by Amos Oz
In the dark Fima felt a pang. These images not only aroused nostalgia for Yael, but also gave him a strange feeling of longing for himself. As though one of these lighted windows concealed another Fima, the real Fima, not overweight, not a nuisance, not losing his hair, not in yellowing long underwear, but a hard-working, straightforward Fima, living his life in a rational way without shame or falsehood. A calm, punctilious Fima. Even though he had understood for a long time that the truth was not within his reach, he still felt a longing, deep inside, to get away from the falsehood that seeped through like fine dust into every corner of his life, even the most intimate parts.
The other, the real Fima was sitting at this moment in a cosy study, surrounded by bookcases punctuated by prints of Jerusalem as seen by travellers and pilgrims of earlier centuries. His head floated in a pool of light from a desk lamp. His left hand rested on the knee of his wife, who sat close to him on the edge of his desk, her legs dangling, as they exchanged ideas on some new theory about the immune system or quantum physics. Not that Fima had the slightest understanding of the immune system or quantum physics, but he imagined to himself that the real Fima and his wife, there in the warm, cosy study, were both experts in one or other of these subjects, working together on developing some new idea that would reduce the amount of suffering in the world. Was this study what Chili, or his mother, meant in the dream when she called him to come over to the Aryan side?
On the corner of Smolenskin Street near Prime Minister Shamir’s official residence, Fima noticed a little girl on top of a bundle of blankets by the dustbins. Was she on a hunger strike? Had she fainted? Had she been killed? Had some grieving mother from Bethlehem deposited here the corpse of her daughter, killed by us? Alarmed, he bent over the tot, but it turned out to be nothing more than a damp heap of garden clippings wrapped in a sack. Fima lingered beside it. The idea of lying down here and mounting his own hunger strike suddenly appealed to him: it seemed both attractive and relevant. Looking up, he saw a single yellow light behind a drawn curtain in the last room on the upper floor. He imagined Yitzhak Shamir pacing up and down between the window and the door, with his hands behind his back, worrying over a telegram that lay before him on the windowsill, not knowing what to reply, perhaps feeling the winter pains of old age in his shoulders and back. After all, he was not a young man. He too had had his revolutionary years in the underground. It might be a good thing to set aside animosity for a while, go in there and cheer him up, ease his loneliness, talk to him all night, man to man, not with petty contentiousness or sermonising or accusations, but as one good friend to another gently trying to open the eyes of one who has been involved by bad people in a rotten business from which apparently there is no way out, but which actually has a rational and indeed straightforward and affordable solution that can be driven home even to the most stubborn mind with a few hours of talking, of calm, soothing conversation. Provided the friend who is in trouble does not shut himself up and take refuge behind a barricade of lies and rhetoric, but opens his mind, listens to you with humility, and contemplates a range of possibilities that he has so far ruled out, not from arrogance but because of prejudices, ossified habits of thought, and deeply rooted fears. And what is so wrong with compromise, Mr Shamir? Each side receives only a part of what it believes it deserves, but the nightmare is ended. The wounds begin to heal. And didn’t you yourself achieve your present position as a sort of compromise candidate? Surely you must have compromised now and again with your colleagues? Or with your wife? Haven’t you?
And, indeed, why not knock on the door? He would be received with a glass of hot tea; he would take off his coat and explain once and for all what reason dictates and which way history is pointing. Or, on the contrary, he would persuade the prime minister to put his own coat on and join him in a night stroll and a prolonged heart-to-heart discussion in the empty rain-swept streets lit here and there by a wet streetlight wrapped in mist and gloom. A stern, ascetic city, Jerusalem, on a winter’s night. But nothing is lost yet, sir. There is still hope of opening a new chapter. The bloodstained introduction has occupied a hundred years here, and now let’s make a compromise and move on to the main story. Let the Jewish people start living as a nation that has found rest in its own land and reveals at long last the innate powers of creativity and renewal that have been buried under murky layers of fear and resentment, pogroms, persecutions, annihilation. Shall we give it a try, sir? Cautiously? By small, well-thought-out steps?
