A Tale of Love and Darkness

by Amos Oz

  And I really didn't care, because there was hardly any difference between being locked in the bathroom and my usual solitude, in my room or the yard or the kindergarten: for most of my childhood I was a solitary child, with no brother or sister and with hardly any friends.

  A handful of toothpicks, a couple of bars of soap, three toothbrushes and a half-squeezed tube of Shenhav toothpaste, plus a hairbrush, five of Mother's hairpins, Father's toilet bag, the bathroom stool, an aspirin packet, some sticky plasters, and a roll of toilet paper were enough to last me for a whole day of wars, travels, mammoth construction projects, and grand adventures in the course of which I was, by turns, His Highness, His Highness's slave, a hunter, the hunted, the accused, a fortune-teller, a judge, a seafarer, and an engineer digging the Panama and Suez canals through difficult hilly terrain to join up all the seas and lakes in the tiny bathroom and to launch on voyages from one end of the world to the other merchant ships, submarines, warships, pirate corsairs, whalers, and boatloads of explorers who would discover continents and islands where no man had ever set foot.

  Even if I was condemned to solitary confinement in the dark, I was not alarmed. I would lower the cover of the toilet, sit myself on it, and conduct all my wars and journeys with empty hands. Without any soap or combs or hairpins, without stirring from my place. I sat there with my eyes closed and switched on all the light I wanted inside my head, leaving all the darkness outside.

  You might even say I loved my punishment of solitary confinement. "Whoever doesn't need other human beings," Father quoted Aristotle, "must be a god or an animal." For hours on end, I enjoyed being both. I didn't mind.

  When Father mockingly called me Your Highness or Your Excellency, I didn't take offense. On the contrary: I inwardly agreed with him. I adopted these titles and made them my own. But I said nothing. I gave him no hint of my enjoyment. Like an exiled king who has managed to slip back across the border and walks around his city disguised as an ordinary person. Every now and again one of his startled subjects recognizes him and bows down before him and calls him Your Majesty, in the line for the bus or in the crowd in the main square, but I simply ignore the bow and the title. I give no sign. Maybe the reason I decided to behave in this way was that Mother had taught me that you can tell real kings and nobles by the fact that they despise their titles and know full well that true nobility consists in behaving toward the simplest people with humility, like an ordinary human being.

  And not just like any ordinary human being, but like a good-natured, benevolent ruler, who always tries to do whatever his subjects want. They seem to enjoy dressing me and putting my shoes on: so let them. I gladly extend all four limbs. After some time they suddenly change their mind and prefer me to dress myself and put on my own shoes: I am only too pleased to slip into my clothes all by myself, enjoying the sight of their beaming delight, occasionally getting the buttons wrong, or sweetly asking them to help me tie my shoelaces.

  They almost fall over each other as they claim the privilege of kneeling down in front of the little prince and tying his shoelaces, as he is in the habit of rewarding his subjects with a hug. No other child is as good at thanking them regally and politely for their services. Once he even promises his parents (who look at each other with eyes misting over with pride and joy, patting him as they inwardly melt with pleasure) that when they are very old, like Mr. Lemberg next door, he will do up their buttons and shoelaces. For all the goodnesses they're always doing for him.

  Do they enjoy brushing my hair? Explaining to me how the moon moves? Teaching me to count to a hundred? Putting one sweater on me on top of another? Even making me swallow a teaspoon of revolting cod liver oil every day. I happily let them do whatever they want to me, I enjoy the constant pleasure that my tiny existence affords them. So even if the cod liver oil makes me want to throw up, I gladly overcome my disgust and swallow the whole spoonful at one go, and even thank them for making me grow up healthy and strong. At the same time I also enjoy their amazement: it's clear this is no ordinary child—this child is so special!

  And so for me the expression "ordinary child" became a term of utter contempt. It was better to grow up to be a stray dog, better to be a cripple or a mental retard, better to be a girl even, provided I didn't become an "ordinary child" like the rest of them, provided I could go on being "so very special!" or "really out of the ordinary!"

