Amos Oz - Panther in the Basement

And she touched me on my left shoulder, quite close to the base of my arm, and added:

"Don't be sad. Just wait quietly and don't suck up to him. Ben Hur will have to come back to you because without you, just think, who has he got left to dominate? And he simply has to dominate someone. He can't get to sleep at night without dominating somebody first. That's the trouble with dominating: once you've started you can't stop. Don't you worry, Proffy, because I don't think you'll catch it. Even though it is quite contagious. And besides—"

She stopped. She lit another cigarette and smiled, not to me but perhaps to herself, a sort of smile of inner amusement, a smile that doesn't know it exists.

"And besides what?" I dared to ask.

"Nothing. Undergrounds and all that sort of thing. Remind me what we were talking about. Weren't we talking about undergrounds?"

The right answer was: No. Because before she stopped to light her cigarette we had been talking about the urge to dominate. Despite which, I said:

"Yes. Undergrounds."

Yardena said:

"Undergrounds. Forget about undergrounds. You'd be better advised to go on peeping, only more cleverly than that time. And better still, Proffy, instead of peeping, you should learn to ask. If you know how to ask, you don't need to peep. The trouble is that there's almost no man who knows how to ask, except in the movies. That's how it is in this country, anyway. Instead of asking, either they get down on all fours and beg, or they put pressure on you, or they cheat. And that's without even mentioning vulgar gropers, who are almost the majority here. Maybe you will. One day. That is, maybe one day you will learn how to ask. In fact, even if people do sometimes go mad and die from this boy and girl and love business, it is much more likely to happen from undergrounds and all that salvation nonsense. Don't believe what you see in the movies. In real life people ask for all sorts of things, but they don't ask for them the right way. Then they stop asking and only give and take offense. In the end they get used to it all and stop bothering, and when that happens there's no more time. Life is over."

"Do you want a cushion?" I asked. "My mother likes to sit in the kitchen in the evening with a cushion behind her back."

Yardena's nearly twenty, and she still has a little-girl habit of adjusting the hem of her dress as though her knee is a baby that she has to cover up over and over again, just right, not too little so that it'll catch cold, and not too much, so that it won't have enough air to breathe.

"My brother," she said, "your friend, will never have a friend. Specially not a girlfriend. Only subjects. And women. He'll have plenty of women, because the world is awash with poor wretches who throw themselves under tyrants' feet. But he won't have a woman friend. Get me a glass of water, would you, Proffy? Not from the tap, from the icebox. Actually, I'm not thirsty. You will have women friends. And I'll tell you why. It's because whenever you're given some thing, even if it's nothing more than a roll, or a paper napkin, or a teaspoon, you behave as if you've been given a present. As if a miracle has occurred."

I didn't agree with her about everything but I decided not to argue. Except about one point, earlier in the conversation, a point I could on no account pass over in silence:

"But, Yardena, what you were saying before about undergrounds, surely without the Underground the English will never let us have the Land."

She suddenly burst out laughing, a wide-open, musical laughter that only girls who enjoy being girls have. And she tried to sweep her cigarette smoke away with her hand, as though it were a fly:

"There you go again," she said, "talking like the Voice of Fighting Zion. You aren't an underground, you and Ben Hur and what's-his-name, the other one, the little monkey. An underground is something completely different. Something awesome. Something lethal. Even when there really isn't any alternative and you have to fight, an underground is still something deadly. Besides which, these British may well pack up and go home soon. I only hope we don't regret it, regret it bitterly, when we're left here without them."

These words seemed to me dangerously irresponsible. In some way they resembled Sergeant Dunlop's remark that the Arabs were the weaker side and soon they'd become the new Jews. What was the connection between what Yardena was saying and his opinion about the Arabs? None at all. And yet there was a connection. I was furious with myself for not being able to see what the connection was and with Yardena for saying things that were better left unsaid. Maybe it was my duty to tell some responsible adult about these thoughts? Father, perhaps? To warn them, so that those who needed to know would be aware that Yardena was a bit frivolous.

Even if I did decide to report what she had said, I mustn't arouse her suspicions.

I said:

"I have a different opinion. We must drive the British out of the Land by force."

"We will," said Yardena, "but not tonight. Just look at the time; it's nearly a quarter to eleven, and, tell me, are you a sound sleeper?"

This question struck me as strange, and even a little suspicious. I replied cautiously:

"Yes. No. It depends."

"Well tonight you'd better sleep soundly. And if you do happen to wake up, you can turn your light on and read till the morning for all I care. But don't you dare leave your room, because on the stroke of midnight if there's a moon I turn into a wolf, or more precisely a vampire, and I've already gobbled up a hundred kids like you. So, whatever you do, don't you open your door in the night. Promise."

I promised. On my word of honor. But my suspicions deepened. I decided I must try not to fall asleep. And I thought it definitely wouldn't be difficult, because of the coffee I had drunk and the smell of smoke everywhere in the apartment and what Yardena had said about my strong side and other strange things.

In the hallway, after I had washed and before saying good night, she reached out suddenly and touched me on the head. Her hand was neither soft nor hard, quite different from my mother's. She ruffled my hair for a moment and said: "Listen very carefully, Proffy. That sergeant you told me about. He sounds really nice, he may even happen to be fond of children, but I don't think you're in any danger, because he's an inhibited man. At least that's the way he comes across from your description. And by the way, since you're called Proffy, which is short for Professor, why don't you start being a professor instead of a spy or a general? Half the world are spies and generals. Not you. You're a word-child. Good night. And I'll tell you what I found really nice: that you washed all the dishes without my asking. Ben Hur does the washing-up only if he's bribed."

But why did I lock my bedroom door on the inside that night? Even now, more than forty years later, I don't know. I know even less now than I did at the time. (There are all manners and degrees of not knowing. Just as a window can be not just open or shut, but half open, or one part can be open and the rest shut, or it can be open just a crack, or covered with a shutter on the outside and a thick curtain on the inside, or even fastened shut with nails.)

I locked my door and undressed with a firm resolve not to think the faintest thought about Yardena on the other side of the wall, who might be getting undressed at this very moment just like me, undoing one smooth round button after another down the front of her light sleeveless dress, and I made up my mind simply not to think about those buttons, not the top ones near her throat nor the bottom ones near her knees.

I switched on my bedside lamp and started looking at a book, but it was a little hard for me to concentrate. ("Instead of peeping, you should learn to ask." What had she meant by that? And "You're a word-child"! How come? Hadn't she noticed that I was a panther in a basement?)