The policeman sitting in the sentry box in front of the residence poked his head out and asked:
‘Hey, you: are you looking for something?’
Fima replied:
‘Yes. I’m looking for tomorrow.’
The policeman politely suggested:
‘Well, go and look for it somewhere else, sir. Move along please. You can’t wait here.’
Fima decided to take this advice. To move along. Keep going. Not give up. Go on struggling as long as he had the strength to fit one word to another and to discriminate between ideas. The question was, where could he move along to? What should he be doing? Wasn’t the truth that he hadn’t even begun? But begun what? And where? And how? At that moment he heard a calm, reasonable, prosaic voice somewhere nearby calling his name: ‘Fima, where are you?’
He stopped and replied at once, with devotion:
‘Yes. Here I am. I’m listening.’
But the only sound was of cats on heat behind the damp stone walls. Followed, like a sponge that wipes everything clean, by the soughing of the wind in the pines in the dark deserted gardens.
Sitra de-itkasia: the concealed side.
He continued walking slowly. The Terra Sancta Building stood in total darkness. In Paris Square he stood for a few minutes waiting for the traffic lights to change, then shuffled down King George Street towards the centre of town. He paid no attention to the cold that pierced him through his overcoat, nor to the waterlogged old cap on his head, nor to the few passersby, all walking fast, some perhaps eyeing askance this strange, muffled figure plodding wearily and apparently absorbed in a violent argument with himself, accompanied by gesticulations and mouthings. It was very bad that he had forgotten to take precautions that morning. What if he got Annette Tadmor pregnant? He’d have to jump aboard a tramp steamer again and run away. To Greece. To Nineveh. To Alaska. Or the Galapagos Islands. In the dimness of Annette’s womb, in a dark labyrinth of moist tunnels, his blind seed was now forcing its way with ridiculous tail-movements, jerking hither and thither in the warm liquid, a sort of round, bald Fima-head, possibly wearing a microscopic wet cloth cap, ageless, brainless, sightless, and yearning out of the depths for the hidden source of warmth, nothing but a head and a tail and the urge to thrust and nestle, to ram the crust of the ovum, in every respect resembling its father, who longed only to cocoon himself once and for all deep in the feminine slime and there snuggle up cosily and fall asleep. Fima was filled with worry but also a strange jealousy of his own seed. Under a yellow streetlight in front of the Yeshurun Synagogue he stopped and peered at his watch. He could still catch the second showing at the Orion. Jean Gabin certainly wouldn’t let him down. But where exactly was he supposed to pick Annette up? Or was it Nina? Or where were they supposed to pick him up? It looked as if this evening he was doomed to let Jean Gabin down. A boy and girl, young and noisy, passed him as he shuffled slowly past Beit Hama’alot, near the old parliament building. The boy said:
‘All right, so let’s both give in.’
And the girl:
‘It’s too late now. It won’t make any difference.’
Fima quickened his pace, hoping to steal some more snatches of their conversation. For some reason he felt a compulsion to know what sort of concessions they were talking about and what it was that would make no difference now. Had they also forgotten to take precautions this evening? But suddenly the boy wheeled round furiously, leaped to the kerb, and waved his arm. At once a taxi stopped, and the boy bent over and s
tarted to get in without so much as a glance at his partner. Fima realised immediately that in another moment or two this girl would be left abandoned in the middle of the wet street, and he already had some opening words ready on the tip of his tongue, cautiously encouraging words that would not alarm her, a sad, wise sentence that would make her smile through her tears. But he did not get the chance.
The girl called out:
‘Come back, Yoav. I give in.’
And the boy, not even troubling to close the door of the taxi behind him, rushed back and threw his arms around her waist, whispering something that made them both laugh. The driver hurled an oath after him, and Fima, without asking himself why, decided on the spot that his duty was to set matters to rights for the driver. So he got into the taxi, closed the door, and said:
‘Sorry about the mix-up. Kiryat Yovel, please.’
