by Amos Oz
"From now on you're the assistant librarian," she said, adding, "Tell me, aren't you expected at home? For supper? They might be worried about you." The squint in her left eye winked affectionately.
"You haven't had supper either."
"But I always eat after I've closed the library. I grab something from the fridge and eat it in front of the TV."
"I'll walk you home when you've finished. So you don't have to walk alone in the dark."
She smiled at him and laid her warm hand on his.
"There's no need, Kobi. I only live five minutes away."
At the touch of her hand a sweet shiver ran from the back of his neck to the base of his spine. But he inferred from her words that her boyfriend, the one who drove a diesel tanker, must be waiting for her at home. And if he wasn't there already, she might be expecting him later in the evening. That was why she had said there was no need for him to walk her home. But he would follow her anyway, like a dog, to the doorstep of her house, and when she closed the door he'd stay, sitting on the steps. This time he would also shake her hand to say good night, and when her hand was inside his, he'd squeeze it lightly twice, so she'd understand. There was something wrong, twisted and despicable about a world where a diesel tanker driver has more advantages than you just because he's older. He could see the tanker driver in his mind's eye, with his thick eyebrows joined in the middle, inserting his fat fingers into the front of her blouse. This apparition made him feel lust and shame together with a desperate anger and a desire to do something to hurt her.
Ada looked at him out of the corner of her eye and noticed something. She suggested they take a look around the shelves; she could show him all sorts of minor treasures, such as the writings of Eldad Rubin with corrections in his own handwriting in the margins. But before he could answer, two older women came in, one small and square-shaped, in baggy three-quarter-length shorts and hair dyed red, the other with short gray hair and protruding eyes behind thick glasses. They had brought their books back and wanted to borrow some new ones. They chatted to each other and to Ada about a new Israeli novel that the whole country was talking about. Kobi escaped down one of the aisles where, on a low shelf, he came across Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. He stood and read a couple of pages so as not to have to listen to the conversation. But the women's voices broke in on him, and he found himself overhearing what they were saying.
"If you want to know what I think," one of them was saying, "he keeps repeating himself. He writes the same book over and over again with small changes."
"Dostoyevsky and Kafka also repeat themselves," her friend said. "So what?"
Ada remarked with a smile, "There are some subjects and motifs that a writer comes back to again and again because apparently they come from the root of his being."
When Ada said the words "the root of his being" Kobi felt something squeezing at his heart. At that moment it was clear to him that she had meant him to overhear the phrase, that she had been talking to him rather than to the women, and that she had been trying to say that both their innermost souls shared a single root. In his imagination he approached her and put his arm around her shoulders, and she rested her head on his shoulder because he was a full head taller than she. He could feel her breasts pressed against his chest, her stomach against his stomach, and then the image became so piercing that it was unbearable.
He stayed where he was for a minute or two after the women left, while his body calmed down, and said to Ada in a voice slightly deeper than usual that he would be with her in a moment. Meanwhile, she entered in the computer the books that the two women had returned and had borrowed.
Ada Dvash and Kobi sat side by side at the desk, as if he too were working in the library. The silence between them was broken only by the humming of the air conditioning and the buzzing of the neon light. They talked about Virginia Woolf, who had drowned herself at the height of the Second World War. Ada said she could not understand how anyone could commit suicide in the midst of a war. It was hard to imagine that she hadn't had an iota of a sense of involvement, or any curiosity to know how things would turn out, and which side would be victorious in that terrible war that would affect everybody in the world in one way or another. Didn't she want to know whether her own country, England, would survive or would be conquered by the Nazis?
"She was in despair," Kobi said.
"That's just what I don't understand," Ada said. "There's always at least one thing that is precious to you and that you don't want to be parted from. Even just a cat or a dog. Or your favorite armchair. The view of the garden in the rain. Or the sunset from the window."
"You're a happy person. Despair is obviously alien to you."
"No, not alien. But it doesn't attract me either."
