Amos Oz - Elsewhere, Perhaps

Ezra touches the packet of embroidery thread lying on the shabby passenger seat beside him. Now I've learned something new: turquoise is a color halfway between blue and green. A bright color. A cool color. There are warm colors and cold colors. I used to know. Poetic subtleties. I'm going to tell you a little story, Turquoise, a little story but a true story. From real life. Once upon a time there was a princess….No. I was only joking. Once upon a time Ramigolski and I were working over the hill. Aaron Ramigolski, the one who was killed, not our secretary Tsvi Ramigolski. Ramigolski talked to me about the poet's girl. The one he brought from Germany. Yes, your mother, little Turquoise. It was in the 1930's. The poet was still called Harismann, in those days, not Harish. A beau-ty, Ramigolski said. He drew the word out long and smacked his thick lips. I knew Ramigolski well. His father used to pray with my father. We were born across the road from each other, in Kovel. He was a coward. He was very strong, he was a cheerful lad, but he was a coward. He had his eye on the poet's girl. She was so graceful. Like a gazelle, like you, Turquoise. A daughter always takes after her mother, so they say. But Ramigolski didn't dare. He was afraid. Afraid of whom? Afraid of me. Afraid of Mundek Zohar. Afraid of what Fruma would say to Bronka and Bronka would say to Esther. "I find woman more bitter than death," the Preacher said, and he knew what he was talking about. That's why Ramigolski didn't dare. But he wanted your mother. And he might have been able to take her from Harismann, if he'd dared. She was graceful. Refined. Delicate. But she was a whore. What's she doing now in Germany with that Hamburger of hers? Running a night club. A brothel, more like. A plague on all women. You hear that, little Turquoise? Make a note: "A plague on all women" — Ezra Berger's motto. I've told you a true story, from real life, to teach you something about real life. Take another example. What did I say to Tomer? You've got someone in trouble? Yes? Einav? All right. Now have a good think. True, you could marry her. But you don't have to. There are other ways. What did Tomer do? He married her, limp and all. "A wise son makes his father rejoice but a foolish son brings grief to his mother," King Solomon says, and he makes a very fine distinction. It was Bronka who brought Tomer up to have a conscience. Now Bronka is going to be a grandma, and Ezra Berger is going to be a grandpa. And your father's going to have a grandma for a mistress. Huh! Congratulations. Where does it get us all? Look at Bronka. She's an educated girl. Clever. "If you've drunk the water, don't spit in the well," as they say. And me — I may be a pretty simple sort of chap, but I'm clever, too. Only I don't talk much. And talking is half the trouble. "Speech is silver, silence is golden." Thirty years ago, Ramigolski and I were working in the fields. Listen carefully now, Turquoise. The Arabs started shooting at us. We were unarmed. I jumped in among the maize quickly. Ran away. Hid. "Delivered my soul from destruction," as some poet says grandly somewhere. And Ramigolski? Ramigolski stood where he was and started talking to them. "Teaching the bear to be honest and fair." He got what was coming to him. He screamed. I crawled back and dragged him to the kibbutz. Yes, me. And I'm no biblical hero. He didn't utter a single edifying remark. On the contrary. He cursed us all and he cursed Palestine and he even cursed the Zionist movement. Right to the end. It's the truth, Turquoise. Isn't that what they taught you in your class? No? Bronka? The poet? No. You don't speak ill of the dead. Of course, you can say what you like about a man while he's alive. But the dead are sacrosanct. What's the conclusion? What the sages say: "Remember what you came from and what you are going to. What did you come from? A drop of stinking fluid. What are you going to? A pit full of worms." But I'm not Nehemiah Berger; I don't work with premises and conclusions. And I'm not Zechariah Berger, either; I don't make war on the whole human race because the Jewish worm has been trampled underfoot. I'm just an ordinary mortal, thank the good Lord. Do you understand what I've been saying, Turquoise? And if you dare say to me once more "You're sweet," I'll give you a clip round the earhole. What do you think I am — a little boy?

Tiberias. He stops to drink a cup of coffee with the fishermen. Marry a fisherman, Turquoise. Fishermen are real men. They don't write poems, they don't spout proverbs, but once they get hold of a woman they keep her for life. "Till death do us part." How many times must I tell you not to look at me like that with those green eyes of your father's. It's just as well you're not here to hear what I'm thinking. And I've not finished yet. There's more to come. No, they're not green, your eyes. They're blue-green. Turquoise. Greetings, O Abushdid. Do you have a cup of coffee for Ezra Berger? Great. I nearly fell asleep at the wheel. But I have a system. I think of girls, and it keeps me wide awake. We have a saying: "A woman is either precious and rare, or a grizzly bear." It's all a matter of luck.

The fishermen are fond of Ezra Berger. Every night he makes a stop in Tiberias to sip coffee with them and exchange gems of wisdom and dirty stories. Even here he does not talk much. But his sensible outlook, his slow way of talking, his heavy hands curled round the grimy little cup, his impressive broad shoulders, all these combine to secure him a position of respect here. This is not to imply that we do not respect Ezra Berger in the kibbutz. We respect him as a man of action, and for his rough good humor, which always, however, retains a serious element and never degenerates into cheap buffoonery. We are almost tempted to detect a noble quality in his roughness — as indeed there is, if, once again, you can call moderation and self-control noble.

Around midnight Ezra leaves to cover the last stretch of his journey from Tiberias to his home. He still doesn't feel tired. Not tired — but a kind of numbness confuses his thoughts. Ezra covers this last stretch at great speed. The road runs close to the border. Needless to say, at this time of night the road is completely deserted. The headlights pick out fields, signposts, solitary shrubs, little nocturnal animals dashing across the road.

Near the turning to the kibbutz, at the foot of the little hill from the top of which our tourists usually get their first general impression of the place, Ezra hears the sound of a distant shot. He pricks up his ears. He tries to fix the direction of the shot. A green flare rising suddenly in the eastern sky helps him. He drives quickly through the gate. Parks his truck next to the tractor shed, which is lit inside by a yellow lamp. Spits in his hands. Stretches his cramped limbs.

Israel Tsitron, the night watchman, darts up and chats for a moment or two about this and that: a premature birth in the dairy herd, a loud quarrel he happened to overhear between Fruma's Rami and his girl friend, a few shots from the northeast. There's trouble brewing. No, there won't be anything. Good night, Israel. 'Night, Berger.

Outside his room Ezra pauses and quietly removes his shoes. He tiptoes into his room. His eyes strain to pierce the darkness. He sniffs the air quickly, apprehensively, trying to absorb the alien smell into himself. His chest rises, falls, rises. His mouth is slightly open. His heavy head is inclined, listening intently. His arms hang down by his body. His hands are large.

Bronka is wrapped up in a blanket. She doesn't move. Ezra Berger is tired. His mind is wandering. Even so, he can sense for certain that his wife is not asleep. Bronka knows that he knows, and he knows that she knows. Everything is known. Stiffly he gets undressed. His bed is made up. There is a cup of tea waiting for him, covered with a saucer to keep it warm. Everything is as he likes it. Everything is as usual. He stands in his sweat-soaked underwear, staring at the shadows of the shutters cast by the searchlight on the flickering wall. Suddenly he leans over, places a large, dirty hand on Bronka's blanket, and says: