Scenes from Village Life

By Amos Oz and Nicholas de Lange

Linked short stories set in a town in the midst of change: “One of the most powerful books you will read about present-day Israel.” —The Jewish Chronicle
 
“‘Scenes from Village Life’ is like a symphony, its movements more impressive together than in isolation. There is, in each story, a particular chord or strain; but taken together, these chords rise and reverberate, evoking an unease so strong it’s almost a taste in the mouth . . . ‘Scenes from Village Life’ is a brief collection, but its brevity is a testament to its force. You will not soon forget it.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
Strange things are happening in Tel Ilan, a century-old pioneer village. A disgruntled retired politician complains to his daughter that he hears the sounds of digging at night. Could it be their tenant, that young Arab? But then the young Arab hears the digging sounds too. And where has the mayor’s wife gone, vanished without a trace, her note saying “Don’t worry about me”? Around the village, the veneer of new wealth—gourmet restaurants, art galleries, a winery—barely conceals the scars of war and of past generations: disused air-raid shelters, rusting farm tools, and trucks left wherever they stopped. Scenes From Village Life is a memorable novel in stories by the inimitable Amos Oz: a brilliant, unsettling glimpse of what goes on beneath the surface of everyday life. Translated from Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange
 
“Finely wrought . . . Oz writes characterizations that are subtle but surgically precise, rendering this work a powerfully understated treatment of an uneasy Israeli conscience.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
 
“Informed by everything, weighed down by nothing, this is an exquisite work of art.” —The Scotsman

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9780547519418

Amos Oz

AMOS OZ (1939–2018) was born in Jerusalem. He was the recipient of the Prix Femina, the Frankfurt Peace Prize, the Goethe Prize, the Primo Levi Prize, and the National Jewish Book Award, among other international honors. His work, including A Tale of Love and Darkness and In the Land of Israel, has been translated into forty-four languages. 

Book preview

title page

Contents

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Title Page

Contents

Copyright

Heirs

1

2

3

4

5

Relations

1

2

3

4

5

6

Digging

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

Lost

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Waiting

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strangers

1

2

3

4

5

6

Singing

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

In a faraway place at another time

Sample Chapter from BETWEEN FRIENDS

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About the Author

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First Mariner Books edition 2012

Copyright © 2011 by Amos Oz

Translation copyright © 2011 by Nicholas de Lange

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

First published in Hebrew as Tmunot Mihayei Hakfar

First published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus, 2011

www.hmhco.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Oz, Amos.

[Temunot me-haye ha-kefar. English]

Scenes from village life / Amos Oz ; translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange.—1st U.S. ed.

p. cm.

First published in Hebrew as Tmunot mihayei hakfar. First published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus, 2011—T.p. verso.

ISBN 978-0-547-48336-8

ISBN 978-0-547-84019-2 (pbk.)

1. Oz, Amos—Translations into English. I. De Lange, N. R. M. (Nicholas Robert Michael), date. II. Title.

PJ5054.O9T4613 2011

892.4'36–dc22 2011016055

Cover design by Patrick Barry

Cover photograph © Alex Majoli/Magnum Photos

eISBN 978-0-547-51941-8

v4.0317

Heirs

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1

THE STRANGER WAS not quite a stranger. Something in his appearance repelled and yet fascinated Arieh Zelnik from first glance, if it really was the first glance: he felt he remembered that face, the arms that came down nearly to the knees, but vaguely, as though from a lifetime ago.

The man parked his car right in front of the gate. It was a dusty, beige car, with a motley patchwork of stickers on the rear window and even on the side windows: a varied collection of declarations, warnings, slogans and exclamation marks. He locked the car, rattling each door vigorously to make sure they were all properly shut. Then he patted the hood lightly once or twice, as though the car were an old horse that you tethered to the gatepost and patted affectionately to let him know he wouldn’t have long to wait. Then the man pushed the gate open and strode toward the vine-shaded front veranda. He moved in a jerky, almost painful way, as if walking on hot sand.

