Panther in the Basement

by Amos Oz

  At school she had been taught that water always flows downhill because such are the laws of nature and not otherwise. But surely in bygone times people believed in different natural laws; for instance, they believed that the earth was flat and that the sun went around the earth and that the stars were put in the sky to watch over us. Maybe the natural laws of our own time were also temporary laws, and would soon be replaced by new ones?

  The next day she went back to the stream, but the blue shutter had not returned. On the days that followed she would sit and wait for half an hour or an hour on the bank of the stream, although she had worked out that the failure of the shutter to return proved nothing: the stream might well be circular, but the shutter might be stuck in the bank somewhere. Or in shallow water. Or it might already have floated past the mill, once or twice or even more often, but it could have happened at night, or at mealtimes, or perhaps it was while she was sitting waiting but at the precise moment it went past she had been looking up at a flight of birds and had missed it. Because large flocks of birds used to fly past in the autumn, the spring, even in summer, with no relation to the times of migration. In fact, how could you tell how big the circle was that the stream described before coming back to the mill? A week? A year? Maybe more? Perhaps at that very moment, when she was sitting on my bed telling me about the shutter, during the curfew in Jerusalem in 1947, the blue shutter from her childhood was still floating on the stream there, in the Ukraine, or in the valleys of the Carpathian Mountains, passing laundries, fountains, cornices, and belfries. Still floating away from that flour mill, and who could say when it would reach its furthest point and start its return journey? It might take another ten years. Or seventy. Or a hundred and seven. Where was that blue shutter when my mother told me about it, more than twenty years after she threw it in? Where exactly were its remains, its crumbled fragments, its rotting debris? Surely there must have been something left then. And there must be something left even now, the evening I am writing this, some seventy years since the summer morning when my mother tossed it into the stream.

  The day the shutter finally returns to the point where my mother threw it in the water, beside the flour mill, it will not be seen by our eyes, for they will no longer exist, but by other eyes. The eyes of a man or woman who will be unable even to imagine that the object floating on the stream came from here and has now returned. What a pity, Mother said: if anyone sees my sign floating past the mill again, if they even notice it, how will they know that it is a sign, a proof that everything goes around in circles? In fact, it is possible that the person who happens to be there on the very day and at the very moment when the shutter returns may also decide to make it a sign, to test whether or not the stream is circular. But by the time it comes full circle again that new person too will no longer exist. Another stranger will stand there and again won't have any idea. Hence the urge to tell.

  thirteen

  My trial for treason in the Tel Arza Woods lasted less than a quarter of an hour, because we were afraid of being overtaken by the curfew. There was no interrogation under torture and no barrage of insults. It was a cool and fairly polite trial. Chita Reznik opened it with the words:

  "The accused will stand." (A film starring Gary Cooper as a rogue sheriff from Montana had been showing at the Edison Cinema. My hearing was based on the lightning trial of the bandit sheriff.)

  Ben Hur Tykocinski, the presiding judge, prosecutor, examining magistrate, sole witness, and legislator, spoke without moving his lips:

  "Proffy. Member of the High Command. Second in command and chief of operations. A central member of our organization. A capable man. Worthy of special approbation."

  I murmured:

  "Thank you, Ben Hur." (I was so proud I had a lump in my throat.)

  Chita Reznik said:

  "The accused will speak only when he is asked to do so. The accused will now be silent."

  Ben Hur answered him:

  "Be quiet yourself, Chita."

  After a moment's silence Ben Hur spoke a painful sentence with only three words:

  "What a pity!"

  He was silent again. Then, pensively, almost compassionately, he continued:

  "We have three questions. The court will determine the punishment on the basis of the frankness of the answers to these questions. It will be very much to the accused's advantage to answer accurately. What was the motive? What did the enemy learn? And what was the reward of betrayal? The court will appreciate brief answers."

  I said:

  "OK. It's like this. A: I'm not a traitor. On the contrary. I got important information out of the enemy under the guise of exchanging Hebrew and English lessons. That's point A."

  Chita Reznik said:

  "He's a liar. He's a low-down traitor and a liar."

