AMOSOZ
517
you could have started without me.
"Ha ha, start without you, that's a good one," the cultural en–
thusiast gives a Russian laugh. "Yes, and you could have started
without us somewhere else. By the way," he asks as they are still
panting up the steps, "what do you think that fox Kissinger is going
to get out of the Russians? Will he achieve anything?"
And he answers his own question:
"No, he won't get anything out of them. Only more trouble for
us. Squash or lemonade or something fizzy? Don't worry. Some–
thing fizzy for you. That's perfectly alright."
So they both enter the hall.
A hurried whisper runs round the audience. Perhaps because
the author is wearing plain khaki trousers, a blue sports shirt and
sandals. He doesn't look the least bit like an artist, they are saying,
but people say that as a person he's really very nice, they are saying,
and look what complicated stories he writes. You can never tell from
appearances. Anyway, he looks completely different in his pictures.
The author is placed in the middle , between Ruchele Reznik
and the literary expert. They shake hands. The cultural enthusiast
opens the proceedings. He requests silence . He apologizes for the
delay. He makes a vain attempt, with forced gaiety, to win the audi–
ence's sympathy. He even repeats publicly the stupid joke made by
the author as they were on their way in: Our guest was surprised to
find that we had not started without him, but, after all, for a wed–
ding you need a groom as well as a bride, as Mataniah Starkman
puts it in one of his poems. Well, with your permission, I shall now
declare this evening's program open. Good evening.
The author, listening to this decides not to smile. He lights a
fresh cigarette. He looks thoughtful and even a little sad. The whole
audience has eyes only for him, and he, with a refined, faraway look,
fixes his eyes deliberately on a picture of the Labour Zionist leader
Berl Katznelson on the opposite wall.
Berl Katznelson has a look of kindly cunning on his face, as
though he has just this minute succeeded in achieving some fine and
noble end by slightly devious means known only to himself. Today
he is a king, the author thinks to himself. Not just a king, a lord.
And so, after a slight delay, there finally appears round the au–
thor's lips a fine smile which the audience was already expecting
while the opening words were being spoken.
At that instant he thinks he catches a kind of titter passing
around the hall, and he glances hastily at the zipper of his trousers.
