A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz Read Free Book Online Page B

like a faint blush on a shy cheek, which turned into a deep blush, which soon ran riot in a shameless display of naked yellow and lecherous lime green, until the glow reached the middle of the coil and glowed unstoppably, a red-hot fire like a savage sun in the shiny metal dish of the reflector that you couldn't look at without squinting, and the element now was incandescent, dazzling, unable to contain itself; any moment now it would melt and pour down on my Mediterranean Sea like an erupting volcano raining cascades of molten lava to destroy my flotilla of destroyers and submarines.
    All this time its partner, the upper element, slumbered cold and indifferent. The brighter the other one glowed, the more indifferent this one appeared. Shrugging its shoulders, watching everything from a ringside seat but totally unmoved. I suddenly shuddered, as though I could sense on my skin all the pent-up tension between the two coils, and realized that I had a simple, quick way to ensure that the indifferent coil too would have no choice but to glow, so that it too would quiver fit to burst with overflowing fire—but that was forbidden. It was forbidden not only because of the crying waste but also because of the danger of overloading the circuit, of blowing a fuse and plunging the house in darkness, and who would go out in the middle of the night to fetch Baruch Goldfingers for me?
    The second coil was only if I was crazy, completely crazy, and to hell with the consequences. But what if my parents came back before I had managed to switch it off? Or if I managed to switch it off in time but the coil didn't have time to cool down and play possum, then what could I say in my defense? So I must resist the temptation. Hold myself back. And I might as well start clearing up the mess I made and put everything away in its place.

5
    SOMETIMES THE facts threaten the truth. I once wrote about the real reason for my grandmother's death. My grandmother Shlomit arrived in Jerusalem straight from Vilna one hot summer's day in 1933, took one startled look at the sweaty markets, the colorful stalls, the swarming side streets full of the cries of hawkers, the braying of donkeys, the bleating of goats, the squawks of pullets hung up with their legs tied together, and blood dripping from the necks of slaughtered chickens, she saw the shoulders and arms of Middle Eastern men and the strident colors of the fruit and vegetables, she saw the hills all around and the rocky slopes, and immediately pronounced her final verdict: "The Levant is full of germs."
    My grandmother lived in Jerusalem for some twenty-five years, she knew hard times and a few good ones, but to her last day she found no reason to modify her verdict. They say that the day after they arrived, she ordered my grandfather, as she would every single day they lived in Jerusalem, winter and summer alike, to get up at six or six thirty every morning and to spray Flit in every corner of the apartment to drive away the germs, to spray under the bed, behind the wardrobe, and even into the storage space and between the legs of the sideboard, and then to beat all the mattresses and the bedclothes and eiderdowns. From my childhood I remember Grandpa Alexander standing on the balcony in the early morning in his vest and bedroom slippers, beating the pillows like Don Quixote attacking the wineskins, bringing the carpet beater down on them repeatedly with all the force of his wretchedness or despair. Grandma Shlomit would stand a few steps behind him, taller than he, dressed in a flowery silk dressing gown buttoned all the way up, her hair tied with a green butterfly-like bow, as stiff and upright as the headmistress of a boarding school for young ladies, commanding the field of battle until the daily victory was won.
    In the context of her constant war against germs Grandma used to boil fruit and vegetables uncompromisingly. She would wipe the bread twice over with a cloth soaked in a pinkish disinfectant