by Amos Oz
‘I’m sorry for asking. Life has suddenly dealt me a cruel blow.’
‘I understand. I’m sorry.’
‘No, you don’t understand. I didn’t have an abortion. Just a little treatment. But it was humiliating.’
‘I’m very sorry. Let’s hope you’ll feel better now.’
‘You’ve probably got it on record, exactly what they did to me.’
‘I never look into the medical notes, if that’s what you mean.’
‘You’re lucky you weren’t born a woman. You can’t even begin to guess what you were spared.’
‘I’m sorry. Can I get you some coffee, or tea?’
‘You’re always sorry. Why are you so sorry? You haven’t even looked at me. You keep looking away.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t notice. Instant or Turkish?’
‘Strange, isn’t it? I could have sworn you were a doctor too. It’s not the white coat. Are you a student? Doing your practical stint?’
‘No, ma’am. I’m just a clerk. Would you rather have a glass of water? There’s some mineral water in the fridge.’
‘What’s it like, working in a place like this for such a long time? What sort of a job is it for a man? Don’t you develop an aversion to women? A physical aversion even?’
‘I don’t think so. Anyway, I can only speak for myself.’
‘So what about you? You don’t have an aversion to women?’
‘No, Mrs Tadmor. If anything, the opposite.’
‘Oh! What’s the opposite of an aversion?’
‘Sympathy, perhaps? Curiosity? It’s hard to explain.’
‘Why aren’t you looking at me?’
‘I don’t like to cause embarrassment. There, the water’s boiling. What’s it to be, then? Coffee?’
‘Embarrassment to yourself or to me?’
‘Hard to say exactly. Maybe both. I’m not sure.’
‘Do you happen to have a name?’
‘My name is Fima. Efraim.’
‘I’m Annette. Are you married?’
‘I have been married, ma’am. Twice. Nearly three times.’
‘And I’m just getting divorced. To be more accurate, I am being divorced. Are you too shy to look at me? Afraid of being disappointed? Or maybe you just want to make sure you never have to hesitate whether to say hello to me if we meet in the street?’
‘Sugar and milk, Mrs Tadmor? Annette?’
‘It would actually suit you, to be a gynaecologist. Better than it suits that ridiculous old man who can’t stick a rubber-gloved finger into me without trying to distract my attention with some joke about the Emperor Franz Joseph deciding to punish God. May I use the phone?’
‘Of course. I’ll be back there, in the records room. When you’ve finished, just call me so we can make you another appointment. Do you need one?’
‘Fima Efraim. Please. Look at me. Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to cast a spell on you. Once, when I was beautiful, men used to fall for me like flies; now, even the assistant in the clinic won’t look at me.’
Fima looked up. And at once recoiled, because the combination of anguish and sarcasm he saw on her face made him throb with desire. He lowered his eyes to his papers and said carefully:
‘But you are still a very beautiful woman. At least, to me you are. You don’t want to make a phone call?’
‘Not any more. I’ve changed my mind. I’m changing my mind about lots of things at the moment. So I’m not ugly?’
‘On the contrary.’
‘You’re not too good-looking yourself. Pity you’ve made the coffee. I didn’t ask for anything. Never mind. You can drink it. And thank you.’
She stopped at the door and added:
‘You have my phone number. It’s in your files.’
Fima pondered this. The words ‘a new chapter’ seemed rather cheap, yet he knew that in other times he might well have fallen for this Annette. But why only in other times? Finally, in Yael’s old words, he said to himself:
‘Your problem, pal.’
And, after filing the papers away, he locked the records room and washed the cups, ready to shut up shop.
5
Fima gets soaked in the dark in the pouring rain
AFTER locking up the clinic, he took a bus into the center of town and found a cheap eating place in a side street not far from Zion Square, where he had a mushroom pizza washed down with Coca-Cola and chewed a heartburn tablet. Because he did not have enough cash with him, he asked if he could pay by cheque, but was told he could not. He offered to leave his identity card and come back the next morning to pay. However, he could not find the document in question in any of his pockets: he had bought a new electric kettle on Sunday, or before the weekend, to replace the one he had burned out, and, not having enough cash, had left his identity card in the shop as security. Or was it at Steimatsky’s Bookshop? Finally, when he was beyond hope, a crumpled fifty-shekel note dropped out of his back pocket: his father must have put it there a couple of weeks ago.
