Scenes From Village Life - Amos Oz [53]
She saw at once where he was leading, and hesitated for a moment between her affection for the boy and her duty to be very careful with his feelings. And underneath these two, she also felt a vague impulse to accede.
"Yes, but it was a long time ago."
"What did you do?"
"What all girls do. I stopped eating, cried at night, started by wearing pretty, attractive clothes and then deliberately dressed drably. Until it passed. It does pass, Kobi, though at the time it seems that it'll last forever."
"But I—"
Another reader came in. This time it was a woman in her mid-seventies, shriveled and brisk, dressed in a light summer dress that was much too young for her, with silver bracelets on her skinny, tanned arms and a double row of amber beads around her neck. She greeted Ada and asked inquisitively:
"And who is this charming young man? Where did you find him?"
With a smile Ada said:
"This is my new assistant."
"I know you," the old woman said, turning to Kobi. "You're Victor Ezra the grocer's son. Are you a volunteer?"
"Yes, no, that is—"
"He's come to help me," Ada said. "He loves books."
The woman returned a novel in a foreign language and asked if she could borrow the book by the Israeli writer everyone was talking about, the one the two women who had come earlier had requested. Ada said there was a long waiting list, as there were only two copies in the library.
"Shall I put you on the list, Lisa? It'll take between a month and two months."
"Two months?" the woman said. "In that time he'll have written another book."
Ada persuaded her to make do with a novel translated from Spanish that had had good reviews, and the woman left.
"What an unpleasant woman," Kobi said. "And she's a gossip, too."
Ada did not reply. She was leafing through the book the woman had returned. Kobi felt a sudden sense of urgency that was almost more than he could bear. Here they were alone again, but in ten minutes she would say that it was closing time and the moment would be lost, this time perhaps forever. He suddenly hated the blinding white neon light, like at the dentist's, which seemed to get in the way of his telling her.
"Let's see if you can really be my assistant," Ada said. "You can record the book that Lisa has just borrowed. The one she returned, too. Let me show you how."
What does she take me for? He felt furious. Does she think I'm just a little child, that she'll let me play with her computer for a bit and then send me off to bed? How can she be such a dickhead? Doesn't she understand anything? Anything at all? He felt a blind compulsion to hurt her, to bite her, crush her, pull off her big wooden earrings, to make her wake up and understand at last.
She sensed she had made a mistake. Laying a hand on his shoulder she said:
"That's enough, Kobi."
The touch of her hand on his shoulder made him dizzy, but it also made him sad, because he knew she was only trying to comfort him. He turned and, taking hold of her cheeks with both his hands under her earrings, he pulled her face around hard. Not daring to move his lips closer to hers, he simply stayed holding her for a long time, with her cheeks between his hands and his eyes fixed on her lips, which were not open but not quite closed either. There was an expression on her face he did not recognize under the harsh neon light: she didn't look hurt or offended, he thought, but sad. He held her head gently but firmly, with his lips close to hers and his whole body trembling with desire and fear. She did not resist him or try to break free from his grasp but waited. At last she spoke:
"Kobi. We'd better be going."
He let go of her face, and without taking his eyes off her he sprang up and felt for the light switch with quivering fingers. In an instant the neon light went out and darkness filled the library. Now, he said to himself. If you don't tell her now you'll regret it for the whole of your life. Forever. As well as the conflicting desire and emotion he felt a vague urge to shelter and protect