To Know a Woman (Harvest in Translation)

by Amos Oz

  The essence of his work, as he saw it, was to obtain a necessary item of information at a reasonable price. Financial or otherwise. On this matter there were disagreements and at times even confrontations with his superiors, whenever one or another of them tried to wriggle out of paying the price that Yoel had committed himself to. In such cases he would go so far as threatening to resign. This stubbornness earned him a reputation in the office as an eccentric: "Are you out of your mind? We're never going to need that little shit, and he can't hurt anyone now except himself, so why should we throw away good money on him?" "Because I gave him my word," Yoel would reply, grimly, "and I had authorization to do so."

  According to a calculation he had once made in his head, he had spent approximately ninety-five percent of all the hours of his professional life, the hours that made up twenty-three years in all, in airports, on board aircraft, in trains and stations, in taxis, in waiting rooms, in hotel rooms, in hotel lobbies, in casinos, on street corners, in restaurants, in darkened cinemas, in cafes, in gambling clubs, in public libraries, in post offices. Apart from Hebrew, he could speak French and English and a little Romanian and Yiddish. When pressed, he could also get by in German and Arabic. He almost always wore a conventional gray suit. He had got into the habit of traveling the world with a light suitcase and a bag that never contained so much as a tube of toothpaste, a shoelace, or a scrap of paper made in Israel. He had got into the habit of killing whole days alone with his own thoughts. He had learned to maintain his body with the help of some easy morning exercises, careful eating habits, and regular doses of minerals and vitamins. He destroyed receipts, but kept a mental record of every penny of the office's money that he spent. Very occasionally, not more than twenty times in all his years of service, it had happened that desire for a woman's body got the better of him to the point of endangering his powers of concentration, and he had made a cool-headed decision to take a strange or almost strange woman into his bed. Like making an emergency visit to the dentist. But he had refrained from any emotional involvement. Even when circumstances dictated that he should spend a few days traveling with a young operational partner from the office, and the two of them had to check in as man and wife. Ivria Lublin had been his only love. Even when love had gone and given way, in the course of the years, successively or by turns, to mutual pity, friendship, pain, bursts of sensual flowering, bitterness and jealousy and rage, and again Indian summers flickering with sparks of sexual abandon, then vindictiveness and hatred and compassion again, a tissue of interwoven, alternating, ever-changing emotions, swallowed up in strange compounds and unexpected combinations, like cocktails mixed by a lunatic barman. Whatever the mix, there was never a single drop of indifference in the brew. On the contrary: with the passing years Ivria and he had become ever more dependent on each other. Even in their fights. Even in days of loathing and humiliation and fury. A few years earlier, during a night flight to Cape Town, Yoel had read a popular article in Newsweek about genetic telepathic links between identical twins. One twin telephones the other at three o'clock in the morning, knowing that neither of them can get to sleep. One twin winces with pain when the other gets a burn, even in another country.

  It was almost the same between himself and Ivria. And that was also how he interpreted the words of the Book of Genesis, "And the man knew his woman." The bond between them was knowledge. Except when Netta had come between them with her condition, with her oddness, or perhaps—Yoel fought off the suspicion with all his might—with her schemes. Even the decision to sleep apart in separate rooms when he was at home had been a joint one. Taken out of understanding and consideration. Out of mutual concession. Out of secret pity. Occasionally they had met at three or four o'clock in the morning at Netta's bedside, having come out of their respective rooms at almost the same moment to check how the girl was sleeping. In a whisper, and always in English, they had asked each other: Your place or mine?

  Once, in Bangkok, he had had the job of meeting a Filipino woman, a graduate of American University in Beirut. She was the ex-wife of a notorious terrorist who had been responsible for many killings. She had made the first contact with the office, on her own initiative, by a unique ruse. Yoel, who had been sent to meet her, had pondered before the meeting the details of this ruse, which had been mischievous and daring but carefully thought out and not in the least impulsive. He prepared himself to encounter an intelligent person. He always preferred to do business with rational, well-prepared partners, although he knew that most of his colleagues preferred the other party to be startled and confused.

