Fima - Amos Oz [95]
While he was still struggling to banish this image, not to see or hear or feel, Tamar said gently:
"You can relax now. It's all over."
But Fima felt ashamed. Somehow, in a way that was not clear to him, he felt that he himself was not free of guilt. That he too was responsible for the agony going on behind the dosed door. That there was a connection between his humiliation of Annette and then Nina this morning and the pain and shame on that spotless couch which now was no doubt far from spotless, full of blood and other secretions. His penis shrank and retreated like a thief. A vague, repulsive pain suddenly throbbed in his testicles. If Tamar had not been there, he would have reached down to ease the pressure of his trousers. Though actually it was better like this. He must abandon his pathetic attempt to convince Tsvi that we are all entitled to discharge ourselves from responsibility for atrocities committed in our name. We have to admit the guilt. We have to accept that everybody's suffering rests on all our shoulders. The oppression in the Territories, the disgrace of old people poking around in trash cans, the blind man tapping at night in the deserted street, the misery of autistic children in run-down institutions, the killing of the dog with edema, Dimi's ordeal, Annette's and Nina's humiliation, Teddy's loneliness, Uri's endless wanderings, the surgical procedure that had just taken place on the other side of this wall, stainless-steel forceps deep inside the wounded vulva—everything was on all our shoulders. How useless to dream of running away to Moruroa or the Galapagos Islands. Even Bikini, poisoned by a radioactive cloud, was on all our shoulders. For a moment he pondered the curious fact that in Hebrew the word for "pity" appears to be related to "womb," while "forceps" appears to be derived from "learning a lesson." But then he rebuked himself for these verbal games, his poeticizings, which were no less despicable than the minister of defense's saying "cost" when he meant "death."
"There's a stanza in one of Alterman's poems," he said to Tamar, "called 'Songs of the Plagues of Egypt,' that goes like this: The rabble soon assembled / Bearing the noose of blame, / To hang the King and Council / And free themselves from shame. That is more or less the bottom line of all history, I think. It's the story of all of us, condensed into a dozen words. Let's make her a cup of coffee. And one for Gad and Alfred too."
Tamar said:
"That's all right. You're excused. I put the kettle on. Anyway, it'll take her a while to come around and stand up. You're excused from cleaning up too. I'll do it if you just see to the sterilizer and the washing machine. How come you can remember everything by heart? Alterman and Bikini and everything? On the one hand, you're so absent-minded you can't even button your shirt right; on the other hand you turn the world upside down for a clue in a crossword puzzle. And you organize everyone's life for them. Just look at your sweater: half in and half out of your trousers. And your shirt collar's half in and half out too. Like a baby."
At this she fell silent, though her warm smile continued to haunt her broad, open face as though it had been forgotten there. After being absorbed in thought for a while, she added sadly, without explaining the connection:
"My father hanged himself in the Metropole Hotel in Alexandria. It was in 'forty-six. They didn't find any letter. I was five and a half. I hardly remember him. I remember that he smoked cigarettes called Simon Am. And I remember his wristwatch: yellow, square, with phosphorescent hands that glowed in the dark like a ghost's eyes. I have a picture of him in British army uniform, but he doesn't look much like a soldier. He looks so sloppy. And tired. In the picture he actually