A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz [277]
He still liked jokes and wordplay, and he still got pleasure from explaining to me, for example, that the Hebrew word for a faucet, berez, was derived from the Modern Greek vrisi, a spring, and that Hebrew mahsan, a store, like the English word "magazine," came from Arabic mahzan, a storeroom, which may be derived from a Semitic root HSN meaning strong. As for the word balagan, mess or confusion, he said, which was wrongly considered by many to be a Russian word, it actually came from Persian balakan, denoting an unobtrusive veranda where unwanted rags were thrown, from which the English word "balcony" was derived.
*January 6,1952, in the Roman calendar.
He repeated himself more and more. Despite his once-sharp memory, he would now repeat a joke or explanation twice in the same conversation. He was tired and withdrawn and sometimes found it hard to concentrate. In 1968, when my third book, My Michael, came out, he read it in a few days and then phoned me in Hulda to say that "there were some quite convincing descriptions, but in the end the book lacks a certain spark of inspiring vision, it lacks a central idea." And when I sent him my story "Late Love," he wrote me a letter in which he expressed his joy that
your daughters are so splendid, and the main thing is that we shall see each other soon ... As for the story, it is not bad. Apart from the main character, however, the rest are mere caricatures in my humble opinion. But the main character, unappealing and ridiculous as he is, is alive. A few observations: 1.p. 3, "the mighty river of the galaxies": "Galaxy" comes from Greek gala, milk, and means "the milky way." The singular is preferable. To the best of my knowledge there is no basis for the plural. 2.p. 3 (and elsewhere), "Liuba Kaganovska": This is the Polish form; in Russian it should be "Kaganovskaya." 3. On p. 7 you have written viazhma: it should be viazma (z, not zh!).
And so on and so forth, up to observation no. 23, by which time he only had a tiny space left at the end of the page to write "Regards from all of us, Dad."
But a few years later Hayim Toren said to me: "Your father used to run from room to room in the National Library, beaming, and showing us what Gershom Shaked had written about your book Where the Jackals Howl and how Avraham Shaanan had praised Elsewhere, Perhaps. Once he explained to me angrily how blind Professor Kurzweil had been to cast aspersions on My Michael. I believe he even called Agnon especially to complain to him about Kurzweil's review. Your father was proud of you in his own way, even though of course he was too shy to tell you, and he may also have been afraid of making you big-headed."
In the last year of his life his shoulders slumped. He had grim fits of rage, when he would hurl rebukes and accusations at anyone around, and shut himself away in his study, slamming the door behind him. But after five or ten minutes he would come out and apologize for his outburst, blaming it on his poor health, his tiredness, his nerves, and sheepishly asking us to forgive him for saying things that were so unjust and unfair.
He often used the words "just and fair," just as he often said "definitely," "indeed," "undoubtedly," "decidedly," and "from several points of view."
At this time, when my father was unwell, Grandpa Alexander, in his nineties now, was still at the height of his physical blossoming and in full romantic bloom. As pink-faced as a baby, as full of sap as a young bridegroom, he would come and go all day erupting and exclaiming, "Nu, shto!" or "Such paskudniaks! Such scoundrels! Zhuliks! Crooks!" or "Nu, davai, forward march! Khorosho! Enough, already!" Women flocked to him. Frequently, even in the morning, he would sip a "teeny-weeny