  They had met by prearranged signs in a famous Buddhist temple thronged with tourists. They sat side by side on a carved stone bench, with carved stone monsters looking down on them. She placed her graceful straw basket like a barrier on the seat between them. And began with a question about his children, if he had any, and his relationship with them. Yoel, caught off guard, thought for a moment, and decided to give her a truthful reply. Although he did not go into details. She also asked him where he was born, and he hesitated for a second before replying: in Romania. Thereupon, without further preliminaries, she began to talk to him about the things he really wanted to hear. She spoke clearly, as though painting pictures with words, describing places and people, employing language like a fine pencil. Yet she avoided passing judgment, refraining from condemnation or praise, at most remarking that so-and-so was particularly touchy where his pride was involved, that so-and-so was quick to lose his temper but also quick to make up his mind. Then she made him a present of some good photographs, for which Yoel would gladly have paid her generously had she requested payment.

  This young woman, young enough to be his daughter, had left Yoel in a state of deep perplexity. She had almost disoriented him. For the first and only time in his whole professional career. His fine instincts, those sensitive feelers that had always served him so faultlessly, had gone suddenly dead. Like a delicate piece of equipment that encounters a magnetic field, and all its needles go wild.

  It was not a case of erotic confusion; even though the young woman was pretty and attractive, his desire was hardly stirred. It happened because to the best of his judgment she had not uttered a single falsehood. Not even one of those petty lies that are needed to avoid uneasiness in a conversation between strangers. Not even when Yoel cunningly inserted a question that invited a lie: "Were you ever unfaithful to your husband in the two years you were married to him?" Yoel knew the answer from the file he had studied at home, and he also knew for certain that the woman had no grounds for imagining that he was aware of what had happened to her in Cyprus. Nevertheless she told him the truth. Although when he went on to put a similar question she replied: "That's irrelevant to the matter in hand." She was quite right.

  At the moment when he had to acknowledge that the woman had successfully passed the test to which he had subjected her, for some reason he felt—and it hurt him to admit it—that he himself had been tested. And failed. For forty minutes he tried in vain to catch her in some distortion, exaggeration, or embellishment. When he had finished putting to her all the questions that occurred to him, she went on to volunteer several more pieces of information, as though replying to questions he had forgotten to ask. Moreover, she adamantly refused any reward, financial or other, for the information she had been so lavish with. When he expressed surprise, she declined to explain her motives. So far as Yoel could judge, she had told him everything she knew. It was of great value. Finally she said simply that she had given him everything, and that she would never have any further information, because she had severed her links with those people and she would never have anything more to do with them at any price. And now she wanted to break off all contact forever with Yoel and those who had sent him. That was her only request: that they never get in touch with her again. Having said this, she rose and took her leave without so much as giving him an opportunity to thank her. She turned her back and walked on her high heels toward the lush tropical ve
getation of the park attached to the temple. A voluptuous, captivating Asian woman, in a white summer dress with a blue scarf around her delicate neck. Yoel watched her back. And suddenly he said:

  My wife.

  Not because there was any resemblance. There was none. But in some way that Yoel could not decipher, even after weeks and months of trying, that short meeting had made it clear to him, with the transparent clarity of a dream, how much his wife, Ivria, was essential to his life. Despite the suffering, or because of it.

  Then he had pulled himself together and gone back to his hotel, where he had sat in his room to write down everything he had heard from the young woman at the temple while it was still fresh in his memory. But the freshness did not fade. At times he remembered her unexpectedly and his heart ached: why had he not suggested to her there and then that she go with him at once to his room to make love? Why had he not fallen in love with her on the spot and dropped everything to go away with her forever? But the moment had passed and now it was too late.

  9

  Meanwhile he kept putting off the promised visit to his American neighbors. Although he occasionally spoke to them, the two of them together or the brother alone, over the hedge that he had not finished clipping. He found it strange to see the brother and sister hugging on the lawn, grappling noisily, like children, as they tried to wrest the ball they were playing with from each other's grasp. At times there flitted through his mind an image of Annemarie or Rosemarie, her breasts, her whispering to him in English, "Tough life, huh?"

