Amos Oz - The Same Sea

A virgin? A waitress? A nun? What shall I be tonight? Only not

your mother again. But first of all play the flute. Not in here. Lets

go down to the beach; there you can play for me and tell me

a story. One by one the fishing boats are taking to the sea

in a shimmer of lamps, licking the waves with their oars,

like tongues on a breast Maria is in a wind-swollen skirt he

is barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt walking not by her side

but a few steps behind her. Whenever he played he drew

to him animals, bushes, meadows, mountains bent over

to hear, streams left their beds, the north wind froze not to miss

a note, the birds fell silent, even the sirens stopped singing

and listened. When his beloved died he followed her down

to the underworld, charmed Persephone with his playing,

from the eyes of Death himself he wrung five or six iron tears,

and he hypnotized his dog. Surely every poet every musician

every charlatan tries like him to bring back the dead. The one condition

was that he not turn back or look behind, that he

walk ahead without turning around. On the face of it this

was an easy condition, an obvious security measure, to protect

the privacy of the underworld. Hades, however, that iron-teared

rhymester, knew his victim's mind: the wise man's eyes may be

in his head, but not so the poet's. A poet's eyes are in the back

of his neck. The minstrel always plays facing backward.

And so, as black turned to grey, his arms were drawn to embrace her

but she was no longer there. To play or to touch. Either or.

Since then he has been a wanderer and a fugitive like the young David

in the caves of Adullam, playing to the forests that froze to

hear his notes, playing to the hills. Try to imagine it Maria:

the rivers of sounds that have traversed the world since then,

including thunders, screams, barks, melodies, pleas, coughs,

shots, whispers, flutterings, the sighing of trillions of leaves,

earthquakes, drips, chirps, confessions, echoes and ripples of

echoes, all the innumerable sounds that, like everlasting autumn,

have long since buried the trickle of his piping. The winter

of the scuds, that I told you about in Bengal, Dita and I went together

to the old cemetery in a kibbutz called Ayyelet Hashahar, where

you can sometimes hear a sort of sound that promises you tonight

whatever you want on condition that you don't look back.

Listen carefully. This is your father speaking. A simple man,

a rather grey man, and so on and so forth, but still your father. The only one

you have, and that's something your irony can't change.

That cheap woman you're with may let off

fireworks in bed, I'm not an expert in such matters

and I'm sorry to mention it, but fireworks

go out and time is drying up and the summer is over and you are

not back. The summer is over the autumn is gone and what about you,

where are you? Shrouded in fog in limbo in the arms

of a whore. It's lucky your mother — well, never mind. Don't hang up.

Just a minute. Listen to me: Dita is back here. In your room.

Sometimes, just in my mind's eye, I look at her and think,

my grandchild is drying up. Wait. Don't put the phone down. The autumn

is over and you are just mist. Last night I dreamed of my own father,

he was kneading dough, grunting hoarsely in Ladino, Stupido Albert,

asno, in ten more minutes se hizo hamets. This call

is already costing me a fortune, but there's one more thing I have to tell you:

under the same roof she is waiting and so am I. There is something not right

about this. The summer is over and the autumn is gone; the rain brings me

a smell of dust. Don't come back too late.

Like a sooty engine at the end of its journey the lit half

of the earth drags wearily toward the shadow

while the dark half gropes at the first line of light.

My hand in the hay of your old chest

plucks straw

to line our nest

Her hand so light in the hay of my chest. On the back

of her hand my shrivelled hand. She's on my own. I'm on her own.

On my veranda. We are alone. The sea has taken, the sea

has given. A slim silhouette and a little shadow. A timid

shadow. That turns. Escapes. The sea gives and the sea

takes.

She is making an omelette, he is chopping a salad, her shoulder brushes

the skin of his arm like lips touching a lace veil. A cup drops. It doesn't break.

He takes this as a favorable omen: salad with olives, a big omelette,

yoghurt with honey and fresh strong black bread with ewes' milk cheese.

All this at nearly two o'clock at night, in Sri Lanka it's already morning

while here there's the smell of the kitchen after a meal. They clear away

the dishes, he'll wash up tomorrow, right now it's late. In the bathroom

the two of them: he in grey flannel pyjamas, she with a T-shirt down

to her thighs, he with his back to her, facing the bowl, she facing

the mirror, brushing her teeth, he's in his slippers, her feet are bare,

before going to sleep he wants to sew a button on for her,

on the side, on the waist of her orange skirt that he takes on his arm

to his room like a bride to her wedding bed. Close and breathing, close and

chilly, beyond his window the sea sighs. The doors are locked. Soon the bird

The teeth of time, smoke without fire. On the bade of my hand

I see the brown mark that once used to be, at the very same spot,

on my father's gnarled hand. And so my father is back

from underground. For years he has failed and now, at last,

remembered to hand over to his son a patch of pigment

from his estate. The teeth of time. Scorch-mark without fire.