  And Ben Hur:

  "Chita: Final warning. Accused: Continue. Even briefer please."

  I continued:

  "OK. B: I didn't inform. I didn't even give my name. And definitely not a hint about the existence of the Underground. Shall I go on?"

  "If you're not too tired."

  Chita gave a nervous, servile laugh, and said:

  "Let me stew Proffy for a bit. Just five minutes. Then he'll sing like a canary."

  Ben Hur said:

  "You're disgusting Chita. You're talking like a little Nazi. Pick up that stone, little Nazi—no, that one there—and put it in your mouth. So. Now close your mouth. Now we'll have silence in court for the duration of the trial. The traitor will kindly conclude his speech, if he has not already done so."

  "C," I said, forcing myself not to peep at Chita, who was almost choking on the stone. I was determined to stare firmly into those unblinking yellow fox-eyes. "C: I received nothing from the enemy. Not a thread or a shoelace. As a matter of principle. I have finished. I wasn't a traitor, I was a spy. I followed my instructions precisely."

  "A touch overdone," Ben Hur said sadly, "with the thread and the shoelace and so on. But we're used to that. You spoke very well, Proffy."

  "Am I acquitted? Am I free?"

  "The accused has finished. Now the accused will be

  There was another silence. Ben Hur Tykocinski stared at three little twigs. He tried four or five times to make them stand up like a tripod, but each time they collapsed. He pulled out his penknife, shortened one twig, whittled another, until he managed to stand them in a perfect geometrical arrangement. But he did not put the knife away; he balanced it on the back of his outstretched hand, with the blade pointing toward me, glinting. He said:

  "This court believes the traitor when he says he got some information out of the enemy. This court even accepts that the traitor did not inform on us. The court rejects with disgust the traitor's false testimony that he did not receive any payment: the traitor received crackers, lemonade, a sausage roll, English lessons, and a Bible, including the New Testament, which is a book attacking our people."

  "I didn't get a sausage roll," I said almost in a whisper.

  "The traitor is also petty. He is wasting the court's time with sausages and other irrelevant trifles."

  "Ben Hur!" A desperate sound suddenly burst out of me, an outcry of protest against injustice: "What have I done to you? I didn't tell him anything. Not a word! And don't forget I set up this organization and made you commander in chief. But now that's all over. I hereby disband the FOD. The game is over. Have you ever heard of Dreyfus? Emile Zola, the writer? Of course not. But I don't care any more. This organization is disbanded, and now I'm going home."

  "Go then, Proffy."

  "I'm going home, and I despise the two of you."

  "Go."

  "I'm not a traitor. I'm not an informer. It's all slander. As for you, Ben Hur, you're just a child with a persecution complex. I've got plenty of material about that in the encyclopedia."

  "Well? Why don't you go then? You keep saying you're going, you're going, and you're rooted to the spot. As for you, Chita, tell me, are you out of your mind? Sto
p eating stones. Yes. You can take it out. No, don't throw it away. Keep your stone; you might need it again."

  "What are you going to do to me?"

  "You'll see, Proffy. It's not in the encyclopedia."

  Almost without a sound I said:

  "But I didn't give anything away."

  "That's true."

  "And I didn't get anything from him."

  "That's more or less true, too. Or almost."

  "So why on earth?"

  "Why. The traitor has read five encyclopedias and he still doesn't understand what he's done. Shall we explain to him? What do you think, Chita? Shall we open his eyes for him? Yes? Very well then. We're not Nazis. This court believes in issuing reasoned explanations of its decisions. Well then. It's because you love the enemy, Proffy. Loving the enemy, Proffy, is worse than betraying secrets. Worse than betraying fighters. Worse than informing. Worse than selling them arms. Even worse than going over and fighting on their side. Loving the enemy is the height of treachery. Come on, Chita. We'd better be going. Curfew will be starting soon. And it's unhealthy to breathe the same air as traitors. From now on, Chita, you're the second in command. Just keep your mouth shut."