From his swing seat in a corner of the veranda Arieh Zelnik could watch without being seen. He observed the uninvited guest from the moment he parked his car. But try as he might, he could not remember where or when he had come across him before. Was it on a foreign trip? In the army? At work? At university? Or even at school? The man’s face had a sly, jubilant expression, as if he had just pulled off a practical joke at someone else’s expense. Somewhere behind or beneath the stranger’s features there lurked the elusive suggestion of a familiar, disturbing face: was it someone who once harmed you, or someone to whom you yourself once did some forgotten wrong?

Like a dream of which nine-tenths had vanished and only the tail was still visible.

Arieh Zelnik decided not to get up to greet the newcomer but to wait for him here, on his swing seat on the front veranda.

As the stranger hurriedly bounced and wound his way along the path that led from the gate to the veranda steps, his little eyes darted this way and that as though he were afraid of being discovered too soon, or of being attacked by some ferocious dog that might suddenly leap out at him from the spiny bougainvillea bushes growing on either side of the path.

The thinning flaxen hair, the turkey-wattle neck, the watery, inquisitively darting eyes, the dangling chimpanzee arms, all evoked a certain vague unease.

From his concealed vantage point in the shade of a creeping vine, Arieh Zelnik noted that the man was large-framed but slightly flabby, as if he had just recovered from a serious illness, suggesting that he had been heavily built until quite recently, when he had begun to collapse inward and shrink inside his skin. Even his grubby beige summer jacket with its bulging pockets seemed too big for him, and hung loosely from his shoulders.

Though it was late summer and the path was dry, the stranger paused to wipe his feet carefully on the mat at the bottom of the steps, then inspected the sole of each shoe in turn. Only once he was satisfied did he go up the steps and try the mesh screen door at the top. After tapping on it politely several times without receiving any response he finally looked around and saw the householder planted calmly on his swing seat, surrounded by large flowerpots and ferns in planters, in a corner of the veranda, in the shade of the arbor.

The visitor smiled broadly and seemed about to bow; he cleared his throat and declared:

You’ve got a beautiful place here, Mr. Zelkin! Stunning! It’s a little bit of Provence in the State of Israel! Better than Provence—Tuscany! And the view! The woods! The vines! Tel Ilan is simply the loveliest village in this entire Levantine state. Very pretty! Good morning, Mr. Zelkin. I hope I’m not disturbing you, by any chance?

Arieh Zelnik returned the greeting drily, pointed out that his name was Zelnik, not Zelkin, and said that he was unfortunately not in the habit of buying anything from door-to-door salesmen.

Quite right, too! exclaimed the other, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. How can we tell if someone is a bona fide salesman or a con man? Or, heaven forbid, a criminal who is casing the joint for some gang of burglars? But as it happens, Mr. Zelnik, I am not a salesman. I am Maftsir!

Who?

Maftsir. Wolff Maftsir. From the law firm Lotem and Pruzhinin. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Zelnik. I have come, sir, on a matter, how should we put it, or perhaps instead of trying to describe it, we should come straight to the point. Do you mind if I sit down? It’s a rather personal affair. Not my own personal affair, heaven forbid—if it were, I would never dream of bursting in on you like this without prior notice. Although, in fact, we did try, we certainly did, we tried several times, but your telephone number is unlisted and our letters went unanswered. Which is why we decided to try our luck with an unannounced visit, and we are very sorry for the intrusion. This is definitely not our usual practice, to intrude on the privacy of others, especially when they happen to reside in the most beautiful spot in the whole country. One way or another, as we have already remarked, this is on no account just our own personal business. No, no. By no means. In fact, quite the opposite: it concerns, how can we put it tactfully, it concerns your own personal affairs, sir. Your own personal affairs, not just ours. To be more precise, it relates to your family. Or perhaps rather to your family in a general sense, and more specifically to one particular member of your family. Would you object to us sitting and chatting for a few minutes? I promise you I’ll do my best to ensure that the whole matter does not take up more than ten minutes of your time. Although, in fact, it’s entirely up to you, Mr. Zelkin.

Zelnik, Arieh said.

And then he said, Sit down.

Not here, over there, he added.