A bespectacled woman in her twenties came into the library. She had full hips and was wearing a flowery blouse and tight-fitting jeans. She screwed up her eyes at the bright neon light, smiled at Ada and at Kobi, asked Kobi if he was going to be the deputy librarian. She wanted some help looking for material on the events of 1936–39, otherwise known as the Arab Revolt. Ada showed her sections on the history of Israel and the Middle East, and the two of them pulled out one book after another and examined the tables of contents.
Kobi went to the sink next to the toilet and washed the two coffee cups. The clock above the desk showed twenty to nine. Another evening will go by without you revealing your feelings. This time you mustn't let the chance slip. When you're both alone again you must take her hand in your hands and look her straight in the eyes and tell her at last. But what are you going to tell her? And what if she bursts out laughing? Or if she panics and pulls her hand away? Or she might be sorry for you and press your head to her chest and stroke your hair. Like a child. Pity seemed to him more terrifying than any rejection. It was clear to him that if she behaved as if she were sorry for him, he would not be able to stop himself from crying. There was no way he could hold back his tears. And then it would all be over, and he would run away from her into the darkness.
Meanwhile, even though the coffee cups were dry he kept on rubbing them with the dishtowel that hung on a hook next to the sink, staring as he did so at a moth that was hurling itself desperately at the neon tube.
4
THE BESPECTACLED WOMAN said thank you and left, carrying five or six books on the Arab Revolt in a plastic bag. Ada entered the details of the books on the computer from the cards that lay in front of her on the desk. She explained to Kobi that she was not really allowed to lend more than two books at a time, but that this girl had to hand in an essay in ten days' time.
"It'll be nine o'clock soon, and then we'll shut the library and go home," she said.
At the sound of the words "go home," Kobi's heart started to pound in his chest as though they contained some secret promise. The next moment he crossed his legs because his body was aroused again and threatened to embarrass him. An inner voice said to him that come shame or mockery or pity he mustn't give up, he had to tell her.
"Ada, listen."
"Yes."
"Do you mind if I ask you something personal?"
"Go on."
"Have you ever loved someone with no hope that he will return your love?"
She saw at once where he was leading, and hesitated for a moment between her affection for the boy and her duty to be very careful with his feelings. And underneath these two, she also felt a vague impulse to accede.
"Yes, but it was a long time ago."
"What did you do?"
"What all girls do. I stopped eating, cried at night, started by wearing pretty, attractive clothes and then deliberately dressed drably. Until it passed. It does pass, Kobi, though at the time it seems that it'll last forever."
"But I—"
Another reader came in. This time it was a woman in her mid-seventies, shriveled and brisk, dressed in a light summer dress that was much too young for her, with silver bracelets on her skinny, tanned arms and a double row of
amber beads around her neck. She greeted Ada and asked inquisitively:
"And who is this charming young man? Where did you find him?"
With a smile Ada said:
"This is my new assistant."
"I know you," the old woman said, turning to Kobi. "You're Victor Ezra the grocer's son. Are you a volunteer?"
"Yes, no, that is—"
"He's come to help me," Ada said. "He loves books."
The woman returned a novel in a foreign language and asked if she could borrow the book by the Israeli writer everyone was talking about, the one the two women who had come earlier had requested. Ada said there was a long waiting list, as there were only two copies in the library.
"Shall I put you on the list, Lisa? It'll take between a month and two months."
"Two months?" the woman said. "In that time he'll have written another book."
Ada persuaded her to make do with a novel translated from Spanish that had had good reviews, and the woman left.
"What an unpleasant woman," Kobi said. "And she's a gossip, too."
Ada did not reply. She was leafing through the book the woman had returned. Kobi felt a sudden sense of urgency that was almost more than he could bear. Here they were alone again, but in ten minutes she would say that it was closing time and the moment would be lost, this time perhaps forever. He suddenly hated the blinding white neon light, like at the dentist's, which seemed to get in the way of his telling her.
"Let's see if you can really be my assistant," Ada said. "You can record the book that Lisa has just borrowed. The one she returned, too. Let me show you how."
What does she take me for? He felt furious. Does she think I'm just a little child, that she'll let me play with her computer for a bit and then send me off to bed? How can she be such a dickhead? Doesn't she understand anything? Anything at all? He felt a blind compulsion to hurt her, to bite her, crush her, pull off her big wooden earrings, to make her wake up and understand at last.