During this search a telephone token came to light in one of his pockets, and Fima located a public call box outside the Sansur Building in Zion Square and phoned Nina Gefen; he vaguely remembered that her husband, Uri, was leaving or had already left for Rome. Maybe he could inveigle her into going to the Orion with him to see the French comedy with Jean Gabin that Tamar had told him about during the coffee break. He couldn’t remember the name of the film.
But the voice that came on the line was the wooden voice of Ted Tobias, who asked drily, with a heavy American accent, ‘What’s up this time, Fima?’ Fima mumbled, ‘Nothing. It’s the rain,’ because he couldn’t make out what Ted was doing at Nina Gefen’s. Then he realised he had absent-mindedly dialled Yael’s number instead of Nina’s. Why had he lied and said it was raining? It hadn’t rained a drop since the afternoon. Eventually he recovered his presence of mind and asked Ted how Dimi was and how they were getting on with enclosing their balcony. Ted reminded him that they had finished that job by the beginning of the winter. Yael had taken Dimi to a children’s play and wouldn’t be back much before ten. Did he want to leave a message? Fima peered at his watch, guessed that it was not yet eight, and suddenly, without meaning to, asked Ted if he could invade him, in quotation marks, of course; there was something he wanted to discuss with him. He hurriedly said that he had already eaten, and that whatever happened he wouldn’t stay more than half an hour.
‘OK,’ said Ted. ‘Fine. Come right on up. Just bear in mind that we’re a bit busy this evening.’
Fima took this as a hint that he shouldn’t come, and that whatever happened he shouldn’t stay till past midnight as he usually did. He was not offended; he even gallantly offered to come some other time. But Ted firmly and politely stood his ground.
‘Half an hour will be fine.’
Fima was particularly glad it was not raining, since he had no umbrella, and he did not want to visit the woman he loved looking like a drowned dog. He also noticed that it was getting colder, and decided that it might snow. This made him even happier. Through the window of the bus, somewhere near Mahane Yehuda Market, by the light of a street lamp, he saw a black slogan scrawled on a wall: ARABS OUT! Translating into German and substituting Jews for Arabs, he felt an upsurge of rage. On the spot, he appointed himself president and decided on a dramatic step. He would make an official visit to the Arab village of Deir Yassin on the anniversary of the massacre there and deliver a simple, trenchant statement amid the ruins of the village: Without going into the details of which side is more to blame, we Israeli Jews understand the depth of the suffering that the Palestinian Arabs have undergone during these past forty years, and to put an end to it we are willing to do anything that is reasonable, short of committing suicide. Such a speech would immediately echo through every Arab hovel; it would fire the imagination and might help to start the emotional ball rolling. For a moment Fima hesitated between ‘start the emotional ball rolling’ and ‘achieve an emotional breakthrough�
�. Which would make a better heading for the short article he intended to write next morning for the weekend paper? Then he rejected them both and dropped the idea of the article.
In the lift, on the way up to the sixth-floor flat in Beit Hakerem, he made up his mind to be calm and cordial this time, to try to talk to Ted as equal to equal, even on political topics, though normally he was very quickly irritated by the other’s way of talking, his slow, balanced speech, his American accent and sort of desiccated logicality, his way of buttoning and unbuttoning his expensive cardigan, like an official spokesman from the State Department.
Fima stood at the door for a couple of minutes without pressing the bell. He rubbed his soles on the doormat so he wouldn’t bring any mud into the flat. While he was in the middle of this ball-less game of football the door opened, and Ted helped him out of his overcoat, which had been turned into a snare by the rip in the lining.
‘What foul weather,’ Fima said.
Ted asked if it was raining outside.
Even though it had stopped before he left the clinic, Fima replied pathetically: ‘Raining? A deluge, more like.’