Because the fat man, or the formerly fat man, had first settled himself on the double swing seat, right next to his host, thigh to thigh. A cloud of thick smells clung to his body, smells of digestion, socks, talcum powder and armpits. A faint odor of pungent after-shave overlay the blend. Arieh Zelnik was suddenly reminded of his father, who had also covered his body odor with the pungent aroma of after-shave.

As soon as he was told to move, the visitor rose, swaying slightly, his simian arms holding his knees, apologized and deposited his posterior, garbed in trousers that were too big for him, at the indicated spot, on a wooden bench across the garden table. It was a rustic bench, made of roughly planed planks rather like railway ties. It was important to Arieh that his sick mother should not catch sight of this visitor, not even of his back, not even of his silhouette outlined against the arbor, which was why he had seated him in a place that was not visible from the window. As for his unctuous, cantorial voice, her deafness would protect her from that.

2

IT WAS THREE YEARS since Arieh Zelnik’s wife, Na’ama, had gone off to visit her best friend Thelma Grant in San Diego and not come back. She had not written to say explicitly that she was leaving him, but had begun by hinting obliquely that she was not returning for a while. Six months later she had written: I’m still staying with Thelma. And subsequently: No need to go on waiting for me. I’m working with Thelma in a rejuvenation studio. And in another letter: Thelma and I get on well together, we have the same karma. And another time: Our spiritual guide thinks that we shouldn’t give each other up. You’ll be fine. You’re not angry, are you?

Their married daughter, Hilla, wrote from Boston: Daddy, please, don’t put pressure on Mummy. That’s my advice. Get yourself a new life.

And because he had long since lost contact with their elder child, their son Eldad, and he had no close friends outside the family, he had decided a year ago to get rid of his flat on Mount Carmel and move in with his mother in the old house in Tel Ilan, to live on the rent from two flats he owned in Haifa and devote himself to his hobby.

So he had taken his daughter’s advice and got himself a new life.

As a young man, Arieh Zelnik had served with the naval commandos. From his early childhood, he had feared no danger, no foe, no heights. But with the passage of the years he had come to dread the darkness of an empty house. That was why he had finally chosen to come back to live with his mother in the old house where he had been born and raised, on the edge of this village, Tel Ilan. His mother, Rosalia, an old lady of ninety, was deaf, very bent, and taciturn. Most of the time she let him take care of the household chores without making any demands or suggestions. Occasionally, the thought occurred to Arieh Zelnik that his mother might fall ill, or become so infirm that she could not manage without constant care, and that he would be forced to feed her, to wash her and to change her diapers. He might have to employ a nurse, and then the calm of the household would be shattered and his life would be exposed to the gaze of outsiders. And sometimes he even, or almost, looked forward to his mother’s imminent decline, so that he would be rationally and emotionally justified in transferring her to a suitable institution and he would be left in sole occupancy of the house. He would be free to get a beautiful new wife. Or, instead of finding a wife, he could play host to a string of young girls. He could even knock down some internal walls and renovate the house. A new life would begin for him.

But in the meantime the two of them, mother and son, went on living together calmly and silently in the gloomy old house. A cleaner came every morning, bringing the shopping from a list he had given her. She tidied, cleaned and cooked, and after serving mother and son their midday meal she silently went on her way. The mother spent most of the day sitting in her room reading old books, while Arieh Zelnik listened to the radio in his own room or built model aircraft out of balsa wood.

3

SUDDENLY THE STRANGER flashed his host a sly, knowing smile that resembled a wink, as though suggesting that the two of them commit some small sin together, but fearing his suggestion might incur a punishment.

Excuse me, he asked in a friendly manner, would you mind if I helped myself to some of this?

Thinking that his host had nodded consent, he poured some ice water with a slice of lemon and mint leaves from a jug into the only glass on the table, Arieh Zelnik’s own glass, put his fleshy lips to it and swallowed the lot in five or six noisy gulps. He poured himself another half glass and thirstily downed that too.

