din of voices in the room, the arguments, the counterarguments, the cigarette smoke—they all seem to be happening a long way below you. Your best white shirt, starched and neatly pressed. And your face sealed in contemplation. And all of a sudden, like a viper, you dart your head forward and spit into the conversation: “Just a minute. I’m sorry. I must have missed something.” The din of the argument fades instantly. And you scythe through the discussion with a sentence or two, cut across the positions from a sharp, unexpected angle, demolish the point of departure, and conclude with, “Sorry. Carry on.” Then you settle back into your disconnected position. Indifferent to the silence that you have generated. Letting someone else formulate in your name the conclusion that might possibly be implied by the question you have put. Slowly, sheepishly, the argument warms up again. Without you. By then you are completely engrossed in a solemn study of the ice cubes in your glass. Until the next interjection. Who was it who warped your mind and made you see compassion as weakness, gentleness and sensitivity as shameful, love as a sign of effeminacy in a man? Who was it who banished you to the snowy steppes? Who was it who corrupted a man like you into obliterating the stain of his compassion for his son, the shame of his longing for his wife? What a grim horror, Alec. And the crime is its own punishment. Your monstrous suffering is like a thunderstorm behind the mountains at dawn. I hug you.
