by Amos Oz
"You don't really mean that. It's just because I'm still a child and you think you've got to improve me, like my daddy. But nothing comes from words. I'm very sorry. Everything is war."
"And how, if you don't mind my asking, did you arrive at that rather sweeping conclusion?"
Now he stares at me in utter disbelief. He stands up. His hands are thrust deep into the pockets of his shorts. He comes over to the sofa, and as he leans over me his voice is trembling:
"I'm not an informer. You can speak frankly to me. Surely everything is war. That's how it is in history, in the Bible, in nature, and in real life, too. And love is all war. Friendship, too, even."
"Are you acquainted with love already, Uri?"
Silence.
And then:
"Dr. Emanuel, tell me, is it true that there's a Jewish professor in America who has invented a huge atomic bomb made from a drop of water?"
"You are referring apparently to the hydrogen bomb. That lies outside the range of my knowledge."
"All right. Don't tell me anything. There are military secrets that I'm not allowed to know. The main thing is that you do know all about it, and no one will ever get a word out of me."
"Uri. Listen. You are quite mistaken about that. Let me explain something to you. Listen carefully."
Silence.
I don't know what to explain to him, or in what words.
It's not true:
The truth is that I am afraid of losing him. In his short trousers, with the buckle shining on his army belt, with his gentle hand once or twice on my forehead, am I still perspiring, have I got a slight temperature.
And so once again I give in. I start explaining to him what a chain reaction is and, in schematic terms, about the relationship between matter and energy. For a long while he listens to me in silent concentration, his eyes fixed on my mouth, his nostrils flaring as if they have caught a distant whiff of the fire storm in Hiroshima, which I am telling him about. Now he really worships me, he loves me with all his heart.
And now I feel better, too, as a result of his enthusiasm. Suddenly I feel strong enough to get up, to invite Uri into my little laboratory, I am suddenly animated by a kind of pedagogic enthusiasm, I light the spirit lamp and demonstrate a simple exercise to him: water, steam, energy, motor power.
"And that's the whole principle." I chuckle happily.
"My lips are sealed, Dr. Emanuel. I won't talk, even if the British arrest me and torture me, they won't get a word out of me, because I've got a way of keeping quiet that I learned from Ephraim Nehamkin. They won't get anything out of me about what you've told me, you can trust me a hundred percent."
Once more the beautiful rage flashes in his green eyes and dies away. My child.
Eventually he takes his leave and promises to come back tomorrow afternoon. And even in the middle of the night, if he sees a slanting crack of light at my bathroom window. In which case, he'll slip out and come to me at once. Hell be at my command, he says. Bye.
When he had gone, I suddenly began to argue with you in my mind. To apologize for it all. To justify myself about our first meeting. To re-examine how I went, two years ago, in the summer of '45, for a rest to the sanatorium at Arza. How I decided then, mistakenly, that my morning attacks of sickness were the result of general fatigue. How I made up my mind to relax completely, and how you came bursting into my solitary life, you and my illness. And as I reflected, I put the blame, if one can so express it, on you.
Dear Mina, if you mind my writing all this, then skip the next few lines.
Please. Try to see it like this: a bachelor, a doctor, with reasonable financial security, in receipt of an occasional mail remittance from his father, who is a confectioner in Ramat Gan. His expenditures are few: a moderate rent, simple clothing, and food in keeping with the times and his surroundings, the occasional expenses of his scientific hobby. He has a little put away.
Moreover, for some time now he has experienced a certain tiredness, and slight attacks of nausea early in the morning, before the first cup of coffee. A medical colleague diagnoses the first signs of ulcers and orders complete rest. Besides, certain European habits of his youth persist: summertime is holiday time.
And so, Arza, in the hills behind Jerusalem. A relaxed Dr. Nussbaum, dressed in a light summer suit and an open-necked blue shirt, sits in a deck chair under the whispering pines, half reading a novel by Jacob Wassermann. The paths are covered with fine white gravel. Every footstep produces a crisp crunching sound, which charms him and reminds him of other times. In the background, inside the building, the phonograph is playing work songs. Nearby, in a hammock, a prominent figure in the community and the Labor Movement is dozing, the gentle breeze ruffling the pages of the newspaper spread open on his stomach. Dr. Nussbaum does not admit even to himself that he is waiting for this public figure to wake up so that he can engage him in conversation and make an impression on him.
