Amos Oz - The Same Sea

tummy, and now my wife does the same to him. Soon he will become a baby.

Dubi Dombrov is waiting at ten in the morning in Café Limor for a date

which will never materialize because it has not been arranged. He leafs

through a newspaper, glancing repeatedly at his watch as though she is

already late. In fact his morning is fairly clear: there is nothing in his schedule

except some postponed chores, insurance premiums, bills, a dermatologists fee

and accumulated parking tickets. On this December morning you can see,

through the window, a pair of Russian girls by a road sign, laughing, ogling

a biker in gloves and black leathers whose Suzuki roars between his thighs

like a bull. At the entrance to the Odeon salon for "Bridal Styling — let us

give you the finishing touch" stands a man in a dinner jacket and bow tie,

wailing on a fiddle, his eyes seemingly closed. A penguin washed up in

the Levant. There is also a grasshopper of a Hasid in the street, pestering

passersby, soliciting them to put on tefillin. Dubi Dombrov, with a pale-green

silk scarf round his neck, orders a cup of coffee with a slice of jam cake

and fishes out the script of Nirit's Love, to polish it up: Far from the city far

from Café Limor stands an old village house, adjoining the cemetery, with

a tiled roof and chimney stack, thirty to forty fruit trees, some beehives and

a dovecote, all surrounded with a stone wall, drowned in the shade of dense

cypress trees. Here is where she will come for a few days and nights to

sweeten his solitude. True, he is a pretty repulsive guy, that is why she feels

sorry for him, but inside he is deep. Before her eyes, in the course

of three days and nights, he will shine through brilliant and pure, he will

slough off his hideous crust, be purged of the dross of defects, humiliations

and lies, and stand before her like a candle whose light quivers gently among

heaps of junk. Here in Café Limor, because of the low clouds, the shadow

is gradually lapping up the puddles of feeble electric light as though sucking it

up through a straw. Wait for me. Wait just a bit. Maybe this Giggy will

wangle us a grant from that fund that his father is one of the trustees of and

you and I together will come up with a production that will leave everyone

stunned and we'll walk away with a load of prizes and make tons of dough,

and then you and I. Or else. Or I could drop everything and go off tomorrow

to the Himalayas too, to shed my dead skin and set out in search of a spark.

He pours another spoonful of sugar into his coffee, which has soaked up

three spoonfuls already, stirs, and forgets to drink it. Should he go to her

right now. Should he suggest that they make a fresh start. Wait for me. Wait

just a bit. Or perhaps first he should send her a subtly worded love letter so

she'll see he's not just another stud but above all a spiritual being. With

thumb and forefinger he signals to the waiter to bring him a short espresso,

and he continues to leaf through the script, sniffing and rooting around,

leaving coffee stains on the pages and his sleeve, and pencilling notes in

the margins, while his other hand absentmindedly adds sugar and stirs,

then adds more sugar and stirs again.

From morning to evening the light shines outside, not realizing

that it is light. Tall trees inhale silence with no need

to discover the essential essence of treedom. Empty steppes

stretch out forever on their backs without reflecting on

the pathos of their emptiness. Shifting sands shift and do not ask

how long or why or where to. All this wonderful existence is wonderful

but never wonders. The moon rises red, looking like a spilt eye,

searing the darkness of the sky, unsurprised by its own desolation. A cat

dozes on a wall. Dozing and breathing. Nothing more. Night after night

the wind whirls and blows over forests and hills. It whirls

continually. And blows. Not thinking and not appealing.

Only you, dust and humors, all night long you write

and erase, looking for a reason, a way to correct.

After the screw Giggy got up, put on a pair of sweat pants and

a shirt with a crocodile on it, picked up the phone,

and ordered a couple of speedy pizzas for Melchett 20, chop-chop.

She was wearing her jeans and his pullover. They laid the coffee table,

fork opposite knife, knife opposite fork, a pair of cups and two wine glasses.