  So there I was, from the age of three or four, if not earlier, already a one-child show. A nonstop performance. A lonely stage star, constantly compelled to improvise, and to fascinate, excite, amaze, and entertain his public. I had to steal the show from morning to evening. For example, we go to visit Mala and Staszek Rudnicki one Saturday morning in their home on chancellor Street, at the corner of the Street of the Prophets. As we walk along, my parents impress on me that I am on no account to forget that Uncle Staszek and Auntie Mala have no children, so I am not even to think of asking them, for instance, when they are going to have a baby. And in general I must be on my best behavior. Uncle and Auntie have such a high opinion of me already, so I mustn't do anything, anything at all, that might damage their good opinion.

  Auntie Mala and Uncle Staszek may not have any children, but they do of course have their pair of plump, lazy, blue-eyed Persian cats, Chopin and Schopenhauer (and as we make our way up Chancellor Street, I am treated to two thumbnail sketches, of chopin from my mother and of Schopenhauer from my father). Most of the time the cats doze curled up together on the sofa or on a pouffe, like a pair of hibernating polar bears. And in the corner, above the black piano, hangs the cage containing the ancient, bald bird, not in the best of health and blind in one eye. Its beak always hangs half open, as though it is thirsty. Sometimes Mala and Staszek call it Alma, and sometimes they call it Mirabelle. In its cage, too, is the other bird that Auntie Mala put there to relieve its solitude, made from a painted pinecone, with matchsticks for legs and a dark red sliver of wood for a beak. This new bird has wings made from real feathers that have fallen or been plucked from Alma-Mirabelle's wings. The feathers are turquoise and mauve.

  Uncle Staszek is sitting smoking. One of his eyebrows, the left one, is always raised, as though expressing a doubt: is that really so, aren't you exaggerating a little? And one of his incisors is missing, giving him the look of a rough street kid. My mother hardly speaks. Auntie Mala, a blond woman who wears her hair in two plaits that sometimes fall elegantly over her shoulders and at other times are wrapped tightly around her head like a wreath, offers my parents a glass of tea and some apple cake. She can peel apples in a single spiral that winds around itself like a telephone cord. Both Staszek and Mala once dreamed of being farmers. They lived on a kibbutz for a couple of years, and then tried living on a cooperative farm for another couple of years, until it became clear that Auntie Mala was allergic to most wild plants, while Uncle Staszek was allergic to the sun (or, as he put it, the sun itself was allergic to him). So now Uncle Staszek works as a clerk in the Head Post Office, while Auntie Mala works as an assistant to a well-known dentist on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. When she serves us the apple cake, Father cannot resist complimenting her in his usual jocular fashion:

  "Dear Mala, you bake the most heavenly cake, and I always adore the tea that you pour."

  Mother says:

  "That's enough, Arieh."

  And for me, on condition I eat up a thick slice of cake like a big boy, Auntie Mala has a special treat: homemade cherryade. Her homemade cherryade compensates for being short on bubbles (evidently the soda bottle has suffered the consequences of standing around for too long with its hat off) by being so rich in red syrup that it is almost unbearably sweet.

  So I politely eat all my cake (not bad at all), careful not to chew with my mouth open, to eat properly with a fork and not dirty my fingers, fully aware of the various dangers of stains, crumbs, and an overfull mouth, spearing each piece of cake on the fork and moving it through the air with extreme care, as though taking into account enemy ai
rcraft that might intercept my cargo flight on the way from plate to mouth. I chew nicely, with my mouth closed, and swallow discreetly and without licking my lips. On the way I pluck the Rudnickis' admiring glances and my parents' pride and pin them to my air-force uniform. And I finally earn the promised prize: a glass of homemade cherryade, short on bubbles but very rich in syrup.

  So rich in syrup, indeed, that it is completely, utterly, and totally un-drinkable. I can't take a single gulp. Not even a sip. It tastes even worse than Mother's pepper-flavored coffee. It is revoltingly thick and sticky, like cough medicine.

