The Hill of Evil Counsel (Harvest Book)

by Amos Oz

  " 'Course not," I said.

  And Mother:

  "Mr. Levi, you will stay for dinner, won't you? And in the meantime, how about a cup of tea?"

  The visitor kept his doctor's bag on his lap. When Mother spoke, he scrutinized her with his slow, cold eyes; he eyed her bosom, inspected her hips and legs, and then transferred his gaze to Father and Ephraim in turn. His thumb stroked his bristly mustache for an instant, his head nodded up and down a few times as if he were coming to an inevitable conclusion, and he said:

  "Everything's perfectly all right."

  Father said:

  "We do the best we can."

  "But what's that child doing here?" the visitor suddenly exclaimed. "Admittedly children are our future, but they tend to be noisy."

  So Mother and I went out to the kitchen. Mother started cutting thin slices of white bread, and I set to work making a salad in a wooden bowl. On cat's paws, like a thief, he followed us out. We didn't hear him coming, but suddenly he passed between us across the kitchen and stood at the window. "Perfect," he said as he turned back toward us. A hint of a smile spread on his wolflike jaws. And was suppressed.

  "I was just making the tea," Mother said.

  "I'm sorry, I've changed my mind. I won't be wanting any tea just yet. You can go now, and take the child with you. I'll stay here."

  And he added emphatically:

  "Alone."

  We left everything in the kitchen and returned to the living room. The poet was expounding in carefully chosen words and a silken voice a new idea that had occurred to him in the course of his meditations.

  "Night after night there are lights shining outside the city. Bonfires suspended, as it were, between heaven and earth. I am not speaking from my groaning heart but from what can be seen and observed. He was accounted as nothing and despised, but he is the expectation of the nations. I humbly request a glass of plain tap water, for the heart itself is weakened by yearning. Not fruit juice, not lemonade, but just plain tap water if you please. Provided it is not too much trouble. He will not tarry long, for we are surely wearied and our strength is failing. I shall just drink my water, and then I shall be on my way. Would that every heart were as innocent as a day-old babe's. Farewell to you all. I shall be on my way now; pray, do not despise me. The Capital has a Leader. Behold my stick, and behold the door. Farewell to those who remain from him who goes on his way."

  But having spoken these words, the old man did not get to his feet. He simply sighed deeply and remained sitting where he was. At that instant the visitor floated in and sank into the vacant armchair. He still clung to his bag of tools.

  "Can I offer you cigarettes, matches, an ashtray?" Father inquired.

  "Everything's all right," said Mr. Szczupak's brother.

  "Please go ahead if you wish to smoke, Mr. Levi."

  "I heard you the first time," the man replied sharply, "and I also asked for silence. How can I concentrate with all this noise?"

  We fell silent.

  Father sank deep in thought, picked up a black knight from the chessboard, eyed it with a sad smile, and suddenly put it back in its place. He chose instead to advance a pawn. Quick as a flash, Ephraim slid a white bishop almost to the edge of the board and exclaimed furiously:

  "There!"

  "You're in trouble again," Father whispered.

  Mother saw fit to remind them both that Mr. Levi had asked us to keep quiet.

  In the ensuing silence, the visitor slipped across the room to the net curtain, with the doctor's bag in his hand and his back to the room, and inspected the yard, or perhaps my battlefield on the window sill. Then he returned to his chair and mouthed silently:

  "The child, please."

  "Uri," Father said with alarm, "you heard. Say good night. Mommy will bring you your supper. Good night."

  "No arguments," said Mother.

  Mr. Levi chuckled at her, showing his fine white teeth.

  "Children," he exclaimed, "pictures, a piano! Games of chess! And flowers! What a way to live in times like these! A cozy nest, indeed! We must be out of our minds! I wouldn't say no to a small glass of vodka. What, no vodka? What have you got? Only tokay from Rishon Le-Tsiyon, I suppose. I might have guessed. Never mind. Everything's perfectly all right."

