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1 .
Once, in the summer of 1946, I accompanied my father on a visit to Tel Aviv. Before the trip, Father, a proud,
reserved man; was beside himself. Yehuda, his best friend, had arranged a meeting with Natan, the wonderful
Tel Aviv poet, and the prospect gave my father no peace. He was tense and irritable and quick to lose his
temper. When he passed his hand over my smooth boy's cheek, he wasn't aware of what he was touching, and
when he stroked my unruly curls, he didn't notice what he was stroking.
In the Tel Aviv street, Yehuda was already waiting for us. Father put his arm round Yehuda's shoulder and
Yehuda pulled Father close to him and they were as happy as if they hadn't met for a long time. Father sat me
down at the table, and in childish contentment, I leaned my elbows on the sticky oilcloth. Flies circled sluggishly
above puddles of spilt coffee and in the remains of sweet lemonade. Father and Yehuda found plenty to
drowned talk about so I began to look around . A rain of overripe berries dropped out of the deep shade of the
ficus trees, bursting on the table and under it, and spattering stains of inky juice all around. The numbing
summer heat engulfed me. The cars racing along the street at my back, the cries of hawkers, the bustle of
passers-by, the clatter of hooves as horses passed pulling their carts of kerosene or ice, all these assailed my
ears like the clacking of castanets. And within the shimmering bubble of heat, the drone of the sultry street
mingled with the staccato conversation of my father and Yehuda.
Of all the people who surrounded my father in the days of my childhood, Yehuda was the only one whom my
father truly loved. Looking through the eyes of my childhood, misted over with the dried-up tears of memory, I
can still see my father mellowing and changing whenever Yehuda entered our house. Despite the years I still
recall how the familiar layers would fall away one by one, and how a different man would emerge from the
sloughed-off skin, a man I didn't know at all. Father's hands, cracked and furrowed from work in the fields, work
from which he allowed himself no respite, became as soft as a gentleman's. His tanned face paled like of those
wild creatures which change color according to their one surroundings. His abrupt, peremptory way of talking
became gentle, uncertain. Suddenly he would turn from giving orders to asking questions. When Yehuda was
around, Father would lose his decisiveness. To this day I am still amazed, still waiting to get over my wonder.
Father greeted Yehuda who had quickly stood up as we arrived. I had the impression that he saw our approach,
slow and ponderous, as that of country yokels. He waited until we came right up to the table diffident before
embarking on the formalities of welcome. He signalled something to the waiter and immediately a number of
large glasses were set on the table along with a jug of cold water which tinkled like a bell. Father asked Yehuda
for some soda-water as well and Yehuda turned to the waiter in his gentle manner, "We ordered soda-water
too, didn't we?"
The wonderful way in which Yehuda half acknowledged, half ignored my presence filled me with astonishment
even in those days of innocence. It was as if with one eye he saw all of me, my whole being with all its childish
elements, while the other, half closed, saw nothing but my soul, which, in the fullness of time, would blossom into
the essential me. He would blink and stare in my direction as if he were weighing up what he saw. What that
one eye surely saw was nothing but a child, not really grown up enough to sit with the adults. On the other hand,
no doubt, the other eye seemed to guess at a young man who would often search his memory in an attempt to
recapture the long-lost years.
So Yehuda hopped around me, yet also hovered somewhere else nearby. When he shook my hand, it was as if
it wasn't a real hand of flesh and blood that he held loosely, and when he patted me on the shoulder or tweaked
my nose, it was as if he were tweaking a paper doll and not the real me. Then, embarrassed, I cringed from his
caress, flinched from his touch and retreated to the other end of the table. Deep inside me some tune or other
sang to itself in harmony, "The kids say that your father is strong and he can knock this little Yehuda down
easily." When terrifically I had finally shrunk back into the furthest chair at the edge of the pavement, that childish
song of vengeance was still singing in my heart, and my contempt for this milksop was clothing itself in clearer
words and music.
At that very moment this same Yehuda, with the absent-louder mindedness that goes with insight, turned to my
father and warned him loudly, "That boy of yours had better be careful! He's too close to the street and the traffic
is crazy." But father merely waved his gentleman's hands and let them fall on the rough wooden table, on the
stained oilcloth cover.
2 .
Yehuda, a small likeable chap with a genuine ability to bring kindred together, tries to make the waiting pass
pleasantly. He regales my spirits with the name of each passerby, and the vague image I recall with difficulty
from my confused memory is of him dancing about, wiping the sweat from his Khaki shirt, moving swiftly from
chair to chair, shuttling there and back around Father and throwing backward glances towards the table as if he
were being scolded. Father remains haughtily, almost aggressively silent and refuses to be mollified. What has
he got in common with these intellectuals, skipping about in their open sandals? What are these actresses to
him, prancing along the street in their skimpy dresses? What, for that matter, is Yehuda who knows each
passerby by name and eagerly holds forth on the wonderful talents of them all?
