A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz [197]
In one of the bottom drawers here in my study in Arad I found a battered cardboard box last night, containing various notes that I made when I was writing the novellas that make up The Hill of Evil Counsel, more than twenty-five years ago. Among other things there are some messy notes that I made in a library in Tel Aviv in 1974 or 1975 from newspapers from September 1947. And so, in Arad, on a summer morning in 2001, like an image reflected in a mirror reflected in another mirror, my notes from twenty-seven years ago remind me of what the "strategist of a child" read in the paper of September 9, 1947:
Hebrew traffic police have started to operate in Tel Aviv with the consent of the British governor. They have eight policemen working in two shifts. A thirteen-year-old Arab girl is to stand trial before a military court, accused of possessing a rifle in the village of Hawara, Nablus District. The "illegal" immigrants from the Exodus are being deported to Hamburg, and they say they will fight to the last to resist disembarkation. Fourteen Gestapo men have been sentenced to death in Lübeck. Mr. Solomon Chmelnik of Rehovot has been kidnapped and badly beaten up by an extremist organization but has been returned safe and sound. The Voice of Jerusalem orchestra is going to be conducted by Hanan Schlesinger. Mahatma Gandhi's fast is in its second day. The singer Edis de Philippe will be unable to perform this week in Jerusalem, and the Chamber Theatre has been obliged to postpone its performance of You Can't Take It with You. On the other hand, two days ago the new Colonnade Building on the Jaffa Road was opened, containing, among other shops, Mikolinski, Freidmann & Bein, and the chiropodist Dr. Scholl. According to the Arab leader Musa Alami, the Arabs will never accept the partition of the country; after all, King Solomon ruled that the mother who was opposed to partition was the true mother, and the Jews ought to recognize the significance of the parable. And then again, Comrade Golda Myerson [later Meir] of the Jewish Agency Executive has declared that the Jews will fight for the inclusion of Jerusalem in the Hebrew State, because the Land of Israel and Jerusalem are synonymous in our hearts.
A few days later the paper reported:
Late last night, an Arab set upon two Jewish girls in the vicinity of the Bernardiya Café, between Beit Hakerem and Bayit Vagan. One of the girls escaped, and the other screamed for help, and some of the local residents heard and succeeded in preventing the suspect from escaping. In the course of investigations by Constable O'Connor, it emerged that the man is an employee of the Broadcasting Service and is distantly related to the influential Nashashibi family. Despite this, bail was refused, on account of the gravity of the alleged offense. In his defense the prisoner stated that he had come out of the café drunk and had been under the impression that the two girls were prancing around naked in the dark.
And another day in September 1947:
Lieutenant-Colonel Adderley has presided over a military court hearing the case of Shlomo Mansoor Shalom, a distributor of illegal leaflets who was found to be of unsound mind. The probation officer, Mr. Gardewicz, requested that the prisoner should not be committed to a lunatic asylum, for fear of a deterioration in his condition, and pleaded with the judges that he should be isolated in a private institution instead, lest his weak intellect be exploited by fanatics for their own criminal ends. Lt.-Col. Adderley regretted that he was unable to accede to Mr. Gardewicz's request, since it was beyond his powers; he was obliged to commit the unfortunate man to custody pending a ruling by the High Commissioner, representing the Crown, on the possible exercise of special leniency or clemency. On the radio, Cilla Leibowitz is giving a piano recital, and after the news we are promised a commentary by Mr. Gordus;