  "The wind whirleth about continually." Mr. Nehamkin suddenly woke up and started speaking with passion. "And the wind returneth again in a circle. That is one side of the coin. But the other side, Mrs. Kolodny, you know what the other side of the coin is: the thing that hath been shall not be again, and that which shall be—no eye hath seen it. And you have a visitor. Good evening, Mr. Visitor. May you, too, be permitted to behold the deliverance of Jerusalem."

  As he spoke, he struck the floor magisterially with his stick, as though he were trying to rouse the carved tiger from its wooden slumber.

  "Do I have to put up with this decrepit imbecile as well?" asked Mr. Levi.

  Father apologized:

  "It's his age. It can't be helped."

  And Ephraim added:

  "We're doing the best we can, Mr. Levi."

  Mother began to clear away the tea things and set the table for supper. Father noticed me and exploded shrilly:

  "What are you doing here? Can't you understand what you're told?"

  "Right," I said. And in a flash I swept away the pushpins and silver foil, smashed the battle lines, stuffed everything frantically into the toy box, troops, battleships, commanders, headquarters, artillery. Finished. That war was over.

  And I fled from the room without saying good night.

  I didn't even wash. I lay down on my bed fully dressed in the dark and whispered to myself: Quiet, calm down, relax, nothing's lost, even ordinary soldiers take part in the fighting and the victory, be calm.

  But there was no calm and there could be none.

  Night in the window. Night inside the room. Summer stars and barking dogs.

  In the dark I stowed into my old haversack everything that my groping hand encountered: socks, water bottle, buckles, straps, a scout belt, an old sweater, a package of chewing gum, a pocket knife.

  I was prepared.

  12

  Early in the morning, before five o'clock, I woke in a panic. The windowpanes were shaking. Masses of heavy aircraft were rumbling low over Jerusalem. Half-light flickering outside. Zevulun Grill was trying repeatedly to start up his bus. The engine groaned and struggled with a dull rattle. There were no aircraft. Comrade Grill set off. I left the window and sneaked into the kitchen.

  Mommy and Daddy were sitting facing each other silently. They were still wearing yesterday's clothes. Dirty cups on the oilcloth. Dregs of coffee. Remains of biscuits and fruit. An ashtray full of cigarette butts and the air full of smoke. Daddy's eyes were tired and bloodshot:

  "Hello, Uri. Do you realize it's only five o'clock?"

  "Morning," I said. "Where is everybody?"

  "Where's who, Uri?"

  "Everybody. Mr. Levi. Ephraim. Mr. Nehamkin. Everybody."

  "Go and wash your face, son, and comb your hair. That's no way to look."

  "First tell me what happened."

  "Nothing's happened. Relax."

  "Where is everybody?"

  Father hesitated. He hadn't shaved. Bristles on his neck. His brow furrowed:

  "There's some bad news, Uri. Mr. Nehamkin got sick during the night. We had to get Mrs. Vishniak out of bed and ring for an ambulance. We took him to the Hadassah Hospital. Now he's resting and getting his strength back. They're going to examine him today."

  "And where's Ephraim and Mr. Levi?"

  "Ephraim has had to go away again for a few days. He has to travel occasionally. This time it may be a long while before he comes home again. Now go and get washed, and then come back and have a cup of cocoa."

  "Where's Mr. Levi?"

  Daddy looked at Mommy. Mommy said nothing. She was wearing summery white slacks and a low-cut, flower-patterned blouse. She looked as though she were going on
a journey, too.

  "Mr. Levi," I said. "The one who was here last night."

  At the end of a silence Daddy spoke sadly:

  "Mr. Nehamkin will get better, we hope. The doctor at Hadassah was optimistic. He's just had a slight stroke, and now he needs to rest."

  "Did you take Mr. Levi to Hadassah, too?"

  "Now go and wash, Uri," Daddy said, and he stressed the sh of "wash," as though telling me to be quiet.

  "What have you both been up to?" I exclaimed with horror.

  Mommy said nothing.

  Daddy got up, emptied the ashtray, put the dirty cups in the sink, wiped the oilcloth with a damp rag, and dried it with a dish towel.