The delivery boy sniffed the sweat of sex, stared at her with cuddly

puppy's eyes (she had forgotten to zip up her jeans). She felt sorry

for him, such a soulful, shy boy, she guessed at a mist of down

on his cheek that it would be quite nice to touch. Like a day-old chick. She

stood up. Took the boxes from him. She felt like letting him have. Just a kiss.

She stopped herself. At the door she touched his arm with her breast,

transmitted a spark and picked up a flicker, felt the scorch of an embarrassed

flame. When he had gone she sat down at the table. She saw a hair on her

plate. Hers? Giggy's? Or the boy's? The pizza was barely warm. The glass

had a gold band. Dita drank a little. Giggy winked at her, she nodded, not

necessarily at him. She pushed away her glass. Closed her eyes: there is a sea,

there are mountains. This flat is too chop-chop. The knife in his hand. The

fork in hers. Far from here there are forests. Rivers. Chandartal.

And darkness and winter and all their host too. You

are munching here and they stand silent. This fork is none too clean.

In a cheap room in a shabby inn she opens the window, leans out,

and fills her lungs with a cocktail of smells: mango blossom,

sewage, cooking odors, rotting fruit, cattle dung.

The night is tepid. The river is steaming. The darkness is bathed in faint decay.

In the cleft between her breasts Maria drips five or six drops of pungent

scent She closes the window. Eats some fish. This fork is none too dean.

And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find

any fruit on it: and when he came to it he found nothing but leaves, for the time

of figs was not yet She glances in the mirror. Eye pencil. Powder. Tissue.

Lipstick. If your right eye offends you. If salt loses its flavor. Changes

her skirt Her client will be late. He will pay. Strip.

Demand in English to do it spoon-fashion,

like two spoons in a drawer. In this position

Maria feels swaddled, protected, not like

a harlot being taken but, so it seems for a moment,

as though her back is attached to the cross and the cross is united

with her flesh. And after that Jesus said to her, Go in peace my daughter

for thy demon hath departed. Then she showers, eats some toast,

and falls asleep with the threadbare acrylic doll from Italy

that has travelled with her from bed to bed. She dreams of bread

baked in a cottage. Talitha numi : sleep girl. Tomorrow, Chandartal.

Talitha kumi —get up girl, its already half past nine. She works at the Hilton she's living in Mazeh she gets up in Melchett her parents are abroad and this morning she's going to Amirim Street, and already her head is fit to burst. Dubi rang to say that Giggy says that his father has wrangled us some finance, seed money to make the film, not in cash just an undertaking to top up an investment on condition we prove and on condition this and on condition that and also on condition that we sign up a director who has to be pretty well known, and we have to sign (my head my head) you and we have to sign, and we have to prove sources of finance authenticated by a registered accountant and Dubi says that Giggy made it a condition that he and his father should be kept in the picture and that he, that is Dubi, would open a special account, the Nirit account, and he would deposit such and such a sum at once and in the next phase Giggy's source would inject an equivalent sum and not a cent would leave the account without both their signatures, that is Dubi and Giggy, not you, not you, you're not investing a penny, on the contrary, we are purchasing the copyright from you, we is Dubi and Giggy, and you will get a token sum now and so much percent if it works out. In addition we have to sign up at least two guarantors. Get up girl drink some coffee take an aspirin and go to Bat Yam (my head my head) to sign this paper to sign only if Albert lets me, only if he assures me that the paper is OK. And Giggy will come and Dombrov as well and Bettine too for sure and maybe a lawyer. Albert will serve tea and savory sticks, Bettine will get up to help him but I'll stop her with a look. I'll go to the kitchen and she wont dare follow she'll just burn me up with that voodoo stare that she picked up from some old Greek who calls up the dead and fucks up the living. Now who's going to lend me two hundred shekels. Get moving Nirit go to Bat Yam.