Read Online The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven - Free Book Online
Authors: Gail Hareven
Ads: Link
way to write in a newspaper and these were the questions that should be asked, but they were in a house now, not a newspaper. “Of course Godard is a revolutionary, from ideological point of view the worst kind possible, but Godard is nevertheless the Schoenberg of cinema, and the important thing is the revolution an artist makes with his camera, and all the rest is just rubbish for politicians.”
Sometimes when Alek finished speaking he would turn around and disappear into his little study or the kitchen. Sometimes in his absence they would go on arguing about what he said, but this was one of the occasions on which he silenced them. Not because they agreed with him, but because he had the halo of someone who had been a student in Paris and met Godard. I knew that Alek realized this, and that he despised them for it. And I also knew that they felt his contempt, and that the scorn only strengthened the spell he cast over them.
Now, looking back, they seem very young to me, forgivably young. “Abroad” was further away then than it is now, and certain abroads, like Paris, had a glamour then that it took years to dispel.
Most of the regular participants in the group were men, except for Dalit from “La Mama” who would always make a tempestuous entrance. He treated Dalit nicely, he never ignored her arrival, and it was the same with all the pretty faces with the plucked eyebrows who would turn up with someone or other, stick around for a week or two, and then be replaced. When they didn’t come with a guy, the pretty girls would come in pairs, and huddle together like goslings waiting for someone to stick a worm in their beaks. Alek would clear the records or the occupantoff a chair, make sure that the pretty face was comfortably seated in her short mini, and he never failed to ask her name and if he could get her anything. Occasionally a female made of sterner stuff would turn up, like for instance Osnat law-and-order who actually succeeded in forcing her way into the discussion. I admired this woman. She had an exquisite jaw and black, unplucked eyebrows, she would turn a chair around and sit astride on it, leaning her arms on the backrest and harangue us: “So ask yourselves—whose law and order? Law and order that serve what? That serve whom?” Because she impressed me, I assumed that she impressed Alek too, until I looked at his face.
In the morning I threw a neutral remark into the air anyway, to check out his reaction, and Alek raised his eyes from his book and gave me a long, faintly amused look. “I’ve known too many woman of this type,” he said in the end and went back to his book, pinching his cigarette as usual between his thumb and two fingers.
Ten or maybe twelve years later, in the home of friends in Tel Aviv, I came across Osnat again. She taught in the history department at the university, published articles in the newspapers, she still turned her chair around, and she still smoked the same short Chinese pipe. Since she failed to recognize me and remember me from then, I felt free to touch the erogenous zone and remind her of “that crowd from Nachlaot.” “Oh yes, them, sure … they were fucking male chauvinists, too, just like everyone else in those days.” Beyond this sweeping generalization it appeared that the group had not remained in her memory, and we actually became quite good friends.
Opinions I heard on those evenings seeped into me gradually, and even though I lacked the intellectual background to understand them,I started trying on ideas like a young girl trying on a dress: not in order to see if it fits her, but to see who it turns her into and who she looks like when she puts it on. “What’s the difference between the actions of Black September against us and our bombing in Jordan?” I threw at my mother’s back one evening during the weeks when I was still going home. “They hurt civilians and we hurt civilians. They took our athletes hostage in Munich, and we
Sometimes when Alek finished speaking he would turn around and disappear into his little study or the kitchen. Sometimes in his absence they would go on arguing about what he said, but this was one of the occasions on which he silenced them. Not because they agreed with him, but because he had the halo of someone who had been a student in Paris and met Godard. I knew that Alek realized this, and that he despised them for it. And I also knew that they felt his contempt, and that the scorn only strengthened the spell he cast over them.
Now, looking back, they seem very young to me, forgivably young. “Abroad” was further away then than it is now, and certain abroads, like Paris, had a glamour then that it took years to dispel.
Most of the regular participants in the group were men, except for Dalit from “La Mama” who would always make a tempestuous entrance. He treated Dalit nicely, he never ignored her arrival, and it was the same with all the pretty faces with the plucked eyebrows who would turn up with someone or other, stick around for a week or two, and then be replaced. When they didn’t come with a guy, the pretty girls would come in pairs, and huddle together like goslings waiting for someone to stick a worm in their beaks. Alek would clear the records or the occupantoff a chair, make sure that the pretty face was comfortably seated in her short mini, and he never failed to ask her name and if he could get her anything. Occasionally a female made of sterner stuff would turn up, like for instance Osnat law-and-order who actually succeeded in forcing her way into the discussion. I admired this woman. She had an exquisite jaw and black, unplucked eyebrows, she would turn a chair around and sit astride on it, leaning her arms on the backrest and harangue us: “So ask yourselves—whose law and order? Law and order that serve what? That serve whom?” Because she impressed me, I assumed that she impressed Alek too, until I looked at his face.
In the morning I threw a neutral remark into the air anyway, to check out his reaction, and Alek raised his eyes from his book and gave me a long, faintly amused look. “I’ve known too many woman of this type,” he said in the end and went back to his book, pinching his cigarette as usual between his thumb and two fingers.
Ten or maybe twelve years later, in the home of friends in Tel Aviv, I came across Osnat again. She taught in the history department at the university, published articles in the newspapers, she still turned her chair around, and she still smoked the same short Chinese pipe. Since she failed to recognize me and remember me from then, I felt free to touch the erogenous zone and remind her of “that crowd from Nachlaot.” “Oh yes, them, sure … they were fucking male chauvinists, too, just like everyone else in those days.” Beyond this sweeping generalization it appeared that the group had not remained in her memory, and we actually became quite good friends.
Opinions I heard on those evenings seeped into me gradually, and even though I lacked the intellectual background to understand them,I started trying on ideas like a young girl trying on a dress: not in order to see if it fits her, but to see who it turns her into and who she looks like when she puts it on. “What’s the difference between the actions of Black September against us and our bombing in Jordan?” I threw at my mother’s back one evening during the weeks when I was still going home. “They hurt civilians and we hurt civilians. They took our athletes hostage in Munich, and we
Similar Books
