Black Box by Amos Oz Read Free Book Online Page A

specific questions you would like us to investigate for you.
    [Signed] A. Maimon, Investigator

S. Zand Private Investigations Ltd., Tel Aviv
     
    ITEM C:
The parts underlined in red pencil by Mr. Zakheim in the material he enclosed with his letter to A. A. Gideon in London dated 28.3.76.
     
1. From the decision of the Rabbinical Court in the case of the divorce suit of A. A. Gideon versus Halina Brandstetter-Gideon, Jerusalem, 1968: “. . . we therefore find that the wife committed adultery, on her own admission . . . she therefore forfeits her
ketubah
and maintenance. . . .”
2. From the decision of the Jerusalem District Court, 1968: “As for her claim for maintenance for herself and her small child . . . because of the father’s insistence that he is not the child’s father . . . in the light of the inconclusive results of the blood test . . . this court advised the parties to undergo a tissue test . . . the wife declined to undergo this test . . . the husband also declined to undergo a tissue test . . . the wife withdrew her claim for maintenance for herself and the child . . . the court therefore strikes out her claim, both parties having declared that henceforth they have no further demands on each other.”
    ***
    Dr. Alexander Gideon
Political Science Department
Midwest University
Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.
    Jerusalem

19.4.1976
     
Distant Alec,
I am writing to you again to your Illinois address in the hope that some secretary will take the trouble to forward my letter to you. I do not know where you are. The black-and-white room, your empty desk, the empty bottle, and the empty glass surround you always in my thoughts like the capsule of a spacecraft in which you are constantly moving from continent to continent. And the fire burning in the grate, lighting up your monkish body and your greying, balding head, and the deserted snowfields you can see from your window stretching away until they fade into the mist. Everything as in a woodcut. Always. Wherever you are.
So what do I want this time? What more can the fisherman’s wife ask the golden fish to give her? Another hundred thousand? Or a palace of emerald?
Nothing, Alec. I have no request. I am only writing so as to talk to you. Even though I already know all the answers. Why you have such long ears. And why your eyes are flashing and sparkling at me. And why such sharp teeth.
There’s nothing new, Alec.
At this point you can crumple the letter up and throw it on the fire. The paper will flare up for a moment and then vanish to another world, a tongue of flame will stretch up and die down as though kindled by an empty passion, a fine charred strip will take off and flutter around the room, perhaps to land at your feet. And you will be alone again. You can pour yourself a whisky and celebrate your victory, all alone: there she is, groveling at my feet. She has lost interest in her African discovery and now she is begging for mercy.
Because apart from malicious glee you have never known any other joy in your life, wicked, solitary Alec. So read this and rejoice. Read this and laugh silently to the moon at the end of the snow at your window.
This time I am writing to you behind Michel’s back. And without telling him. At ten-thirty he switched off the television, went around the flat systematically turning out the lights, covered the child, checked that the door was bolted, put a sweater around my shoulders, wrapped himself up in a blanket, glanced at the evening paper, muttered something, and fell asleep. Now his spectacles and his cigarettes are on the desk next to me, his gentle breathing blends in with the ticking of the brown clock, which was a present from his parents. And I am sitting at his desk and writing to you, and so I am sinning both against him and against our child. This time I cannot even use Boaz. Your son is all right: your money and Michel’s wisdom extricated him from trouble. The friends of the Sommo family got his