  (Me? Stephen Dunlop? My whole stomach turned upside down, and everything in it was falling, as if down a well. As if I had another stomach inside my stomach, a deep pit, and everything was pouring into it. Love? Him? It was a lie. The height of treachery? How could my mother say that anyone who loved wasn't a traitor?"

  Ben Hur and Chita were a long way away. A roar exploded from me:

  "You're crazy! You're mad! I hate that Dunlop, that medusa face! I hate him! I loathe him! I despise him!"

  (Traitor. Liar. Low-down.)

  Meanwhile, the Tel Arza Woods were empty. The High Command had vanished. Soon it would be dark and curfew would begin. I wouldn't go home. I'd go into the mountains and be a mountain boy. Live by myself. Forever. Not belonging. And therefore not a traitor. Whoever belongs betrays.

  Pine trees whispered and cypresses rustled: Shut up, low-down traitor.

  fourteen

  These were the routes that were open to me, according to the logical plan that I had learned from my father to make in moments of crisis. I wrote them all down on a blank card I took from his desk. One: win Chita over to my side. (Stamps? Coins? Tell him a thriller in installments?) And then vote Ben Hur out of his position as commander in chief. Two: split off. Found a new resistance movement and enlist new fighters. Three: run away to the Sanhedriya caves and live there until my innocence was established. Or tell Sergeant Dunlop all about it, now that I had nothing more to lose. Ben Hur and Chita would go to prison and I would be taken off to England to start a new life under an entirely new identity. There, in England, I would forge links, make friends with ministers and the King, until I found the right moment to strike at the heart of the government and wrest our Land from them. Just me, by myself. And then I would grant Ben Hur and Chita a contemptuous amnesty.

  Or not.

  Better to wait.

  I would gird myself with cast-iron patience and keep my eyes open. (I still give myself advice like this. I don't take it, though.)

  I'll wait. Calmly. If Ben Hur plots to harm me, I'll survive. But I won't take any steps that are liable to weaken or split the Underground. After their vengeance, after the punishment (and what more can they do to me?), they'll almost certainly ask me to rejoin them. Anyway, what can they do without me? They're just riffraff. Chickens with their heads cut off. But I won't be too quick to agree. I'll let them plead. Implore me. Beg my pardon. Acknowledge they did me an injustice.

  "Dad," I said that evening, "what will we do if the British come along, say the High Commissioner or even the King himself, and acknowledge they have done us an injustice? And ask us to forgive them?"

  My mother said:

  "Of course we'll forgive them. How could we not? That's a lovely dream you've dreamed."

  "Albion," said my father. "First we'll have to examine carefully how sincere they are. Whether there's any ulterior motive. With them anything is possible."

  "How about if the Germans come and beg us to forgive them?"

  "That's hard," said my mother. "That'll have to wait. Maybe in many years' time. Maybe you can do it. I can't."

  My father was deep in thought. Finally he touched me on the shoulder and said:

  "So long as we Jews are few and weak, Albion and all the gentiles will go on sucking up to the Arabs. When we are very strong, and many, and can defend ourselves, yes indeed, then it is possible they might come and speak sweetly to us. British, Germans, Russians, the whole world will come and serenade us. That day we will receive them politely. We will not reject their outstretched hands, but neither will we fall on their necks like long-lost brothers. On the contrary. Respect and suspect. By the way, it would be preferable for us to ally ourselves, not with the European nations, but with our Arab neighbors. After all, Ishmael is our only blood relative. Of course all this is a long way away, perhaps a very long way away. Do you remember the Trojan War? That we read together last winter? The well-known saying, 'Beware the Greeks when they come bearing gifts'? Well, substitute British for Greeks. As for the Germans, so long as they do not forgive themselves, it is possible that one day we shall forgive them. But if it turns out that they do forgive themselves, we shall never forgive them."

  I didn't give up:

  "But right at the end, will we forgive our enemies or not?" I had an image in my head at that moment, a precise, concrete, detailed image: Father and Mother and Sergeant Dunlop sitting in this room on Saturday morning. Drinking tea and chatting in Hebrew about the Bible and archeological sites in Jerusalem, arguing in Latin or classical Greek about Greeks bearing gifts. And Yardena and I in a corner of the picture: she playing the clarinet and I lying on the rug not far from her feet, a happy panther in the basement.