Father remains silent and waits in stubborn awe for this Tel Aviv poet to whom Yehuda has promised to
introduce him. None of Yehuda's offerings is acceptable, neither the brilliant notions that one nor the incisive
opinions of the other; neither the astonishing of new book that left Yehuda amazed by the power of its language
("The language, do you hear?") nor the obscene gestures of the British occupying troops, nor even the
gut-wrenching article that pits ("pits, you against the lofty moral principles of the workers' movement
understand?") the fossilized, vacillating morality of the petite bourgeoisie. And what else can I say that I haven't
yet said? But Father refuses to soften. Haughty and silent, he sits there at the table, haughty enough, as Yehuda
told me years later, to destroy himself, and he tightens his hand round the heavy water glass leaving Yehuda not
the smallest crack to creep through.
Later on, when memories break free from the bounds of time, I try to disentangle scenes, words and sounds
from the jumble, but I find it difficult to arrange the events in any sort of sequence. If only I could at least grasp the
main points. If only I could be sure that the outlines had not blurred, but even of that I am not always certain.
Natan suddenly appears, actually materializing out of the street, with a buoyant, lifting step. Father stands up
immediately, tipping his chair in doing so. It tilts sideways and almost falls. The water glass slides along the
tabletop. Father stands quite still and turns pale, paler than I ever remember. He moves foreword a little to
shake hands, but Natan's left hand avoids Father's grasp. It is shaking uncontrollably as if his arm were not
joined to his shoulder, as if he had a life of its own, as if its trembling could not be stilled. Natan is wearing
Khaki trousers with a Khaki shirt worn outside to give the impression of suit. His eyes take us in at a glance,
pass over the three of us and move on to rake the street. It is almost as if he has been invited to meet someone
else who hasn't turned up so he is forced to wait and sit with us for a while. Really, only for a minute; and if he
has consented, it is only out of respect for that fine fellow, Yehuda.
These yokels from a distant Kibbutzim, an all-pervading smell of brimstone clinging to them, are as excited as
children in his presence. They actually force into the hand that doesn't tremble pieces of paper, extracts from
earnest articles, so damp with excited sweat they're nearly colorless, illegible, and formless. Ah, how tiresome
is their love. Yehuda capers around him.
"Sit down, Natan. What would you like, Natan? Natan, I'd like you to meet my friend from the Kibbutz. My
kindred soul, my twin-spirit who works himself to death in the hot and steamy realm of manual labor. And this
little boy is his son who has accompanied his father to the city. They have taken the trouble to come all this way
to meet you because I promised that you would find a moment for them. They admire your poetry and wanted to
meet you so much; just a short meeting, nothing like 'the man who came to dinner!'"
3 .
A pause - the flow of memories is dammed for a second. Then, the flood-gates open once again and the tide
surges through. The tension breaks. We all laugh. People who have crowded round the table for a moment
laugh with us. Suddenly I feel Natan's roving look rest on my face. I show my young even teeth in a smile, trying
to ingratiate myself with this strange man in whose presence Father has become so pale. Over the reaches of
time, from the depth of that elusive image, I seem to remember that after that the conversation went more
easily. There were even smiles.
Natan constantly exchanged greetings with passerbys. Some approached our table, snatched a few words, put
in a quick plea, shook hands, smiled at Yehuda, waved a friendly finger in the direction of Natan's gleaming
forehead or shot inquiring glance at Father's heavy form. Yehuda now would not allow the conversation to flag.
He tended it with wirds and revived it when it suddenly languished. From time to time he darted as severe look
at Father as if urging him, "Come out of your shell, man. Don't be a bumpkin. You wanted to meet this fellow,
didn't you? Wasn't it because of him that you bothered to come all the way from your distant Kibbutz with the
boy, who only cramps your style anyway. Don't be boring, that 'holier-than-thou' face, as if someone had forced
you to descend from your Olympian hights to consort with the untouchable."
Well, himself, that's how Natan was. The sleeves forever frayed at the elbows, the pullover unravelling, the
compulsive untidiness. How thin he is close up. What fire flashes again and again from the depth of his eyes.
Even in the white light of summer noon in Tel Aviv, his forehead shines, while from his wizened throat comes the
cry of a whole people.
