by Amos Oz
An angel with an erection like a rhinoceros, Fima thought and chuckled to himself, and once more he felt how along with the compassion there welled up inside him desire, and with the desire shame, anger, and self-mockery. And while he was thinking of rhinos, he remembered the motionlessness of the prehistoric lizard that had nodded to him that morning. And he thought about Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, and, while bewaring of superficial comparisons, he had to smile, because the lawyer Prag had looked more like a buffalo than a rhinoceros.
‘Tell me, Annette, aren’t you hungry at all? Here am I gulping down bread and cheese nonstop, and you haven’t even touched your cake. Shall we take a look at the menu?’
But Annette, showing no sign of having heard, lit a fresh cigarette, and Fima passed her the ashtray, which the waiter had emptied, and the vodka he had brought her. ‘Coffee, perhaps?’
‘No, really,’ said Annette. ‘You make me feel good. We only met yesterday, and it’s as if I’ve found a brother.’
Fima inwardly almost used her husband’s favourite expression, Azoy. But he refrained and, reaching across almost unconsciously, stroked her cheek.
‘Carry on, Annette,’ he said. ‘You were talking about the Alps.’
‘I was a fool. Blind. I thought the new house was the embodiment of happiness. How excited we were to be living out of town! With the view, the peace and quiet. At the end of the day we would go out in the garden to measure how much the saplings had grown. Then in the last light we would sit on the veranda to watch the hills go dark. Almost without talking and yet as friends. Or so I thought. Like a pair of comrades-in-arms who no longer need to exchange words, if you can understand that. Now I think even that was a mistake. That by tapping on the railing of the veranda he was trying to express something in a kind of Morse code, and waiting for my reply. Sometimes he would look at me over the top of his glasses, with his chin dropped on his chest, with a slightly surprised expression, as though I was new to him, as though I had changed completely, and he would let out a low whistle. If I hadn’t known him so many years, I might have imagined he had taken up wolf-whistling. Today I think I didn’t begin to understand that look of his. Then our daughter is called up to the army, and a year ago our son is called up too; he was accepted for the army orchestra. The house seems empty. We generally go to bed at ten-thirty. We leave a light on so the garden won’t be pitch-black at night. The two cars stand outside, silent under the carport. Except twice a week, when he does a night shift at the hospital and I sit in front of the TV until closedown. Recently I’ve taken up painting. Just for myself. Without any pretensions. Even though Yeri suggested showing my pictures to an expert in case they’re worth anything. I said, whether they’re worth anything or not, that’s not what interests me. Yeri said, Azoy. And then it hit me. One day, it was a Saturday morning six weeks ago – if only I’d bitten my tongue and said nothing – I said to him: Yeri, if growing old is like this, then why should we worry about it? What’s wrong with it? He suddenly stands up, facing Yossel Bregner’s “Butterfly Eaters” on the wall – do you know it? – he gave me the print once as a birthday present. Anyway, he stands there all tense and strained, lets out a low whistle between his teeth, as if he’s just noticed a line in the picture that wasn’t there before, or that he’s never spotted, and he says: Speak for yourself. I’m not even thinking about growing old just yet. And there’s something in his voice, in the angle of his back, which seems to have stiffened and hunched, like a hyena’s, and the redness of the back of his neck – I’d never noticed before how red it is – which makes me shrink into my armchair with fear. Has something happened, Yeri? It’s like this, he says, I’m very sorry, but I’ve got to get out. I can’t take any more. I’ve just got to. You must understand. Twenty-six years now I’ve been dancing to your tune like a tame bear; now I feel like dancing to my own tune for a change. I’ve already rented a small flat. It’s all fixed up. Apart from my clothes and books, and the dog, I won’t take anything with me. You must understand: I’ve got no choice. I’ve had it up to here with lying. Then he turns and goes into his study, and he comes back carrying two suitcases – he must have packed them in the night – and he heads for the front door. But what have I done, Yeri? You must understand, he says, it’s not you, it’s her. She can’t stand the lies any more. She can’t stand seeing me being used as your doormat. And I can’t live without her. I would suggest, he says from the doorway, that you try not to be difficult, Annette. Don’t make any scenes. It’ll be easier for the children that way. Just imagine I’ve been killed. You must understand, I’m suffocating. With that, he taps lightly on the doorpost, whistles to the dog, starts the Peugeot, and disappears. The whole thing has taken maybe a quarter of an hour. Next day when he called, I hung up. Two days after that he called again; I wanted to hang up again but I didn’t have the strength. Instead I pleaded with him, Come back and I promise to be better. Just tell me what I did wrong, and I won’t do it again. And he kept repeating, in his doctor’s voice, as though I were a hysterical woman patient, You must understand, it’s all over. I’m not crying because I’m angry, Efraim. I’m crying because I feel insulted, humiliated. Two weeks ago he sends me this little lawyer, incredibly polite; apparently he’s of Persian origin. He sits bolt upright in Yeri’s chair, and I’m almost surprised he doesn’t tap on the arm or whistle at me through his teeth, and he starts to explain: Look here, madam, you will get at least twice as much from him as any rabbinic or civil court would dream of giving you. If I were you, I’d jump at our offer, because the plain truth, madam, is that in my whole professional life I’ve never before encountered someone who is prepared to offer the entirety of the joint possessions right away, as an opening position. Excluding the Peugeot and the bungalow in Eilat, of course. But all the rest is yours, despite all that he’s had to put up with from you. If he went to court, he could claim mental cruelty and get the lot. I hardly heard what he was saying; I begged that ape just to tell me where my husband was, just to let me see him, at least to let me have his phone number. But he started explaining to me why at the present juncture it would be preferable not to, for the benefit of all the parties concerned, and that in any case my husband and his friend were leaving for Italy the same evening and they’d be away for two months. Just one more vodka, Efraim. I won’t drink any more. Promise. I’m even out of cigarettes. I’m crying about you now, not him, because I’m remembering how wonderful you were to me at the clinic yesterday. Now just tell me to calm down, please, explain to me that things like this must happen in Israel at the rate of one every nine minutes or something like that. Don’t take any notice of my crying. I actually feel better. Ever since I got home from the clinic yesterday, I haven’t stopped asking myself the same question: Will he phone or won’t he? I had a feeling you would, but I was afraid to hope. Aren’t you divorced too? Didn’t you tell me you’d been married twice? Why did you give them the push? D’you want to tell me?’
