Benjamin Tammuz - Minotaur

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.
Copyright 2012 by Europa Editions
First publication 2010 by Europa Editions
Translation by Kim Parfitt and Mildred Budny
Original Title: Minotaur
Translation copyright 2010 by Europa Editions
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco
www.mekkanografici.com
ISBN 9781609459208

Benjamin Tammuz

MINOTAUR

Translated from the Hebrew
by Kim Parfitt and Mildred Budny

for Fou Tsong

A MAN , WHO was a secret agent, parked his hired car in a rain-drenched square and took a bus into town. That day he had turned forty-one, and as he dropped into the first seat he came across, he closed his eyes and fell into bleak contemplation of his birthday. The bus pulled up at the next stop, jerking him back to consciousness, and he watched as two girls sat down on the empty seat in front of him. The girl on the left had hair the color of copperdark copper with a glint of gold. It was sleek and gathered at the nape of her neck with a black velvet ribbon, tied in a cross-shaped bow. This ribbon, like her hair, radiated a crisp freshness, a pristine freshness to be found in things as yet untouched by a fingering hand. Whoever tied that ribbon with such meticulous care? wondered the man of forty-one. Then he waited for the moment when she would turn her profile to her friend, and when she turned to her friend and he saw her features, his mouth fell open in a stifled cry. Or did it perhaps escape from his mouth? Anyway, the passengers did not react.

Today Im forty-one and this is not the first time Ive celebrated my birthday filling in a diary in a hotel room. Tomorrow Ill find a greetings telegram at the embassy from my wife and the two girls. And therell be a special telegram from my son at boarding school. He is also away from home, and if he likes it that way, no doubt hell follow in my footsteps. If he does, therell be another reason for me to end it all as soon as possible. Except that early this evening it finally happened, and now I want to hang on.

I dont know why I believed that before meeting her I would receive some sort of advance notice. At any rate, it never occurred to me that I might be taken by surprise. But I was. I saw her quite suddenly, sitting down in front of me on the bus. I had no difficulty whatsoever in recognizing her. When she got off the bus I followed her. I have already found out her address and tomorrow I shall also know her surname and possibly even her Christian name. She lives in a smart building, the kind where the well-off live. I heard her speaking to her friend and even her voice gave her away. She might well sing in a choir. Her accent bears witness to a good education; her clothes are simple but expensive. Not a single ornament, apart from a black velvet ribbon: a somber ribbon tied with a marvelous precision that gave the desired impressioncarelessness. The color of her hair is just as I remembered it, and so is the color of her eyesa deep brown, not too dark. Her chin juts out a little, just far enough to leave no doubts about the kind of person she is: of sufficient character to dismiss anything unwanted but, above all, capable of wholehearted and passionate devotion. Her coloring and complexion are as I remembered them: very fair, like my mothers, with a pink bloom deepening, flawless and unhurried, toward high cheekbones, so gradually that it is impossible to say where white turns to pink. But her mouth is a sudden, vivid crimson. And those teeth. My God! Surely they cannot have been created just to chew food. If they were, Id say that there was no need to go to so much trouble.

And I am forty-one and she is about seventeen. Twenty-four years.

Thea,

This letter, which is typewritten, is not signed and I daresay we shall never meet. Yet I have seen you and I made sure that you saw me. That was about six weeks ago. I walked past you and you looked at me, the way you look at people coming toward you in the street. You didnt recognize me. But even so, you belong to me.

You will never have an opportunity to ask me questions, but my voice will reach you through my letters, and I know that you will read them. How do I know? I can offer no explanation, other than what I am about to tell you: for as long as I can remember I have been searching for you. I knew you existed, but I didnt know where. My work brought me to the town where you live. My work is a series of surmises, assumptions, and risks. I chose this work because I have never loved anyone, except you, although all my life I have been trying to lovein other words, to be unfaithful to you. I have devoted my life to tough and disagreeable work because I needed to love. And therefore I love the country I serve, her mountains, her valleys, her dust and despair, her roads and her paths. I acted as I did through lack of choice. I didnt know if I would ever meet you. And now, now that we have met, its too late. There has been a mistake, some sort of discrepancy in birth dates, in passports. Even heaven is chaotic, just like any other office. Anyway, its too late and its quite impossible.

I have the address of your boarding school and I also know which university you will be attending next year. And I know that you like music. In due course I shall know still more.

With this letter there will be a parcel, containing a record player and a record. Id like you to play the record next Sunday at 1700 hours. I shall do the same in my hotel room, not far from you, and the two of us will be listening to the same music at the very same time. This will be our first meeting, and I shall know if you have done as I asked. Indeed, I already know that you will respond to this appeal.

I love you. I have loved you all my life. It is difficult for me to come to terms with the thought that you did not recognize me in the street. But thats not your fault. There has been a mistake: in dates, in places, in everything. Im quite sure that it was me who was intended to be tormented, not you.

I take your shoe off your foot and kiss your toes. I know them, just as I know every line of your body. Dont be angry, dont take pity. I never knew happiness until I found you.

Funny Man!

I did as you asked at 1700 hours precisely. How did you know that I am playing this concerto right now? For that matter, how do you come to know so much about everything? Ive been trying to guess who you are and I think that I have it. If I am right youll have to give in and come out into the open. You are G.R., and we met at a party at N.s. Im right, arent I? You were looking at me all the time and they told me your name.

I dont have anywhere to send this letter, but Im writing it so that I can show it to you if we ever meet. Im writing because its impolite not to answer a letter as nice as yours. (By the way, I hardly understood a word of it. Youre awfully mysterious.) Meanwhile Im putting my reply in a special box, marked Letters to Mr. Anonymous, until we meet. Its not nice to keep a girl in suspense like this.

Yours,

Thea

My anonymous friend,

I think you should know that I have exams soon and I cant answer every single one of your letters, especially when you write every day, sometimes twice a day. Im writing a general answer to all the letters that have come so far and, until the exams are over, I shant write anymore, and you will just have to forgive me.

Now I am sure that you are not G.R., because in the meantime he has introduced himself to me and performed all sorts of amorous maneuvers. And so you remain unidentified and I am angry because your letters are becoming so sad and Id like to tell you that there is no need to take me so seriously. Lately Ive been looking in the mirror a lot, to find out what you see in me, and do you know what I discovered? I should be ashamed of myself, but its true. I discovered that maybe I really am prettier than I thought. And this is all your fault. Now its difficult for me to enjoy the compliments I get from my friends because, compared to your letters, everything they say sounds crude. Although I dont know you, I am sure that you are cleverer than all my friends, but I sometimes think that you exaggerate terribly. And why are you so sad? If you wanted, you could be a writer or a poet, even if you dont mean what you write.