Amos Oz - Don't Call It Night

I said: You're wonderful, because I was suddenly filled with affectionate pity for this middle-aged lamb with his sky-blue shoes, trying hard to be a wolf. A pitiful, vulnerable wolf, or, rather, a tortoise without a shell: with a single hint of scorn any woman could wipe out all the conquests of his thirty years' seduction marathon. In that instant I could see the twelve-year-old he had once been: pudgy, unloved, noisy, joining in the cruel jokes about his six fingers, a tedious, ingratiating child, attaching himself to everybody, striving in vain to amuse the world, and when the world refused to smile lapsing into buffoonery. Always hurrying to fill every gap in every conversation, to prevent a silence that might deny his existence. Constantly responsible for feeding the communal bonfire with twigs of foolish prattle, and when the twigs ran out he would get up and throw his own heart on the bonfire of mockery. A juvenile also-ran.

For almost twenty years he has been a divorced skirt-chaser (though he himself denies chasing skirts, quipping that he only chases what's inside them). He views the entire female sex as a stem tribunal unanimously condemning him to rush around making ritual gestures so as to please it, but it is never pleased. Subconsciously he knows that he can never obtain the desired pardon, despite the bed-points that he is indefatigably clocking up on a score-sheet of achievement that can never be completed. Despite which, he persists, undeterred, Sisyphean, panting from bed to bed as though the next one will bring him at last the coveted distinction, the formal release, the certificate of exemption from further exertion. Every time he tries to beam me a half-serious gesture of everlasting smouldering desire, what I pick up is not desire but a plea for some kind of feminine receipt that he has no idea what to do with. So he staggers on until his strength gives out, from seduction to seduction, from quip to quip, from bedroom scene to bedroom scene, puffing and panting, boasting, constantly threatened by the fear that the women are making fun of him behind his back, the threadbare hero of an Odyssey peopled by lonely divorcees, cheated wives taking vengeance, middle-aged housewives turning sour.

Muki, I said, you're wonderful, and I'm terribly jealous of all your Ethiopian women. Why don't I ever meet an Ethiopian man? But why don't you tell me what there is in that house? Didn't you say it was empty?

So it emerges that some money will have to be invested in improvements. For example, to put down new floors. For example, the toilet bowls are broken, so are the washbasins, even the roof is a bit so-so. And there will have to be some changes inside, but that really isn't his field. The best thing would be for Theo to pop round with us for half an hour or so, and give it a professional once-over. To give his opinion on the structure and on the possibility of shifting some walls or adding a storey and so forth. Apart from which, addicts, you know, bars on the windows, locks on the doors, the fence as I've said before is none too high. To cut a long story short, it's bound to come to a good few thousand on top, as the photographer said to the naked model. Actually, it depends how much more we want to spend. To cut a long story short, let's be decisive for a change, let's grab Theo and let's pick up Linda and Ludmir on the way, the whole committee, and take a really close look, as that horny Italian once said to Cleopatra. We've got to make our minds up today, because of the dentist. Yes, I've got the key. The unfortunate thing is that Bargeloni Bros have also got a key. Though actually you don't even need a key because it's all so decrepit. Why are you looking at me like that? Is decrepit a rude word? Or have you suddenly seen the light? Have you realized the man you've been looking for all your life is standing in front of you? Okay. Don't be angry. It just slipped out. I never manage to say what I'm really feeling, what I truly mean. That's my whole problem. Here's Theo. Hi, Theo. You jealous at finding us whispering together in the kitchen? If only it were true. Did you get some sleep? Are you awake? Let's put you in the picture.

There's no need, I said. Theo's not involved in all this.

Theo said: I'm just going to make myself some coffee and I'm off.

And Muki: What do you mean you're off? So who's died? On the contrary. Listen to the story, Theo, and then come along with us, take a good look, and decide about the place.

I said in a flat voice: Theo doesn't decide. The committee decides.

Meanwhile the water boiled. Theo made instant coffee for the visitor for me and for himself. He offered sugar and milk. He took some more grapes out of the refrigerator, washed them, put them in front of us on two plates, and said: Well? To stay or to go? What's the majority verdict?

Without waiting for an answer he turned his back, in his undershirt, suntanned, his shoulders thick and hard, he gave us up, took his cup and went. All he left behind was his sorrow, wrapping it, as it were, round my shoulders. Beyond his bedroom door which he drew noisely to behind him I could guess him bent over his desk, leaning on it with both fists, resembling from behind an old, tired ox, standing silently as though waiting for some inner sound to come and release him from his waiting. I recalled him during one of our first trips in Venezuela, in a Jeep, on a dirt track running along a winding mist-filled valley, as he suddenly exclaimed that even if what was happening to us turned out to be love, he hoped we could go on being friends.

I went to his room to call out to him to come back, to join me and Muki. And while I was calling I knew I was making a mistake.

He sat down on his regular chair in the kitchen, his back resting on the side of the refrigerator, listening silently to the story about the Alharizi building, asking a couple of short questions, and while listening to the answers patiently and meticulously cleaning out the holes in the salt shaker with a toothpick and then going on to clean the pepper mill. Muki concluded with the words: Either way there's nothing to lose. And then Theo declared: It doesn't look right.

But why?

From every point of view.

What can we lose if we go there now? Just for a few minutes? To look the place over?

There's no point in going. It looks wrong from the outset.

Because you're opposed to everything to do with the clinic, or because you think this particular step is wrong?

Both.

Isn't it a shame to miss the opportunity?

There's no opportunity,

Meaning?

I've already said: it doesn't look right.

Up to that moment, my opinion was that it was too soon for us to start looking for a building. I felt that Muki Peleg was too eager, there was no sense in acquiring a building just because there might or might not be a chance of a bargain, and it definitely was not good to make decisions the same day, under pressure of time. But Theo's mockery, his scorn, his faint rudeness, his peasant-like way of sitting, in his undershirt, legs apart, deliberately picking grapes from the middle of the bunch in front of him, all exasperated me. My father's temper suddenly welled up inside me like boiling oil. At that instant I resolved not to let go of the building, if it seemed suitable. Just as when in class some dozy show-off says in a wheedling voice, Oh, that Agnon does go on so, and I tremble with rage and give her and the whole class a stinker of an essay for homework on the functions of the lyrical aside.

Theo, I said, Muki and I certainly don't consider ourselves as intercontinental experts on realizing projects. Or as entrepreneurs who have left their mark et cetera. So you'll just have to explain to us in simple Hebrew why we shouldn't take a step that on the face of it looks pretty rational.

On the face of it, said Theo: a good expression. And one that contains an answer to your question.