Fima said:
‘I didn’t give them the push. It was the other way round.’
Annette said:
‘Tell me anyway. Some other time. Not today. Today I can’t take it in. I just need you to tell me the whole truth. Am I boring? Selfish? Self-centred? Repulsive? Do you find my body repulsive?’
Fima said:
‘On the contrary. I don’t think I’m good enough for you. And yet I can’t help feeling we’re in the same boat. But look, Annette, the weather’s cleared. These beautiful winter days in Jerusalem, the sunshine between the showers, as though the sky is singing. Shall we go for a walk? Nowhere in particular, just a stroll? It’s half past four now: it’ll be dark soon. If I were bold enough, I’d tell you that you’re a beautiful, attractive woman. Don’t get me wrong. Shall we go? Just for a stroll, to look at the evening light? Will you be cold?’
‘No, thanks. I’ve already taken hours of your time. Actually, yes. Let’s have a stroll. If you’re not too busy. That’s beautiful, what you said, that the sky is singing. E
verything you say comes out so beautiful. Just promise me you’re not expecting anything from me, so you won’t be disappointed. You see, I just can’t. Never mind. I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry. Let’s go on talking while we walk.’
Later that evening, full of shame and regret that he had not changed his sweaty sheets, embarrassed that apart from an omelette and a single soft tomato and the liqueur his father had brought him he had nothing to offer her, Fima carefully, deferentially removed her outer garments, like a father getting his daughter ready for bed. He handed her a pair of worn flannel pyjamas: he sniffed them as he took them out of the wardrobe, and hesitated, but he had no others. He draped his blanket over her and went down on his knees next to her on the cold floor, apologising on behalf of the radiator, which did not give out enough heat, and the mattress, with its hills and valleys. She drew his palm towards her face and for an instant her lips touched the back of his hand. He rewarded her generously, kissing her on the forehead, the eyebrows, the chin, not daring to approach her lips, while he kneaded and stroked her long hair. As he stroked her, he whispered, Cry. Never mind, it’s all right. When she sobbed so much that the crying made her face ugly and puffy like a beetroot, Fima turned out the light. Very carefully he touched her shoulders, her neck, lingering for a quarter of an hour before he proceeded down the slope of her breasts, restraining himself from touching the peaks. All the while he continued his fatherly kisses, which he hoped would distract her attention from his fingers slipping between her knees. I feel bad, Efraim, I feel bad and worthless. Fima whispered, You’re wonderful, Annette, you thrill me, and as he spoke his finger crept closer to her sex and stopped, ready to be repulsed. When it was clear to him that she was totally absorbed in her predicament, repeatedly describing in broken whispers the injustice she had suffered, as though she did not notice what he was up to, he began to play with her gently, struggling to dismiss from his mind her husband’s habit of tapping, until she sighed and laid her hand on the back of his neck, and said, You’re so good. From this whisper he drew the courage to touch her breasts and to lodge his lust against the side of her body, still not daring to rub himself against her. He simply went on stroking her here and there, learning the strings, uttering whispers of reassurance and consolation that he himself did not listen to. Until at last he sensed that his patience was beginning to pay off: he felt a responsive ripple, a slight arching, a tremor, even though she still went on talking, grieving, explaining to herself and to him where she went wrong, how she may have made Yeri hate her, how she wronged her husband and her children, and confessing in the dark that besides the Amsterdam episode there had been two other affairs, with a couple of his friends, frivolous, foolish affairs admittedly, but possibly that meant she deserved what had happened to her. Meanwhile his finger found the right rhythm and her sighs were interspersed with groans, and she did not protest when he began rubbing his erection against her thigh. Fima therefore went along with her pretence of being overwhelmed with sorrow, so that she did not even notice her underwear being removed, her body still responding and her thighs gripping his musician’s fingers as her own fingers stroked his neck. But at the very moment he decided that his own moment was ripe, and he was on the point of substituting his body for his finger, her body arched like a bow and she released a soft, childlike cry of surprised delight. And the next instant she relaxed. And burst into tears again. Feebly she pummelled his chest, wailing, Why did you do that to me? Why have you humiliated me? I was a wreck even without you. Then she turned her back on him and cried to herself like a baby. Fima knew he was too late. He had missed. For an instant there welled up inside him a mixture of laughter and anger and frustration and self-mockery: at that instant he could have shot the sweet-smiling settler dead with his lawyer and his member of parliament, while he called himself an idiot. Then he collected himself, and reconciled himself to the need to forgive and forget.