Father sits drawn into himself as if remembering the words he wrote in our Kibbutz broad sheet not long before,
when Natan's new poems had first appeared. Father had been like one possessed, stalking in his room like a
caged tiger. He was unable to sleep because of what he called "an inner quaking". The poems had gripped
constricted his heart. Or maybe that's not exactly how it was. Maybe I am and getting mixed up between my
memories and what Father really wrote. The beautiful girl who used to recite law, in a thrilling voice read
Father's article together with the poems at one of our Friday evening meetings. Sitting there in the large
brightly-lit dining room, I felt a childish pride swelling within me. Such a proud reserved man; I felt that I was one
with him, come what may. I would stand by him, and the two of us, shoulder to shoulder, would move forward
together against the whole world.
Suddenly Natan's slightly hoarse voice broks in, "Take care, boy! Don't lean so far back. You're going to fall
right into the path of the traffic." But Father was sunk deep in a vision he saw in his water glass and didn't hear
what Natan had just said. He didn't notice the danger so close behind me and didn't even raise his head to look
in my direction.
4 .
Drunk or not, Natan was now in full spate. He supported his trembling left hand with his right. His glance darted
from Yehuda to Father and back to the street, where it followed the young Jewish soldiers passing by, again
and then returned to us. The man might have had two faces. All the while, Yehuda, a dwarf by comparison, was
trying in awed revenge to get a word in edgeways. Of course, it wasn't long before the subject of morality was
forcibly dragged in, where it became confused with the state of the worker's movement. And the things Natan
said when he was drunk! Even the "god of the elephants" was invoked to buttress his arguments. Truncated
sentences trembled from his lips like the trembling of his hand. He would type his poetic outpourings with his
right hand while his treacherous left would twitch and shake until at last it would be cast to aside like some
unless object discarded on a rubbish-heap.
In this business of poetry Father was a fervent but taciturn admirer. Moreover, he respected Natan as he
respected no other man. But when it came to a question of the labor movement or the murder of the Jewish
writers in Russia or morality in general or the issue known as "The music of the mortars," Father had
pronounced and trenchant opinions of his own. So while his pallor heightened, signs began to appear of that
anger, that tempestuous fury that both Yehuda and I feared.
Father's rage was finally ignited over nothing. He was on his feet, pacing up and down, head down as if about
to butt, his tongue dry with anger. Yehuda was in such a state that he began to call upon the god of elephants to
arise and take pity on them. Had Mother been with us, she would probably have thrown herself at his feet, clung
to the legs of the table and cried to them from the floor, "I'm not moving until you two make it up." But Mother
wasn't there and Yehuda, squeezed between the two of them, didn't know which way to turn.
"OH! Mountain strikes mountain, peak clashes against peak." There was Yehuda, dancing around them, pulling
at their sleeves, trying to calm them down. The table shook. Chairs went flying. Curious passerbys began to
gather and Yehuda suddenly stopped hopping about, folded his arms and, grinning in embarrassment, said to
me, "Two toreros tearing at each other. Two bulls taking each other on. Ah, well, there's a time and place for
everything. Toreador and bull butting each other!"
When Natan was drunk he could say some very cruel things. "You had better go on, you lot, all of you, go
straight to the youngsters. I call on our unspoiled youth, the ones you haven't yet managed to ruin. Let them turn
their backs on you, I say. Or go appeal to the children, not yet stained by sin, as someone once did, long ago
and far away. What do you mean by 'the music of the mortars,' eh? What do you know of the pen that was
smashed in Moscow? Words you aren't capable of understanding! All you can do is chew them around and
then spew them out to defile the well you drink from!"
Father was in a ferment. I couldn't take my eyes off him. I understood the smallest movement of his face, the
merest clenching of his fists. He was wrecked with fury. Never in all my life had I seen him so agitated. The table
got in his way and he pushed it aside with a violent gesture. Roughly, he kicked the chair backwards. The glass
slid along the table and Yehuda was almost crushed under Father's great hands.
Suddenly the two of them advanced towards me, boxing me in at the end of the table. In the heat of the
argument, the shouted exchanges, the faces grimacing in sweaty rage, I sat there at the apex of a converging
triangle. I could smell their clothes. I could see the sweat seeping through their Khaki shirts. Then, without
realizing it, I felt an overwhelming urge to press myself to my father's shoulder. I leaned backwards slowly,
unshackled by earthly laws of weight and gravity. The Tel Aviv poet in his drunken anger hurled at Father the
accusation that the worst of them all, the absolute bottom of the barrel, the amateur journalists in remote
Kibbutzim whose writings reeked of brimstone and who did more harm with their narrow-mindedness than fools
did with their simple-mindedness.
Father was stunned; a furrow of pain appeared on his forehead and he began to writhe like a wounded animal.
Yehuda, charming little Yehuda, realized that the whole encounter was collapsing in chaos. Suddenly time
stopped and froze. In a drunken haze, Natan cried out, "The boy! He's going over! Look out! Oh, right under the
cars!"
