by Amos Oz
[Signed] A. A. Gideon
P.S. I am retaining your letter.
***
Dr. Alexander A. Gideon
London School of Economics
London, England
Jerusalem
27.2.76
Dear Alec,
As you know, last week we signed on the dotted line and received the money from your lawyer. But now Boaz has left his school and he has been working for several days in the central market in Tel Aviv with a wholesale greengrocer who is married to one of Michel’s cousins. It was Michel who fixed him up with the job, at Boaz’s request.
This is how it happened: After the headmistress told Boaz the news that he was not going to be expelled, but only cautioned, the boy simply picked up his kit bag and disappeared. Michel got in touch with the police (he has some relations there), and they informed us that they were holding the kid in custody in Abu Kabir for possession of stolen goods. A friend of Michel’s brother, who has a senior position in the Tel Aviv police, had a word with Boaz’s probation officer on our behalf. After some complications we got him out on bail.
We used part of your money for this. I know that was not what you had in mind when you gave it to us, but we simply don’t have any other money: Michel is merely a nonqualified French teacher in a religious state school, and his salary after deduction of our mortgage payments is barely enough to feed us. And there is also our little girl (Madeleine Yifat, almost three).
I must tell you that Boaz hasn’t the faintest idea where the money for his bail came from. If he had been told, I think he would have spat on the money, the probation officer, and Michel. As it was, to start with he flatly refused to be released and asked to be “left alone.”
Michel went to Abu Kabir without me. His brother’s friend (the police officer) arranged for him and Boaz to be alone together in the office at the police station, so they could talk privately. Michel said to him, Look, maybe you’ve somehow forgotten who I am. I’m Michael Sommo and I’m told that behind my back you call me your mother’s pimp. You can say it right to my face if it’ll help you let off steam. And then I could come back at you and tell you you’re off your rocker. And we could stand here swearing at each other all day, and you wouldn’t win, because I can curse you in French and in Arabic and you can barely manage Hebrew. So when you run out of swearwords, what then? Maybe better you should get your breath back, calm down, and make me a list, what exactly it is you want from life. And then I’ll tell you what your mother and I can give. And then we’ll see—perhaps we can strike a deal.
Boaz replied that he didn’t want anything at all from life, and the last thing he wanted was to have all sorts of people coming along asking him what he wanted from life.
At this point Michel, who has never had it easy, did just the right thing. He simply got up to go and said to Boaz, Well, if that’s the way it is, the best of luck, chum. As far as I’m concerned, they can put you in an institution for the mentally retarded or the educationally subnormal, and that’s that. I’m off.
Boaz tried to argue; he said to Michel, So what? I’ll murder someone and run away. But Michel just turned around in the doorway and answered quietly: Look here, honey child. I’m not your mother and I’m not your father and I’m not your anything, so don’t go putting on a show for me, ’cause what do I care about you? Just make your mind up in the next sixty seconds if you want to leave here on bail, yes or no. For all I care, you can murder whoever you like. Only, if you can, just try to miss. Good-bye.
And when Boaz said, Hang on, Michel knew at once that the boy blinked first. Michel knows this game better than any of us, because he has seen life most of the time from the underneath, and suffering has made him into a human diamond—hard and fascinating (yes, in bed too, if you must know). Boaz said to him: If you really don’t care about me, why did you come all the way from Jerusalem to bail me out? And Michel laughed from the doorway and said, Okay, two points to you. The fact is I actually came to see close up what sort of a genius your mother had; maybe there’s some potential in the daughter she had by me, as well. Are you coming or aren’t you?
And that’s how it happened that Michel got him freed with your money and invited him to a kosher Chinese restaurant that’s opened recently in Tel Aviv and they went to see a movie together (anyone sitting behind them might have got the idea that Boaz was the father and Michel the son). That night Michel came back to Jerusalem and told me the whole story, and meanwhile Boaz was already fixed up with the wholesale greengrocer from the market in Carlebach Street, the one who’s married to Michel’s cousin. Because that’s what Boaz told him he wanted: to work and earn money and not be dependent on anyone. So Michel answered him then and there, without consulting me: Yes, I like that, and I’ll fix it up for you this very evening right here in Tel Aviv. And he did.
Boaz is staying now at the Planetarium in Ramat Aviv: one of the people in charge there is married to a girl who studied with Michel in Paris back in the fifties. And Boaz is rather attracted by the Planetarium. No, not by the stars, but by the telescopes and by optics.
I am writing this to you with all the details about Boaz with Michel’s consent. He says that since you gave the money, we owe it to you to let you know what we’re doing with it. And I think you’ll read this letter several times over. I think you also read my first letter several times. And I enjoy thinking about the fury I’ve caused you with these two letters. Being furious makes you masculine and attractive, but also childlike and almost moving: you start to waste an enormous amount of physical effort on fragile objects like pen, pipe, glasses. Not to smash them but to master yourself and to shift them two inches to the right or an inch to the left. This waste is something I treasure, and I enjoy imagining it taking place now, as you read my letter, there in your black-and-white room, between the fire and the snow. If you have some woman who sleeps with you, I admit that at this moment I am jealous of her. Jealous even of what you are doing to the pipe, the pen, the glasses, my pages between your strong fingers.
