The Hill of Evil Counsel by Amos Oz

Author:Amos Oz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Early on Sunday morning, Mother went down into the garden carrying a tub of washing. I followed her downstairs without her noticing. The morning sky was grubby and overcast, as if autumn had arrived. But I knew these mornings; I told myself that it wasn't autumn yet, and that actually it was a sure sign of a blazing-hot day. I noticed a quick tremor run through her neck and shoulders. She stood all alone in the low gray light, which imparted a bluish, doubt-ridden hue to the stone, the trees, and the asphalt. It looked as though the light were a stream, and the houses on either side were its banks in a fog, and everything in between was being swept away by the leisurely current. The garbage cans, waiting along the sidewalk, were in the stream. A smell of fish. The smell of the oleanders. And a faint, almost pleasant reek was also in the stream. Not a stream. A ripple of light. A veil. Somewhere nearby there lived a persistent cuckoo that never stopped repeating a single urgent phrase as if it were impossible to remain silent. On the perches of the dovecote stood three lazy pigeons, exchanging views and opinions. They totally disregarded the cuckoo's interruptions.

My mother stood barefoot on the carpet of pine needles the shade of the restless trees, pegging the sheets up on the clothesline. There were moments, when she stood with her arms outstretched, when I had difficulty restraining myself from running and suddenly hugging her from behind and telling her secrets about Bat-Ammi and the John of Gischala plan. Far away, a radio was playing light morning music. My mother could sing, but she wasn't singing. The grocer, the greengrocer, and the barber had rolled up their shutters and opened their shops. Only Mrs. Vishniak the pharmacist was late getting up, as usual. The greengrocer was setting out boxes of apples, onions, eggplants, and pumpkins on the sidewalk. The wasps swooped down angrily. In the window of the grocer's shop was a flypaper covered with dead flies, and a jar of different-colored hard candies, two for a mil. There was an olive tree between the two shops. A flowering creeper clasped its branches with a blue flame. From a distance it looked as though the olive tree had gone out of its mind and set itself on fire. Women were draping their bedclothes over their balcony railings to get rid of the night smells. The quilts and pillowcases gave Zephaniah Street a poignant air of gaiety; it was impossible to banish thoughts about night and the neighbors' wives at night among the quilts.

On the deep window sills, among the asparagus ferns growing in old cans, stood sealed jars in which cucumbers were being pickled in a pale-green liquid with bay leaves and parsley and little cloves of garlic. When the Hebrew state was finally established, we would all get up and go to the valleys and the open fields. All summer long, we would live in watchmen's booths in the orchards.

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