Black Box (10 page)
Authors: Amos Oz
And while we are on the subject of money, write and tell me how much more you need. Do you really want me to give him a donation for the redemption of Hebron? I don’t care. I’ll buy him Hebron. And then I’ll buy him Nablus. When is his birthday? In exchange I shall ask you to reveal to me the secret of this paragon. How did he manage to win and hold you? I have authoritative assurances from two private investigators that you have apparently never betrayed him (if we leave out of account the love ticket you sent me with a price tag of a hundred thousand dollars on it, which is enough to put us both into the
Guinness Book of World Records
for the highest price ever paid for a screw that never happened). Incidentally, in his latest (for the time being) demand for payment, your Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz hints that I it was who “reduced you to sin.” Such stories are apparently common currency in the background from which he comes. It is not difficult for me to imagine what you have told him about our life together. Stories of Beauty and the Beast.
What do you see in him? What does Boaz see in him?
“A bitter, wild boy,” you wrote to me, whose hatred has given him “astonishing physical strength.” I remember the way he used to sleep at night: all huddled up in a heavy blanket pulled up over his fair hair like a cub dug into a hole. I remember the candy bed in the garden. The graveyard for butterflies. The maze and the amusement park he made for the tortoise. His tiny hands on the steering wheel of my car. The tank battles we fought on the rug, and how he washed my pipe out once with soap and water. How he ran away into the wadi after one of your suicides. And how I came home one night and found a green lighter, not mine, on the kitchen table and started to punch you and suddenly he appeared in the kitchen in his spaceman pajamas and asked me quietly to stop because you were weaker. When I said to him, “Get into bed,” and went on hitting you, he picked up a little potted cactus and threw it at me, and it hit me on the cheek and I let go of you and grabbed hold of him in a frenzy and beat his golden head over and over again against the wall. I had my pistol in my pocket and I could have fired at the two of you that night and then put a bullet in myself. In fact I did, and, ever since, the three of us have been a dream.
I want you to know that in all these years not a month has gone by without my receiving a report on you and Boaz from Zakheim and the detectives. And everything I know, including his violence, I like a lot: this tree is growing a long way from the rotten apples. We don’t deserve him, either of us. Neither of us deserves anything, apart from a bullet in the brain. Perhaps it’s only your black devil who deserves something. To be buried in the Patriarchs’ Tomb in his Hebron. And the sooner the better.
What did you see in him, Ilana? What does Boaz see in him?
If you give me a convincing answer, you’ll get the promised check.
Your sudden concern for my health (or your eagerness for an inheritance) is, as usual, touching. But please don’t exaggerate: I’m still on the map. Despite those operations. But without the whisky and the pipe, so that from your poetic arsenal only the pen and the spectacles remain, and it is true that I sometimes move them an inch to the left or two inches to the right on my desk. Just as you described in your letter. Although I do not smash glasses or throw things on the fire. Instead of your snow and the empty glass and the empty bottle, you can use the weeping willow outside my window. The black and white are fine, as long as you employ the idea with restraint and not in your usual overexuberant style.
I will nevertheless pour myself a tot of whisky now, before I sample the cure you prescribed for me, to bang my head against the corner of the desk until the pain stops.