  Tomorrow is another day, he thought.

  In the mornings he would lie almost naked in the hammock in the garden, sunbathing, reading, devouring bunches of grapes. He even replaced Mrs. Dalloway, lost in Helsinki. But he could not finish it. Netta started taking the bus by herself into town almost every day, to see a film, borrow books from the public library, perhaps wander the streets window-shopping. She particularly enjoyed watching old films at the Cinémathèque. Sometimes she watched two films in a single evening. Between films she sat in the corner of a small café, always choosing places that were cheap and cheerful. She would sip cider or grape juice. If a stranger tried to start a conversation with her, she would shrug her shoulders and utter some acerbic phrase that restored her solitude.

  In August, Lisa and Avigail started doing voluntary work three hours a morning, five mornings a week, in an institution for deaf-mutes on the edge of the suburb, within walking distance of the house. Sometimes they spent the evening sitting at the garden table communicating with each other in sign language, for practice. Yoel watched them curiously. He soon picked up the main signs. Early in the morning, in the bathroom mirror, he would say something to himself in the same language. Yoel arranged for a cleaner to come in on Fridays, a smiling, silent, almost pretty Georgian woman. With her help, his mother-in-law and his mother prepared the house for the weekend. The two old women took his car, with Avigail at the wheel and Lisa raising the alarm every time another car came toward them, and did all the shopping for the week. They cooked for several days ahead, and froze the cooked food. Yoel bought them a microwave oven, and sometimes amused himself by playing with it a little. From professional habit he read the manufacturer's instructions four times, before he remembered that there was no need to destroy the leaflet after memorizing it. With the cleaner, his mother-in-law and his mother kept the house clean and neat. It gleamed. Sometimes the two of them went off together to spend the weekend in Metulla. Or Jerusalem. Then Yoel and his daughter would cook for each other. Sometimes the two of them sat down and played a game of checkers on Friday evening, or watched television. Netta got in the habit of making him an herbal infusion in the evening to help him sleep.

  Twice, in the middle of July and again at the beginning of August, Le Patron had come to visit. The first time, he had appeared after lunch without prior warning, had trouble deciding if he had locked his Renault properly, and walked around it two or three times checking all the doors before approaching Yoel's front door and ringing the bell.

  He sat with Yoel in the garden talking about office news until Avigail joined them, when they changed the subject and discussed the problem of religious coercion. He brought Netta a present of a new book of poems by Dalia Ravikovich entitled True Love, and advised Yoel to read at least the poem that began on page 7 and finished on page 8. He also brought Yoel a bottle of excellent French brandy. The second time, alone with Yoel in the garden, he had told him in broad outline about a certain failure they had experienced in Marseilles. And with no clear connection he had mentioned a different case, which Yoel had been responsible for eighteen months before: he seemed to be trying to hint that this case had not been closed properly, or, let's say, it had been closed but had had to be reopened in a certain sense. There might be a need for a little clarification, in which case they might have to steal an hour or so of Yoel's time one of these days. Of course, only with his consent and at a time that suited him.

  Yoel seemed to sense between the words or behind them a faint whiff of irony, almost a veiled warning, and as always he had trouble deciphering Le Patron's tone. Sometimes he would touch on a crucial and very delicate matter as though he were joking about the weather. Whereas when he was joking his face occasionally took on an almost tragic expression. Sometimes he would mix up the tones, his face as expressionless as if he were adding columns of figures. Yoel requested an explanation, but Le Patron was already talking about something else: smiling like a drowsy cat, he mentioned Netta's problem. A few days before, and this was the reason for his visit, he had happened by chance on a magazine article, which he had brought with him, about a new form of treatment that was being developed in Switzerland. Only a popular article, actually. He had brought the magazine along to give to Yoel. His fine, musical fingers never stopped weaving chains from the pine needles that had fallen on the garden furniture. Yoel asked himself if Le Patron were still suffering withdrawal symptoms, even though it was two years now since he had suddenly given up chain-smoking Gitanes. Incidentally, wasn't Yoel sick of gardening? After all, he had only rented this place. Wouldn't he like to go back to work? Even part-time? He was referring, naturally, to a job that would not involve traveling. In the Planning Department, for example. Or in Operations Analysis.

