Amos Oz - The Same Sea

He's fond of cheese, he chops salads fine,

no mortal man can chop them finer. Better a live

dog who this morning sent a thousand dollars to his son and to Dita

wrote a check for the sum of NIS 3,500. He's discontinued

his savings plan even though he knows the money's going down the tube.

Now he's reading Yediot and discovering that the state of the country

is also going from bad to worse. The magnates are arrogant,

peacock for foreign affairs, peacock for home affairs, little foxes

with high-falutin words. Dispensing a poor mans wisdom: tax adviser to

a greengrocer, an air-conditioning installer, he screws up his brown

face in the mirror like a raisin. To himself he says: The days

are going by. Yes sir, they are. The days are going by. I'm sorry

sir, excuse me sir, we're just about

to dose. So sit down and finish going through these accounts. Try at least

to clear your desk The newspaper can wait. Afterward, if there's time

you can change your shirt and go over to Bettine's. Go over there, stay

a while, chat, come home. Whatever you do it's no use.

Bettine, how are you? It's Dita. I'm calling to ask if by any chance

you've got his glasses? The dark ones? In the black case? No? Oh well,

we'll keep looking then. They must be here somewhere. Are you coming

over this evening? I'm working nights: I leave here at seven to be

at the hotel by eight. Do come. You can both have supper and sit outside

and chat on the veranda, only don't switch the light on, the mosquitoes

are hellish. You told me last winter that I make him needlessly sad,

or give him pointless needs, or something like that. I don't remember

exactly. Now I feel like telling you you shouldn't worry, Bettine.

There are no casualties. On the contrary: we both seem to be

definitely holding our own, if one can say that, and that's

how it is Bettine. I saw a big story in the paper today with pictures,

anxious moments in space, searching for the mother craft, is it or

isn't it out of control, I think something like that happens to lots

of people almost every day: finding losing finding again and

gasping for air. How on earth did we get here? It doesn't matter. If you

do happen to find his glasses will you bring them with you

when you come this evening. Even if you don't find them, come anyway.

It's better for the two of you to spend the evening together

than alone. And don't bring loads of stuff with you: I've

done plenty of shopping, the fridge is full.

Now it's me. I used to be Nadia and now

I'm not a spirit or a reincarnation or a ghost. Now

I'm the air my son breathes in his sleep on the straw,

I'm the sleep of the woman who's resting her head

on his shoulder. I'm also the sleep of my husband

who's fallen asleep on the living room couch

I'm my daughter-in-law's dream, her head in her hands

on the hotel desk I'm the swish of the curtain

that the sea stirs through the window. That's me.

I am all of their sleep.

A Knesset Member, Pessach Kedem, from Kibbutz Yikhat, found himself

left off the party list because of an intrigue, because some

cunning son-of-a-bitch grabbed his safe place near the top of the list.

Recovering from the shock and indignation he looked for a place, even

not a safe one, to hide his face in shame, a place secure from pitying

or gloating looks. At last, they say, his confidants managed to find him

a temporary billet as managing director or just company secretary

of some private ravine in the Tortoiseshell Range, down in the desert

not far from Arad. That's where the man now sits making notes,

remembering, filming, scheming, growing armor, hiding his head,

retracting his limbs, burying his face in his armored plates, reviewing

the situation, transforming himself from an MK into a tortoise. And how

about you? Do you feel you are safe and secure near the top of the list?

Meanwhile he is working as a night watchman in a run-down refrigeration

plant belonging to a Belgian fishery company in the Gulf of Kirindi, beneath

a curtain of dark hills. Maria has moved on. Beyond those hills there is a

steamy primeval jungle sweat-soaked with unceasing rains where there are

monkeys, parrots, bats and huge snakes. Aus Israel, the Austrian engineer leered

with a conspiratorial wink, ach so, in that case he certainly wont fall asleep on

the job or just sit there gaping if a light flashes on the control panel. His wage,

in Sri Lankan rupees, is three and a half dollars plus a fish he can grill on

the embers after midnight, and each morning when he leaves he can take

two fish fresh from the boats. His broom closet at the inn costs less than

a dollar a day, and he spends a similar sum on rice, vegetables, a rented

mosquito net, postcards and stamps. Meanwhile there's a boy, an abandoned

child, whom he inherited from the previous watchman (who got him from

his own predecessor), a quick-moving, shadowy creature, who somehow

belongs to the fishery, he sleeps by day in some disused cooling compartment

and at night among bearded pipes sticky with solidified engine oil, living

the life of a little fish thief or honorary assistant night watchman. In and out

of the dark gaps between refrigerators he slinks wolfishly, barefoot, he is six

or possibly eight, he is in tatters, every night he is reborn after midnight, out

of the shadows at the smell of grilled fish, an old rag round his loins, timidly

sniffing he cleverly overtakes his own shadow and penetrates the circle of

the watchman's fire, panting, his skin quivering to escape. In vain you attempt

in English sprinkled with crumbs of Sinhalese, Come child here don't be

afraid: he's been abused by other watchmen, before you, who seduced him

with their smell of fish, and did one thing and another. Now he's more

careful: give me first. Just throw him a tidbit of fish and he leaps, catches it

in his teeth in mid-flight, retreats with his spoils to the shadows, then

reappears to flicker around the ring of the fire, his pupils reducing the flames

to embers, his face in the half-light angelic but impure, a sly dishonest angel

well versed in gradations of winks, experienced in this and that: the previous

watchmen had done one thing and another, and another, but always he

had managed to float up to the surface of the swamp, velvety, girlish, unsullied,

with just a cunning-cautious spark in his eye. Night by night you throw

the tidbits less and less far, till at last he dares to snatch one from your hand

and flee. Or thus: you hold the fish just a little bit higher than he can jump,

till he tells you his name, where he lives, who his parents are. He doesn't

know. Nowhere. Never had any. So whose is he then? In guttural English,

with the Sinhalese trill: Yourr honorr's sirr. And a bow. As he speaks he leaps and

snatches the fish, sweet potato, or rice, with three swift hands. His voice

is warm and brown, like the smell of roast chestnuts. Within a few nights

he is climbing up of his own accord to nestle in your lap while skillfully

caressing you in one way and another, and also another, until you spot