Ancestral seal. The gift of the dead

on the back of your hand.

Maria can also read fortunes. She reads them in coffee grounds,

she puts on her glasses to read, Maria is not so young any more. There's

good news and bad news in the coffee. The bad news is that time

flies. The good news is that time heals. That the evening is fine.

The bad news, that we're out of coffee. And almost out of money.

Look, there's a goat, staring at us like a widow,

maybe she's mistaken us for a mother and son, never mind,

let her live with her mistake, after all, why should we argue with a goat?

Especially a goat who's a widow. Tonight we'll eat dates, we'll sleep on this

straw, and not shoo her away. Come here, touch me. Tomorrow Chandartal.

Twenty to three in the morning. This is the time, not six, that ought to be at the bottom of a clock: the lowest time, when you can see what's going to happen. Dubi Dombrov calls Dita Inbar who is napping over the City News behind die hotel reception desk, her cheek resting on her hand; by her side, in a plastic cup, some lemonade is losing the last of its fizz. Sorry, he says, I just thought you might be free now to chat a bit. I suddenly had this idea that if you could manage to touch your old man, say, or some other old man, for nine thousand dollars or so, it would put me in the clear, as they say. We could spread our wings and make one hell of a film. With money like that I'd even give you a fifty-fifty share of Dombrov Productions Ltd. We'll repay the money within a year. We won't just repay it, we'll double it. Two people who count, top people at Channel 2, have read the revised script and definitely see potential in it. The problem is that I'm a bit in the red. I've sold the Fiat (with nine parking tickets and only two days left on the insurance) but don't worry, I'll clear out of your flat in Mazeh Street the moment I get the money Giggy promised. Besides which I've got eczema, besides which I missed two months of my alimony and today I got a sequestration order in the mail plus a call-up for the reserves, twelve days in Kastina, besides which I haven't moved my bowels for three days. Excuse the details. If the old man won't chip in nine thousand maybe he could make it two, or even a grand? I've got a painting by Tumarkin that must be worth twice that, I'll make it a gift to you. Anyway, I've been wanting to give you something personal, something beautiful for some time. It's a rather repulsive picture, actually, but it's all I've got, Dita. Nobody can give what he hasn't got. I'm not asking anything from you Dita, only that you should try to see me in a slightly different light sometimes. If you can. As for the money, get as much as you can, the old man is wild about you, and you'll see that our film will take off after all. Even a couple of grand would do for starters, after that you'll be amazed how this venture of ours will run all by itself. Believe me, I wouldn't for the life of me ask you for a penny if I had any choice. Tell me, Dita says, have you any idea what time it is? And tell me, Dita says, where are you living, anyway. To which Dubi Dombrov replies, with his bad breath hitting her across the switchboard and the wire, You want the truth? Were living in a flash. All of us. In a flash — it describes time and in a way it also describes space too. Honest, I wish I could put my body into storage, or mortgage it. I don't care if I don't get a cent for it. I'd even pay. All my troubles come from this lump of flesh that's clung to me since I was a child and doesn't let me rise above it. Nothing good ever came from it It guzzles fuel like crazy and all it ever does is make me blush or squirm. This body of mine is forever flat on its face. If only I could get around town without it everything would be so easy. I'd stage a project the likes of which this city has never seen before. I'd be free from sleeping and breathing and smoking, no belly, no reserve duty, no debts, no fear of AIDS, I wouldn't give a shit. For all I care the Scuds can come again and take it off my back. Or I'll sell it to an organ bank or even donate it to a forensic lab or a transplant center, and then I'd go off to the beach as free as the air. And take it easy. Or I'd go further, Tibet, Goa, I could take your boyfriend's place and send him back to you, even though really I don't believe all this shit, that he's hanging out there with some Portuguese chick, his own private fado singer, some kind of sexy hot-gospeller, that whole business is just a load of bullshit, he's probably blowing his mind in some hole in India and the whole Maria thing is all in the Narrator's head, and he's the one you should really talk to, if you just fluttered your eyelashes at him and got him to make a couple of phone calls to the right people, he must know them all, then our film would be halfway to being made. Even that Giggy of yours is just a load of bullshit when it comes to it, and so am I, even more so. The real reason I called you at 3 a.m. is that I thought it was the only way I'd finally have the guts to express my feelings, and look what came out instead: a lump of shit. What time do you finish your shift? I'll wait for you outside the hotel, OK? Or perhaps I won't What's the use.