Sorry! he said apologetically. Sitting on this beautiful veranda of yours, you simply don’t realize how hot it is out there. It’s really hot. But despite the heat this place is so charming! Tel Ilan really is the prettiest village in the whole country! Provence! Better than Provence—Tuscany! Woods! Vineyards! Hundred-year-old farmhouses, red roofs and such tall cypresses! And now what do you think, sir? Would you prefer us to go on chatting about the beauty of the place, or will you permit me to move straight on to our little agenda?

I’m listening, said Arieh Zelnik.

The Zelniks, the descendants of Leon Akaviah Zelnik, were, if I am not mistaken, among the founders of this village. You were among the very first settlers, were you not? Ninety years ago? Nearly a hundred almost?

His name was Akiva Arieh, not Leon Akaviah.

Of course, the visitor enthused. We have great respect for the history of your illustrious family. More than respect, admiration! First, if I am not mistaken, the two elder brothers, Semyon and Boris Zelkin, came from a little village in the district of Kharkov, to establish a brand-new settlement here in the heart of the wild landscape of the desolate Manasseh Hills. There was nothing here. Just a desolate plain covered in scrub. There were not even any Arab villages in this valley; they were all on the other side of the hills. Then their little nephew arrived, Leon, or, if you insist, Akaviah Arieh. And then, at least so the story goes, first Semyon and then Boris returned to Russia, where Boris killed Semyon with an ax, and only your grandfather—or was it your great-grandfather?—Leon Akaviah remained. What’s that, he was called Akiva, not Akaviah? I’m sorry. Akiva then. To cut a long story short, it turns out that we, the Maftsirs, also come from Kharkov District! From the very forests of Kharkov! Maftsir! Maybe you’ve heard of us? We had a well-known cantor in the family, Shaya-Leib Maftsir, and there was also a certain Grigory Moiseyevich Maftsir, who was a very high-ranking general in the Red Army, until he was killed by Stalin in the purges of the 1930s.

The man stood up and mimed the stance of a member of a firing squad, making the sound of a salvo of rifle fire and displaying sharp but not entirely white front teeth. He sat down again, smiling, on the bench, seemingly pleased with the success of the execution. Arieh Zelnik had the feeling the man might have been waiting for applause, or at least a smile, in exchange for his own saccharine

Reviews for Scenes from Village Life

[thorold_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very delicate little book, in which nothing much seems to be happening - we get seven snippets from the ordinary lives of ordinary people in a village called Tel Ilan, created as a farming community by Jewish pioneers a century ago, and now slowly turning into a "beauty spot". The characters from each story pop up in the background of one or two of the others, but there isn't anything like a connected plot; even within the stories themselves there's no conventional dramatic resolution. And there are borderline strange things going on that are never quite explored or explained. But we learn a good deal from the "throwaway" background details about how small communities work, about families, about the state of Israel and its relationship with its history, about art and work and culture, about life and death and old age, and much else.Another writer I will have to read more of. And almost a motivation to try to learn Hebrew...