The driver, a thickset man with greasy silver hair, small eyes, and a trim Latin moustache, grumbled irritably:
‘What’s going on here? First you hail a cab, then you remember to have a think about where you’re going. Don’t you people know what you want?’
Fima realised that the driver took him to be with the couple. He muttered apologetically:
‘What’s the problem. It took us half a minute to decide. We had a difference of opinion. There’s nothing for you to get excited about.’
He resolved to initiate another political discussion, only this time he would not put up in silence with bloodthirsty savagery, but employ clear, straightforward arguments and irresistible logic. He was all ready to resume the sermon he had begun to deliver earlier to the prime minister, at the point where he had stopped in his thoughts. But when he began to feel his way cautiously, like a dentist probing to find the source of a pain, to find out what the driver felt about the question of the Territories and peace, the man interrupted amicably:
‘Just drop it, will you, sir? Me, my views just get people worked up. They start listening to me and they head straight for a breakdown. That’s the reason why I stopped having discussions long ago. So hang onto your temper. If I was in charge of this country, I’d have it back on its feet in three months. But Israeli people have given up thinking with their brains. They only think with their bellies. And their balls. So why should I waste my health for nothing? Every time I get in a discussion, it just burns up the nerves. It’s hopeless. It’s mob rule here. Worse than the Arabs.’
Fima said:
‘What if I promise not to get worked up, and not to get you worked up? We can always agree to differ.’
‘OK then,’ said the driver, ‘only just remember you asked for it. Well, for me it’s like this: For a real peace, so called, with assurances and guarantees and comprehensive safeguards, for a peace like that I’d personally give them all the Territories except the Western Wall, and I’d even say thank you to them for taking Ramallah and Gaza off my arse. Ever since that shit landed on us in ’67, the state’s been going to the dogs. They’ve made a right mess of us. Well, how about it? Am I getting on your nerves? Are you going to start farting the Bible at me?’
Fima had difficulty containing his feelings:
‘And how, may I ask, did you arrive at this conclusion?’
‘In the end,’ said the driver wearily, ‘everybody will. Maybe only after we lose another few thousand dead. There’s no other way, sir. The Arab is not going to evaporate, and neither are we, and we’re about as capable of living together as a cat and a mouse. That’s real life, and it’s also just. It’s written in the Torah: if two customers are holding onto a tallit and they’re both shouting that it’s theirs, then you take a pair of scissors and you cut it in half. That’s what Moses himself decided, and you can take it from me he was no idiot. Better to cut the tallit than to keep cutting babies. Which street did you say?’
Fima said:
‘Well done!’
And the driver:
‘What do you mean, well done? What do you mean by that? What do you take me for, a cat that’s learned to fly? If you happened to be of the same opinion, I wouldn’t say well done to you just for that. What I will say to you, and listen hard, is there’s only one man in this country who’s strong enough to cut the tallit in half without getting cut in half himself, and that’s Arik Sharon. Nobody else can do it. They’ll take it from him.’
‘Despite the fact that he’s got blood on his hands?’
‘Not despite: because. First of all, he’s not the one with the bloody hands; it’s the whole state. You and me too. Don’t go pinning it all on him. Besides which, I don’t have a weeping conscience over the bloodshed. Sorrow, yes, but not shame. That’s for the Arabs, not us. It’s not as if we wanted to shed blood. The Arabs forced us to. Right from the word go. On our side we never wanted to start the violence. Even Menahem Begin, a proud patriot if ever there was one, the moment Sadat came along to the Knesset to say sorry, he gave him what he wanted, just so long as the bloodshed stopped. If Arafat came along to the Knesset to say sorry, he’d get something too. So? Let Arik go and strike a deal, gangster to gangster. What do you think, that some bleeding heart Yossi Sarid or other is going to do business with that scum Arafat? Yossi Sarid, the Arabs would make mincemeat out of him, and then someone from our side would give him a bellyful of lead, and that would be the end of that. Best let Arik do the cutting. Any time you’ve got to do business with a ravishing beast, hire a hunter to do the job, not a belly dancer. Is this your block?’