He got up, covered Annette, and asked her gently if he should pour her another drop of liqueur. Or should he make some tea?
She sat up violently, clutching the grubby sheet to her chest, groped for a cigarette, lit it furiously, and said:
‘What a bastard you are.’
Fima, who was struggling to dress while covering himself to hide his shameful rhino horn, muttered like a punished child:
‘But what have I done? I didn’t do anything to you.’
And he knew that these words were both true and false, and he almost burst into grim laughter, almost mumbled, Azoy. But he controlled himself, apologised, blamed himself, he couldn’t understand what had come over him, it was being with her that put him in a spin and made him forget himself, could she find it in her to forgive him?
She dressed hurriedly, roughly, like an angry old woman, with her back to him; she combed her hair violently, her tears dried, she lit a fresh cigarette and told Fima to call her a taxi and never to phone her again. When he asked if he could see her downstairs, she replied in a flat, icy voice:
‘That will not be necessary. Good-bye.’
Fima got under the shower. Even though the water was tepid, almost cold, he steeled himself, lathered himself thoroughly, and stayed under for a long time. The real villain of the three, he mused, was the lawyer. Then he put on clean underwear, and furiously gathering the dirty sheets and towels as well as the tea-towel and his shirt, he packed them all into a plastic bag and put it near the front door so that he would not forget to take it to the laundry the next morning. While he made the bed with clean sheets, he tried whistling between his two front teeth, but he couldn’t do it. We’re all in the same boat, that was what the pretty settler had said, and Fima discovered, much to his surprise, that in a certain sense he was right.
11
As far as the last lamppost
WHEN he had finished preparing his laundry, he went to the kitchen to get rid of Annette’s cigarette ends. Opening the door of the compartment under the sink, he found the cockroach, Trotsky, lying dead on his back beside the overfull bin. What had killed him? There were no signs of violence. And there’s no question of a cockroach dying of hunger in my kitchen. Thinking about it, Fima concluded that the difference between a cockroach and a butterfly was only a matter of variation on a theme, certainly not enough of a difference to justify the fact that butterflies symbolised to us freedom, beauty, purity, whereas the cockroach was perceived as the embodiment of everything disgusting. So what was the cause of death? Fima recalled that in the morning, when he brandished his shoe over Trotsky’s head and changed his mind, the creature had made no effort to escape its fate. Perhaps it was already sick then, and he did nothing to help.
Bending down, Fima gently picked up the cockroach in a piece of newspaper folded into a funnel. Instead of disposing of it in the bin, he dug it a grave in the flowerpot that stood on the windowsill with nothing growing in it. After the funeral he attacked the pile of dishes in the sink. He washed the plates and mugs. When he reached the frying pan, which was thick with congealed fat, he got tired of scouring it and decided that the pan would have to wait patiently with the rest of the washing up until the next day. He could not make tea, because the electric kettle had boiled itself dry while he was peering into the abyss of evolution and searching for a common denominator. He went to piss, but his patience ran out and he pulled the lever in the middle to encourage his stuttering bladder. He lost the race again, but instead of waiting for the cistern to refill, he retreated, turning the light off behind him. Must try to play for time, he said to himself. And he added, If you know what I mean.
Shortly before midnight he put on the flannel pyjamas that Annette had thrown down on the rug, got into bed, and enjoyed the clean sheets as he began reading Tsvi Kropotkin’s article in Ha’arets. He found it academic and bland, like Tsvika himself, but he hoped it would help him get to sleep. When he turned the light out, he remembered the soft cry of pleasure full of childlike excitement that had suddenly burst from Annette’s throat as her thighs tightened around hi
s finger. Desire surged again, together with resentment and a sense of grievance. Almost two months had gone by since he had last slept with a woman, and now he had missed two on successive nights, even though he had actually had both of them in his arms. Because of their selfishness he would not be able to get to sleep now. For an instant he thought Yeri, Dr Tadmor, was right to leave Annette, because he was suffocated by the lies. And almost at once he said to himself: You bastard. Unconsciously his hand began slowly comforting his penis. Suddenly a stranger, a moderate, reasonable man whose parents were not even born yet, the man who would be in this room on a winter’s night a hundred years from now, was watching him out of the darkness with eyes that seemed sceptical, only half-curious, almost amused. Fima let go of himself and complained aloud: