by Amos Oz
Father used to listen politely to all this talk, Comrade Grill's story, Mr. Nehamkin's poems, Mother's playing. But he always suggested that it be treated with cautious skepticism. Who knew? It might be so, or then again it might not. However, in the absence of concrete facts we were entitled to indulge in guesses, and he himself would not withhold his own theory from us: there was no one commander. The old days, Father opined, were dead and buried. There was probably some sort of a committee, a small council, four or five clever Jews, not necessarily young ones, either, presumably planted here and there in perfectly innocent positions, as businessmen, schoolteachers, or pharmacists, while secretly directing the Underground operations. Anybody could be one of them, Father said. We had no means of identifying them. Even the fanciful story of our neighbor Comrade Grill, about the horseman, the broken-down bus, and the moonlight, might be not so much an innocent fantasy as a highly cunning piece of bluff. All in all, he thought, the results spoke for themselves: the British were finding Palestine about as comfortable as a bed of nails, as the saying went. Almost every night our windows rattled and tall flames could be seen in the strongholds of the British administration: Bevingrad, Schneller, Allenby Barracks, Russian Compound, King David Hotel, the secret-police headquarters on Mamiliah Road. They were getting to be like a cat on hot bricks, as the saying went. He doubted if even the High Commissioner slept soundly at night in his palace. The main thing, he thought, was to maintain the right balance between Hebrew zeal and Jewish common sense; we should never lose sight of practicalities, and avoid premature action.
Mother would say:
"Instead of printing greeting cards, your father ought to be a minister in the government."
The poet Nehamkin would add:
"But the hands are the hands of Jacob. You are not very forbearing toward us, Mrs. Kolodny. Forgive us, it is only the misery speaking through our mouths. After all, we have only the best of intentions; why, then, do you judge us so severely?"
They won't get anything out of me, even if they drag me off to the interrogation cells in the Russian Compound. Not even if they burn me with lit cigarettes, just like the Grill boys did to Mrs. Vishniak's parrot. Even if they pull my fingernails out one by one I won't talk. I'll maintain a scornful silence. After all, I am Ephraim's lieutenant. At least, one of his lieutenants. The day before yesterday I spent three whole hours in the workshop, trembling with pride, drawing lines and arrows on a map of Jerusalem to plan the "John of Gischala" operation. Ephraim only gave me very general instructions, as usual:
"Always attack on the flank. Always from the forest. Always from the valleys. From the most unexpected quarter."
He inspected my plans silently, correcting, smiling, making slight changes, adding something here, removing something there, muttering "a brilliant solution," sadly pointing out some careless detail. All at once he was overcome with emotion: he hugged me and stroked my hair and my shoulders and breathed on me, and then suddenly he pushed me away.
Whenever I cried out in the night, Mommy and Daddy both used to get up and make me a glass of hot cocoa and sit on my bed and say, "There, there." Until I calmed down.
Maybe they thought that I should not have been allowed to read The Hound of the Baskervilles. Maybe they suspected that the Grill hooligans were having a bad effect on me. I said nothing, because I had sworn I'd never tell.
8
The twilight was dimming. Only on the windows of the house opposite, traces of blood and fire still blazed. The lane was drenched in shadows. We stood at the living-room window, with Mother leaning on Father's arm and me in the middle in front of them; we looked as though we were posing for a birthday picture for the photographer Mr. Kovacs. We looked out. We waited. We said nothing. Outside, the troops of the Sixth Airborne Regiment split up into small teams and started to enter the houses. Somewhere, far away, a single shot was fired. The Schneller clock began to strike seven. I knew that the clock was never to be trusted, because its hands always stood at three minutes past three. The patches of blood died away in the window opposite; it was dark, but the darkness was still gray, not black, and the sky still seemed to be reflecting distant fires. But we could see no fire, only the remains of the Grill boys' bonfire smoldering smokily.