  Yoel said: "Not really." And at once the visitor changed the subject, to an affair that was exercising the media at the time. He brought Yoel up to date on the details, though not all of them. As was his wont, he described the subject as it appeared to each of the sides involved and to various outside observers. Each of the conflicting versions was presented with understanding and with a measure of empathy. He refrained from expressing his own view, even though Yoel asked him for it. At the office he was known as Teacher. Without the definite article, as though it were his name. Perhaps because for many years he had taught history at a secondary school in Tel Aviv. Even when he had attained a senior rank in the service, he had continued to teach one or two days a week. He was a stocky, well-groomed, active man, with thinning hair and a face that inspired confidence: the image of a financial adviser with artistic inclinations. Yoel imagined that he had been good at teaching history. Just as in his work in the office he had always been wonderfully good at reducing the most complex situations to a simple dilemma: yes or no. Conversely, he was also able to foresee complicated ramifications in situations that seemed ostensibly simple. In fact, Yoel did not like this modest, pleasant-mannered widower, with his manicured hands and his woolen suits and quiet, conservative ties. Once or twice the man had dealt him a crushing professional blow. Which he had taken no trouble to soften, not even outwardly. Yoel thought he saw in him a kind of gentle, drowsy cruelty, the cruelty of an overfed cat. It was not clear to him why the man took the trouble to come on these visits. Or what was behind his cryptic remark about the case that was closed but had been reopened. To form a bond of friendship with Le Patron seemed to him as absurd as to make a declaration of love to an optician while she is at work. But h
e did feel an intellectual respect for him, and even a kind of gratitude which he could not explain. Now it was not even important to him.

  Then the visitor apologized, got up from the glider, and went to Netta's room, looking tubby and smelling effeminately of after-shave. The door closed behind him. Yoel, who followed him, heard his soft voice through the door. And Netta's voice too, almost in a whisper. He could not catch any words. What were they talking about? A vague anger stirred within him. And at once he was angry with himself for this anger. He muttered, with his hands over his ears, "Fool."

  Was it possible that behind the closed door Teacher and Netta were sitting and discussing his condition? Plotting about him behind his back? At once he pulled himself together and realized that this was impossible and again he felt angry with himself for his momentary upsurge of rage, because of the illogicality of his envy, because of the fleeting temptation he had felt to burst in without knocking. Eventually he went to the kitchen and three minutes later came back, knocked on the door and waited a moment before entering bearing a bottle of chilled cider and two tall glasses containing ice cubes. He found them sitting on the wide double bed absorbed in a game of checkers. Neither of them laughed when he came in. For an instant he had a feeling that Netta flashed a faint wink at him. Then he decided that she had only blinked.

  10

  He had nothing to do all day long. The days were all alike. Here and there he made various improvements in the house. He fitted a soap dish in the bathroom. A new hat-and-coat rack. A lid with a spring on the garbage can. He hoed the soil around the four fruit trees in the back garden. He lopped off some redundant branches and painted the cuts with black paste. He prowled around the bedrooms, the kitchen, the carport, the terrace, clutching the electric drill with its extension cord always plugged in, like a diver attached to his oxygen tank, with his finger on the trigger, looking for a spot to thrust the tip in. Sometimes he sat in front of the TV in the morning, staring at the children's programs. He finally finished clipping the hedge, on both sides. At times he would shift a piece of furniture, and sometimes the next day he would shift it back again. He rewashered all the faucets in the house. He repainted the carport because he detected some tiny enclaves of rust on one of its supports. He mended the latch on the garden gate and fixed a note to the mailbox in large letters requesting the newspaper delivery boy kindly to place the newspaper in the box and not to throw it down on the path. He oiled the hinges of the doors to stop their squeaking. He took Ivria's dip-pen to be cleaned and to have the nib changed. He also changed the light bulb in Netta's bedside lamp for a stronger one. He ran an extension line from the telephone on the stool in the entrance hall to Avigail's bedroom, so that she and his mother could have their own telephone.