She sensed she had made a mistake. Laying a hand on his shoulder she said:
"That's enough, Kobi."
The touch of her hand on his shoulder made him dizzy, but it also made him sad, because he knew she was only trying to comfort him. He turned and, taking hold of her cheeks with both his hands under her earrings, he pulled her face around hard. Not daring to move his lips closer to hers, he simply stayed holding her for a long time, with her cheeks between his hands and his eyes fixed on her lips, which were not open but not quite closed either. There was an expression on her face he did not recognize under the harsh neon light: she didn't look hurt or offended, he thought, but sad. He held her head gently but firmly, with his lips close to hers and his whole body trembling with desire and fear. She did not resist him or try to break free from his grasp but waited. At last she spoke:
"Kobi. We'd better be going."
He let go of her face, and without taking his eyes off her he sprang up and felt for the light switch with quivering fingers. In an instant the neon light went out and darkness filled the library. Now, he said to himself. If you don't tell her now you'll regret it for the whole of your life. Forever. As well as the conflicting desire and emotion he felt a vague urge to shelter and protect her. From himself.
5
HIS OUTSTRETCHED ARMS felt for her and found her where she stood motionless behind the desk. He held her in the darkness, not face to face but with his face against the side of hers and his hips pressed against her waist, in a T shape. The darkness lent him courage and he kissed her ear and her temple, but he didn't dare to turn her toward him and seek her lips with his. She stood with her arms and hands hanging down at her sides, neither resisting him nor joining in. Her thoughts wandered to the stillborn child, born at five months after complications. The doctor had told her she could never have another child. During the gloomy months that followed she had blamed her husband for the baby's death, without any justification, except perhaps that he had slept with her on one of the nights before the stillbirth. She had not wanted him to but had let him have his way because ever since she was a child she had generally yielded before anyone with strong willpower, especially if it was a man, not because she was naturally submissive, but because strong male willpower gave her a feeling of safety and trust, together with acceptance and a desire to give in. Now she accepted the boy's sideways embrace without encouraging him or stopping him. She stood motionless, her arms dangling and her head hanging. But she sighed faintly, which Kobi could not interpret.
Was it a groan of pleasure such as he had heard in films, or was it a faint protest? But the powerful desire of an imaginative and sexually frustrated seventeen-year-old youth made him rub himself against her hip. And because he was a full head taller than she was, he drew her head to his chest and his lips gently hovered over her hair and lightly touched one of her earrings as though trying to distract her from what his loins were doing to her. His desire was not curbed by shame but if anything intensified: he knew that now he was destroying, trampling underfoot forever, whatever might have developed between him and his beloved. This destruction made his head swirl, and his hand felt for her breast but he panicked and put his arm around her shoulders instead, while his loins went on rubbing against her hip until his spine and his knees were so flooded and shaken with pleasure that he had to hold on to her so as not to fall over. Feeling a wetness on his abdomen he hurriedly pulled away, so as not to soil her too. He stood panting and shaking in the darkness, very close to her but not touching her, his face burning and his teeth chattering. Ada broke the silence by saying gently:
"I'm turning the light on."
"Yes," said Kobi.
But she was in no hurry to turn on the light. She said:
"You can go over there and clean up."
"Yes," said Kobi.
Suddenly he murmured in the darkness:
"I'm sorry."
He felt for her hand and held it and, nuzzling her with his lips, he apologized again, and felt his way to the door and fled from the thick darkness in the library into the luminous darkness of the summer night. A half moon had risen above the water tower and was spreading a pale half light over the rooftops, the treetops and the shadowy hills to the east.
She switched on the dazzling neon lights and straightened her blouse with one hand and her hair with the other. She thought for a moment that he had just gone to the toilet, but the door of the library was wide open and she followed him out and stood on the doorstep, filling her lungs with the sharp night air that smelled vaguely of mown grass, cow pats and some sweet flower she could not put a name to. Why did you run away, she said to herself, why did you go, child, why were you so startled?
