A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz [270]
Long before my mother's death, from the beginning of her illness and perhaps even earlier, my aunts from Tel Aviv saw my father as a selfish and maybe slightly domineering man; they were convinced that since her death I had been groaning under the yoke of his oppression and that since his marriage my stepmother, too, was mistreating me. Over and over again I annoyed my aunts by saying nice things about my father and his wife, how devotedly they looked after me and tried their very best to make sure I didn't lack for anything. My aunts refused to listen: they were surprised at me, they were angry, they were offended, as though I were singing the praises of Abdel Nasser and his regime, or defending the fedayeen. Both of them silenced me whenever I began to sing my father's praises. Aunt Haya said:
"That's enough. Please stop. You're hurting me. They seem to be brainwashing you properly."
Aunt Sonia did not reproach me at such moments: she simply burst into tears.
To their inquisitive eyes, the truth spoke for itself: I looked as thin as a rake, pale, nervous, and not properly washed. They must be neglecting me over there. If not something worse. And what's that wound on your cheek? Don't they send you to the doctor there? And that rag of a sweater—is that the only one you've got? And when was the last time they bought you any underwear? And how about money for the return fare? Did they forget to give you any? No? Why are you so obstinate? Why don't you let us put a few pounds in your pocket, to be on the safe side?
As soon as I arrived in Tel Aviv, my aunts pounced on the bag I'd packed for the weekend and took out the shirt, the pajamas, the socks, the underwear, and even the spare hankie, tut-tutting to themselves wordlessly and condemning the whole lot to be laundered, boiled, thoroughly aired for a couple of hours on the balcony, then there was violent ironing, and occasionally uncompromising destruction, as though they were eliminating the risk of plague or sending all my personal effects off for a course of reeducation. I was always sent off to the shower first thing, and secondly it was, Sit in the sun on the balcony for half an hour, you're as white as that wall, and won't you have a bunch ofgrapes? an apple? some raw carrot? Then we'll go and buy you some new underwear. Or a decent shirt. Or some socks. They both tried to feed me chicken liver, cod-liver oil, fruit juices, and masses of raw vegetables. As if I'd come straight from the ghetto.
On the question of my going to the kibbutz Aunt Haya immediately declared:
"Yes, definitely. You ought to get away from them for a bit. In a kibbutz you'll get bigger and stronger, and gradually you'll lead a healthier life."
Aunt Sonia suggested sadly, with her arm around my shoulder:
"Try the kibbutz, yes. And if, God forbid, you feel just as miserable there, simply move in with us here."
Towards the end of year nine (the fifth grade at Rehavia School) I suddenly gave up the scouts and almost stopped going to school. I lay on my back in my room all day in my underwear, devouring one book after another and piles of sweets, which were almost the only thing I ate at the time. I was already in love up to here, with stifled tears and without the ghost of a chance, with one of the princesses of my class: not bittersweet youthful love as in the books I was reading, where they described how the soul aches with love but is still uplifted and thrives, but as if I had been hit over the head with an iron rod. And to make matters worse, my body, at that time, didn't stop tormenting me at night and even during the day with its insatiable filth. I wanted to go free, to be liberated once and for all from these two enemies, the body and the soul. I wanted to be a cloud. To be a stone on the surface of the moon.
Every evening I got up, went out, and wandered the streets for two or three hours or walked to the empty fields outside the city. Sometimes I felt attracted to the barbed-wire fence and