by Amos Oz
“Under certain circumstances it is necessary to pamper a child, to prevent it from being deprived.”
“You’re a sweet man, Felix,” Batya would say, and occasionally she would add, “You’re always thinking of others. Why don’t you think about yourself for a change, Felix?”
Felix would read a hint of sympathy or personal interest into those remarks; he would stifle his excitement and reply: “It doesn’t matter. Never mind. In times like these one can’t be thinking of oneself all the time. And I’m not the one who’s making the real sacrifice.”
“You’re very patient, Felix,” Batya would say, with pursed lips.
And Felix, whether shrewdly or innocently, would conclude, “Yes, I’m very patient.”
Indeed, after a few months or perhaps a year or two, the widow began to soften. She permitted Felix to accompany her from the dining hall or the recreation hall to the door of her room, or from the sewing room to the children’s house, and occasionally she would stand and listen to him for half an hour or so by one of the benches on the lawn. He knew that the time was not yet ripe for him to try to touch her, but he also knew that time was on his side. She still insisted on wearing black, she did not temper her arrogance, but she, too, knew that time was on Felix’s side; he was closing in on her from all sides, so that soon she would have no alternative.
It was little Ditza who changed everything.
She wet her bed, she ran away from the children’s house at night, she escaped to the sewing room in the morning and clutched her mother, she kicked and scratched the other children and even animals, and as for Felix, she nicknamed him “Croakie.” Neither his gifts and attentions nor his sweets and rebukes did any good. Once, when Felix and Batya had begun to eat together openly in the dining hall, the child came in and climbed on his knee. He was touched, convinced that a reconciliation was coming. But he had just started to stroke her hair and call her “my little girl” when suddenly she wet his trousers and ran away. Felix got up and ran after her in a frenzy of rage and reformist zeal. He pushed his way among the tables trying to catch the child. Batya sat stiffly where she was and did not interfere. Finally Felix snatched up an enamel mug, threw it at the elusive child, missed, tripped, picked himself up, and tried to wipe the pee and yogurt off his khaki trousers. There were smiling faces all around him. By now Felix was acting secretary general of the Workers’ Party, and here he was, flushed and hoarse, with a murderous gleam showing through his glasses. Zeiger slapped his belly, sighing, “What a sight,” until laughter got the better of him. Weissmann, too, roared aloud. Even Batya could not suppress a smile as the child crawled under the tables and came to sit at her feet with the expression of a persecuted saint. The nursery teachers exclaimed indignantly, “I ask you, is that a way to carry on, a grown-up man, a public figure, throwing mugs at little children in the middle of the dining hall, isn’t that going too far?”
Three weeks later it came out that Felix was having an affair with Zeiger’s wife, Zetka. Zeiger divorced her, and early in that spring she married Felix. In May Felix and Zetka were sent to Switzerland to organize escape routes for the survivors of the death camps. In the party Felix was regarded as the model of the young leadership that had risen from the ranks. And Batya Pinski started to go downhill.
9
WHEN ABRAMEK comes, I’ll make him a glass of tea, I’ll show him all the old papers, we’ll discuss the layout and the cover, and eventually we’ll have to settle the problem of the dedication, so that there won’t be any misunderstanding.
She picked up the last photograph of Abrasha, taken in Madrid by a German Communist fighter. He looked thin and unshaven, his clothes were crumpled, and there was a pigeon on his shoulder. His mouth hung open slackly and his eyes were dull. He looked more as if he had been making love than fighting for the cause. On the back was an affectionate greeting, in rhyme.
Over the years Batya Pinski had got into the habit of talking to herself. At first she had done it under her breath. Later, when Ditza married Martin Zlotkin and went away with him, she started talking out loud, in a croaking voice that made the children of the kibbutz call her Baba Yaga, after the witch in the stories they had heard from their Russian nurses.
