My Michael by Amos Oz Page B

alive? Here, I've brought you a bird—it's still alive, too. Well, all the best. Have you heard the one about the three airmen? Well, love to the baby. I've got our truck waiting outside, and they'll start tooting at me any moment."
    On Saturdays my best friend Hadassah sometimes came over, with or without her husband. She kept trying to persuade me to go back to the university. Aunt Leah's friend, old Mr. Kadishman, was in the habit of dropping in from time to time to keep an eye on us and to play a game of chess with Michael.
    On the night of the surprise party eight students came. One of them was a blonde girl who looked dazzling at first glance but later seemed coarse-featured. Apparently she was the girl who had danced the lively Spanish dance at our wedding party. She called me "sweetie," and Michael she called "genius."

    My husband poured the wine and handed round cookies. Then he got up on the table and started mimicking his lecturers. His friends laughed politely. Only the blonde girl, Yardena, was really enthusiastic. "Micha," she cheered, "Micha, you're the greatest."
    I was ashamed of my husband because he was not amusing. His gaiety was strained and forced. Even when he told a funny story I could not laugh, because he told it as if he were dictating lecture notes.
    After a couple of hours the guests left.
    My husband collected the glasses and took them out to the kitchen. Then he emptied the ashtrays. He swept the room. He put on an apron and went back to the sink. As he went down the passage he stopped and looked at me like a scolded schoolboy. He suggested I go to bed and promised not to make any noise. He supposed I was worn out after all the excitement. He had been wrong, he could see now how wrong he had been. He shouldn't have invited strangers in; my nerves were still on edge and I was easily tired. He was surprised at himself for not having thought of that beforehand. By the way, he found that girl Yardena utterly vulgar. Would I forgive him for what had happened?

    While Michael was asking me to forgive him for the small party he had arranged I recalled how lost I had felt that night when we came back from our first expedition to Tirat Yaar, and how we had stood between the two rows of dark cypresses, how the cold rain had lashed my face and how Michael had suddenly unbuttoned his rough overcoat and gathered me into his embrace.
    Now he stood bent over the sink as if his neck were broken, his gestures very weary. He washed the glasses in hot water, then rinsed them in cold. I crept up behind him on bare feet. I kissed his close-cropped head, threw both my arms round his shoulders, and took hold of his firm, downy hand. I was glad that he could feel my breast against his back, because since the beginning of my pregnancy my husband and I had been distant. Michael's hand was wet from washing the glasses. He had a dirty bandage on one of his fingers. Perhaps he had cut himself and not bothered to tell me. The bandage, too, was wet. He turned his long, thin face towards me, and it seemed more emaciated than it had been on the day we first met in Terra Sancta. I noticed that his whole body was emaciated. His cheekbones stood out. A fine line had begun to show by his right nostril. I touched his cheek. He showed no sign of surprise. As if this was what he had been waiting for all these days. As if he had known in advance that it was this evening that the change would come.

    Once upon a time there was a little girl called Hannah, and she was given a new dress, white as snow, to greet the Sabbath. She had a pretty pair of shoes, too, of real suede, and her curls were tied up with a pretty silk scarf, because little Hannah had lovely curly hair. Now Hannah went out, and she saw an old charcoal-seller bowed down under the weight of his black sack. The Sabbath was approaching. Hannah hurried to help the charcoal-seller carry his sack of charcoal, because little Hannele had a kind heart. But then her white dress