  "If you like," he said, "you can come with us to visit Mr. Nehamkin in the hospital this afternoon. Provided they tell us on the phone that he's well enough to have visitors. Now go and wash. I've told you three times already."

  "Not till you tell me where Mr. Levi is."

  "Why does he keep tormenting me, this son of yours?"

  Mommy said nothing.

  Daddy made up his mind. He took me by the shoulders, then relaxed his grip; his lips touched my forehead.

  "He's got a slight temperature," he said.

  Suddenly he pulled me onto his lap and ran his hand over my hair, and his voice sounded sad but firm:

  "Uri. You've been talking strangely ever since you got up. First of all, you wake up screaming in the night because you've had a bad dream, and then you get up before five o'clock and start to nag. All right. It's your age. It's understandable. We're not angry. But you must make an effort. Listen carefully. Last night we had two visitors: Ephraim Nehamkin and his father. The same as usual. In the middle of the night we had to call for an ambulance. I've already explained. Period. Now kindly go and get washed, if you don't mind. That's all."

  I said:

  "Mommy."

  And suddenly, with a sob:

  "You're both rotten."

  I snatched a box of matches from beside the primus stove and rushed out of the kitchen and the house. I lit the fuses on all three bombs. None of them would light, even though I wasted one match after another. Ephraim had deceived me. I was nobody's lieutenant. The High Commissioner would never come to Schneller, and if he did come, I couldn't care less. Mr. Szczupak was selling dresses at Riviera Fashions. Mr. Nehamkin was going to die, and with him his springs of water. For all I cared, Ruhama could come and stay all night. There had never been a leopard in the Tel Arza woods. There would never be a Hebrew state. Even Abrasha's Linda had run away to Paris with the son of Barclay's Bank. You can watch me crying. Never mind. You'll cry, too, poor Bat-Amroi. You've also been thrown out of the house at half past five in the morning. Now there's just the two of us outside, and all the rest of Jerusalem's indoors. I'll take you somewhere far away the other side of the mountains and you'll teach me what my mother and Froike and the rest of them ... Come on, Bat-Ammi, let's go. We won't be sad.

  Bat-Ammi is sitting on a stone. She has blue gym shorts like mine, only fastened with elastic. And she has an orange shirt, and her brothers are nowhere around. There's nobody around. The sun is beginning to come out. Light is shining again off the drainpipes and windows and corrugated-iron walls, and the clouds are blazing. Fiery horsemen can be seen galloping on mountains of fire above the Kedron Valley, transfixing the foes of Israel with lances of fire. The same as usual. Go away, horsemen, go to Tel Aviv even and to the sea. Without me. Bat-Ammi has a notebook open on her lap and she stops writing and doesn't ask me to tell her what and she doesn't tell me to calm down.

  What is Bat-Ammi writing in her notebook on a big stone in the yard at half past five in the morning? She is making a note in her autograph book: When snow is black and pigs can fly, only then will my memory die.

  Shall I write something, too?

  I write:

  Our little bear is feeling ill,

  He stayed up late and caught a chill.

  Soon the shops will start opening. The greengrocer will put crates of grapes out on the sidewalk. The wasps will come. Singsong sounds of Talmud study will come from the synagogue. Father and his two assistants will start printing New Year's greeting cards. There's a pile of shirts waiting for Mommy to iron. And there's a minor miracle here this morning: the bread hasn't come yet, but the air is full of the smell of fresh-baked bread. I remember: we've got to go on waiting. What has been has been, and a new day is beginning.

  1975

  Longing

  FROM DR. EMANUEL NUSSBAUM TO DR. HERMINE OSWALD, LATE OF KIBBUTZ TEL TOMER

  Malachi Street, Jerusalem

  September 2,1947

  Dear Mina,

  There is not much time left. You are probably in Haifa by now, perhaps packing your brassbound black leather trunk; your lips are pursed, you have just reprimanded some waiter or obsequious clerk, you are throbbing all over with efficiency and moral indignation, repeating to yourself over and over again, perhaps even aloud, the word "disgusting."

