AMOS OZ
From
The Same Sea
A
cat
Not far from the sea, Mr. Albert Danon
lives in Amirim Street, alone. He is fond
of olives and feta; a mild accountant, he lost
his wife not long ago. Nadia Danon died one morning
of ovarian cancer, leaving some clothes,
a dressing table, some finely embroidered
place mats. Their only son, Enrico David,
has gone off mountaineering in Tibet.
Here in Bat Yam the summer morning is hot and clammy
but on those mountains night is falling. Mist
is swirling low in the ravines. A needle-sharp wind
howls as though alive, and the fading light
looks more and more like a nasty dream.
At this point the path forks:
One way is steep, the other gently sloping.
Not a trace on the map of the fork in the path.
And as the evening darkens and the wind lashes him
with sharp hailstones, Rico has to guess
whether to take the shorter or the easier way down.
Either way, Mr. Danon will get up now
and switch off his computer. He will go
and stand by the window. Outside in the yard
on the wall is a cat.
It
has spotted a lizard.
It
will not let go.
Editor's Note: Excerpted from
The Same Sea
by Amos Oz. Translated from
the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange in collaboration with the author. To be
published October
12, 200]
by Harcourt, Inc. Copyright
©
I999
by Amos
Oz. Translation copyright
©
2001
by Nicholas de Lange. All rights reserved.
