And he answered for me: “Embers. But there are no embers.”
And then: “Carthage is destroyed. So what. And had it not been, what then. The trouble is quite different. The trouble is there’s no light here. Wherever you go you trip.”
At the bottom of his suitcase I found the pistol. I gave it to Boaz and told him to hide it.
There’s not much time left. It’s already winter. When the big rains come the telescope will have to be dismantled and brought down from the roof. Boaz will be obliged to give up his solitary wanderings on Mount Carmel. He will no longer vanish for three or four days, to measure the wooded valleys, to explore abandoned caves, to startle night birds in their holes, to lose himself in the thick tangles of the vegetation. He will no longer go down to the sea to float alone on a raft made without a single nail. Running away? Pursuing? Seeking astral inspiration? Groping in empty expanses, a gigantic inarticulate orphan, after some lost bosom?
One day he will go off on his rambles and not come back. His friends will wait for him here for a few weeks, then they’ll shrug their shoulders and vanish one by one. The commune will disperse. Not a living soul will remain. The lizard, the fox, and the viper will reinherit the house and the weeds will return. I shall be left alone to watch over the death pangs.
And then? Where shall I go?
When I was a little girl, the daughter of immigrants struggling with the remains of her comical accent and alien manners, I fell under the spell of the old pioneer songs, which you don’t know because you came here late. Tunes that brought me dim yearnings, a secret female longing even before I was a woman. To this day I tremble when they play “In the land the fathers loved” on the radio. Or “There was a lass in Kinneret.” Or “Upon a hill.” As if they are reminding me from a distance of vows of loyalty. As if they are saying there is a land but we have not found it. Some jester in disguise has crept in and seduced us into loathing what we have found. Destroying what was precious and will not return. Led us on with a will-o’-the-wisp until we strayed deep in the swamp and darkness descended upon us. Will you remember me in your prayers? Please say in my name that I am waiting for mercy. For myself and for him and for you. For his son. For his father. For Yifat and my sister. Say in your prayers, Michel, that loneliness, desire, and longing are more than we can bear. And without them we are extinguished. Say that we tried to receive and return love but that we have gone astray. Say that they should not forget us and that we are still glimmering in the darkness. Try to clarify how we are to get out. Where is that promised land.
Or no. Don’t pray.
Instead of praying build David’s Tower out of toy bricks with Yifat. Take her to the zoo. To the cinema. Make her your fried eggs, take the skin off the cocoa, say to her, “Drink, Little Miss Empty-Vessels.” Don’t forget to buy her some flannel pajamas for the winter. And some new shoes. Don’t hand her over to your sister-in-law. Think sometimes how Boaz carries his father in his arms. And how about the evening, when you come back from your travels? Do you sit in your stocking feet in front of the television until tiredness gets the better of you? Fall asleep fully dressed in the armchair? Chain-smoke? Or instead do you sit at the feet of your rabbi studying Torah with a tear? Buy yourself a warm scarf. From me. Don’t catch cold. Don’t get ill.
And I’ll wait for you. I’ll ask Boaz to make a wide bed of planks and to stuff a mattress with seaweed. Wide-awake and attentive we’ll lie with our eyes open in the dark. The rain will beat at the window. Through the treetops a breeze will pass. High thunder will move in the direction of the hills to the east and dogs will bark. If the dying man groans, if the cold brings on a shivering fit, we can hug him, you and I, from either side until we warm him between us. When you desire me I’ll attach myself to you and his fingers will slide over our backs. Or you can attach yourself to him and I’ll caress the two of you. As you have always yearned to do: to be joined to him and to me. To be joined in him to me, in me to him. For the three of us to be one. For then from without, from the darkness, through the cracks in the shutter shall come wind and rain, sea, clouds, stars, to close in silently on the three of us. And in the morning my son and my daughter will go out with a wicker basket to dig up radishes in the garden. Don’t be sad.
Mother
***
To Mr. Gideon
and Mrs. (in reply to her letter to me)
and to dear Boaz
Gideon House
Zikhron Yaakov
By the Grace of G-d
Jerusalem
4th of Marheshvan 5737 (28.10.76)
Greetings!
Thus it is written in the psalm, “Bless the Lord, O my soul” (Psalm 103): “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger forever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him.” Amen.
Michael Sommo
About the Author
Born in Jerusalem in 1939, Amos Oz is the author of numerous works of fiction and essays. His international awards include the Prix Femina, the Israel Prize, and the Frankfurt Peace Prize, and his books have been translated into more than thirty languages. He lives in Israel.
Amos Oz, Black Box
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