  My mother said:

  "Yes, we will. Not forgiving is like a poison."

  I ought to go and beg Yardena's pardon for what I nearly didn't see, not on purpose. For the thoughts that had come to me since then. But how could I? To beg her pardon I'd have to tell her what happened, and the story itself was a kind of betrayal. So that begging Yardena's pardon would be a kind of betrayal of a betrayal? Complicated. Does betrayal of a betrayal cancel out the original betrayal? Or does it make it twice as bad?

  That's quite a question.

  fifteen

  You must never take a wounded Underground fighter to the hospital, because that is the first place the CID will rush to after any operation, in search of injured fighters. That is why the Underground has its own secret dressing stations for taking care of the injured, and one of these was our apartment, because my mother studied nursing at the Hadassah Hospital when she first arrived in the country. (She studied for only two years, though, because in the second year she got married and in the third year I was born, thus cutting short her studies.)

  There was a locked drawer in the bathroom cupboard. I was not allowed to ask what was in it or even to notice that it was kept locked. But once, when my parents were at work, I carefully broke into it (with a bent piece of wire), and discovered a stock of bandages, dressings, syringes, various packages of pills, jars, sealed bottles, ointments with foreign writing on them. And I knew that if some night in the middle of curfew I heard a furtive scraping at the door, followed by hushed voices, whispers, the scratch of a match on a matchbox, the whistling of the kettle, I was not to leave my room. Not to see the spare mattress spread out on the floor of the hallway under the big maps, which would have disappeared without trace by the morning. As though I had been dreaming. Not knowing is one of the hardest duties of an Underground man.

  My father was almost blind in the dark, which is why he was never involved in night raids on barricades or fortified police stations. But he had a special task: it was to compose slogans in English denouncing Perfidious Albion, which had committed itself publicly to help us build a Jewish homeland here
, and was now, in an act of cynical betrayal, helping the Arabs to crush us. I asked my father what cynical betrayal meant. (Whenever Father explained a foreign idea to me he looked concentrated, responsible, like a scientist pouring a precious fluid from one test tube to another.) He said:

  "Cynical: cold and calculated. Selfish. The word comes from kyon, the ancient Greek word for a dog. When a suitable opportunity presents itself I shall explain to you the connection between cynicism and dogs, which ironically enough are normally considered to symbolize loyalty. It is rather a long story, testifying to the ingratitude of men toward those animals most useful to them, such as the dog, the mule, the horse, the donkey, which have become terms of abuse, whereas dangerous wild beasts, such as the lion, the tiger, the wolf, and even the scavenging vulture, receive undeserved respect in most languages. Anyway, to come back to your question, cynical betrayal is cold-blooded, immoral, and unfeeling betrayal."

  I asked (myself, not Father): Is there any betrayal that is not cynical? That is not selfish and calculated. Is there such a thing as a traitor who is not low-down? (Today I think there is.)

  In Father's English slogans for the Underground, Perfidious Albion was accused of continuing the crimes of the Nazis, of selling the last hopes of a decimated nation for Arab oil and military bases in the Middle East.

  "The people of Milton and Lord Byron should realize that the oil that warms them in winter is stained with the spilled blood of the survivors of the persecuted people." "The British Labour Government is sucking up to corrupt Arab regimes that are constantly moaning that they don't have enough space between the Atlantic Ocean and the Persian Gulf and from Mount Ararat in the north to Bab el-Mandeb in the deepest south." (I checked on the map: they were really not short of space. Our land was a tiny dot in the vast expanse of the Arab world, a pinhead in the British Empire.) When we finished building our rocket, we would aim it at the King's palace in the heart of London, and force them to get out of our land. (And what would happen to Sergeant Dunlop? He loved the Bible and us. Would he get permission to stay here, as a special honored guest of the Hebrew State? I'd make sure of it. I'd write a reference for him.)