  Or maybe you are not in Haifa. Perhaps you are already on board the ship bound for New York, sitting in your second-class cabin, wearing your reading glasses, digesting some uninspired article in one of your learned journals, untroubled and unexcited by the swell of the waves and the salt smell of the sea air, undistracted by the seagulls, the darkening expanse of the sea, or the strains of the tango wafting down from the ballroom. You are completely absorbed in yourself, no doubt. As always. Up to your ears in work.

  I am simply guessing.

  I do not know where you are at this moment. How could I know? You never answered either of the letters I wrote you two months ago, and you left no forwarding address. So, you've made up your mind to turn over a new leaf. Your gray eyes are fixed firmly on the future and on the assignments you have undertaken. You will not look back, remember, feel longing, regret. You are striding purposefully forward. Naturally, you are not entirely unacquainted with weakness of mind: after all, that is the subject of your research. But who can rival your firm resolve to turn over a new leaf from time to time? And you didn't leave me any address. I even wasted my time trying at the Kibbutz Tel Tomer office. She's through. Gone away. She's been invited to lecture in America. She may have left already. Sorry.

  It is possible that eventually you will be stirred by courtesy or curiosity, and I shall suddenly receive an American postcard with a picture of colorful towers or some grandiose steel bridge. I have still not entirely given up hope, as I said to myself this morning while shaving. However, the sight of my face in the mirror almost stirs feelings of curiosity and sadness in me myself. And disgust, too. My illness has made my cheeks collapse inward, it has made my eyes so prominent that they terrify little children, and it has especially emphasized my nose, like a Nazi caricature. Symptoms. And my hair, that artistic gray mop that you used to enjoy running your fingers through for the static electricity, is all faded and thin. No more sparks. If it went on falling out at that rate for a few more months, I shouldn't have a hair left on my head. As if I had deliberately set out to make fun of the appearance of my dear father, by exaggerating it.

  What have I to do with exaggeration? What have I to do with fun? I have always been, and still am, a quiet man. The happy medium, a balanced choice of words—these were always my pride. Albeit a silent pride. There were times, in our nights of love, when I would let go and a savage, pulsating side of me would temporarily take over. Now our love is finished, and I am my usual self again. I have settled back and found nothing. A salty waste. An arid plain. A few stray longings scattered here and there like thornbushes. You know. After all, inside you, too—forgive me—there is a barren desert. A different kind of desert, though. Scorched earth, a phrase I came across this morning in the paper in connection with the termination of the British Mandate.

  Well, then.

  Dear Mina, as I have already said, there is not much time left. War will break out here soon; almost everybody admits it now.

  This morning I had a few neig
hbors in for a kind of meeting in my study. Even my own Kerem Avraham is already forming a sort of civil-defense committee. That's how far things have gone.

  What will come of this war I haven't the faintest idea. Only all sorts of hopes and fears. You will be in a safe place, far from Jerusalem, far from Galilee and the valleys you have explored so thoroughly during these last years. It goes without saying that I shall not be able to play an active part in the war, either as a doctor on the battlefield or in a hospital behind the lines. The illness is progressing toward its final phases. Not in a continuous straight line, though. It is toying with me, with cunning ploys, temporary concessions, feigned moderation, a brilliant strategy of deception and false hopes. I almost smile to myself: doesn't it realize it's dealing with a doctor, and not, say, an artist? It can't take me in. These arabesques, the alternating alarms and all-clears, the false hopes, the avoidance of a frontal assault, how unnecessary they all are when the designated target is a man like me, an experienced diagnostician, an educated man, with a modest medical library at my disposal and with German as my mother tongue.

  In short, I am my usual self: in a state of calm despair. The terminal stage will begin in the winter and be over before the spring, or it may begin in the spring and continue at most until the first heat waves of 1948.1 won't go into details. I trust, dear Mina, that there is no need to prove to you in writing that in the meantime I am quietly and confidently continuing with the routine of my daily life.

  No news.

  There's nothing much new that I can offer you in general.