A Health Service nurse named Jasmine circulates among the reclining figures, distributing to each a glass of fresh orange juice and biscuits, a kind of mid-morning snack. This Jasmine is a robust, buxom girl. The fine black down that covers her arms and legs stirs a sudden lust in Dr. Nussbaum. The capricious physical attraction he feels for simple Oriental women. He politely declines the orange juice and tries to engage Jasmine in a lighthearted conversation, but the words come with difficulty, and his voice, as always happens to him in such situations, sounds false. Jasmine lingers to bend over him and smooth his shirt collar over the lapels of his jacket. A momentary glimpse of her breasts arouses a certain boldness in him: as in his student days in Vienna, when he would drain a glass of brandy at a single gulp and find the courage to utter a mild obscenity. So he gives voice to a false explanation of his refusal of the orange juice, a sort of ambiguous hint about forbidden as against permitted pleasures. She does not understand. However, it seems that she is in no hurry to move on: she must find him not unattractive, this gentleman in his light suit and his graying hair. She probably thinks him highly intelligent and respected, but modest. It is possible that she can detect his welling lust. She laughs and asks what she can offer him instead of the juice. He can have whatever he wants, says Jasmine. No, he replies, with a polite smile in his eyes, what he wants she may not be able to give him out here, surrounded by all these other convalescents. Jasmine shows her teeth. She blushes, and her dark skin takes on a darker hue. Even her shoulders participate in her laughter. "If that's the way you are, then have a glass of my juice anyway." And he, now caught up in sweet game-fever, suggests she try another temptation. Again she does not understand. She is slightly taken aback. "Coffee, for instance," he hastens to add, in case he has gone too far. Jasmine reflects for a moment; perhaps she is still not quite sure—does he really want a cup of coffee, or is the game still on? On the clear summer air there comes the buzzing of a bee, the caw of a crow, and a British airplane droning far to the south over the Bethlehem hills. "I'll see to some coffee for you," Jasmine says, "as a special favor. Just for you."
It was at that point that you came into the picture. Actually, you were there already: an intense woman on a nearby rocking chair, in a simple, severe summer dress. Sitting and judging.
"If I might be permitted to intrude in this exchange," you say.
And I, in a trice, return from the harems of Baghdad to my Viennese manners:
"By all means, dear lady. Need you ask? We were merely indulging in idle banter. Please."
And so you advise me to choose fresh orange juice, rather than coffee, after all. From bitter experience that morning, you have discovered that the coffee here is ersatz, a kind of greasy black mud. Incidentally, I am not a total stranger to you: you once heard me lecture at a one-day conference at the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. I spoke about hygiene and the drinking water in Palestine, and impressed you with my sense of humor. Dr. Nussbaum, if you are not mistaken. No, you are surely not mistaken.
I hasten to reassure you, and you continue
:
"Very pleased to meet you. Hermine Oswald. Mina for short. A pupil of pupils of Dr. Adler. Apparently we both share the same Viennese background. That is why I permitted myself to intervene and rescue you from the Health Service coffee. I have a bad habit of interfering without being asked. Yes. Nurse, please leave two glasses of grapefruit juice on the table here. Thank you. You may go now. What were we talking about? Ah, yes. Your lecture on the drinking water was entertaining, but quite out of place in that one-day conference."
You imagine I will agree with you on this point.
Dr. Nussbaum, naturally, hastens to agree wholeheartedly.
Meanwhile, Jasmine is receiving a noisy dressing down: the Trade Union official is grumbling, half an hour ago or more he asked her—or one of the other nurses, what's the difference—to put through an urgent telephone call for him to the office of Comrade Sprinzak. Has she forgotten? Is it possible?
You indicate him with your chin, smile, and explain to me sotto voce:
"Beginnings of egomania and overbearing behavior typical of short men. By the time he's seventy, he will be a positive monster."
We drift into lighthearted conversation. Jasmine, rebuked, has moved out of sight. You call her an "enfant sauvage." I ask myself whether you have overheard my foolish exchange with her, and find myself devoutly hoping that you have not.
"I react in exactly the same way as you," you are saying, "only in reverse. An Oriental taxi driver, or even a Yemenite newsboy, can throw me quite off balance. From a purely physical point of view, of course. These 'enfants sauvages' still retain—or so it would appear—some sort of sensual animal language that we have long forgotten."
Dr. Nussbaum, as you will surely recall, does not blush to hear all this. No. He blanches. He clears his throat. Hurriedly he produces a freshly laundered handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his lips. He begins to mumble something about the flies, which he has just noticed are all around. And so, without further delay, he changes the subject. He has an anecdote to relate about Professor Dushkin, who, you will recall, was in the chair at that medical conference at the Hadassah. Dushkin called everyone—the doctors, the High Commissioner, the leaders of the Jewish Agency, Stalin, everyone—Svidrigailovs.
"How unoriginal of him," you remark icily. "But Dr. Nussbaum, you may invoke whomsoever you will, Dushkin, Stalin, Svidrigai'lov, to change the direction of our conversation. It is not you but I who should apologize for the embarrassment I have caused."
"Perish the thought, Dr. Oswald, perish the thought," Dr. Nussbaum mutters like an idiot.
"Mina," you insist.
"Yes, with great pleasure. Emanuel," Dr. Nussbaum replies.
"You are uneasy in my company," you say with a smile.
"Heaven forbid."
"In that case, shall we take a little stroll together?"
You get up from your rocking chair. You never wait for an answer. I get up and follow you. You take me for a leisurely amble along the gravel path and beyond, down the wooded slope, to the shade of the cypress trees, toward the smell of resin and decay, until we come to the famous tree that was planted by Dr. Herzl and was later felled by some Arabs. And there we discovered, in the dry summer grass, a rusty earring with a Cyrillic inscription.
"It's mine!" you suddenly exclaim possessively, like a high-spirited schoolgirl. "I saw it first!"
