Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

"You have until tomorrow to make up your mind and act. Till twelve noon. And remember that I've warned you. And don't try to answer me now with all your firstly's and secondly's, or even without them, because I have no time to listen. You've already made me late for my education committee meeting. So instead of composing answers in your head, I'll advise you, Yolek Lifshitz, to sit down quietly by yourself tonight and think things over very, very carefully — the way you're so good at doing whenever you have a political problem on your hands. Your medicine is in the blue bottle in the refrigerator. Don't forget to take two teaspoons at ten-thirty. Make sure they're full ones, not halves. And your pain pills are in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Don't forget either that you're supposed to drink a lot of tea. I'll be back by eleven-thirty, quarter-to-twelve at the latest. Don't wait up for me. Get into bed and read a paper until you fall asleep. Just have yourself a good think first — not how to answer me, I know I may have put things a bit strongly — but how to do what any true father who doesn't want his son to suffer would have done long ago. I'm sure that, as usual, you'll find a tactful, diplomatic, clearcut solution that won't cause any unpleasantness. Good night. My, I really am late. And don't you dare touch the brandy. Remember what the doctor told you. Not one drop! You may as well know that I've marked a line on the bottle. You're best off getting into bed with your paper. And you shouldn't be smoking so much either. Goodbye. I'm leaving the light on in the bathroom for you."

Once Hava had gone, Yolek rose from his chair. He shuffled over to the bookcase, reached with cautious fingers for the brandy bottle, studied its label craftily, shut his eyes pensively for a moment, smiled the faintest of mockingly sad smiles, poured himself a full glass of brandy, and set it on his desk. He then took the bottle to the kitchen and filled it with tap water up to the line that Hava had penciled on it. Back at his desk, he opened his appointment book to write: See about Gitlin. Check regulations for temporary help. Compensation? Insurance? And then added: Have Udi'S. fill in for him in tractor shed? He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, took a tiny sip from his glass followed by two gulps, and with a steady hand began to write on a sheet of stationery, whose upper-right-hand corner bore the printed message From the desk of Yisra'el Lifshitz:

Mr. B. Trotsky

Miami Beach, Florida

U.S.A.

Dear Benyamin,

I'm writing to answer your letter of several months ago. Please forgive me for taking so long. I have been besieged by problems, both public and otherwise, which is the reason for the delay.

Regarding your offer to donate a sum of money for the construction of a public building in Kibbutz Granot, firstly, let me express my own and our members' gratitude for both the proposal itself and the generous intention behind it. Secondly, permit me the liberty of pointing out that the idea itself is not without its difficulties, some of them rooted in principle. No doubt you can imagine the existence of certain long-held feelings, sensitivities, and questions concerning both your present situation and events of the distant past that are best left unmentioned and forgotten. A word to the wise, etc. The rub is, Benyamin, that there are among us, I'm sorry to say, some stubborn souls who insist on raking up that past and opening old wounds. Besides which, to be perfectly candid with you, I too find myself in a quandary, seeing as how I, so to speak, was on the butt end of it all. In light of which, it may be that your kind offer needs to be given more thought. See here, Benya. Why don't we agree to put the whole matter aside for the moment and do some plain speaking with each other. I want you to tell me something. Please. In two or three lines. On a postcard. Or even a telegram. Just answer me yes or no. Have I in any way wronged you? Yes or no? As God is my witness, how have I sinned against you? What strings, as it were, have I pulled to your detriment? Of what intrigues against you am I guilty? Granted, it was not with malice aforethought that you fell in love with my friend. Who purports to plumb the vagaries of the human heart? And she — let's face it — suffered, frightfully, until she made up her mind. But make it up she did. I did not, after all, bludgeon her into doing so. Does anyone seriously think I could have kept her by force had she really preferred you to me? Honest to goodness, Benya, was I really the villain of the piece, and she and you, as it were, the helpless victims? The crucified saints? What, in the name of God, did I do to the two of you? What made me deserve to be treated with such savage rancor? Do you mean to tell me that I was the Cossack with the whip and you my innocent whipping boy? Which one of us, may I ask, pulled a gun as his final argument? Was it me? Was I the murderer? Did I really destroy a grand passion, so to speak, by snatching her from your arms? Was it I who turned up uninvited one day and took all of us by storm with my shepherd's pipe and my Russian peasant's blouse and my romantic airs and my wild head of hair and my erotic bass voice? Why then should I be spat at and reviled? Why should I be punished all my life? What are she, you, and the boy continually tormenting me for? For having tried to behave decently and rationally? For not having reached for a knife or gun myself? For having kept you from being handed over to the British police? For the six English pounds I stuck into your broken-down suitcase at the last minute when you couldn't close it that morning and I had to tie it together with rope before you hit the road? For what? Is it just for the nasty intellectual face I had the hard luck to be born with?

Benya, listen. I wish you well. Wherever you are. I'm willing to let bygones be bygones. But for heaven's sake, stop hounding me. Let me live too for once in my life. And above all, keep your hands off the boy. If there's any fear of God in your heart, cable me at once just four words, Yes, he is yours, or else, No, he is mine. So I needn't go on being poisoned by doubt until the day I die. Not that that will help much either, because there isn't such a natural-born, poetic, ingratiating liar in the whole world as you. Still, Benya, if there is anything at all to our ancestors' belief in the life hereafter, they're sure to have an information desk where I can get a straight answer about the real father. Except that now I'm really writing poppycock, because by any standard of justice Yoni is all mine and you have no possible claim on him. What the devil difference does it make whose filthy fluids he came from? A vile droplet of pus is not what makes the man. If it is, this world is really a sorry jest.

Benya, you listen to me now. The boy is my son, and if there's a shred of human decency left in you, you'll tell me so. Yes. In a telegram.

Not, incidentally, that when all is said and done, it doesn't come to the same thing. Share and share alike, as we once used to proclaim. What a nightmare, Benya! What a bad April Fool's joke! He's not really mine, and he certainly isn't yours, and he's not poor Hava's either — in fact, he barely even belongs to himself. Still, I want you to know that if by any chance you are in cahoots with that obsessed woman of mine to lure my son to America with all kinds of goodies and make a degenerate, money-mad kike of him there, I'm determined to fight you with every means at my disposal until I've obliterated that web of deceit. Believe me, when it comes to playing dirty, I've learned a trick or two myself in this life. And just in case you need a hint to get the real picture, I don't mind giving you one. There's no reason why Hava should be above a full medical examination in order to establish her true mental condition. And don't delude yourself, either, into thinking your America is, so to speak, an impregnable Shangri-la. With a little spadework, it should be easy enough to discover exactly how you came by that bonanza of yours and to find a suitable ear into which to whisper the charming tale of your hot-blooded youth. A word to the wise, etc. I will not let my son join you in America even if you are so swimming in money, as they say, that you can send a gold-plated airplane to fetch him.