Amos Oz - The Hill of Evil Counsel

"All right. Leave it as it is. You were carried away by a flight of fancy. So be it."

Mother said:

"Every Friday we put two mils in the box, and yet it never fills up. Perhaps even money evaporates in this heat. Instead of talking, Kolodny, maybe you wouldn't mind going out and buying a quarter-block of ice for the icebox. Or else send your son. I don't mind which of you goes, only get cracking, before all the vegetables perish."

If Ephraim won the game of chess, Father would take it in good part and remark cheerfully:

"After all, it's only a game."

But if Ephraim's concentration was distracted by Mother's presence or by some ideological brainstorm, so that he made one crass mistake after another and lost the game, Father's face would be covered with shame and confusion: "Look, Ephraim," he would whisper anxiously, "look what a spot you've got yourself into. What shall we do now?"

Ephraim would respond with a short burst of silent fury. He would pick up a nut and crush it between his teeth, glance at Mother's shoulders or beyond, at the hillside, which was visible through the window, and hiss through pursed lips:

"So, Kolodny, so you've won. So what? Now let's play seriously, for once."

As if the game that had just finished had merely been for practice. As if his losing had merely been a small gesture to my ungrateful father, and now the time had come for the real game in which no quarter would be given.

Mother would generally prevent the outbreak of this real game by interrupting her playing, coming over to the table, laying one hand on Father's shoulder and the other on the back of Ephraim's chair, and saying:

"That's enough. Stop it, the pair of you. Now let's all have a nice glass of tea."

At once Father and his guest would exclaim in unison:

"No, really! There's no need. Honestly! Don't take the trouble!"

Mother would ignore their protests and turn to me.

"Will you give me a hand, Uri?"

I would immediately abandon the corks and silver foil, impose a cease-fire on all fronts, and follow Mother to the kitchen. I loved to arrange everything carefully on the black glass-topped trolley and wheel it into the living room: five tall glasses with glass saucers; five dessert plates; five pastry forks with one broad prong and two narrow ones; five long teaspoons; sugar; milk, lemon; reinforcements of nuts and biscuits. Soon the kettle would come to a boil, and Mother would pour the tea. Meanwhile my job was to go down the steps and across the lane and wake the old poet from his midsummer afternoon's dream. Approaching his deck chair in the corner of the untended garden among the parched oleanders and the beds of thistles, I would address him politely:

"Mr. Nehamkin! Please! Mr. Nehamkin! We're having tea, and they'd like to know if you would care to join us."

At first the old man would not move. He would simply open his blue eyes and stare at me in surprise. Then a tired, hopeless smile would spread on his tortoiselike face, and his hand would point gently toward the pepper tree, where unseen birds were shrilling ecstatically.

"What's the matter, child, what's happened? Is there a fire, heaven forbid?"

At once he would add:

"Young Uriel. Yes? Speak up and let's hear what you have to say for yourself."

"They're drinking tea, Mr. Nehamkin, and chatting, and they'd like you to join them."

"What. Oh. One might have thought there was a fire, heaven forbid. But I see there's nothing burning. I shall certainly come. Indeed I shall. Come, let us go together, as one man: the poet and the youth. We shall go forth and come again with rejoicing, and surely we shall not return empty."

As we proceeded across the lane, through the garden and up the steps, the old man would already have embarked on his gentle homily, his velvet voice kissing the rare, carefully chosen words and caressing the ends of his sentences, as if it were all one to him whether his audience consisted of all the people or of me alone, or if there were no one at all to hear him. He spoke about the shamefulness of ignoring the misery of others, the completion of the full term of suffering, the ironies of fate, and the need to withstand the test. He was still speaking when we arrived, and Ephraim and Father rose to greet him and take the walking stick with its carved tiger's head handle and seat him at the table between Mother and the window. While they were seating him at the table, Mother poured the tea, and still he did not interrupt his homily; nor did he see fit to recommence it, but he continued to unburden himself of the ideas that, as he put it, had been gathering in his heart during his lengthy meditations:

"… There is no shepherd for the flock and no pillar of fire. Only the pillar of smoke that obscures all eyes. All eyes are darkened. Surely a thousand years are as a day. O, that a heavenly voice might sound, or a consuming fire flash forth. O, that something might happen at long last to put an end to the lamentation of Zion. We can continue no longer. We are almost doomed. No, ladies and gentlemen, no, I shall not drink a second glass of tea. No power in the world will make me drink any more, lest I be in your eyes as a glutton and a drunkard. I am well satisfied with a single glass. On the other hand, how can I refuse you, dear lady? I shall gladly drink a second glass with you, provided it is no trouble. And after that, with your permission, I shall recite one or two humble verses, then take my leave of you and go on my weary way. My thanks and blessings be upon you: very pleasant have you been unto me."

A short silence followed this speech.

Ephraim looked at Mother, and Father looked at Ephraim.

I took advantage of the opportunity to slip away from the table and return to my battlefield, to the cigarette packs and pushpins, some of which represented Panzer divisions and others, bands of Maccabees lying in ambush in the pass of Beth Heron, the few against the many.

Through the window I could see the parade ground inside the Schneller Barracks. Antlike soldiers were sweeping the parade ground, whitewashing the trunks of the pines and eucalyptus trees, marking off areas with rope, piling up roof tiles. In the evening light they seemed pitifully tiny and lost, these soldiers needlessly risking their lives.

The whole city was surrounded by mountains, and as night fell they tightened their grip on us. They could discern no difference between man and man, man and woman, woman and child. Perhaps they had already discovered the death ray and were preparing to surge up and merge with the sunset clouds. Or silently waiting for the stars to come out. A distant melody seemed to charge the sky each evening. Who was singing, and who but me could hear?

Beyond the mountains begins the silence. Beyond the mountains lies the icy northern sea. Beyond the mountains there is nothing. One evening I shall leave them to nibble their nuts and set out on my own across Tel Arza and the valleys through the chariot-clouds and bear-clouds and crocodile-clouds and dragon-clouds, until I arrive beyond the mountains to see what is beyond the mountains. Without haversack or water bottle I shall set out to discover what it is that the mountains want of us all the time. I shall go to the caves. There I shall be a mountain boy all alone all day all summer long in the rocks and the sun and wind and they will never know how the earth quakes and why towers topple.

At the end of the short silence, Father might suddenly decide that the time had come to make a fresh start.

"Well," he would say, "good evening to you, Mr. Nehamkin, and to you, Ephraim. I believe one may hazard a guess that autumn will not be late this year, even though at present it seems as though the summer will never end. They have already started meeting at night in the synagogue to say the Penitential Prayers."