A tearful grimace played around your mouth for a moment, as if I were really about to prize the earring from your fist by brute force.
"It's yours," I said, laughing, "even though I believe I saw it first. But have it anyway. As a gift."
Suddenly I added:
"Mina."
You looked at me. You did not speak. Perhaps for a full minute you looked at me and did not speak. Then you hurled the earring into the thistles and took hold of my arm.
"We are out for a stroll," you said.
"Yes, out for a stroll," I agreed happily.
What happened to us. What did you see in me.
No, I do not expect an answer. You are in New York. Up to your eyeballs in work, I expect. As usual. Who can rival your power of periodically turning over a new leaf.
If I were to try to examine myself through your eyes that day in Arza, I should not be much the wiser. You saw before you a withdrawn man with a pensive expression and a cautious way of moving. Rather a lonely man, to judge by outward appearances. Not lacking in sensuality, though, as you must have learned when you overheard him flirting with the girl Jasmine. Not bad looking, either, as I have already stated. A tall, thin man, inclined to turn pale in moments of emotion or embarrassment, his features angular and decidedly intellectual. Hair going slightly gray, but still falling luxuriantly over his forehead, enough perhaps to attract attention. He may have struck you as a rootless artist, he may have looked to you like an unconventional musician from the conservatoire of some German-speaking land, who had turned up here in Western Asia and now bore his degradation with silent, tight-lipped resignation: there is no way back. A melancholy man, yet capable nonetheless, in unusual circumstances, of wholehearted enthusiasm.
In brief, an orphan and a dominating aunt, according to your definition. A definition, however, that you only voiced some time later.
By lunchtime, we were already sharing a table. Chatting about the poet Gottfried Benn. And putting our heads together like a couple of conspirators, trying to work out the order in which the various tables were served. It was Jasmine who served us. As she poured the mineral water I was splashed slightly, because she was not paying attention. I did not complain; on the contrary, as she leaned over me her firm breasts almost brushed my shoulder. At their base, glimpsed through the opening of her white overall, there showed a network of blue veins, such as one sometimes finds in marble from Galilee.
My lust did not escape your notice. You were amused and began to tease me. You started asking me certain questions about my bachelor life. All without batting an eyelid, as if you were inquiring where I bought my shirts. Apparently your practical experience as a psychologist (before you devoted yourself to research) enabled you to ask me questions of a sort not normally exchanged by new acquaintances.
As for me, I blanched as usual. But I made up my mind this time not to evade your questions. Only I found the choice of words very difficult.
"This time you have not changed the subject to Svidrigailov," you observed ruthlessly.
Again we went for a walk together, this time beyond the perimeter, toward the buildings of the small farming settlement of Motza. My loneliness, and perhaps my extreme caution in the choice of my words, aroused your sympathy. You liked me, and you said so in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. Afternoon light on the hills. The gentle cypresses. A blaze of geraniums among the houses of the settlement, red-tiled roofs, a poinciana flaming red like a greeting from Tel Aviv. A light, dry breeze. Our conversation now is impersonal, Viennese as it were, a sort of exchange of views on the question of sexual pleasures and their relation to the emotions. You are remarkably free in the way you speak about anatomical and physiological details. You find my hesitancy appealing perhaps, but definitely surprising nonetheless: After all, Emanuel, we are both doctors, we are both perfectly familiar with these mechanisms, so why are you so embarrassed, secretly praying for me finally to change the subject?
I apologize; my embarrassment springs from the fact that in Hebrew the intimate particulars of the anatomy—very well, the sexual organs—have newly invented names, which seem rather sterile and lifeless, and that is why, paradoxically, I find it hard to utter them. You describe this explanation as "pilpulistic." You do not believe me. When all is said and done, what is to prevent my switching to German, or making use of the Latin terms? No, you do not believe me. Unhesitatingly you identify psychological inhibitions. Latent puritanism.
"Mina," I protest, "forgive me, please, but I'm not one of your patients yet."
"No. But we are making each other's acquaintance. We are taking a walk together. Why don't you ask
me questions about myself?"
"I haven't got any questions. Only one, perhaps: you have been humiliated by someone, a man, perhaps a cruel man, a long time ago perhaps, viciously humiliated."
"Is that a question?"
"I was ... voicing an impression."
Suddenly, forcefully, you take my head between your hands.
"Bend down."
I obey. Your lips. And a small discovery: tiny holes in the lobes of your ears. Is it possible that you once wore earrings? I do not ask.
Then you remark that I seem to you like a watch that has lost its glass. So vulnerable. So helpless. And so touching.
You touch my hair. I touch your shoulder. We walk on in silence. Darkness is falling. Overhead a bird of prey in the last rays of twilight. A vulture? A falcon? I do not know. And there is a hint of danger: outside the grounds of the sanatorium, Arab shepherds roam. Not far away is a notorious brigand village called Koloniyeh. We must be getting back. All around us the sadness of darkening rocks. Night is falling on an arid boulder-land. Far on the northern horizon, in the direction of Shu'afat and Beit Ikhsa, a star shell splits the sky, fades, shatters to shivers of light, and dies in the darkness.