[kidzdoc_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This collection of short stories by Amos Oz is set in an apparently fictional historical village in Israel that has been populated by Jews for roughly a century. The characters in the first seven stories all know each other, and those who are the center of one story will often appear in a minor role in one or more other ones. The stories are about the lives of the characters within their families and community, and focus on the loneliness and barely hidden frustration and despair that plague each of them. Each character is in a search for something, often without knowing what it is they are looking for or why, and the stories are dreamlike, haunting, and often mildly uncomfortable and menacing. In the longest story, "Digging", a middle-aged widow lives with her cantakerous and difficult elderly widowed father, along with a shy and introspective Arab university student who lives in a shed on their land in exchange for performing household chores. The elderly man is awakened each night by the sound of digging underneath the house, yet no one else seems to hear it. Other stories feature a single doctor who expectantly waits for her ill nephew; a divorced woman pursued by a lovestruck and lonely teenager; an older man who lives in peace with his infirm mother at the edge of the village, until an intrusive stranger who claims to be a relative urges him to sell his mother's property; and the town's mayor, who receives a mysterious note from his wife. Oz does not provide the reader or his characters with straightforward resolutions to their dilemmas or searches, which made the stories that much more memorable and powerful. The last story is quite unlike the others, as it is set in a different place at another time (past? present?), in a town whose structures are decaying and whose citizens are dying despite the best efforts of the official who is charged with their welfare.The stories are wonderfully written, with simple yet evocative language, and I slowly savored each passage, such as this one from the elderly man in "Digging", as the Arab student plays a haunting Russian melody on his harmonica on one summer evening:'That's a lovely tune,' the old man said. 'Heart-rending. It reminds us of a time when there was still some fleeting affection between people. There's no point in playing tunes like that today: they are an anachronism, because nobody cares any more. That's all over. Now our hearts are blocked. All feelings are dead. Nobody turns to anyone else except from self-interested motives. What is left? Maybe only this melancholy tune, as a kind of reminder of the destruction of our hearts.'[Scenes from Village Life] is an unforgettable book, which is one of my favorite reads of the year, and one I look forward to returning to in the near future.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As short fiction goes, this was mighty fine, up to a point. Oz's eye for the human foible and his ability to draw the reader right into the middle of the lives of his characters is awesome. I started each of these stories of ordinary people in the century-old pioneer village of Tel Ilan eager to meet the mayor, the librarian, the doctor...and I feel I know them all so well now. And yet each story left me unsettled and bewildered...what, in the name of G-d is he trying to tell us, after all? Wives wander off without explanation...go to visit a sister and just never come back, or leave a note "Don't worry about me", and disappear. A woman waits for the arrival of a nephew she's been told to expect...he doesn't come, and finally she just eats the warmed up dinner she had prepared and goes off to bed, after mithering for hours about what she should do. A man feels drawn to a room where a young boy took his own life years before...why? Another young man seems to be sliding down a path to that ultimate despair...but then again, is he just experiencing normal teenaged angst and hormonal upheaval? Always an ending that resolves nothing, explains nothing, suggests nothing. Of course, I often feel that way about short fiction. It's why I read so little of it. I don't think I understand the point of so much of it, even when it's as marvelously written as these examples are.

[iddrazin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amos Oz is a great writer. He writes in Hebrew, and his books are translated into English. He is considered one of the top three Israeli writers. This book, which will be published on October 20, 2011 - I received as an advance reading copy - contains eight brilliant short, perceptive, thought-provoking, and somewhat disturbing vignettes, about sometimes surreal citizens of an Israeli village. For example, in the first story Heirs, an unusual stranger, outlandishly dressed with bizarre behavior, arrives at the home of a troubled man and tells him that he would like to buy his very old mother’s house, the house in which he and his mother are living. The son is conflicted. He wants and doesn’t want to sell. He tells the man to leave. But the man ignores the order, enters the house, goes to the silent old woman’s bedroom, and gets into bed with her, strokes and kisses her, and mummers softly, “Everything is going to be all right, dear lady. It’s going to be lovely. We’ll take care of everything.” The son also undresses and gets into the bed with his quite old mother. Readers will ask: What is the significance of the bed scene? Why is the tale called Heirs in the plural when the old woman only has a single son? Similarly, in the seventh story Singing a man of the village leaves the thirty-some villagers who came to a home to sing together. This is the home of a man and woman whose son committed suicide under their bed, and lay there dead for a day undiscovered. The husband hasn’t gotten over the event, and sits on the side brooding while the others are singing. The visitor also suffers despair. He wanders upstairs, confused, without understanding why he is doing so, enters a bedroom, and thinks: “I had no further reason to turn my back on despair. So I got down on my hands and knees at the foot of the double bed and, rolling back the bedspread, tried to grope with the pale beam of my flashlight into the dark space underneath.” Readers will enjoy reading the artistic descriptions of the events and wondering what is the significance of this man’s act.In the third vignette Digging we read about the interrelations of an old almost senile, very dissatisfied, fault-finding father; his good-looking, well-groomed daughter, a widow in her mid-forties, a teacher of literature in the village, who patiently cares for her father; and a young Arab student who is writing about relationships, who she allows to live in a hut on her property in exchange for help in repairing her house and property. Her father complains that he hears digging under the house at night. She is certain that he is imagining the noise and changes his medicine. Then the Arab boy asks her about the digging. She sleeps soundly and hears nothing. She decides she should stay up and listen, and she hears the digging as well. What is going on? What is Amos Oz telling us?In summary, in these vignettes, Amos Oz explores the psyche of people in a small village, such as the puppy love of a seventeen year old boy for a short plump overworked librarian twice his age in Strangers, where the boy rubs up against the older woman, and the psychological and sociological consequences to the two of them. The story is called Strangers because of these consequences. But Oz gives us much more than a fascinating exploration of the mind-set of village people. These people are a mirror that reflects life outside of the village.