As if caught in a globe of light, within a bubble of time held still for a short moment, I see Yehuda running round
the table and crying to Father, "Oh, the boy! Oh, my god! He's fallen." The noise of a car swamped over me and
I was engulfed by a great darkness. An overwhelming sense of distress that I hadn't risen to stand by my father,
shoulder to shoulder, clutched at my heart. Afterwards an enveloping silence fell and I saw hurrying flecks of
white, specks of brightness, flowing blood, for I had fallen backwards right under the wheels of a car.
5 .
Two crossed stitches, clearly visible on my cheek today, are the only ones left. If you look closely though, you will
see faint signs of the others. If you were to draw a line joining all the stitches, you would trace a diagonal scar
running the length of my right cheek from the chin to a light path between temple and eye. Whenever I am
carried away by a fit of temper, the scar takes on its original redness. If I run my finger along it to try and soothe
the smarting, I can see once more three heads bending over me. And yet I find it hard to remember. Who
exactly was leaning over me? Who was talking? How did the quarrel end? And who was it that whispered
above my bandaged face, "This red scar had such a cruel birth." Then there were the kids who teased me in
the Kibbutz children's house, "Scar face! Scar face!" And that reserved man, my father, standing by me when I
came to. And the flickering memories of the hospital. Whenever I make a serious effort to piece together the
shards of memory, I am confronted by a jumbled mass of veiled moments, time snatched away, never to return.
What happened when I fell? Was I run over and was that how I acquired this scar of pride? And then, after I had
been extricated from between the cars and carried off in my father's arms, and after Yehuda had summoned
help, and after Natan had stood alone in the confusion wondering why he had argued so wickedly in the
presence of a child and at the very edge of a menacing street; after all this and everything else that followed, I
had to undergo the ordeal of facing my mother's searching gaze, still answering all her questions and trying to
restore some kind of order to my memory of the muddled events.
Lying there convalescing in my white bed, I had go to over and over the whole affair from very beginning. How
could I have deserted my father in the cruel argument with Natan? What had happened to those vows about
"Shoulder to shoulder?" and "Father and me against the whole world?" and "We shall never be defeated if we
stand together?" How is it that they came to nothing and I kept none of them? What about that nasty habit my
mother was always scolding me for, of tilting my chair backwards 'till you could hear the crack of rusty screw
and split wood? How could I have left Father complaining alone between Yehuda prancing about and Natan
looking way beyond him? Why didn't I jump to the front of the table, mountain clashing with mountain, toreador
butting against bull? Then, when I felt the inner compulsion to pour out my words, I sat up straight in bed, the
white bedclothes slid off me and the scar that cuts diagonally across my face leapt out.
Against my pure father I set that drunken poet. I have no weapon to attack him with - only my beating heart,
words that will stay with me all my life, memories that will never fade. The sight of my father standing downcast
in the face of the gross drunken attacks of the Tel Aviv poet fills me with a depressing sense of helplessness at
not being able to do anything for him, and leaves a weight on my heart over the long years. The pain slices
through my cheek and catches my heart because I did not do what I should have done such as biting through his
Khaki trousers like a puppy gone berserk. Don't little ones have their own ways of fighting: teeth, weak
finger-nails, childish screams, something?
Sitting there in bed I read again those simple artless words that Father had written in our modest Kibbutz
paper. I pored over them for a long time. They contained a kind of sad beauty that was not easy to understand.
Was it really so strange that Natan, hasty, haunted by drink, did not have the eye to perceive nor the heart to
care for them? Through the shimmering bubbles of time I go over the few lines again. "The throat of a whole
people; the cut throat of a whole people bleeds from the throat of the poet. Drops of anguish and blood."
"Mountain against mountain!" Yehuda's voice roars in my ears. A sea of sparks flies up; the smell of scorching.
The memory of one of those three sitting round a cafe table in that Tel Aviv street in the summer of the year one
thousand nine hundred and forty-six, in the shade of those dark ficus trees, is branded into me for all the days of
my life, and this memory goes with me as I am gathered up from between the screaming brakes and burning
tyres, from the melting asphalt of the steaming midday street. So when father, as always, unconsciously passes
his large hand over my healed up scar of pride, and I, as always, take countless oaths of loyalty, time stands still
in its cycle and I look within, deep within its secret depths that have long since faded away, and through my
childhood eyes I see how this reserved man who may not even have wanted to meet that wonderful poet Natan,
turns pale with pride. On the table between them pride lies dishonoured, while the heart of a child bleeds. Then
at the far end of the table, at the menacing edge of the street, the little boy defies the laws of physics. Leaning
back on the chair until the bolts snap, he does the only remaining thing and throws himself into the path of traffic. |