Without waiting to be asked, he advanced straight into Ted’s study, leaving a trail of damp footprints across the hall. He proceeded steadily between piles of books, diagrams, sketches, and printouts on the floor until his progress was blocked by the massive desk on which stood Ted’s word processor. He peered without permission at a mysterious green-and-black graph that was flickering on the screen. Joking about his hopelessness with computers, he began to urge Ted politely, as if he himself were the host and the other the guest: ‘Sit down, Teddy, sit down; make yourself at home.’ And without hesitating he grabbed the office chair in front of the computer screen.
Ted asked what he would like to drink. Fima answered:
‘Anything. A glass of water. Don’t waste any time. Or some brandy. Or else something hot. It really doesn’t matter. I’ve only dropped in for a moment anyway.’
With his broad, slow accent, with the dryness of a telephone operator, without a question mark at the end of any of his sentences, Ted stated:
‘OK. I’ll get you a brandy. And you’re sure, positive, you’ve had some supper.’
Fima had a sudden urge to lie, to say no, though actually he was dying of hunger. But he chose to restrain himself.
Ted, in the rocking chair, swathed himself in silence and tobacco smoke. Despite himself, Fima enjoyed the smell of the fine pipe tobacco. And he noticed that Ted was observing him calmly, with a faintly anthropological curiosity. He looked as though he would not raise an eyebrow if his guest suddenly burst out singing. Or crying. Instead of doing either, Fima remarked:
‘So Yael’s out and so is Dimi. I forgot to bring some chocolate for him.’
‘Right,’ said Ted, stifling a yawn. And he exhaled another cloud of pleasant blue smoke.
Fima fixed his eyes on the pile of computerised plans, flicked through them as though they were his own, and made a special point of comparing pages six and nine, as though he had just made the decision to qualify, instantly, as an aeronautical engineer himself.
‘And what are you concocting for us here? A spacecraft that fires rubber bullets? Or a flying gravel gun?’
‘It’s a paper we’re writing for a British journal. Something quite experimental, actually: jet-propelled vehicles. As you probably know, Yael and I have been working on that for quite a few years now. You’ve asked me several times to explain it to you, but after a couple of minutes you always beg me to stop. I’m committed to finishing this paper by the weekend. There’s a deadline. Can’t you teach me the Hebrew for “committed” and “deadline”, by the way? You must know, being a poet. Don’t you?’
Fima, straining his brain, almost managed to remember the Hebrew equivalents of the two English words Ted had used. They seemed to be sniggering at him from the threshold of his memory, slipping between his fingers like playful kittens just when he had almost caught them. Then he remembered, and opened his mouth to reply, but they escaped from under his tongue and vanished again into the darkness. Embarrassed, he said:
‘Can I do anything to help?’
‘Thanks, Fima,’ Ted replied. ‘I don’t think there’s any need. But surely you’d be more comfortable waiting in the living room till they get back? You can watch the news.’
‘Let me have Dimi’s Lego,’ said Fima. ‘I’ll make him David’s Tower. Or Rachel’s Tomb. Or whatever. I won’t disturb you while you do your work.’
‘No problem,’ said Ted.
‘What do you mean, no problem! I came here to see you!’
‘So, talk,’ said Ted. ‘Has anything happened?’
‘It’s like this,’ Fima began, without the faintest idea how he was going to continue. To his astonishment he heard himself saying: ‘You know that the situation in the Territories is intolerable.’
‘That’s the way it looks,’ Ted said calmly, and at that moment Fima had a devastatingly vivid and precise mental image of this colourless bushy-eyebrowed jackass stroking Yael’s naked body with his heavy hands, crouching on top of her, rubbing his penis between her small, firm breasts with a laborious, unvarying rhythm, like someone sawing a plank. Until Yael’s eyes filled with tears and suddenly Fima’s did too, and he hastily buried his nose in a grubby handkerchief, which, as he extracted it from his pocket, dislodged yet another note, a twenty-shekel one this time, presumably either the change from the restaurant near Zion Square or a previous offering from his father.
Ted picked up the note and handed it to Fima. Then he tamped down his pipe and relit it, spreading a fine screen that Fima wanted to hate but found himself enjoying.
‘So,’ said Ted, ‘you were talking about the situation in the Territories. It sure is complicated.’
