Amos Oz - Where the Jackals Howl

An everlasting curse stands between house dwellers and those who live in mountains and ravines. It happens sometimes in the middle of the night that a plump house-dog hears the voice of his accursed brother. It is not from the dark fields that this voice comes; the dog’s detested foe dwells in his own heart. “Ehud,” said Dov, and he gripped the doorknob.

First there was a light cough. Then a shudder. Great weariness. A shivering fit. A shuffling of feet. Sit down. Lie down. Fall. The pain was sharp and persistent, like a Latin monk repeating and repeating a thousand times the same obscure verse. The jackal pack of the Bethlehem hills gave a laugh. Their laughter ran through the empty streets of the night, Ramat Rachel, Talpiot, Bakah, the German Colony and the Greek Colony, Talbiah, and like a monkey the laughter climbed the gutters of the house and penetrated inward in a thousand jagged splinters. When the kibbutz was founded we believed that we really could turn over a new leaf, but there are things that cannot be set right and should be left as they have been since the beginning of time. I said, There are things that man can do if he wants them with all his heart. But I did not know that there is no point in leaving a fingerprint on the face of the water. I am the last, my child, and I am not laughing.

11

THE FIRST cracks appeared in the east, above the Mount of Olives and between the two towers. A light-shunning bird let out a shriek of hatred. Stealthily some pale-red force arrived and slipped through the chinks in the eastern shutter. Flocks of birds began frantically ripping the silence.

And then it was day. Kerosene sellers began to sing. Children with satchels appeared on their way to school. Yellow smells arose from vegetable stands. Newspaper vendors proclaimed the great tidings. A minister’s car appeared in the street, its tires squealing on the asphalt. Shop after shop opened up, folding iron shutters like winking eyes.

Around a stall laden with antiques stood a crowd of rosy-cheeked tourists. There was excitement. Among the knickknacks on the stall were sacred pictures on parchment screens, all of fine craftsmanship, genuine leather, strong and ancient, declared Rashid Effendi.

How sublime are the distant bells of the monasteries. How contemptible, how savage and irreverent are these jackals, answering the pure message of the bells with their twisted laughter. Malice inspires them, incorrigible malice, malice and sacrilege.

1962

1

IN THE AUTUMN the provocations intensified. There was no longer any reason for restraint. Our unit was ordered to cross the border at night and raid Dar an-Nashef.

“Tonight a nest of murderers will be wiped off the face of the earth,” our commander declared in his deep, calm voice, “and the whole Coastal Plain can breathe freely.” The men replied with a great cheer. Itcheh shouted loudest of all.

The whitewashed huts of the base camp looked clean and cheerful. Already the busy supply men were grappling with the steel doors of the armory. Mortars and heavy machine guns were brought out from the darkness into the light and laid in neat rectangles on the edge of the parade ground.

The last rays of the sun were fading in the west. Soon there was no dividing line between the peaks of the mountains to the east and the cloud banks that stooped over them. A small group of staff officers, wrapped in windbreakers, were conferring around a map that was spread out on the ground and held down by a stone at each corner. They were studying the map by the light of a pocket flashlight, and their voices were muffled. One man suddenly left the group and went bounding off toward the operations room: Rosenthal, thin and always immaculate; rumor had it that he was the son of a well-known candy manufacturer. Then a voice was heard calling out in the darkness, “Itamar, come on, it’s getting late.” And another voice replied, “Go to hell. Leave me alone.”

The battalion paraded in readiness for the sortie. On the edge of the square, facing the combatants who meandered sleepily into position in ragged ranks of three, stood a noisy group of general-duty men. They did not look sleepy; on the contrary, they were feverishly excited, talking in whispers, pointing with their fingers, giggling in shame or malice. Among them was a medical orderly named Nahum Hirsch who was forever scratching his cheeks; he had shaved in a hurry and his skin smarted with irritating little wounds. He took off his glasses and, staring at the combat troops, made a joke that was lost on his fellow orderlies. Nahum Hirsch rephrased the joke. They still did not find it funny, perhaps it was too subtle for them to understand. They told him to shut up. So he kept quiet. But the night would not keep quiet; it began to resound with all kinds of different noises. From a distant orchard we heard the sound of an irrigation pump, throbbing as if dividing time itself into equal symmetrical squares. Next the generator began its dull persistent hum, and along the perimeter fences of the camp the searchlights were switched on. The parade ground, too, was suddenly floodlit, so that the soldiers and their weapons suddenly appeared pure white.

Far away, on the foothills of the eastern mountains, rose the beam of the enemy searchlight. It began wandering nervously, aimlessly, across the sky. Once or twice the trails of falling stars were caught in this beam and their light was swallowed by its glare. The combat troops huddled over their final cigarettes. Some had already taken a last deep gulp of smoke and were stubbing out the butts on the rubber soles of their heavy boots. Others tried hard to smoke slowly. A convoy of trucks with dimmed lights moved to the edge of the square and stopped there, engines still running. The commander said: “Tonight we shall obliterate Dar an-Nashef and bring a bit of peace to the Coastal Plain. We shall operate in two columns and with two rear-guard parties. We shall try to cause a minimum of civilian casualties, but we won’t leave a stone standing in that nest of murderers. Every man is to act precisely in accordance with his instructions. In the event of any unforeseen development, or if any man gets cut off from the rest, then use the brains that God gave you and I’ve sharpened for you. That is all. Take care. And I don’t want anyone drinking cold water when he’s sweating. I promised your mothers I’d take care of you. Now, let’s get going.”

The squad answered him with a clicking of buckles on shoulder straps. Without any further signal, all began jumping lightly up and down in place, listening for any tinkling of metal or splashing of water in a canteen that had not been properly filled. Then a group of general-duty men walked between the lines, carrying tin pots full of soot. They passed from soldier to soldier, and each dipped his finger in the soot and smeared it on his cheeks, forehead, and chin: if the light of the enemy’s searchlights should catch their faces as they crawled on their stomachs toward the objective, the soot would prevent their sweating skin from giving them away. To Nahum Hirsch, the medical orderly, the procedure looked like some primeval initiation ritual, and the men carrying soot were like priests.

The battalion began trudging toward the trucks. The girls swooped upon them: clerks, typists, and nurses, all handing out candy and chewing gum. Itcheh flung his bear-like arms around the waist of Bruria, the adjutant, swung her through the air in a wide circle, and roared, “Make sure our cognac’s ready, girls, or you won’t get any pretty souvenirs!”

There was laughter. And silence again.

Nahum Hirsch wanted to boil over with anger or disgust, but laughter got the better of him and he laughed with the rest of them and he was still laughing to himself as the soldiers began climbing aboard the trucks that waited for them with lights dimmed.