Scenes From Village Life - Amos Oz [43]
Benny Avni wondered if he should go and lie down without waiting for her. He went to the kitchen and, putting his dirty dishes in the dishwasher, looked for clues as to whether Nava had eaten before going out, but the dishwasher was almost full, and he could not identify which plates, if any, Nava had used for her lunch.
There was a saucepan on the stove with some cooked chicken in it, but it was impossible to tell whether Nava had eaten or not. Benny Avni sat down by the phone and rang Batya Rubin's number, to see if Nava was with her, but the phone rang and rang and no one answered. "Really," Benny said to himself, and went to the bedroom to lie down. Nava's slippers were by the bed. They were small, brightly colored and rather worn at the heel; they looked like a pair of toy boats. He lay on his back for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling. Nava took offense easily, and he had learned over the years that any attempt to mollify her only upset her more, so he preferred to say nothing and allow the passage of time to soothe her. She contained herself, but she never forgot. Once her friend Gili Steiner, the doctor, had suggested holding a little exhibition of Nava's figurines in the council art gallery. Benny Avni had promised with a smile that he would think about it and let Gili know. In the end he had decided that it would not be proper to hold the exhibition in the council's gallery. After all, Nava was only an amateur artist, and she could display her work in a corridor at the school where she worked, so as to avoid imputations of favoritism and so on. Nava had said nothing, but for several nights she stood ironing in their bedroom till three or four in the morning. She had ironed everything, even the towels and bedspreads.
After twenty minutes or so Benny Avni got up, dressed, went down to the cellar, switched on the light, unleashing a swarm of insects, peered at the packing cases and suitcases, fingered the power drill, tapped the wine barrel, which responded with a hollow sound, turned off the light, went upstairs to the kitchen, hesitated for a moment or two, put on his three-quarter-length suede coat over his shapeless pullover and left the house without locking up. Leaning forward as though contending with a strong headwind, he went in search of his wife.
3
ON FRIDAY AFTERNOONS there was never anybody around in the village. Everyone was at home, resting in preparation for going out in the evening. It was a gray, humid day. Clouds hung low over the rooftops, and skeins of fine mist drifted in the streets, lined with shuttered, slumbering houses. A scrap of old newspaper fluttered across the empty street; Benny stooped, picked it up and put it in a trash can. A big mongrel approached him near the Pioneers' Garden and started to follow him, growling and baring its teeth. Benny shouted at the dog, but it became angry and seemed likely to leap at him. Benny stooped, picked up a stone and waved his arm in the air. The dog continued to follow him at a safe distance, its tail between its legs. So they both proceeded along the empty street, some thirty feet apart, and turned left into Founders Street. Here too all the shutters were closed for the siesta. They were mostly old wooden shutters painted a faded green. Some of the slats were bent or missing.
Here and there, in yards that had once been farmyards but were now uncared for, Benny Avni noticed a disused dovecote, a goat shed that had been converted into a storeroom, an abandoned truck overgrown with weeds near a corrugated-iron barn or a kennel no longer in use. Mighty palm trees grew in front of the houses.