Soumchi by Amos Oz

At the feast of Shavuot, Uncle Zemach came from Tel Aviv, bringing me a bicycle as a present. As a matter of fact my birthday falls between the two festivals - Passover and Shavuot. But in Uncle Zemach's eyes, all festivals are more or less the same, except for the Tree Planting festival in January which he treats with exceptional respect. He used to say, "At Hanukah we children of Israel are taught in school to be angry with the wicked Greeks. At Purim it's the Persians; at Passover we hate Egypt; at Lag B'Omer, Rome. On May Day we demonstrate against England; on the Ninth of Av we fast against Babylon and Rome; on the twentieth of Tammuz, Herzl and Bialik died, while on the eleventh of Adar we must remember for all eternity what the Arabs did to Trumpledor and his companions at Tel Hai. The Tree Planting festival is the only one where we haven't quarrelled with anyone and have no griefs to remember. But it almost always rains then - it does it on purpose."

My Uncle Zemach, they had explained to me, was Grandmother Emilia's eldest son by her first marriage, before she married Grandfather Isidore. Sometimes, when he was staying with us, Uncle Zemach would get me out of bed at half past five in the morning and incite me in a whisper to steal into the kitchen with him and we'd cook ourselves an illicit double omelette. He would have a cheerful, even wicked gleam in his eye on those mornings, behaving just as if he and I were fellow members of some dangerous gang and only temporarily engaged in such a relatively innocent pastime as cooking ourselves illicit double omelettes. But my family generally had a very low opinion of my Uncle Zemach. Like this for instance: "He was a little Spekulant [Black Marketeer] by the time he was fourteen in Warsaw, in the Nalevki district, and now here he is, still a Spekulant in Bograshov Street in Tel Aviv."

Or: "He hasn't changed an atom. Even the sun can't be bothered to brown him. That's the type he is. And there's nothing whatever we can do about it."

But I regarded that last remark as plain stupid and nasty, as well as unfair. My Uncle Zemach didn't get brown because he couldn't and that was all there was to it. Even if they'd made him a lifeguard on the beach he'd have got burnt instead of brown, turned red all over and begun to peel. This is how he was; a young man still, not tall, and so thin and pale he might have been cut out of paper. His hair was whitish, his eyes red like a rabbit's.

And what did Spekulant mean anyway? I had no idea at all. But in my own mind I translated it more or less as follows: Th at even when he lived in Warsaw, Uncle Zemach had used to wear a vest and khaki shorts down to his knees and fall fast asleep with the radio on. And he still had not changed; he still clung to his outlandish habits, wore a vest and khaki shorts down to his knees and fell asleep with the radio on. Even here, in Palestine, in Bugrashov Street, Tel Aviv. Well, I thought, what about it, so what? - what's wrong with that? And anyway, my Uncle Zemach lived in Grusenberg Street, not Bugrashov Street. And anyway, sometimes he would burst out singing very loudly in a voice that mooed and brayed and broke, "Oh, show me the way to go home..."

At which they would whisper together, very worried and in Yiddish so that I wouldn't understand, but always with the word meshuggener, which I knew meant 'madman'. But though they said this of Uncle Zemach, he struck me rather - when he burst out with this song or any other - as not at all a mad man, but simply very sad.

And sometimes he wasn't sad either. Not at all: quite the reverse, he'd be joyous and funny. For instance, he would sit with my parents and my unmarried Aunt Edna on our balcony at dusk and discuss matters which ought not under any circumstances to have been discussed in front of children. Bargains and profits, building lots and swindles, shares and lirot, scandals and adulteries in Bohemian circles. Sometimes, until they silenced him furiously, he used dirty language. "Quiet, Wetmark," they would say, "what's the matter with you, are you crazy, have you gone completely out of your mind? The boy's listening to everything and he's no baby any more."

