A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz [245]
Torrents of blood, soil, fire, and iron intoxicated me. Over and over again I imagined myself falling heroically on the battlefield, I imagined my parents' sorrow and pride, and at the same time, with no contradiction, after my heroic death, after tearfully enjoying the rousing funeral orations pronounced by Ben-Gurion, Begin, and Uri Zvi, after grieving over myself and seeing with emotion and a lump in my throat the marble statues and songs of praise in my memory, I always arose healthy and sound from my temporary death, soaked in self-admiration, appointed myself commander-in-chief of Israel's armed forces, and led my legions to liberate in blood and fire everything that the effeminate, Diaspora-bred worm of Jacob had not dared to wrest from the hand of the foe.
Menachem Begin, the legendary underground commander, was my chief childhood idol at that time. Even earlier, in the last year of the British Mandate, the nameless commander of the underground had fired my imagination. In my mind I saw his form swathed in clouds of biblical glory. I imagined him in his secret headquarters in the wild ravines of the Judaean Desert, barefoot, with a leather girdle, flashing sparks like the prophet Elijah among the rocks of Mount Carmel, sending out orders from his remote cave with innocent-looking youths. Night after night his long arm reaches the heart of the British occupation force, dynamiting HQs and military installations, breaking through walls, blowing up ammunition dumps, pouring out its wrath on the strongholds of the enemy who was called, in the posters composed by my father, the "Anglo-Nazi foe," "Amalek," "Perfidious Albion." (My mother once said of the British: "Amalek or not, who knows if we won't miss them soon.")
Once the state of Israel was established, the supreme commander of the Hebrew underground forces finally emerged from hiding, and his picture appeared one day in the paper above his name: not something heroic like Ari Ben-Shimshon or Ivriahu Ben-Kedumim, but Menachem Begin. I was shocked: the name Menachem Begin might have suited a Yiddish-speaking haberdasher from Zephaniah Street or a gold-toothed sheitel and corset maker from Geula Street. Moreover, to my disappointment, my childhood hero was revealed in the photograph in the paper as a frail, skinny man with large glasses perched on his pale face. Only his mustache attested to his secret powers; but after a few months the mustache disappeared. Mr. Begin's figure, voice, accent, and diction did not remind me of the biblical conquerors of Canaan or of Judah Mac-cabee, but of my feeble teachers at Tachkemoni, who were also men flowing with nationalist fervor and righteous wrath, but from behind their heroism a nervous self-righteousness and latent sourness occasionally burst through.
And one day, thanks to Menachem Begin, I suddenly lost my desire to "spill my blood and offer up my son" and to "fight for a glorious goal." I abandoned the view that "repose is like mire"; after a while I came around to the opposite view.
Every few weeks half of Jerusalem assembled at eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning to hear fiery speeches by Menachem Begin at gatherings of the Herut movement in the Edison Auditorium, which was the largest hall in the city. Its facade bore posters announcing the imminent appearance of the Israel Opera under the baton of Fordhaus Ben-Zisi. Grandpa used to dress himself up for the occasion in his magnificent black suit and a light blue satin tie. A triangle of white handkerchief protruded