Look here, Abramek, there’s just one more point. It’s a slightly delicate matter, a bit complicated, but I’m sure that we can sort it out, you and I, with a bit of forethought. It’s like this. If Abrasha were still alive, he would of course want to bring his own book out. Right? Right. Of course. But Abrasha isn’t alive and he can’t supervise the publication of the book himself. I mean the color, the jacket, the preface, that sort of thing, and also the dedication. Naturally he would want to dedicate the book to his wife. Just like anybody else. Now that Abrasha isn’t with us any more, and you are collecting his articles and his letters and bringing out his book, there isn’t a dedication. What will people say? Just think, Abramek, work it out for yourself: what will people make of it? It’s simply an incitement to the meanest kind of gossip: poor fellow, he ran away to Spain to get away from his wife. Or else he went to Spain and fell in love with some Carmen Miranda or other out there, and that was that. Just a minute. Let me finish. We must kill that kind of gossip at all costs. At all costs, I say. No, not for my sake; I don’t care any more what people say about me. As far as I’m concerned they can say that I went to bed with the Grand Mufti and with your great Plekhanov both at once. I couldn’t care less. It’s not for me, it’s for him. It’s not right to have all sorts of stories going around about Abrasha Pinski. It’s not good for you: after all, you need a figure you can hold up as an example to your young people, without Carmen Mirandas and suchlike. In other words, you need a dedication. It doesn’t matter who writes it. It could be you. Felix. Or me. Something like this, for instance: First page,QUESTIONS OF TIME AND TIMELY QUESTIONS, collected essays by Abraham brackets Abrasha Pinski, hero of the Spanish Civil War. That’s right. Next page: this picture. Just as it is. Top of the next page: To Batya, a devoted wife, the fruits of my love and anguish. Then, on the following page, you can put that the book is published by the Workers’ Party, and you can mention Felix’s help. It won’t hurt. Now, don’t you argue with me, Abramek, I mustn’t get upset, because I’m not a well woman, and what’s more I know a thing or two about you and about Felix and about how Abrasha was talked into going off to that ridiculous war. So you’d better not say anything. Just do what you’re told. Here, drink your tea, and stop arguing.
Then she sighed, shook herself, and sat down in her armchair to wait for him. Meanwhile she watched the fish. When she heard a buzzing, she leapt up and swatted the fly on the windowpane. How do they get in when all the windows are closed. Where do they come from. To hell with the lot of them. Anyway, how can the wretched creatures survive a storm like that.
She squashed the fly, dropped it into the aquarium, and sat down again in her armchair. But there was no peace. The kettle started boiling. Abramek will be here soon. Must get the room tidy. But it’s all perfectly tidy, just as it has been for years. Close your eyes and think, perhaps. What about.
10
WE WERE recovering hour by hour.
We tackled the debris with determined dedication. Buildings in danger of collapse were roped off. The carpenters fixed up props and blocked holes with boards. Here and there we hung flaps of canvas. Tractors brought beams and corrugated iron. Where there was flooding we improvised paths with gravel and concrete blocks. We rigged up temporary powerlines to essential points until the electrical system could be repaired. Old kerosene heaters and rusty cooking stoves were brought up from the stores. The older women cleaned and polished them, and for a while we all relived the early days. The bustle filled us with an almost ecstatic joy. Old memories were brought out, and jokes were exchanged. Meanwhile Felix alerted all the relevant agencies, the telephone engineers, emergency services, the Regional Council, the Department of Agricultural Settlements, the headquarters of the movement, and so on and so forth. The m
essages all went by jeep, because the telephone lines had been brought down by the storm. Not even our children were idle. To keep them from getting under our feet, Felix told them to catch the chickens, which had scattered all over the village when their coops had been damaged. Happy hunting cries arose from the lawns and from under the trees. Panting, red-faced gangs came running eagerly from unexpected places to block the escape routes of the clucking hens. Some of these sounds managed to penetrate the closed shutters, windows, and curtains into Batya Pinski’s room. What’s the matter, what’s so funny, the widow croaked to herself.