And the presents he would bring me. He kept on thinking up the most amazing, even outrageous, presents. Once, he brought me a Chinese stamp album that twittered when you opened it. Once, a game like Monopoly, only in Turkish. Once, a black pistol that squirted water in your enemy's face. And once he brought me a little aquarium with a pair of live fish swimming about in it, except they were not a pair, as it turned out, but both indubitably male. Another time, he brought me a dart gun ("Are you out of your mind, Wetmark? The boy's going to put someone's eye out with that thing, God forbid.") And one winter weekend I got from a Nazi bank note Uncle Zemach - no other boy in our neighborhood had anything like it ("Now, Wetmark, this time you have really gone too far.") And, on Seder night, he presented me with six white mice in a cage ("So what else are you going to bring the boy? Snakes? Bedbugs? Cockroaches, perhaps?")

This time, Uncle Zemach marked the feast of Shavuot by riding all the way from the Egged bus station in the Jaffa Road to the courtyard of our house on a second-hand Raleigh bicycle, complete with every accessory: it had a bell, a lamp, also a basket, even a reflector at the back; all it lacked was the crossbar joining the saddle to the handlebars. But, in my first overwhelming joy, I overlooked just how grave a shortcoming that was.

Mother said: "Really, this is excessive, Zemach. The boy is still only eleven. What are you proposing to give him for his Bar Mitzvah?"

"A camel," said Uncle Zemach at once, and with an air of such total indifference, he might have prepared himself for this very question all along.

Father said: "Would it be worth your considering at least once the effects on his education? Seriously, Zemach, where's it all leading to?"

I did not wait for Uncle Zemach's reply. Nor did it matter to me in the least where things were leading. Crazy with pride and joy, I was steering my bicycle to my private place behind the house. And there, where no one could see me, I kissed its handlebars, then kissed the back of my own hands again and again and, in a whisper as loud as a shout, chanted: "Lord God Almighty, Lord God Almighty, LORD GOD ALMIGHTY." And, afterwards, in a deep, wild groan that broke from the depths of my being: HI-MA-LA-YA."

And after that, I leaned the bicycle against a tree and leaped high into the air. It was only when I calmed down a little that I noticed Father. He stood in a window above my head and watched in unbroken silence until I had quite finished. Then he said:

"All right. So be it. All I beg is that we should make a little agreement between us. You may ride your new bicycle for up to an hour and a half each day. No more. You'll ride always on the righthand side, whether there is traffic in the street or not. And you will remain always, exclusively, within the boundaries set by the following streets: Malachi, Zephania, Zachariah, Ovadia and Amos. You will not enter Geula Street, because it is too full of the comings and goings of the British drivers from the Schneller Barracks; whether they are intoxicated or the enemies of Israel, or both, is immaterial. And at all intersections you will kindly, please, use your intelligence a little."

“On the wings of eagles,” said Uncle Zemach.

And Mother added: “Yes, but carefully.”

I said: “Fine, good-bye.” But when I had gone a little way from them, added: “It will be all right.” And went out into the street.

How they stared at me then, the boys of our neighborhood; classmates, big boys, little boys alike. I watched them too, but sideways, so that they wouldn’t notice it, and saw envy, mockery and malice there. But what did I care? Very slowly and deliberately I walked in front of them, not riding my bicycle, but pushing it, onehanded, along the pavement, right under their noses, wearing on my face meanwhile a thoughtful, even smug, expression, as if to ask:

“What’s all the fuss about? It’s just a Raleigh bicycle. Of course you can do exactly as you like. You can burst on the spot if you like, but it’s your own lookout. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with me.”

Indeed, Elie Weingarten could not keep silent any longer. He opened his mouth and said, very coolly, like a scientist identifying some unusual lizard just discovered in a field: “Just look at this. They’ve gone and bought Soumchi a girl’s bike, without a crossbar.”

“Perhaps they’ll buy him a party frock next,” said Bar-Kochba Sochobolski. He did not even bother to look at me, nor cease tossing deftly, up and down, two silver coins at once.

“A pink hair ribbon would suit Soumchi very well”—this was the voice of Tarzan Bamberger. “And he and Esthie can be best friends.” (Bar-Kochba again.) “Except Esthie wears a bra already and Soumchi doesn’t need one yet.” (Elie Weingarten, the skunk.)

That was it. Enough, I decided. More than enough. Finish.