Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz Read Free Book Online Page A

of the village. Rachel would accept the invitation with thanks, but it usually turned out that a few hours before the party or the meeting the old man had an attack of emphysema or mislaid his dentures, so Rachel would ring and offer apologies on behalf of both of them. Occasionally Rachel would go on her own to a communal singing evening at the home of Dalia and Avraham Levin, a pair of teachers who had lost their child, and who lived farther up the hill.
    The old man particularly detested the three or four teachers from outside the village, who lived in rented rooms and returned to their families in the city on weekends. To relieve their loneliness, one or other of them would sometimes pop in to see Rachel, to borrow or return a book, to ask her advice on some question of teaching or discipline, or to woo her furtively. Pesach Kedem loathed these uninvited guests: he firmly believed that he and his daughter were enough company for each other, and they had no desire for unnecessary visits from strangers, whose motives were dubious and the devil only knew what they were really after. He was of the opinion that these days everybody's intentions were self-centered, not to say shady. The time was long past when some people at least could like or love one another without making all kinds of calculations. Nowadays, he repeatedly preached to his daughter, everyone, without exception, had ulterior motives; they were only interested in seeing how they could garner a few crumbs from someone else's table. A long life full of disillusionment had taught him that no one knocked at your door except in the hope of deriving some profit, advantage or benefit. Everything was calculated these days, and the calculations were generally disreputable. I tell you, Abigail, as far as I'm concerned they can all do us a favor and stay in their own homes. What do they think this is, the town square? A public saloon? A schoolroom? And while we're on the subject, just answer me this: what do we need with that Arab of yours?
    Rachel corrected him:
    "I'm not Abigail, I'm Rachel."
    The old man shut up at once, ashamed of his mistake and perhaps also regretting some of the things he had said. But after five or ten minutes he would start wheedling, like a child tugging at her sleeve:
    "Rachel, I've got a pain."
    "Where?"
    "In my neck. Or my head. My shoulders. No, not there, slightly lower down. Yes, there. You have a wonderful touch, Rachel."
    And then he would add shyly:
    "I do love you, child. Really. I love you lots and lots."
    And a moment later:
    "I'm very sorry I worried you. We won't let the digging in the night frighten us. Next time I'll go down to the cellar with an iron bar, come what may. I won't wake you. I've bothered you enough already. Even in the old days there were some comrades who called me a nuisance behind my back. Only about your Arab, I just want to say—"
    "Shut up, Pesach."
    The old man would blink and do as she said, his white mustache quivering. And so the two of them sat at the veranda table in the evening breeze, she in jeans and a short-sleeved blouse, he in his baggy khaki trousers held up by braces, a hunchbacked man in a shabby black beret, with a fine, slightly aquiline nose, and with sunken lips, but with white, youthful, perfect false teeth, which on the rare occasions when he smiled gleamed like those of a fashion model. His mustache, when it was not bristling with rage, looked white and fluffy, as though made of cotton wool. But if the newscaster on the radio irritated him, he would thump angrily on the table with his bony fist and declare:
    "What an imbecile that woman is!"

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    ON THE RARE OCCASIONS when Rachel had visitors—colleagues from school, workmen, Benny Avni the mayor or Micky the vet—the old man flew into a rage like a swarm of bees, his thin lips tightened into the expression of an elderly inquisitor, and he would flee the sitting room and hole up in his regular lookout post behind the partly opened