Your
Dragon
***
GIDEON NICFOR LONDON
BOAZ HAS TURNED UP HERE REQUESTS FROM YOU FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR PURCHASE OF GLASSBOTTOMED BOAT TO SET UP OWN BUSINESS SHARM ALSHEIKH PLUS ONE THOUSAND TO BUILD TELESCOPE THERE FOR TOURISTS HAVE REPLIED NEGATIVE FOR YOUR INFORMATION MANFRED
***
PERSONAL ZAKHEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL
GIVE IT TO HIM IDIOT ALEX
***
GIDEON NICFOR LONDON
NOW HES ASKING FIVE THOUSAND FOR APARTMENT IN OPHIRA ZANDS MEN HAVE DISCOVERED HE IS LIVING AT A GAS STATION THERE WITH TWO SWEDISH GIRLS ONE FRENCH DITTO AND A BEDOUIN HAVENT GIVEN A PENNY YOU HAVE NO CASH HERE AND I HAVENT MANAGED TO REALIZE PROPERTY GO HAVE YOUR HEAD EXAMINED MANFRED
***
PERSONAL ZAKHEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL
MANFRED DO ME A FAVOR MAKE ME A LOAN AGAINST THE ZIKHRON PROPERTY AND GIVE HIM WHAT HES ASKING TELL HIM ITS THE LAST TIME ALEX
***
GIDEON NICFOR LONDON
LOAN REFUSED MANFRED
***
PERSONAL ZAKHEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL
YOURE FIRED ALEX
***
GIDEON NICFOR LONDON
THANK GOD FOR THAT TELL ME WHO TO HAND PAPERS OVER TO ZAKHEIM
***
PERSONAL ZAKHEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL
YOUR RESIGNATION NOT ACCEPTED YOU ARE A BEAST ALEX
***
GIDEON NICFOR LONDON
CARRYING ON ON CONDITION YOU DISCONTINUE SOCIAL ASSISTANCE TO NEEDY OF GREATER ISRAEL INCLUDING NEGATIVE REPLY TO BOATS AND APARTMENTS IN SHARM DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DMITRI KARAMAZOV OR KING LEAR MANFRED
***
PERSONAL ZAKHEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL
OK RASPUTIN CALM DOWN I SURRENDER FOR TIME BEING ALEX
***
Mr. M. H. Sommo
7 Tarnaz St.
Jerusalem
7.6.1976
BY REGISTERED POST
Dear Mr. Sommo,
You are hereby warned not to address any further requests/ demands for financial favors, whether directly or through your wife or through your wife’s son, to my client Dr. A. A. Gideon, additional to the
ex gratia
payments you have already received from him.
Permit me hereby to draw your attention to the fact that my client has authorized me by cable to veto absolutely any transfer of funds extracted from him by means of emotional or other pressure. In plain words, you had better get it into your head that if there is anything else you want, there is no point in pestering Dr. Gideon, personally or via your relations. Try addressing yourself to me, and if you behave properly you will find me responsive. For your own good, sir, I suggest you bear in mind that we possess all the information we require to deal with any difficulties that may arise on your part in the future.
Your obedient servant,
M. Zakheim
Lawyer and Business Manager
***
Mr. M. Zakheim, Lawyer
Mr. Zakheim & Mr. di Modena
36 King George
By the Grace of G-d
Jerusalem
13th of Sivan 5736 (10.6.76)
LOCAL
Esteemed Mr. Zakheim,
First of all my respectful greetings to you on the occasion of the Festival of Shavuot!
Heaven forbid that you should think that I have any complaint or grievance against you. As it is written, “May He Who protects the simple protect me from suspecting the righteous or from casting aspersions.” On the contrary, I think that you do your job of acting for Professor Gideon as well as possible. Likewise I appreciate the efforts you made on our behalf to renew contact with Boaz, apologize for any distress that has been caused you, thank you for your trouble, and express my confidence that your virtuous actions will stand you in good stead.
Nevertheless, and with all due respect, you will forgive me for finding myself under the necessity to observe, in response to your letter, that you are disqualified from acting as an intermediary between me and my family and Professor Gideon. This is for the simple reason that you are completely identified with the other party, and quite rightly so as long as he is paying you for your pains. So, as it is written, “no to your sting and no to your honey,” Mr. Zakheim. If Professor Gideon should come to be persuaded out of the goodness of his heart to make a donation toward the rebuilding of the Land, with all due respect you have no right of veto or
locus standi,
you do not belong in the picture, and I’ll thank you to step out of it.
On the other hand, if you decide that you would also like to contribute something toward our holy sacred cause, your contribution will be most welcome and will be accepted with appreciation and without too close a scrutiny.