To return to Boaz: I’m writing to you as I promised Michel I would. When we get the bail money back, the whole sum you presented to us will go into a savings account in your son’s name. If he decides to study, we’ll finance his studies with this money. If he wants to rent himself a room in Tel Aviv or here in Jerusalem, despite his young age, we’ll rent him one with your money. We won’t take anything from you for ourselves.
If you agree to all this, you don’t have to answer me. If not, let us know as soon as possible, before we’ve used the money, and we’ll return it to your lawyer and manage without it (even though our financial situation is pretty bad).
One more request:
Either destroy this letter and the previous one, or—if you have decided to use them—do it now, right away, don’t keep dithering. Every day that goes by and every night is another hill and another valley that death has captured from us. Time is passing, Alec, and both of us are fading.
And another thing: You wrote to me that you responded to the lies and contradictions in my letter with silent contempt. Your silence, Alec, and your contempt too make me suddenly fearful. Have you really not found in all these years, in all your travels, anyone who could offer you a single crumb of gentleness? I’m sorry for you, Alec. What a terrible business: I’m the one who did wrong, and you and your son are paying the full penalty. If you like, scrub out “your son” and write Boaz. If you like, scrub out the whole lot. As far as I’m concerned, don’t hesitate, just do anything that’ll relieve your suffering.
Ilana
***
Mr. Michel-Henri Sommo
No. 7 Tarnaz Street
Jerusalem, Israel
Geneva
7.3.1976
REGISTERED POST
Dear Sir,
With your knowledge—and, as she herself claims, with your encouragement—your wife has recently seen fit to send me two long and rather perplexing letters which do her no credit. If I hav
e succeeded in penetrating her vague language, there are indications that her second letter is also intended to hint to me about your pecuniary shortcomings. And I will wager that you, sir, are the puppet-master who lurks behind her demands.
Circumstances make it possible for me (without any special sacrifice on my part) to come to your assistance once again. I have instructed my lawyer, Mr. Zakheim, to transfer to your bank account an additional contribution of five thousand dollars (in your name, in Israeli pounds). If this does not suffice, either, I must ask you, sir, not to address me again via your wife and in ambiguous terms but to inform me (through Mr. Zakheim) of the final and absolute sum you require to solve all your various problems. If you will be good enough to specify a reasonable sum, you are likely to find me ready to go some way toward meeting you. All this on condition that you do not bother me with inquiries into my motives for giving the money, or with effusive expressions of gratitude in the Levantine style. I, for my part, naturally refrain from pronouncing any judgment on the values and principles which permit you to demand and to accept financial assistance from me.
With all due respect,
A.A. Gideon
***
To Mr. Manfred Zakheim
Zakheim & di Modena, Lawyers
36 King George Street
By the Grace of G-d
Jerusalem
13th of II Adar, AM 5736 (14.3.76)
LOCAL
Respected Sir,
Following our telephonic conversation of yesterday: we require in toto a sum of some sixty thousand dollars U.S. to pay off our mortgage and construct an additional room and a half, and another like sum to settle the future of the son and likewise that of the little girl, amounting in all to one hundred and eighty thousand dollars U.S. There is requested further a contribution in the sum of ninety-five thousand dollars U.S. toward the purchase and renovation of Alkalai House in the Jewish Quarter of Old Hebron (a Jewish property that was seized by force by Arab rioters during the 1929 riots, which we are now attempting to repossess, not by violence, but by paying the full market price).
Thanking you in anticipation for your trouble, sir, and with deep respect to Dr. Gideon, whose scientific writing has inspired admiration in our country and increased the honor of the Jewish people among the nations, and with all good wishes for a happy Purim,
Yours faithfully,
Ilana and Michael (Michel-Henri) Sommo
***
A GIDEON HOTEL EXCELSIOR WEST BERLIN
ALEX PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME IMMEDIATELY IS IT BLACKMAIL SHOULD I PLAY FOR TIME SHOULD I INVOLVE ZAND AWAITING INSTRUCTIONS MANFRED
***
PERSONAL ZAHKEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL
SELL PROPERTY ZIKHRON YAAKOV IF NECESSARY ALSO BINYAMINA ORANGE GROVE PAY THEM EXACTLY ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND CHECK HUSBANDS BACKGROUND SOONEST CHECK BOYS CONDITION SEND PHOTOCOPY DIVORCE PAPERS RETURNING LONDON END OF WEEK ALEX
***
Ilana Sommo
7 Tarnaz St.
Jerusalem
20.3
Ilana,
You asked me to think about it for a day or two and let you know my opinion. You know as well as I do that whenever you ask for someone else’s opinion, or advice, what you are really asking for is their approval for something you have already done or decided to do. Never mind—I’ve decided to write anyway, to clarify for myself how it was that we parted on bad terms.