By the same afternoon all essential services were operating again. A cold but nourishing meal had been served. The nurseries were light and warm once more. There was running water, even if the pressure was low and the supply intermittent. After lunch we were able to draw up a first unofficial assessment of the damage. It transpired that the worst-hit area was the group of old shacks at the bottom of the hill, which had been put up by the founders decades previously. When they had folded up the tents that they had pitched on the barren slope and installed themselves in these shacks, they had all known at last that they were settling here and that there was no going back.
Years later, when the successive phases of permanent buildings had been completed, the old wooden shacks were handed over to the young people. Their first inhabitants were a detachment of young refugees who had arrived from Europe via Central Asia and Teheran to be welcomed by us with open arms. They were followed by a squadron of underground fighters that later produced two outstanding military men. From this group of huts they set out one night to blow up a British military radar installation, and it was here that they returned toward dawn. Later, after the establishment of the state, when the task of the underground had been completed, the tumbledown huts became a regular army base. This was the headquarters of the legendary Highland Brigade during the War of Independence, where the great night operations were planned. Throughout the fifties the shacks housed recent immigrants, paramilitary youth groups, students in intensive language courses, detachments of volunteers, eccentric individuals who had begun to come from all over the world to experience the new way of life; finally they were used as lodgings for hired laborers. When Phase C of the building program was drawn up, the huts were scheduled for demolition. In any case they were already falling down: the wooden walls were disintegrating, the roof beams were sagging, and the floors were sinking. Weeds were growing through the boards, and the walls were covered with obscene drawings and graffiti in six languages. At night the children came here to play ghosts and robbers among the ruins. And after the children came the couples. We had been about to clear the site to make way for the new development when the storm anticipated us, as if it had run out of patience. The carpenters searched the wreckage, salvaging planks, doors, and beams that might be reused.
Felix’s short, stocky figure was everywhere at once, almost as if he were appearing simultaneously in different places. His sober, precise instructions prevented chaos, reduplication, and wasted effort. He never for a moment failed to distinguish between essential and trivial tasks.
For seventeen years Felix had been a public servant, secretary general, chairman, delegate, and eventually even a member of Parliament and a member of the executive committee of the party. A year or so earlier, when Zetka, his wife, was dying of cancer, he had given up all his public positions and returned home to become secretary of the kibbutz. Social and financial problems that had seemed insoluble for years suddenly vanished at his return, as if by magic. Old plans came to fruition. Unprofitable sections of the farm took on new life. There was a new mood abroad. A few weeks earlier, ten months after Zetka’s death, Felix had married Weissmann’s ex-wife. Just two days before the storm, a small, stern-faced delegation had come to prepare us to lose him once more: with new elections coming, our party would need a strong man to represent it in the Cabinet.
The telephone was working again after lunch. Telegrams of concern and good will began to pour in from all over. Offers of help and sympathy from other kibbutzim, institutions, and organizations.
In our kibbutz calm reigned once more. Here and there police officers confabulated with regional officials, or an adviser huddled with a curious journalist. We were forbidden by Felix to talk to the press and the media, because it would be best for us to put forward a unanimous version when the time came to make our claim for the insurance.
At a quarter past one old Nevidomsky was brought home from the hospital, with his dislocated shoulder carefully set and his arm in an impressive sling, waving greetings with his free hand. At half past one we were mentioned on the news; again they stressed that it had been neither a typhoon nor a tornado but simply a limited, local phenomenon: two conflicting winds, one from the sea and the other from the desert, had met and caused a certain amount of turbulence. Such phenomena were of daily occurrence over the desert, but in settled areas they were infrequent, and the likelihood of a recurrence was remote. There was no cause for alarm, although it was advisable to remain on the alert.