Moreover I have made a note of your explicit hint about the material that you claim to have assembled against us. I was not unduly impressed, however, for the simple reason that we have nothing to hide. As it is written, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,” etc. Your explicit hint can only embarrass you, Mr. Zakheim. And I for my part, obedient to the command “You shall take no vengeance nor bear any grudge,” have decided to overlook it and consider it as though it never existed.
My dear Mr. Zakheim, I should have thought that you, as someone who came here perhaps from the Holocaust, would be the first to wish to strengthen the state and consolidate its borders. Without, save the mark!, assailing the honor or property of the Arab inhabitants. I should like to propose you for membership in our organization, the Jewish Fellowship Movement (I enclose a prospectus with full details). What is more, Mr. Zakheim, by virtue of the legal prowess you have displayed in the service of Professor Gideon, I have the honor to offer you hereby the position of legal representative of the Movement, either on a voluntary basis or in return for full and proper fees.
Moreover I hereby request you to accept the position of private property manager for me and my family, in light of the fact that with God’s help, and with your own deeply welcome help, part of the plundered property has been restored to us, and I am confident that the rest will come as well.
I am prepared to pay you for your trouble at the usual commission and a little over. We could even operate on a partnership basis, Mr. Zakheim, since I am intending to invest a good deal of money through our organization in certain business enterprises connected with the redemption of the liberated territories. A partnership between us should bring ample rewards to both parties, besides rewards for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. As it is written, “Will two walk together if they have not agreed?” My proposal, therefore, is that you should come over to our side, without of course abandoning your client Professor Gideon. Please think about this seriously. There is no urgency about replying. We are accustomed to waiting and do not believe in haste.
Professor Gideon may represent the achievements of the past, but it is my conviction that the future belongs to us. Take thought for the future, Mr. Zakheim!
Yours with great respect and in Jewish solidarity,
Michael (Michel-Henri) Sommo
***
Rahel Morag
Kibbutz Beit Avraham
Mobile Post, Lower Galilee
11.6.76
Dear normal Rahel,
And yet I still owe you a line or two. I didn’t answer you before because I was up to here in Boaz’s problems. No doubt you’ve put on your understanding-forgiving-Rahel look, and in your elder-sister tone you’re remarking to yourself that I haven’t been concerned about Boaz but, as usual, about myself. After all, ever since we were children you were always the one to save me from my crazes. “My dramas,” to use your term. And you’ll start feeding me a stew of that applied psychology you picked up from your child-care course. Until I go out of my mind and scream: Leave me alone! And then you’ll smile at me sadly, refrain as usual from taking offense, keep quiet, and let me reach by myself the realization that my outbursts only exemplify what you have been wise enough to diagnose already. That tolerant, pedantic wisdom of yours—which has infuriated me all these years, until I almost choke with rage and explode and insult you, thus giving you a perfect opportunity to forgive and also reinforcing your constant anxiety about my condition. Aren’t we a perfect team, the two of us? You see, I only meant to write you a couple of lines to thank you—you and Yoash—for being willing to drop everything and come to Jerusalem to help. And look what came out. Forgive me. Even though if it weren’t for my dramas, what connection would there be between the two of us? And where would you send your salvos of crushing kindness?
As you know, Boaz is okay. And I am trying hard to calm down. Alec’s lawyer hired some investigators, who discovered that he was working on some sort of tourist boat on the Sinai coast and didn’t need any of us. I managed to persuade Michel not to go to him in the meantime. You see, I accepted your advice to leave him alone. As for your other advice, to forget Alec for good and to refuse his money, don’t be angry if I tell you you don’t understand a thing. Give my regards and thanks to Yoash and kisses to the children.
Your intolerable
Ilana
Best wishes to all of you from Michel. He is starting to extend the flat with the money we got from Alec. He’s already got permission to add two rooms on the back, into the yard. Next summer you’ll be able to come and stay with us for a break, and I’ll be on my best behavior.