It seemed as though darkness were falling on our stone houses, on the dying orchard, on the rusty corrugated-iron balconies, falling on the broken fences and thistles, falling on the barking of the dogs and on the whole earth, not just for the night but forever. Mother broke the silence:
"This time they're not looking for pamphlets. They're not even looking for arms and explosives. They're looking for him."
Father said:
"Don't worry. If they do catch someone, someone else will take his place."
Mother said:
"They'll never catch him."
And I:
"Only there are all sorts of informers, and they might give him away."
"No informer can betray him to them, Uri," said Mother, "because he isn't there. I mean he isn't anywhere. He simply doesn't exist. He was invented by the Jewish Agency. By the Arabs. By us. The British invented him with their typical British madness, and now they're running after him with their Tommy guns and ransacking our houses and turning the whole country upside down, but they haven't got an earthly hope of catching him because he's like music, like longing. He's just their nightmare. He's everybody's nightmare. Let them search!" she suddenly exclaimed with almost desperate glee. "Let them search till they go right out of their minds. Don't you answer me back. Either of you. Keep quiet, the two of you. I'm the only one who can talk to them. Don't you interfere or they'll say to you, 'You bastard, you bloody Jew.' Come in, please, Captain, come in and do your duty. There's a jug of iced lemonade in the icebox. Please help yourselves. And then do your duty. Nice evening isn't it."
They came inside and stood awkwardly in the passage, by the coat hooks where, in the summer months, there hung only Father's cap, a silk scarf, and the shopping basket. The captain apologized, returned Mother's greeting, explained politely that he and his men could not accept a drink when they were on duty, suddenly remembered to doff his cap in the presence of a lady, and asked for permission to glance around the other rooms. They would be as quick as possible, of course. He was so sorry.
We said nothing. Mother was our spokesman. She said, "Of course."
And she smiled.
The soldiers, three thin young men in khaki shorts and army socks up to their knees, stood pressed in the doorway as if ready to vanish at the slightest hint that they were not wanted. Meanwhile, the captain had managed to overcome his initial embarrassment. He was still behaving as though we and they were a group of well-mannered strangers stranded together by regrettable circumstances in a broken elevator. Even when he asked my father to stand with his hands up and his face to the wall, and my mother to be kind enough to sit down in the armchair with the dear little boy on her lap, the pleasant-faced captain still seemed to be merely volunteering helpful, boy-scout-like suggestions that would enable us all to make our escape from the elevator, perhaps by somewhat athletic methods, and thus reduce to a minimum the unpleasantness that had occurred to us all despite the good will and indisputable respectability of all parties involved.
Nevertheless, he did not remove his hand from the black holster. In recent times there had been some unbelievably nasty incidents in Palestine, always at unexpected moments and in apparently respectable places.
The three soldiers inspected the bookshelves one by one, carefully moving the complete poems of Bialik and the Gems of Literature aside to see what lurked behind them; they lifted the lid of the piano and sniffed among the strings; they took down the picture of the pioneer pushing the plow through a field in the Jezreel Valley oblivious of the crows, tapped on the wall behind, and listened intently to the sound. The bust of Chopin was lifted up and then reverently replaced. The captain apologized for his curiosity and wished to know who it was and what the inscription me
ant. Mother translated once more from Polish, "With all the warmth of my heart and until my dying breath."
"I am very sorry," the captain said in a tone of hushed awe, as if he had accidentally disturbed some religious ritual or defiled a holy object.
They proceeded methodically, searching the wardrobes, peering under the beds, hitting the walls gently with the butts of their Tommy guns, and listening for an echo. All the time I was sitting with Mommy on the armchair, and I kept my eyes averted so as not to have to see my father standing with his face to the wall and his hands raised in the air. Secretly I recited to myself the four cardinal rules for standing up to torture in interrogations. It was Ephraim who had taught them to me; perhaps he had invented them himself.
But there was no interrogation.
The captain only voiced a polite request: would Father kindly show them over the printing press that, according to their notes, was in the basement of the building.