[squeakychu · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This sad, but hauntingly beautiful, book is composed of stories of individuals who live in the fictitious rural century-old village of Tel Ilan in Israel. Since all of the stories take place within this small village, characters from one story often make cameo appearances in other stories. The stories are rich and layered. All except the last one dwell upon the psychological depths of an individual (each different) at a particular place and time. For readers who are familiar with life in Israel, the characters and their feelings seem very familiar. There is no resolution to the issues posed in the stories, a fact which makes each story significantly unsettling. Although I loved reading most of this book, I was taken aback by the last story (“In a Faraway Place at Another Time”) which seemed totally incongruous with the rest of the book. I just wish it hadn’t been included in this otherwise slim and perfect volume. My favorite story was “Relations” in which Dr. Gili Steiner, a physician, awaits the arrival of her soldier nephew Gideon, newly released from the hospital following a kidney infection.This book is a pleasure to read with its poignant and evocative writing. However, I would advise reading this book slowly as there is much to savor in each individual story. Plan to take the time to feel the depths of each one by itself.

[smiler69 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I took my time reading one short story from this book each day, and was able to savour the writing, well drawn characters and various other rich details, and ponder over each of these as I went along. Each story takes place in the same fictional village of Tel-Ilan in Israel, a place of great natural beauty, and a Jewish settlement of more than a hundred years old which, as such, pre-dates the foundation of the state of Israel. The title describes the approach of the author very well, with each tale narrating a different scene; each is set in a contemporary setting which features various inhabitants of the village and describes an incident, weaved in with their relations to one another, their history and their personal challenges and struggles. There is a woman in her forties living with her elderly father who needs constant looking after and who is convinced that he hears digging under the house in the middle of the night. There is the female village doctor who awaits her beloved nephew at the bus terminal and is distraught when he doesn't show up. There is a couple which tries to hold on to a full life after the suicide of their sixteen-year old son, and a houseguest who decides to investigate what lays behind closed doors. Some of the characters reappear in other stories, which creates a connection between the various parts of the book, as the stories are quite diverse and do not form a cohesive narrative taken as a whole. One thing they all seem to have in common is that they end on a note of suspense; pregnant moments filled with possibilities. Of course, this leaves much to the imagination, a devise which works well in the hands of this masterful and mature author, but at the same time made me wish Amos Oz had developed the stories beyond these small glimpses into these people's lives. As such, I was left feeling very much like a voyeur, looking through small windows at fleeting moments of his characters' lives—which he manages to make us believe in within the first few sentences of each story—at what feels beyond a doubt like a much bigger life experience. Much closer to the way we experience real life, in fact: through these various disconnected moments, as opposed to the long flowing narratives often found in novels which don't much resemble any living individual's personal experience. There is a prevailing note of melancholy throughout, and the last story of the book, which takes us to an altogether different place at a different time, is truly dark in tone and imbued with a sense of hopelessness, which is an odd place to finish, but then again, as there is no beginning and no end to any of the stories, perhaps we're only meant to take this new element of the puzzle as a shift in paradigm. Overall I was quite impressed with this new-to-me author and will be interested to read some of his novels. I truly wish my Hebrew was good enough for me to read them in the original version, because with the little Hebrew that remains to me, I can't help but try to translate as I'm reading to get a better feeling for the tone and intention and the Israeli spirit and mentality which I grew up with as a child. It's all here in this strange little book, to be sure. Recommended, though do expect to be left in a ponderous state to figure out the full implications on your own.