Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

"Who's crying?" said Yonatan angrily. "It's just that fucking allergy of mine making my eyes smart. I've told you a thousand times that they sting and that you should stop putting pine branches in your vases."

"I'm sorry, Yoni. It's just that it's winter now and I can't find any flowers."

"And I've told you a thousand times too to stop saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry all day long like some waitress or a chambermaid in a movie. What you should be saying is 'What now?'"

"What now, Yoni?"

"I'm asking you what's left now. And I'll thank you not to repeat all my questions but make a little effort to answer what you've been asked."

"But you know what now. Why ask? You and I have been husband and wife for years. Why are you asking me?"

"I don't know why. I just am. I want to hear an answer for a change. Look here, are you purposely trying to drive me up the wall? How long are you going to go on talking to me like a little moron?"

She glanced up from her embroidery and her eyes once again appeared to be tracing the music in the air. Indeed, at just that moment the fugue seemed about to overflow its banks, surging upward, beating against mighty walls. And right after that, a gentling took place. The melody relented, as though despairing of cresting the dam, and, surrendering at last, dove deep to burble beneath the foundations. The powerful current of the theme forked into several thin eddies, each flowing its own way, each oblivious of the others, but swirling about one another with bashful desire, and slowly overcoming their forlornness to build up passionately to yet another floodtide.

"Yoni, listen."

"Yes," said Yonatan, feeling his heart grow limp with the sudden evaporation of his anger. "What."

"Listen, Yoni. It's like this. You and I are together. By ourselves. Close to each other, as you said we'd be. You're good, and I try to be beautiful for you, and not to copy others, but still to be the first. We almost always get along. And if sometimes something goes wrong or annoys you, like a minute ago when I told you not to cry and you got angry, it's still all right. I know you'll calm down in the end and we'll feel good with each other again. Maybe you think new things should happen all the time, but that isn't so. I'm not telling you to look at other people, but if you do look at them anyway, you'll see that new things don't happen to them every day either. What should happen, Yoni? You're a grown man. I'm your wife. This is home. All this is us. And it's the middle of the winter."

"It's not that, Rimona," said Yonatan, almost in a whisper.

"I know. You suddenly got sad," said Rimona, running one finger along the table. Then, with an uncharacteristically rebellious movement, she rose and stood before him.

"Have you gone completely out of your mind? What are you undressing for?"

The rebellion ended. She blanched and dropped both arms.

"I just thought that maybe," she said, trembling.

"Put your sweater back on. No one told you to undress. I don't need you with your clothes off."

"1 just thought," she whispered.

"It's all right," said Yonatan. "Never mind. You're all right." He nodded once or twice, as if in wholehearted agreement with himself, and said no more. Neither, seated across from him again, did she. The music grew soft and tranquil. In a minute it would fade away and be gone. Rimona reached for the cigarettes, took one, lit it with a match, and began to cough until the tears came, because she didn't smoke. With a gentle, careful movement she stuck it between Yonatan's lips.

"That's how it is," he said.

"What is, Yoni?"

"Everything. You. Me. Everything. Did you say something? No, I know you didn't. Then say something, goddamn it! Say anything, scream, tell me what's on your mind, if anything ever is. What next? What's going to happen to you? To me? What exactly is going on in that little head of yours?"

"The winter will end," said Rimona. "Then spring and summer will come. We'll go somewhere on vacation. Maybe to upper Galilee, or the seashore. We'll sit on the porch in the evening watching the stars come out or the full moon rise. Do you remember once telling me that the moon has a dark side where everyone goes when they die? You shouldn't frighten me like that, because I believe whatever you tell me, and I don't stop believing it until I hear you say you were only joking. And then at the end of the summer you'll be called up as usual to the reserves, and when that's over, you'll take two days off from work and tell me about the new people you met and the new equipment your unit has. It will still be hot, and when you're done working for the day, you can sit on the lawn with Udi and Anat and talk politics. At night they'll come over for coffee and two of you will play chess."

"And then?"

"Then it will be autumn again. You'll go to the all-kibbutz chess tournament and maybe win another medal. When you come home, it will be time for winter plowing. Your brother Amos will get out of the army and maybe he'll marry Rachel. You'll start picking lemons and grapefruit, and then oranges, and you and Udi will be busy all day getting the shipments out on time. But I'll ask you just the same, and you'll agree, to turn the soil in the garden so that I can plant chrysanthemums again, and other winter flowers too. And then winter will come back, and we'll light the heater and sit here together, and it can rain and rain all it wants and we won't get wet."

"And then?"

"Yoni, what's wrong with you?"

Yonatan jumped up from his chair and savagely stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. Tensing his neck, he thrust his head forward on the bias, a movement that resembled his father's attempts to hear. A cowlick fell into his eyes and he brushed it roughly away.

"But I can't take it any more! I can't go on like this!" His voice was choked and seemed on the verge of panic.

Rimona looked at him quietly, as if he had said nothing more than please turn off the radio.

"You want to go away."

"Yes."

"With me or without me?"

"By myself."

"When?"

"Soon. In a few days."

"And I'll stay here?"

"That's up to you."

"Will you be gone for long?"

"I don't know. Yes. For a long time."

"And what will there be for us afterwards?"

"I don't know what there will be for us. What's this 'for us' stuff? Who says there has to be anything for us? What am I, your father or something? Look. I can't go on like this any longer. It's that simple."

"But you'll come back in the end."

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

"I'm hoping."

"Then don't. You can stop hoping. It's a waste of your time."

"Where will you go?"

"Somewhere. I don't know. We'll see. What difference does it make?"

"Will you study?"

"I might."

"And then?"

"I don't know. Why keep asking? I don't know anything now. Stop grilling me as if I were a criminal."

"But you'll come sometimes."

"Would you like me to?"

"If you feel like coming, you'll come, and if you want to go again, you'll go. It can be whenever you want. I won't change a thing in the house or cut my hair as I thought 1 would do in the spring. Sometimes you'll want to come to me, and then I'll be here for you."

"No, I'll want to stay away. Maybe I'll even go overseas, to America or somewhere."

"You want to be far away from me."

"I want to be far away from here."

"From me."

"All right. Yes. From you."

"And from your parents and your brother Amos and all your friends."

"Yes. That's right. Far away from here."

Rimona lowered her shoulders. She slowly touched her upper lip with a fingertip, like a slow pupil working on a math problem. He bent over to see her tears. There were no tears. She seemed supremely concentrated, lost in thought. Her attentiveness had lapsed and wandered back to the music. It's that radio, thought Yonatan. All that music has completely spaced her out. Ever so quietly she's going out of her mind, or else she's been a total halfwit all along and I just didn't notice. She's not even listening to me but to the music. It goes in one ear and out the other like the ticking of a clock or the sound of the rain in a drainpipe.