When the search was concluded, they took with them various samples; since they could not read them, they were obliged to appropriate one copy of each item for examination. These were labels for matzoh packages, appeal forms for the Diskin Orphanage, receipts and counterfoils, and copies of a newsletter for thrifty housewives. With this the captain was satisfied. Ke regretted any unpleasantness we might have been caused. He expressed a hope for better times, which were bound to come soon. One of the soldiers called me a "boy scout." Another belched, and started at a stern look from the captain.
Then they left.
The lane was already in darkness. A solitary street lamp, swinging in the breeze, cast nervous circles of light on the asphalt. How unnecessary this yellow light was: the curfew still remained in force after the searches. There was not a soul in our lane. Besides the stray dogs. These dogs lived off our garbage cans. Nobody here wanted a pet dog. But nor would anybody volunteer to drive them away or put them down. Let them be.
Father said:
"They behaved perfectly correctly. You've got to admit it."
Mother said:
"What disgusting sycophants."
"What do you expect," Father rejoined. "That's just their manners. The iron fist in a velvet glove, as they say."
"Not them. You. Both of you. Don't answer me back. That's enough."
Outside, in the empty lane, the stray dogs raised their drooling muzzles to the moon and let out a howl.
Father said:
"Come along, Uri. Tonight you and I will fix supper. Mommy's not feeling very well."
9
The curfew was lifted on Saturday night.
The searches were now concentrated, according to rumor, in the southernmost suburbs: Bayit Vagan, Mekor Hayyim, Arnona, Talpiyot.
Father gave it as his opinion that everything Ephraim had said about a scientific trick that made the commander of the Underground invisible and so on was sheer fantasy. It was more reasonable to suppose that he followed a simple rule of moving from district to district on the heels of the hunt, always slipping into a neighborhood that had just been searched. This solution appeared to Father at least logical, if not necessarily conclusive.
Mother said:
"Which means that now he's here."
"If you choose to think so," Father said with a smile.
"It's Saturday night," Mother said, ignoring his smile. "If you stopped your constant yammering for a moment, we might be able to hear the church bells in the distance. Surely the bells are calling to somebody. The evening is calling to somebody. The birds are clamoring for attention. They've built bell towers on every hilltop in Jerusalem to ring out to the distance. When will they finally call to us? Perhaps they've already called, and we were so busy talking we didn't hear. Why can't we have some silence? Please, Kolodny, leave my arm alone. Leave me alone, too. Why do you keep pestering me?"
"Calm down," Father begged.
And as an afterthought he added:
"We haven't been out for ages. Why don't we go to the movies and sit in a café like civilized human beings. Life must go on, after all."
Early on Sunday morning, Mother went down into the garden carrying a tub of washing. I followed her downstairs without her noticing. The morning sky was grubby and overcast, as if autumn had arrived. But I knew these mornings; I told myself that it wasn't autumn yet, and that actually it was a sure sign of a blazing-hot day. I noticed a quick tremor run through her neck and shoulders. She stood all alone in the low gray light, which imparted a bluish, doubt-ridden hue to the stone, the trees, and the asphalt. It looked as though the light were a stream, and the houses on either side were its banks in a fog, and everything in between was being swept away by the leisurely current. The garbage cans, waiting along the sidewalk, were in the stream. A smell of fish. The smell of the oleanders. And a faint, almost pleasant reek was also in the stream. Not a stream. A ripple of light. A veil. Somewhere nearby there lived a persistent cuckoo that never stopped repeating a single urgent phrase as if it were impossible to remain silent. On the perches of the dovecote stood three lazy pigeons, exchanging views and opinions. They totally disregarded the cuckoo's interruptions.
