Amos Oz - Panther in the Basement

"If you're not too tired."

Chita gave a nervous, servile laugh, and said:

"Let me stew Proffy for a bit. Just five minutes. Then he'll sing like a canary."

Ben Hur said:

"You're disgusting Chita. You're talking like a little Nazi. Pick up that stone, little Nazi — no, that one there — and put it in your mouth. So. Now close your mouth. Now we'll have silence in court for the duration of the trial. The traitor will kindly conclude his speech, if he has not already done so."

"C," I said, forcing myself not to peep at Chita, who was almost choking on the stone. I was determined to stare firmly into those unblinking yellow fox-eyes. "C: I received nothing from the enemy. Not a thread or a shoelace. As a matter of principle. I have finished. I wasn't a traitor, I was a spy. I followed my instructions precisely."

"A touch overdone," Ben Hur said sadly, "with the thread and the shoelace and so on. But we're used to that. You spoke very well, Proffy."

"Am I acquitted? Am I free?"

"The accused has finished. Now the accused will be

There was another silence. Ben Hur Tykocinski stared at three little twigs. He tried four or five times to make them stand up like a tripod, but each time they collapsed. He pulled out his penknife, shortened one twig, whittled another, until he managed to stand them in a perfect geometrical arrangement. But he did not put the knife away; he balanced it on the back of his outstretched hand, with the blade pointing toward me, glinting. He said:

"This court believes the traitor when he says he got some information out of the enemy. This court even accepts that the traitor did not inform on us. The court rejects with disgust the traitor's false testimony that he did not receive any payment: the traitor received crackers, lemonade, a sausage roll, English lessons, and a Bible, including the New Testament, which is a book attacking our people."

"I didn't get a sausage roll," I said almost in a whisper.

"The traitor is also petty. He is wasting the court's time with sausages and other irrelevant trifles."

"Ben Hur!" A desperate sound suddenly burst out of me, an outcry of protest against injustice: "What have I done to you? I didn't tell him anything. Not a word! And don't forget I set up this organization and made you commander in chief. But now that's all over. I hereby disband the FOD. The game is over. Have you ever heard of Dreyfus? Emile Zola, the writer? Of course not. But I don't care any more. This organization is disbanded, and now I'm going home."

"Go then, Proffy."

"I'm going home, and I despise the two of you."

"Go."

"I'm not a traitor. I'm not an informer. It's all slander. As for you, Ben Hur, you're just a child with a persecution complex. I've got plenty of material about that in the encyclopedia."

"Well? Why don't you go then? You keep saying you're going, you're going, and you're rooted to the spot. As for you, Chita, tell me, are you out of your mind? Stop eating stones. Yes. You can take it out. No, don't throw it away. Keep your stone; you might need it again."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"You'll see, Proffy. It's not in the encyclopedia."

Almost without a sound I said:

"But I didn't give anything away."

"That's true."

"And I didn't get anything from him."

"That's more or less true, too. Or almost."

"So why on earth?"

"Why. The traitor has read five encyclopedias and he still doesn't understand what he's done. Shall we explain to him? What do you think, Chita? Shall we open his eyes for him? Yes? Very well then. We're not Nazis. This court believes in issuing reasoned explanations of its decisions. Well then. It's because you love the enemy, Proffy. Loving the enemy, Proffy, is worse than betraying secrets. Worse than betraying fighters. Worse than informing. Worse than selling them arms. Even worse than going over and fighting on their side. Loving the enemy is the height of treachery. Come on, Chita. We'd better be going. Curfew will be starting soon. And it's unhealthy to breathe the same air as traitors. From now on, Chita, you're the second in command. Just keep your mouth shut."

(Me? Stephen Dunlop? My whole stomach turned upside down, and everything in it was falling, as if down a well. As if I had another stomach inside my stomach, a deep pit, and everything was pouring into it. Love? Him? It was a lie. The height of treachery? How could my mother say that anyone who loved wasn't a traitor?"

Ben Hur and Chita were a long way away. A roar exploded from me:

"You're crazy! You're mad! I hate that Dunlop, that medusa face! I hate him! I loathe him! I despise him!"

(Traitor. Liar. Low-down.)

Meanwhile, the Tel Arza Woods were empty. The High Command had vanished. Soon it would be dark and curfew would begin. I wouldn't go home. I'd go into the mountains and be a mountain boy. Live by myself. Forever. Not belonging. And therefore not a traitor. Whoever belongs betrays.

Pine trees whispered and cypresses rustled: Shut up, low-down traitor.

These were the routes that were open to me, according to the logical plan that I had learned from my father to make in moments of crisis. I wrote them all down on a blank card I took from his desk. One: win Chita over to my side. (Stamps? Coins? Tell him a thriller in installments?) And then vote Ben Hur out of his position as commander in chief. Two: split off. Found a new resistance movement and enlist new fighters. Three: run away to the Sanhedriya caves and live there until my innocence was established. Or tell Sergeant Dunlop all about it, now that I had nothing more to lose. Ben Hur and Chita would go to prison and I would be taken off to England to start a new life under an entirely new identity. There, in England, I would forge links, make friends with ministers and the King, until I found the right moment to strike at the heart of the government and wrest our Land from them. Just me, by myself. And then I would grant Ben Hur and Chita a contemptuous amnesty.

Or not.

Better to wait.

I would gird myself with cast-iron patience and keep my eyes open. (I still give myself advice like this. I don't take it, though.)

I'll wait. Calmly. If Ben Hur plots to harm me, I'll survive. But I won't take any steps that are liable to weaken or split the Underground. After their vengeance, after the punishment (and what more can they do to me?), they'll almost certainly ask me to rejoin them. Anyway, what can they do without me? They're just riffraff. Chickens with their heads cut off. But I won't be too quick to agree. I'll let them plead. Implore me. Beg my pardon. Acknowledge they did me an injustice.

"Dad," I said that evening, "what will we do if the British come along, say the High Commissioner or even the King himself, and acknowledge they have done us an injustice? And ask us to forgive them?"

My mother said:

"Of course we'll forgive them. How could we not? That's a lovely dream you've dreamed."

"Albion," said my father. "First we'll have to examine carefully how sincere they are. Whether there's any ulterior motive. With them anything is possible."

"How about if the Germans come and beg us to forgive them?"

"That's hard," said my mother. "That'll have to wait. Maybe in many years' time. Maybe you can do it. I can't."

My father was deep in thought. Finally he touched me on the shoulder and said:

"So long as we Jews are few and weak, Albion and all the gentiles will go on sucking up to the Arabs. When we are very strong, and many, and can defend ourselves, yes indeed, then it is possible they might come and speak sweetly to us. British, Germans, Russians, the whole world will come and serenade us. That day we will receive them politely. We will not reject their outstretched hands, but neither will we fall on their necks like long-lost brothers. On the contrary. Respect and suspect. By the way, it would be preferable for us to ally ourselves, not with the European nations, but with our Arab neighbors. After all, Ishmael is our only blood relative. Of course all this is a long way away, perhaps a very long way away. Do you remember the Trojan War? That we read together last winter? The well-known saying, 'Beware the Greeks when they come bearing gifts'? Well, substitute British for Greeks. As for the Germans, so long as they do not forgive themselves, it is possible that one day we shall forgive them. But if it turns out that they do forgive themselves, we shall never forgive them."