Amos Oz - The Same Sea

a thing like this? Round my neck? On my head? I've bought you a present too,

it's a scarf Look: it's pure, soft Welsh wool. Good for the winter. Blue.

Checks. You sit facing me with your legs crossed, talking good sense

about Rabin and Peres. But you never mention her. Heaven forbid. So no one

gets upset.

But who will get upset if you do speak for once, Albert?

Are you worried you'll upset me? Or her? Or yourself? After all, we are

what we are, we're not partners and we're not family. We're not playing

the male-female game. You're sixty and I'm sixty. We're not a couple,

we're just two people. Acquaintances? Friends? Colleagues even? In a way?

An alliance for a rainy day? Twilight affection? Our legs crossed. Mine crossed

over mine, yours crossed over yours. You facing me and me facing you.

I read once that a man and a woman cant be just friends:

either they are lovers, or there is nothing between them. The fact is

I am just as bad as you. I don't say a word about Avram. I'm scared

that if I do talk about him you'll be so embarrassed

you'll run away again.

What is left? Herbal tea. Watermelon. Cheese. Investments.

Indexation. Savings accounts. Funds. Legs crossed, you

and I. Your leg over yours, mine over mine. Careful

with words in case we touch. I'm relaxed

and you are calm. The neon light casts a brightness

on all this. Below the veranda the gravel is dusty.

Forgive me Albert, don't be upset, I suddenly feel

like breaking a glass. There, that's done. I'm

sorry. You will forgive me. I'll sweep it up.

You needn't bother.

A letter from Rico to Dita Inbar. Dear Dita, Kathmandu here, and this

is the scene. Going from one temple to another. Mainly out in the country.

I sometimes remember that thing we have, where I'm a nun

and you're a monk. If you can't remember, try. Though there's something

in Tel Aviv that rubs out memories. It's not the heat or the humidity.

Something else. Something more fundamental. Tel Aviv is a place

that rubs things out Writing, rubbing out, while all the time we're breathing

chalk dust Don't wait for me. Have some fun. Find yourself someone

who understands you, someone who's tough on the outside and soft

on the inside, sly in back and refined in front,

who advances on the left while forging ahead on the right, and go

if you can for a building contractor who'll let me live

in the gamekeepers cottage. Don't get mad I'm only trying to say

that here in Tibet you really do remember things. Yesterday, for instance,

in the Temple of the Echo (so called because of an acoustic distortion

that turns a word into a wail, a shout into a laugh), I said your name twice

and you answered me from an underground cistern. Not you actually,

but a voice that was partly yours and partly my mother's. Don't worry.

I'm not mixing you up. She is herself and you are yourself. Take care

of yourself and don't go jumping into any empty swimming pools.

PS If you get a chance, look in on my dad and see how he's getting on.

I don't suppose he's complaining and I'm not either. The light here

is quite pleasant on the eyes, when it doesn't dazzle you.

The light is sweet on the eyes. The darkness sees into the heart. The rope

follows the pail. The pitcher was broken at the fountain. The humble settler

who has never settled himself in the seat of the scornful will die in August

of cancer of the pancreas. The policeman who cried wolf will die

in September of heart failure. His eyes were sweet and the light is sweet

but his eyes are no more and the light is still here. The seat of the scornful

has been closed down, and in its place they've opened a shopping mall.

The scornful have passed away. Diabetes. Kidney disease. Blessed

is the fountain. Blessed is the pail. Blessed are the poor in spirit for

they shall inherit the wolf.

At 7 p.m. in Café Limor with one Dubi Dombrov, a divorced lad

in his forties. He has a habit of panting like a thirsty dog, fast and hard,

through his mouth. His ginger hair is thinning but his bushy sideburns go

exactly halfway down his cheeks. Like a pair of brackets, she thinks, eyeing

his legs as he comes in and sits down, not facing her but by her side,

his thigh almost touching hers. The purpose of the meeting is to talk about

the film. This Dombrov is the number one man in a production company

that does some work with Channel 2, or hopefully soon will. He definitely

doesn't rule out the idea of doing something different, for a change.

Something experimental, like the screenplay Dita has written

and shown him. The only condition is that Dita should find

shall we say four thousand, give or take, and of course Dita herself must take

the part of Nirit. The fact is that while he was reading the script this Nirit

teased the pants off him. In bed at night it's her, only her, that he undresses.

Wet dreams, that's what you've given me, you or Nirit. Cross your heart:

is Nirit you?

And let's be quite clear that I'm serious and I and you and I and I.

He leers lecherously at her breasts — into her mouth he forces

a spoonful of ice-cream and pushes her hand between his legs, so she can

feel for herself what a hard-on she's given him. As big as a donkeys.

Dita pulls her hand away and leaves.

Back in her bedroom alone she unzips her skirt, in front of the mirror

she strips. She looks at her body: its wild, it's new, it turns men on

and it turns her on too. This body wants sex and it wants it

now, this body wants Rico, it does, but how: Rico's not here.

She's got the itch, her body's in charge and she can't resist. Naked

she throws herself down on her bed, into her pillow she buries

her head then rolls herself over as quick as she can and hugs that pillow

as though its her man. She wants to stop but her body says no, it's started

now and it's got to go. She ruffles and tickles his body fur so he'll have

gooseflesh just like her. She buries her face between his thighs and her tongue

plies wildly as her body sighs and she drips with juices like rare perfume

as her body is pierced by a tender tune. Their hands intertwine and she stifles

a groan. He is inside her but she's alone. When it's done, she plants six

little kisses in the soft of her arm for the man she misses, and then as she falls

asleep on her bed she counts to herself inside her head how much cash she has

stashed away and how can she raise the 4k to make a movie out of the script

that she wrote about the love of Nirit. Cross your heart: is Nirit you?

That's a question Dita's not got an answer to.

The forecast, that had promised a chance of snow on high ground,

had not kept its promise. But Nadia, who had promised nothing, appeared

at his door one Saturday morning, in a light-colored frock

with a red scarf round her neck, somewhere between a girl and a woman. Did I

surprise you? Are you free? (Am I free? Oh, painfully free. His heart dissolved

in bashful glee. Nadia. Has come. To visit. Me.)

Albert was renting a room from a childless couple in old Bat Yam. They were

away for the weekend. The flat was all his. He sat Nadia down on his bed

and went to the kitchen to slice some black bread, and came back bearing