Amos Oz - Touch the Water, Touch the Wind

From his childhood on the boy had suffered from weak nerves and short sight. Over and over again nurses and teachers had had to rescue him from the attacks of other children, who enjoyed tormenting and humiliating him in every possible way, both with words and with mischievous pranks. And when the boys left him alone he always fell victim to the sharp-tongued girls, who encircled him with scornful sniggers. Until he surrendered and burst into tears. And then the same girls who loved to reduce him to tears also loved to wipe away his tears with a great show of affection and genuine pity. Yotam was easily comforted, and that was the sign for a new round to begin.

Yotam gaped at the world through thick-lensed spectacles. Half a dozen times a day his weak fingers would let fall and shatter glasses, plates, records, vases, his spectacles, because his grip was feeble.

As if he refused to believe in the substantiality of objects.

Ever since the age of ten Yotam had never for a moment ceased to dream of a great power of domination which would be bestowed on him by virtue of his suffering. This power would force them all to kneel at his feet, to grovel and beg for mercy, pardon, compassion. Then his time would come to demonstrate to them, to the boys and especially to the girls, that he was not vindictive. On the contrary. His love would be given to all. To boys and girls alike. He would show them all a terrible, wonderful kindness, until their hearts filled with shame at everything they had done to him. What joy, what delight: to forgive and pardon day and night to his heart's content.

And so, alone for the whole of his childhood in the remote Galilean kibbutz, Yotam wandered among the white houses and neat gardens, the sheep pens, the cow sheds, the chicken runs, the stores, forgotten corners of the shady orchard, the heaps of hay in the barn, a village without cellars or attics. An emperor of China in shorts, with one leg rolled up higher than the other. Alexander the Great with little owl-like spectacles. A gracious king to all his subjects, in his daydreams he distributed to them all gold, marbles, pearls, caramels, and even key rings by the thousand. And in return he would inhale the savor of their love and excitement which would flow to him when the time came.

If in the meantime his subjects hit him, or the girls made fun of him, or plundered the colored crayons from his pencil case, Yotam was not angry with them because they knew not who he was and what they were doing. And also because Ernst on his next trip would buy him a band-new pencil case with twice as many colors. And Yotam had a secret lizard. Between two large cracked slabs of concrete behind the carpenter's shop lived a lizard and none of them knew about it, so they couldn't get up to any tricks with it. And none of them had a lizard. And they weren't going to have one either, no matter what new pranks they played on him.

Yotam cultivated certain odd habits. For instance, he would hop and skip along the paved paths in a way which those who saw him found amusing. In fact he was avoiding the cracks between the paving stones. Or he would press long and hard with his fingers on his eyelids, because when he pressed his eyeballs he saw a dizzying swirl of flashing lights. Only he did this in class, during lessons, and was made fun of for it.

He was always sniffling, love-lorn, and wretched.

Yet he was always eager to do good deeds.

Two or three years before, Yotam was called up for military service.

He was put behind a counter and taught to serve nicely, cookies, soft drinks, different brands of cigarettes, cellophane packages of peanuts.

Every evening he would assume a gentle, innocent smile and serve sweaty soldiers and strong, healthy girls whose khaki skirts stretched to bursting-point over their hips. He was forced to inhale the cigarette smoke of bossy, fat-bottomed officers, the smell of their breath, their coarse jokes told with sullen good humor, their air of rough, earthy virility.

Yotam stared blankly at them all through his thick bifocal lenses.

He half heard their inanities and obscenities, he saw with his own eyes how they were all dominated and desperately humiliated by a thousand base desires without being aware of them. A weary, blearing dullness covered everything with a coating of putrid decay.

One bright morning Yotam got up, scrubbed his teeth, washed his face and then washed it again, put on his glasses and decided that they were all, every single one of them, in need of urgent salvation. He did not exclude himself.

And so it occurred to him that he must get out of his uniform, go to Jerusalem, take the world by storm, wake everybody up, put a stop once and for all to war, to desires and to bad taste, and bring about peace everlasting.

To this end he began to set aside small sums from the proceeds of the soft drinks and cookies. Every night he distributed these sums to drivers, storekeepers, typists, and kitchen hands who vowed to him that they would surely follow him to Jerusalem, come what might.

So, one fine morning, Ernst's son Yotam absconded from the camp through a small gap in the perimeter fence and started to march on Jerusalem. A quick-tempered rifleman by the name of Eliashar, Moshe and two corporals, Vilnay and Adorno, joined his expedition. There was also a short, stocky, thickset Hungarian girl soldier called Tehia Bamberger, a kitchen hand, a boy from the armory, and two old laborers who were not in the army but made their living by keeping the perimeter weeded.

As they marched they came upon towns and settlements and villages, and wherever they came they sang and delighted the people, especially the children. While the cookies they had brought with them lasted they distributed them free to all the children. When they ran out of cookies they handed out some figs which they had found on a plot of wasteland by the wayside.

Halfway between Lydda and Ramla they were stopped by the military police. The only one to put up any resistance was Private Eliashar, Moshe, who fought with his teeth until he had to be tied up with ropes which in normal circumstances were used for securing loads on trucks. The other travelers all submitted quietly and without remonstrance.

Ernst's son Yotam was sentenced by court-martial to ninety days in the cells. He did away with himself several times in the hope of drawing attention to the terrible problems men failed to grapple with, such as loneliness, war, desires, and bad taste. But each time he was brought firmly back to his senses and the doctors informed him that his efforts were in vain, he must stop faking, he was not mad, he was either pretending or he was an idiot.

Ernst, the Kibbutz Secretary, did not sit idly by. For days on end he traveled from place to place, enlisting the help of influential friends in the party and the Union, old comrades from the glorious 'thirties. His two middle-aged mistresses, Vera and Sara, did not disguise their fury: they maintained in unison that the real culprit was Elisha. And even though they were unable to explain or justify their suspicion, they stopped baking cookies for him. But after a while Ernst succeeded in bring Yotam's case before a higher authority, and since the psychiatrists were now prepared to re-examine the case, Ernst's son Yotam was released from prison and from the army and sent home.

In next to no time the Kibbutz Committee had sent him to a course for youth instructors overseas, in the confident hope that in between lectures he would meet some sensitive girl and get over his trouble. Such cases had cropped up before, and some such solution had always been found.

And indeed Yotam did improve, although he did not change his mind about the need for urgent salvation. And meanwhile he was taught all the various tricks of the trade of a youth instructor, how to win adherents overseas, how to fan enthusiasm and how to channel it into the organized frameworks. He was even taught Spanish. Yotam's self-confidence grew. His acne disappeared. The Hungarian girl soldier Tehia Bamberger suddenly struck him as terribly small, stocky, and thickset.