  I put the cup of sorrows to my lips, pretending to drink, and when Auntie Mala looks at me—with the rest of my audience, eager to hear what I shall say—I hastily promise (in Father's words and Father's tone of voice) that both her creations, the apple cake and the syrupy drink, are "truly very excellent."

  Auntie Mala's face lights up:

  "There's more! There's plenty more! Let me pour you another glass! I've made a whole jugful!"

  As for my parents, they look at me with mute adoration. In my mind's ears I can hear their applause, and from my mind's waist I bow to my appreciative audience.

  But what to do next? First of all, to gain some time, I must distract their attention. I must pronounce some utterance, something deep beyond my years, something they will like:

  "Something as tasty as this in life needs to be drunk in tiny sips."

  The use of the phrase "in life" particularly helps me: the Pythian has spoken again. The pure, clear voice of nature itself has sounded from my mouth. Taste your life in little sips. Slowly, thoughtfully.

  Thus, with a single dithyrambic sentence, I manage to distract their attention. So they won't notice I still haven't drunk any of their wood glue. Meanwhile, while they are still in a trance, the cup of horrors stays on the floor beside me, because life must be drunk in little sips.

  As for me, I am deep in thought, my elbows resting on my knees and my hands under my chin, in a pose that precisely represents a statue of the Thinker's little son. I was shown a picture of the original once in the encyclopedia. After a moment or two their attention leaves me, either because it is not fitting to stare at me when my soul is floating up to higher spheres, or because more visitors have arrived and a heated discussion gets going about the refugee ships, the policy of self-restraint, and the High Commissioner.

  I seize the opportunity with both hands, slip out into the hallway with my poisoned chalice, and hold it up to the nose of one of the Persian cats, the composer or the philosopher, I'm not sure which. This plump little polar bear takes a sniff, recoils, lets out an offended mew, twitches its whiskers, No thank you very much, and retreats with a bored air to the kitchen. As for its partner, the portly creature does not even bother to open its eyes when I hold out the glass but merely wrinkles its nose, as if to say No, really, and flicks a pink ear toward me. As though to chase away a fly.

  Could I empty the lethal potion into the water container in the birdcage, which blind, bald Alma-Mirabelle shares with her winged pinecone? I weigh the pros and cons: the pinecone might tell on me, whereas the philodendron will not give me away even if it is interrogated under torture. My choice therefore falls on the plant rather than the pair of birds (who, like Auntie Mala and Uncle Staszek, are childless, and whom one must therefore not ask when they are planning to lay an egg).

  After a while Auntie Mala notices my empty glass. It immediately becomes apparent that I have made her really and truly happy by appreciating her drink. I smile at her and say, just like a grown-up, "Thank you, Auntie Mala, it was just lovely." Without asking or waiting for confirmation she refills my glass and reminds me to remember that that isn't all, she's made a whole jug. Her cherryade might not be as fizzy as it could be, but it is as sweet as chocolate, isn't it?

  I concur and thank her once again and settle down to wait for another opportunity; then I slink out again unobserved, like an underground fighter on his way to the British fortified radar installations, and poison their other plant, a cactus.

  But at that moment I sense a powerful urge, like a sneeze you can't hold back, like an irresistible laugh in class, to confess, to stand up and announce in public that their drink is so foul that even their cats and their birds find it disgusting, that I have poured the whole lot into their flowerpots, and now their plants are going to die.

  And be punished, and take my punishment like a man. With no regrets.

  Of course I won't do it: my desire to charm them is much stronger than my urge to shock them. I am a saintly rabbi, not a Genghis Khan.

  On the way home Mother looks me straight in the eye and says with a conspiratorial smile:

  "Don't think I didn't see you. I saw it all."

  All innocence and purity, my sinful heart thumping in my chest like a startled rabbit, I say:

  "What did you see?"

  "I saw that you were terribly bored. But you managed not to show it, and that made me happy."

  Father says:

  "The boy really did behave well today, but after all he got his reward, he got a piece of cake and two glasses of cherryade, which we never buy him although he's always asking us to, because who knows if the glasses in the kiosk are really clean?"