My mother stood barefoot on the carpet of pine needles the shade of the restless trees, pegging the sheets up on the clothesline. There were moments, when she stood with her arms outstretched, when I had difficulty restraining myself from running and suddenly hugging her from behind and telling her secrets about Bat-Ammi and the John of Gischala plan. Far away, a radio was playing light morning music. My mother could sing, but she wasn't singing. The grocer, the greengrocer, and the barber had rolled up their shutters and opened their shops. Only Mrs. Vishniak the pharmacist was late getting up, as usual. The greengrocer was setting out boxes of apples, onions, eggplants, and pumpkins on the sidewalk. The wasps swooped down angrily. In the window of the grocer's shop was a flypaper covered with dead flies, and a jar of different-colored hard candies, two for a mil. There was an olive tree between the two shops. A flowering creeper clasped its branches with a blue flame. From a distance it looked as though the olive tree had gone out of its mind and set itself on fire. Women were draping their bedclothes over their balcony railings to get rid of the night smells. The quilts and pillowcases gave Zephaniah Street a poignant air of gaiety; it was impossible to banish thoughts about night and the neighbors' wives at night among the quilts.
On the deep window sills, among the asparagus ferns growing in old cans, stood sealed jars in which cucumbers were being pickled in a pale-green liquid with bay leaves and parsley and little cloves of garlic. When the Hebrew state was finally established, we would all get up and go to the valleys and the open fields. All summer long, we would live in watchmen's booths in the orchards. We would gallop on our horses to the springs and rivulets, lead our herds and flocks to pasture. We would leave Jerusalem to its fate at the hands of the pious.
I carved strips of pine bark with a penknife borrowed from Ephraim, to add another frigate to the fleet of warships that was riding at anchor on a shelf in my room, waiting for the great day.
Among the dead pine needles in the garden sprouted ears of wild corn; they, too, were turning yellow, as if trying to assimilate to the dry thistles. There were broken bottles, scraps of newspaper, blackening boards under one of which I once found a tortoise withdrawn in terror and I waited for ages for it to calm down and put its head out until I couldn't wait any longer and picked it up and it turned out that there was no tortoise only an empty shell and the tortoise was long dead or else it had gone off in a huff.
My frigate snapped in two. I was bored with the fleet. I started to carve my name on a rusty can. The penknife made a grating sound on the tin, and Mother, the washtub clasped to her hip, turned to me in exasperation and begged me to stop driving her mad so early in the morning.
"I'm working," I said.
"You're a mad child, that's what you are, and you're trying to drive me mad, too."
"You're just working yourself up, Mrs. Kolodny," 1 said politely, like Father.
And to myself I added: We must always keep control of our temper. Not be drawn into unnecessary conflicts. We have the initiative and they are gradually losing their balance.
"I'm going to rest," Mother said. "I'm hot. If anybody calls, tell them I'm not at home."
After breakfast, one of the most decisive battles for Berlin was engaged on my window sill. The armored spearheads of the Hebrew, Russian, and American columns were penetrating the city from the forests and the lakes, snapping up the remains of the Nazi divisions, crushing the barricades under their tracks, shattering the buildings with their gunfire. Nine more days and the summer holidays would be over and the fifth form would begin. By then the foe must be vanquished. The monster must be bearded in its lair and made to surrender unconditionally.
Helena Grill appeared on the balcony opposite. She began collecting the bedding that was spread on the railing. Inside her nightdress, through the unbuttoned dressing gown, I could see her strong breasts. I struggled with all my might to ward off Ephraim's rough hands. The Grill boys must have gone down to the Tel Arza woods again, to see if the leopard had got caught in the clever trap they had set for it before the curfew. Comrade Grill was driving his green Fargo bus on the number 8 route toward Mekor Hayyim, picking up passengers at the bus stops and demanding that they step to the rear, please. He had a ticket punch in his bus and a set of little silvery Panpipes: you put the various coins in at the top and slipped the change out at the bottom with a flick of the finger. I was enchanted with the punch and the silver Panpipes. If Bat-Ammi agreed to marry me after the victory, I would let her feel me with her finger through my gym shorts on condition that I could play her father's Panpipes, feed different-sized coins in at the top, and take them out again at the bottom, punch star-shaped holes in the tickets. Helena Grill was still standing on the balcony. She was watering the geranium that grew in a rusty olive can. The water from the watering can looked like slivers of glass caught by the light. She was singing to herself in Polish; the song sounded to me full of longing and remorse.
