Scenes From Village Life - Amos Oz [21]
Former MK Pesach Kedem did not like the student. "You can see right away," the old man said, "that he hates us but hides his hatred under a layer of sycophancy. They all hate us. How could they not? If I were them I'd hate us too. In fact, I'd hate us even without being them. Take it from me, Rachel, if you just look at us, you can see that we deserve nothing but hatred and contempt. And maybe a bit of pity. But that pity cannot come from the Arabs. They themselves need all the pity in the world.
"The devil only knows," said Pesach Kedem, "what brought this student who's not really a student here to us. How do we know that he's a student at all? Did you check his certificates before you adopted him? Did you read any of his essays? Did you examine him, in writing or orally? And who says that he's not the one digging underneath the house night after night, searching for something, some document or ancient proof that this property once belonged to his forebears? Maybe the reason he came here was that he is scheming to claim some kind of right of return, to establish a claim on the land and the house in the name of some grandfather or great-grandfather who may have lived here in the days of the Ottoman Empire. Or the crusaders. First he moves in here as an uninvited guest, something between a lodger and a servant, he digs under the foundation till the walls start shaking, and then he demands some right, a share in the property, an ancestral claim. And you and I, Rachel, will suddenly find ourselves out in the street. There are flies again on the veranda, there are flies in my room, too. It's those cats of yours, Abigail, that attract the flies. In any case, your cats have taken over the whole house. Your cats, and your Arab, and your beastly vet. And what about us, Rachel? What are we, would you mind telling me that? No? Well, let me tell you then, my dear: we are a passing shadow, like yesterday when it is past."
Rachel silenced him.
But a moment later she took pity on him and reached for a couple of chocolates wrapped in silver paper from her apron pocket.
"Here, Daddy. Take these. Eat them. Only give me a break."
9
DANNY FRANCO, DEAD on his fiftieth birthday, was a sentimental man who was easily moved to tears. He wept at weddings and sobbed in the films that were shown in the Village Hall. The skin of his neck hung in folds, like a turkey's. He had a soft, guttural way of pronouncing his r's that gave his speech a hint of a French accent, though he hardly knew any French. He was a stocky, broad-shouldered man, but his legs were spindly: he looked like a wardrobe set on stick legs. He had a habit of hugging people he was talking to, even strangers, patting them on the shoulder, on the chest, between the ribs, on the back of the neck. He often slapped his own thighs, too, or gave you an affectionate punch in the belly.
If somebody praised the way his calves were coming along, or an omelet he had made, or the beauty of the sunset from the window of his house, his eyes immediately filled with moisture in gratitude for the compliment.
Beneath the stream of words on any subject whatever—the future of calf-fattening, government policy, a woman's heart, a tractor engine—there gushed a stream of joy that had no need of any pretext or connection. Even on the last day of his life, ten minutes or so before he dropped dead of heart failure, he was standing at the fence chatting to Yossi Sasson and Arieh Zelnik. Most of the time there was between him and Rachel that ceasefire so common between couples after long years of marriage, when conflicts, insults and temporary separations have taught both partners to tread warily and to give the marked minefields a