Batya Pinski switched off the radio, stood up, and went over to the window. She peeped outside through the glass of the shutters. She cursed the kitchen crew who had neglected their duty in the confusion and forgotten to send her her lunch. They should know better than anyone how ill she was and how important it was for her to avoid strain and tension. Actually she did not feel in the least hungry, but that did nothing to diminish her indignation: They’ve forgotten. As if I didn’t exist. As if it wasn’t for them and their pink-faced brats that Abrasha gave his life in a faraway land. They’ve forgotten everything. And Abramek’s also forgotten what he promised; he’s not coming today after all. Come, Abramek, come, and I’ll give you some ideas for the jacket and the dedication, I’ll show you the havoc the storm has wrought here, you’re bursting with curiosity and dying to see it with your own eyes, only you have no excuse, why should the director of the party publishing house suddenly drop all his work and come goggle at a disaster like a small child. So come, I’ll give you your excuse, and I’ll also give you some tea, and we’ll talk about what we have to talk about.
She leapt across the room, spotting some dust on the bookshelf. She swept it away furiously with her hand. She stooped to pick up a leaf that had fallen from a potted plant onto the carpet. Then she drew Abramek Bart’s letter from her dressing-gown pocket, unfolded it, and stared briefly at the secretary’s signature, some Ruth Bardor, no doubt a painted hussy with bare thighs, no doubt she’s shaved her legs and plucked her eyebrows and bleached her hair, no doubt she wears see-through panties and smothers herself in deodorants. God damn her. I’ve given those fish quite enough food for today; they’ll get no more from me. Now here’s another fly; I can’t understand how they get in or where they hide. Perhaps they’re born here. Kettle’s boiling again. Another glass of tea.
11
AFTER THE embarrassing episode in the dining hall in the early forties, some of us were glad that the affair between Batya Pinski and Felix had been broken off in time. But all of us were sad about the change that took place in Batya. She would hit her child, even in the presence of other children. None of the advice or discussions did any good. She would pinch her till she was black and blue and call her names, including, for some reason, Carmen Miranda. The girl stopped wetting her bed but instead started to torture cats. Batya showed the first signs of asceticism. Her ripe, heady beauty was beginning to fade. There were still some who could not keep their eyes off her as she walked, straight and dark and voluptuous, on her way from the sewing room to the ironing room. But her face was hard, and around her mouth there played an expression of disappointment and spite.
And she continued to discipline the child with an iron hand.
Some of us were uncharitable enough to call her a madwoman; they even said of her: What does she think she is, a Sicilian widow, that cheap melodramatic heroine, that Spanish saint, that twopenny actress.
When the founde
rs of the kibbutz moved into the first permanent buildings, Batya was among them. Zeiger volunteered to build her an aquarium in her new house. He did this out of gratitude. Zeiger was a thickset, potbellied, hirsute man. He was always joking, as if the purpose of life in general and his own life in particular was amusement. He had certain fixed witticisms, and his good humor did not desert him even when his wife did. He said to anyone who cared to listen: I am a mere proletarian, but Felix is going to be a commissar one day, when the revolution comes; I’d live with him myself, if only he’d have me.
He was a short, stocky man, who always smelled of garlic and tobacco. He moved heavily and clumsily like a bear, and there was an endearing lightheartedness about him—even when he was accidentally shot in the stomach during illegal weapon-practice in the old days. We were fond of him, especially at festivals, weddings, and parties, to which he made an indispensable contribution.
Ever since his wife left him, he had maintained a correspondence with a female relative, a divorcee herself, who lived in Philadelphia and whom he had never set eyes on. He used to call on Batya Pinski in the evenings, and she would translate the relative’s letters from English into Yiddish and his comical replies from Yiddish into English. Batya had taught herself English from the novels she read in bed at night. He always apologized at the end of each visit for taking up her valuable time; but it was he who dug the flower bed in front of her new house, and raked it and mulched it and brought her bulbs and seedlings. His distinctive smell lingered in the room. Little Ditza loved to ask him riddles; he never knew the answers, or if he did he pretended not to, and she always laughed at his amazement when she told him.