‘What the hell do you mean, the situation in the Territories,’ Fima exploded. ‘That’s just another brand of self-delusion. I wasn’t talking about the situation in the Territories; I was talking about the situation right here in Israel. Inside the Green Line. Inside Israeli society. The Territories are nothing but the dark side of ourselves. What happens there every day is just a concretisation of the process of degeneration we have been undergoing since the Six Days’ War. If not before. If not from the beginning. Yes, every morning we read our papers, all day long we listen to the news, every evening we watch What’s New, we sigh, we tell each other it simply can’t go on, we sign petitions now and then, but in fact we do nothing. Zero. Zilch.’
‘Right,’ said Ted, and after consideration, after tamping and relighting again, slowly and intently, he added mildly: ‘Yael does voluntary work twice a week at the Council for the Advancement of Tolerance. But they say there’s going to be a split in the Council.’ And he added, uncertain of the meaning of the Hebrew word, ‘What do you mean by “petition”?’
‘Petition?’ Fima replied. ‘A scrap of paper. Masturbation.’ He was so enraged that he thumped the keyboard of the word processor accidentally with his fist.
‘Hey, watch out,’ Ted said. ‘If you break my computer, that won’t help the Arabs.’
‘Who the hell’s talking about helping the Arabs?’ Fima erupted in an injured roar. ‘I’m talking about helping ourselves. … It’s just them, the nuts, the right, who say we’re helping the Arabs!’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Ted, scratching his tousled hair in a kind of overacted portrayal of someone who is slow on the uptake. ‘Do you mean that we’re not trying to improve the Arabs’ living conditions?’
So Fima started from square one, suppressing his anger with difficulty. He explained in simple Hebrew his view of the tactical and psychological factors that made the moderate left appear to the masses to be identifying itself with the enemy. He fumed at himself again for using that wretched expression ‘the masses’. In the course of his lecture he noticed that Ted was stealing sideways glances at the diagrams scattered on the rug, while his hairy finger kept tamping down the tobacco in his pipe. His wedding
ring glinted on his finger.
Fima strove in vain to dispel the mental picture of that same finger prodding with the selfsame motion at Yael’s labia. He instantly fell prey to a suspicion that he was being lied to and deceived, that Yael was hiding from him in the bedroom, weeping silently, with shaking shoulders, stifling her tears in the pillow, as she sometimes wept in the middle of sex and as Dimi sometimes wept soundlessly when he became aware of injustice perpetrated against him or against one of his parents or Fima.
‘In any civilised country,’ Fima continued, unconsciously borrowing Dr Wahrhaftig’s pet phrase, ‘there would be a campaign of civil disobedience by now. A common front of workers and students would have forced the government to end the horror at once.’
‘Let me get you another brandy, Fima. It’ll calm you down.’
Fima feverishly downed the brandy in one gulp, tipping his head back the way Russians drink vodka in films. He could see a detailed image of this log with steel-wool eyebrows bringing Yael a glass of orange juice in bed on Saturday morning, and of her, drowsily, luxuriantly, with her eyes still half-closed, reaching out and stroking the opening of his pyjamas, which were doubtless made of real silk. The image aroused in Fima not jealousy or rage or fury but, to his astonishment, profound pity for this diligent, upright man, who made one think of a beast of burden, working day and night at his computer, searching for a way to perfect the jet propulsion of vehicles, and with barely a single friend in the whole of Jerusalem.
‘The saddest thing,’ Fima said, ‘is the way the left is paralysed.’
Ted said: ‘True. You’re quite right. It was much the same with us at the time of Vietnam. Coffee?’
Fima followed him to the kitchen and continued heatedly:
‘The comparison with Vietnam, that’s our biggest mistake, Teddy. This is not Vietnam and we’re not the flower people. The second mistake is to expect the Americans to do the job for us and get us out of the Territories. What do they care if we’re going to the devil?’
‘True,’ said Ted, in the tone he used for praising Dimi for getting his sums right. ‘Too right. Nobody does anybody else any favours. Everyone looks after himself. And they don’t always even have enough sense for that.’ He put the kettle on and started emptying the dishwasher.