The evening I spent with you last week reminded me of the bad old days. I was in a panic when I got home. Even though on the surface everything was as usual, apart from the rain that didn’t stop all night. And apart from Michel, who was looking tired and gloomy. He spent an hour and a half putting up those bookshelves, with Yifat passing him the tools, and at one point when I got up to help him by holding two uprights for him, you mockingly suggested from the kitchen that I should take him back to the kibbutz with me because his talents are wasted here. Then he sat at his desk in his flannel pajamas and dressing gown, marking his students’ exercise books in red ink. He marked exercise books all through the evening. In a corner of the room the kerosene heater glowed, Yifat played for a long time on the straw mat with the toy lamb I’d bought her at the bus station, there was a concerto for flute with Rampal on the radio, you and I sat in the kitchen whispering to each other, and on the surface we were having a quiet family evening together. Michel was withdrawn, and you didn’t address more than twenty words to him the whole evening. Nor to Yifat or me, if it comes to that. You were all wrapped up in yourself. When I told you about the children being ill, about Yoash’s new job in the plastics factory in the kibbutz, about the executive committee’s decision to send me to take a course on cooking for special diets, you were only half listening; you didn’t ask a single question. It didn’t take me long to realize that, as usual, you were waiting for me to finish my trivial report before moving on to your own fateful dramas. That you were waiting for me to ask. So I asked. But I didn’t get an answer. Michel came into the kitchen, spread margarine and cheese on a piece of bread, made himself a cup of instant coffee, and promised that he wouldn’t disturb us, and that he would soon go and put Yifat to bed, so that we could carry on our conversation without interruption. When he’d gone, you told me about Boaz, about your two letters to Alex, about the two payments he made you, and about Michel’s decision “to demand from him this time every last penny he owes,” on the assumption “that perhaps the so-and-so is finally beginning to acknowledge his sins.” The rain hammered on the windows. Yifat fell asleep on the mat, and Michel managed to put her pajamas on her and get her into bed without waking her up. Then he put the television on softly, so as not to disturb us, watched the nine o’clock news, and quietly went back to his marking. You peeled vegetables for lunch the next day, and I helped you a little. You said to me: Look here, Rahel, it’s no good your judging us, you in your kibbutz, you’ve no idea what money is. And you said: I’ve been trying to forget him for seven years. And you also said: In any case, you can’t understand. Through the door I could see Michel’s curved back, his hunched shoulders, the cigarette he’d been clutching all evening, forcing himself not to light it because the windows were closed, and I thought to myself: She’s lying again. She’s even lying to herself. As usual. Nothing changes. But the only thing I said to you when you asked me to tell you what I thought was something like: Ilana, don’t play with fire. Be careful. You’ve had enough already.
To which you replied angrily: I knew you’d start going on at me.
I said: Ilana, if you don’t mind, I wasn’t the one who brought the subject up in the first place. And you said: But you made me. So I suggested we stop. And we did, because Michel came back into the kitchen, jokingly apologized for trespassing on the “women’s quarters,” washed and dried the supper things, and told us in that scorched voice of his about something he had seen on the news. Then he sat down with us, made a joke about “Polish tea,” yawned, asked after Yoash and the children, absent-mindedly stroked both our heads, apologized, went to pick up Yifat’s toys from the mat, went out on the veranda for a smoke, said good night and went to bed. You said: After all, I can’t forbid him to meet Alex’s lawyer. And you said: To secure Boaz’s future. And without any obvious connection you added: Anyway, he’s present all the time in our lives.
I said nothing. And you, with suppressed loathing, called me dear old clever, normal Rahel, and added: Only, your normality is an escape from life.
I couldn’t contain myself. I said: Ilana, every time you use the word life I feel as though I’m in the theater.
You took offense. And cut the conversation short. You made up a bed for me, gave me a towel, and promised to wake me at six, so I could catch the bus for Tiberias. You sent me to bed and went back to the kitchen to sit alone and feel sorry for yourself. At midnight I went to the bathroom. Michel was snoring softly, and I saw you sitting in the kitchen in tears. I suggested you go to bed, I offered to sit with you, but when you said, in the second person plural, You
leave me alone, I decided to go back to bed. The rain didn’t stop all night long. In the morning, before I left, while we were having our coffee, you whispered to me to think quietly for a day or two and let you know my thoughts. So I tried to think about what you had told me. If only you weren’t my sister, it would be easier for me. Still, I made up my mind to write to you that in my opinion Alex was a disaster for you, and Michel and Yifat are everything you have. As for Boaz, you ought to leave him in peace now, because any attempt to “hold out a maternal hand to him” will only increase his loneliness. And his distance from you. Don’t touch him, Ilana. If there’s any necessity to get involved again, leave Michel to take care of it. And as for Alex’s money, like everything else to do with him, that money has a curse on it. Don’t risk gambling away everything you’ve got. That’s my feeling. You asked me to write, so I have. Try not to be angry with me.
Rahel
All the best from Yoash and the kids. Give a kiss to Michel and Yifat. Be good to them. I’ve no idea when I’ll be in Jerusalem again. We’re having rain the whole time too, and a lot of power cuts.