  Mother:

  "I'm not so sure you really liked that drink, but I noticed that you drank it all, so as not to offend Auntie Mala, and I'm really proud of you for that."

  "Your mother," Father says, "can see right into your heart. In other words she knows at once not only what you've said and done but also the things you think no one else knows. It's not necessarily easy to live with someone who can see right into your heart."

  "And when Auntie Mala offered you a second glass," Mother continues, "I noticed that you thanked her and you drank it all up, just to make her happy. I want you to know that there are not many children of your age, in fact there aren't that many people of any age, who are capable of such consideration."

  At that moment I almost admit that it was the Rudnickis' plants, not I, that deserve the compliment, since it was they who drank the syrupy mess.

  But how can I tear off the medals that she has just pinned to my chest and fling them at her feet? How can I cause my parents such undeserved hurt? I have just learned from Mother that if you have to choose between telling a lie and hurting someone's feelings, you should choose sensitivity over truthfulness. Faced with a choice between making someone happy and telling the truth, between not causing pain and not lying, you should always prefer generosity over honesty. In so doing you raise yourself above the common herd and earn a bouquet from all of them: a very special child.

  Father then patiently explains to us that in Hebrew the word for childlessness is not unrelated to the word for darkness, because both imply a lack, a lack of children or a lack of light. There is another related word that means to spare or to save. "'He who spares the rod hates his child,' it says in the book of Proverbs, and I fully agree with that statement." By way of digression into Arabic, he goes on to suggest that the word for darkness is related to the word for forgetting. "As for the pine-cone, its Hebrew name, itstrubal, derives from a Greek word, strobilos, which denotes anything that spins or whirls, from strobos, the act of revolving. And that word comes from the same root as words like 'strophe' and 'catastrophe.' A couple of days ago I saw a truck that had overturned on the way up to Mount Scopus: the people inside were hurt and the wheels were still going around—so there was strobos and also catastrophe. As soon as we get home, would Your Honor kindly pick up all the toys you left scattered on the floor and put them back where they belong?"

  35

  MY PARENTS put on my shoulders everything that they had not managed to achieve themselves. In 1950, on the evening of the day they first met by chance on the steps of Terra Sancta College, Hannah and Michael (in the novel My Michael) meet again in Café Atara in Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem. Hannah encourages shy Michael to talk about himself, but he tells her instead about his widowe
d father:

  His father cherished high hopes for him. He refused to recognize that his son was an ordinary young man.... His father's greatest wish was for Michael to become a professor in Jerusalem, because his paternal grandfather had taught natural sciences in the Hebrew teachers' seminary in Grodno.... It would be nice, Michael's father thought, if the chain could pass on from one generation to another.

  "A family isn't a relay race, with a profession as the torch," [Hannah] said.*

  For many years my father did not abandon the hope that eventually the mantle of Uncle Joseph would alight on him, and that he might pass it on to me when the time came, if I followed the family tradition and became a scholar. And if, because of his dreary job that left him only the night hours for his research, the mantle passed over him, perhaps his only son would inherit it.

  I have the feeling that my mother wanted me to grow up to express the things that she had been unable to express.

  In later years they repeatedly reminded me, with a chuckle combined with pride they reminded me, in the presence of all their guests they reminded me, in front of the Zarchis and the Rudnickis and the Hananis and the Bar Yitzhars and the Abramskis they always reminded me how, when I was only five years old, a couple of weeks after I learned the letters of the alphabet, I printed in capital letters on the back of one of Father's cards the legend amos klausner writer, and pinned it up on the door of my little room.

  *My Michael, trans. Nicholas de Lange (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 6.

  I knew how books were made even before I knew how to read. I would sneak in and stand on tiptoe behind my father's back as he bent over his desk, his weary head floating in the pool of yellow light from his desk lamp, as he slowly, laboriously made his way up the winding valley between the two piles of books on the desk, picking all sorts of details from the tomes that lay open in front of him, plucking them out, holding them up to the light, examining them, sorting them, copying them onto little cards, and then fitted each one in its proper place in the puzzle, like stringing a necklace.