A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz [128]
This inventory sufficed me for several hours of battles and of heroic deeds. The princess had been captured by a wicked wizard (the tiger), who had imprisoned her in a cave (under the piano). The teaspoons were a fleet of airplanes that were all flying in search of the princess over the sea (the mat) and beyond the mountains (cushions). The dominoes were the dreaded wolves that the wizard had scattered around the cave of the imprisoned princess.
Or the other way around: the dominoes were tanks, the napkins Arab tents, the soft doll was transformed into the English High Commissioner, the cushions were built into the walls of Jerusalem, while the teaspoons, under the command of the tiger, were promoted by me to become Hasmonean fighters or the guerrilla troops of Bar Kochba.
Halfway through the morning Auntie Greta would bring me thick, slimy raspberry juice in a heavy cup that was unlike any we had at home. Sometimes she carefully lifted the hem of her dress and sat down next to me on the mat. She made all sorts of chirruping sounds and other signs of affection that always ended in sticky, jammy kisses. Sometimes she allowed me to dabble—gently!—on the piano. If I finished up all the food Mummy had put in my paper bag, Auntie Greta would treat me to a couple of squares of chocolate or cubes of marzipan. The shutters in her apartment were always closed because of the sunlight. The windows were shut because of the flies. As for the flowery curtains, they were always kept drawn and firmly joined together, like a pair of chaste knees, for greater privacy.
Sometimes Auntie Greta would put on my shoes, put on my head a little khaki cap with a stiff peak like an English policeman's or a Hamekasher bus driver's. Then she would scrutinize me with a quizzical look, rebutton my shirt, lick her finger and scrape off the encrusted remains of chocolate or marzipan around my mouth, and put on her round straw hat, which hid half her face but accentuated the roundness of her body. When all these preparations were concluded, the two of us would go out together for a couple of hours, "to see what's going on in the wide world."
30
FROM OUR suburb of Kerem Avraham you could reach the wide world by taking either the No. 3A bus, which stopped in Zephaniah Street, next to Mrs. Hasia's kindergarten, or the No. 3B bus, which stopped at the other end of Amos Street, on the corner of Geula Street at Malachi Street. The wide world itself extended along Jaffa Road, down King George V Avenue toward the Ratisbonne Convent and the Jewish Agency Buildings, in and around Ben Yehuda Street, in Hillel Street and Shammai Street, around the Studio Cinema and the Rex Cinema, which were down Princess Mary's Way, and also up Julian's Way, which led to the King David Hotel.
At the junction of Julian's Way, Mamilla Road, and Princess Mary's Way there was always a busy policeman in shorts and white armbands. He ruled firmly over a little concrete island sheltered by a round tin umbrella. From atop his island he directed the traffic, an all-powerful divinity armed with a piercing whistle; his left hand stopped the traffic and his right moved it on. From this junction the wide world branched out and continued toward the Jewish commercial center beneath the walls of the Old City, and sometimes its extensions reached as far as the Arab parts around the Damascus Gate, in Sultan Suleiman Road, and even into the bazaar inside the walls.
On every one of these expeditions Auntie Greta would drag me to three or four clothes shops, where she liked to try on, take off, and try on again, in the privacy of a changing cubicle, a number of beautiful dresses and a range of magnificent skirts, blouses, and nightgowns, and a mass of colorful housecoats that she termed "negligees." Once she even tried on a fur: the look in the tortured eyes of the slain fox terrified me. The fox's face stirred