She returned to the library, shut down the computer, switched off the air conditioning and the dazzling neon lights, then locked up and went home. She was accompanied by the singing of frogs and crickets and by a gentle breeze that carried a smell of thistles and dust. Maybe that child was lying in wait for her again behind some tree, maybe he would offer to walk her home again, maybe this time he would have the courage to hold her hand or put his arm around her waist. She felt that his smell, a smell of black bread, soap and sweat, was accompanying her. She knew that he would not come back to her, either this evening or probably on any of the following evenings. She felt sorry for his loneliness, his regret and his pointless shame. Yet she also felt some kind of inner joy and spiritual exaltation, almost pride, that she had let him get carried away. How little he had wanted from her. And if he had wanted more, she might not have stopped him. She took a deep breath. She was sad she had not said the simple words, "Never mind, Kobi, don't be scared, you're fine, everything's fine now."
The diesel tanker was not waiting for her outside her house, and she knew she would be alone tonight. At home she was greeted by two hungry cats that got under her feet and rubbed themselves against her legs. She spoke to them aloud, scolded them, lavished affection on them, gave them food and put water in their drinking bowls. Then she went
to the toilet, and washed her face and neck and combed her hair. She switched on the TV in the middle of a program about the melting of the polar ice cap and the destruction of the Arctic ecosystem. She buttered a slice of bread, spread cream cheese on it, sliced a tomato, cooked an omelet and made herself a cup of tea. Then she settled in the armchair in front of the destruction of the Arctic ecosystem on the TV, sipped her tea and hardly noticed that her cheeks were covered in tears. And when she did become aware of it, she went on eating and drinking and staring at the TV, and merely wiped her cheeks a few times. The tears did not stop but she felt better, and she said to herself the words she had meant to say to Kobi: "Never mind, don't be scared, you're fine, everything's fine now." She got up, still in tears, picked up one of the cats and sat down again. At a quarter to eleven she stood up, closed the shutters and switched off most of the lights.
6
KOBI EZRA WANDERED around the streets of the village. Twice he passed the Village Hall and the grocer's shop from which his family made a living. He entered the Memorial Garden and sat down on a bench that was already damp with dew. He wondered what she thought of him now and why she hadn't slapped his cheeks as he deserved. Suddenly he waved his arm and slapped his own face so hard that his teeth hurt, his ears rang and his left eye was bloodshot. Shame filled his body like some revolting viscous matter.
Two boys his own age, Elad and Shahar, passed his bench without noticing him. He curled up and hid his head between his knees. "They soon saw she was lying," Shahar was saying. "Nobody believed her for a second." "But it was a white lie," Elad replied; "I mean it was a justifiable lie." They moved on, their shoes crunching on the gravel. What he had done tonight would never be wiped out, Kobi thought. Even when many years had passed and his life had taken him to places that he could not imagine. Even if he went to the big city to look for a prostitute, as he had often imagined doing. Nothing would eradicate the shame of what he had done tonight. He could have gone on chatting with her in the library and not turned out the lights. And even if he had lost his senses and turned out the lights, he could have used the cover of darkness to express his feelings. Everybody said that words were his strong point. He could have used words. He could have quoted some lines from a love poem by Bialik or Yehuda Amichai. He could have confessed that he wrote poems himself. He could have recited one that he had written about her. On the other hand, he thought, she was also partly to blame, because she had behaved toward him the whole evening like an older woman with a child, or a teacher with a pupil. She pretended that I wait for her opposite the post office and walk her to the library just like that, for no particular reason. The fact is that she knew the truth and just pretended to spare my feelings. If only she hadn't, if only she had asked me about my feelings, however embarrassing it might be. If only I had had the guts to tell her to her face that someone like her had no reason to go running after tanker drivers. You and I are twin souls and you know it. I can't help it if I was born fifteen years after you. Everything is lost now, after what happened. Lost forever. And in fact what I did changed nothing, because it was doomed from the start. We never had a chance, either of us. There was never a shadow of hope. Maybe, he thought, when I've finished with the army I'll get myself a license to drive a diesel tanker.