When Fima realised that he didn’t have enough money on him to pay the fare, he offered to hand over his identity card or to borrow a few shekels from a neighbour, if the driver didn’t mind waiting a few minutes. But the other said:
‘Forget it. It’s not the end of the world. Tomorrow or the day after come and leave eight shekels at Eliyahu Taxis. Just say it’s for Tsiyon. You’re not from the Bible League, by any chance, are you? Or something like that?’
‘No,’ said Fima. ‘Why?’
‘I had a feeling I’ve seen you on TV. Must be someone who looks like you. Spoke nice, too. Just a minute, mate: you’ve left your hat behind. Where did you win that thing? What is it, a leftover from the holocaust?’
Fima walked past his letter box without stopping, even though he could see there was something in it. He made a detour around the rolled-up mattress. When he reached the light of the staircase and pulled out his key, a ten-shekel note folded into a small square fell out too. He lumbered back hurriedly, hoping to catch the taxi driver before he finished turning round at the bottom of the road. The driver grinned in the dark.
‘So what’s the hurry? Afraid I’m leaving the country? That I’ll be gone tomorrow morning? Let the scum leave; I’m staying to the end of the show. I want to see how it finishes. Good night, sir. Don’t eat your heart out.’
Fima decided to have the man in his cabinet. He would relieve Tsvi of the Information portfolio and give it to the driver. And because the driver had talked about ‘the end of the show’, he suddenly remembered that Annette was probably waiting for him to ring her at home. Unless she was waiting outside the cinema. Unless it was actually Nina. Hadn’t he promised Nina he’d pick her up at the office? Was it possible he’d inadvertently made a date with both of them? Or was it with Tamar? Fima was disgusted at the thought that he was going to have to get bogged down in lies and excuses yet again. He ought to ring and explain. Tactfully untie the knot. Apologise to Nina and hurry out to meet Annette. Or vice versa.
But what if it turned out he had only made a date with one of them after all, and when he started to lie his way out of it on the phone, he got deeper and deeper in the mud, and only succeeded in making a fool of himself? And what if at this very moment they were both standing in the foyer of the cinema waiting for him, not recognising each other, never imagining for a moment that it was the same idiot who had let them both down?
To hell with lies. From now on he would start a new chapter. From now on he would live his life in the open, rationally and honest
ly. How had the taxi driver put it: no ‘weeping conscience’. There was no reason whatever to hide his lovers from one another. If they’re both fond of me, why shouldn’t they be fond of each other? They’ll almost certainly make friends at once, they can cheer each other up. They have so many things in common, after all. They are both compassionate, good-hearted, generous human beings. They both seem to relish my helplessness. By coincidence, if it really is a coincidence, both their husbands are living it up in Italy at this moment. Who knows? Perhaps the husbands have met. Perhaps at this very minute Yeri Tadmor and Uri Gefen are sitting in a lively group of Israelis and foreigners in that café in Rome, swapping juicy stories about love and despair. Or discussing the future of the Middle East, with Uri using arguments he’s borrowed from me. Whereas my role in this situational farce that comes straight out of Stefan Zweig or Somerset Maugham is to bring together the two abandoned wives, who are about to come together this evening in friendship, solidarity, even a measure of intimacy, because they both wish me well.
In his mind’s eye he saw himself sitting in the darkness of the cinema, with Jean Gabin becoming embroiled with a gang of ruthless killers while he himself had his left arm around Annette and slid the fingers of his right hand down over Nina’s breasts. Giving a plausible imitation of a downmarket Uri Gefen. After the film he would invite them both to the little restaurant behind Zion Square. Sparkling and relaxed, he would regale them with spicy anecdotes and intellectual fireworks, shedding dazzling new light on old questions. When he excused himself for a moment to go to the lavatory, the two women would converse together in animated whispers. Comparing notes about his condition. Dividing up the tasks, establishing a kind of work rota for the Fimacare service.