Amos Oz - Touch the Water, Touch the Wind

Poland. Early winter. 1939.

A Jewish schoolmaster by the name of Pomeranz had fled from the Germans and gone into hiding in the forest. He was a short man with tiny eyes and thick, vicious jaws. He looked like a spy in an American comedy.

He was a teacher of mathematics and physics in the Mickie-wicz National Gymnasium in the town of M. His spare hours were given over to some kind of theoretical research; the secrets of Nature aroused a powerful passion in him. Rumor had it that he was on the verge of producing a discovery in the field of electricity or magnetism. And above his upper lip he lovingly cultivated a thin, nervous mustache.

At first Pomeranz hid in the depths of the forest in a deserted hut which had belonged to a woodcutter named Dziobak Przywolski. This Przywolski had been killed the previous spring by the peasants. They had chopped him to death with an ax because he always walked about the forest wearing an orange pointed hat and red boots, casually performed small wonders in front of the villagers, and claimed to have been born of a virgin. Among other things he had the power of healing an aching tooth by means of spells, of seducing a young peasant girl with the help of liturgical chants, of rousing the shepherd dogs to mad barking and then calming them down with a wave of the hand, and of levitating slightly at night, if only the wind was right. He was also in the habit of belching, and of stealing chickens left and right.

One Good Friday the woodcutter boasted to the peasants that if they hit him with all their might with his ax the ax would break. So they hit him, and the ax did not break.

Pomeranz sat alone in the abandoned hut, contemplating the gradual disintegration of the roof beams, listening with strained ears to the restlessness of the forest at night, to the savage wind lashing the cowering treetops, to the whispering sadness of leaves.

He was left to himself day and night. He thought about many different things.

Far off down the forest slopes, where the undergrowth lapped at the river, German engineers dynamited all the railway bridges. Because of the murky distance and the thick moist air there was a delay, a hesitation almost, between the flash of each explosion and the low rumble of thunder. This delay, momentary though it was, gave an almost comical appearance to the whole spectacle, so that Pomeranz in his hide out was assailed by doubts. And, indeed, a few days later, on receipt of fresh orders, the same engineers reappeared, in the grip of a feverish enthusiasm, and began measuring the river and furiously rebuilding everything as it had been before; they stretched steel cables, planted concrete piles, erected a pair of twin prefabricated bridges, and restored everything to its former state.

But once again the distance and the autumn light bestowed an unreal, almost absurd, character on the frantic activity at the foot of the slope: tiny human figures, voices losing themselves among the hills, and the patient gray skyline. Time and again at evening melancholy forces landed and overran the forests and hills with dull, murky darkness.

Bread and water were provided him by an old sorceress from the village.

Terrified peasants would approach on tiptoe, occasionally depositing a roast goose at a safe distance from the hut, and vanishing instantly into the bosom of the forest. Dziobak Przywolski, the belching son of a virgin, had warned them in advance that he would soon return in another guise.

Or perhaps there were no peasants and no sorceress, and no roast geese, but Pomeranz lived there in a state of pure spirit, lacking all physical needs.

Stefa Pomeranz did not go into hiding in the forest with her husband, but stayed behind in her home in the town of. She taught German thought in the same Mickiewicz Gymnasium, and even maintained a postal and telepathic correspondence with Martin Heidegger, the famous philosopher.

She was not in the last apprehensive of the Germans. In the first place, she abhorred wars, et cetera, and had no faith in them. Secondly, from the racial point of view she was only Jewish up to a point, and in outlook she was a devoted European. Moreover, she was a fully paid-up member of the Goethe Society.

Stefa stayed alone all day long in her artistically furnished little apartment, where she spent a few hours each day preparing the latest studies of Professor Zaicek for publication. Outside, disturbing things happened: Pomeranz ran away, Poland collapsed, German planes bombed the factories to the south, the railway repair sheds, and the army barracks, armored cars streamed down Jaroslaw Avenue all night, at dawn flags were changed, and Stefa closed every single shutter in the house in disgust, and the windows too.

Long and lean on the sideboard in her study stood an African warrior carved in wood and covered in war paint. The warrior seemed poised to spring at a dainty pink nude girl in a Matisse painting on the wall opposite, threatening her night and day with his huge fierce manhood.

Two ancient Siamese cats, Chopin and Schopenhauer, kept Stefa company. They slept curled up together on the rug in front of the open fire, filling the apartment with calm and tenderness. Sometimes Stefa thought she heard Pomeranz's slippered footsteps in the hall and his low cough, and once in the early hours of the morning her name was distinctly whispered. Here were his shaving things, here was his dressing gown, a smell of tobacco, a reminder of his silence. Everywhere there reigned an aggressive, uncompromising cleanness, shining kitchen and gleaming bathroom, tidy shelves and sparkling chandeliers. Stefa stayed alone all these days, behind her closed shutters. Gradually the apartment filled with a faint smell of perfume. From the picture rail, high above the piano and the many vases of flowers, a menacing bear's head stared down glassy-eyed at the sleeping Siamese cats.

The bear's expression was one of patient irony, verging on ultimate tranquillity.

Stefa was a beautiful, proud woman. From her youth on, all the local intelligentsia had wooed her with ideas and literature. Such an intelligent, artistic young lady, they had said, and now in a fit of caprice she suddenly gives herself to the dreamy son of a simple watchmaker. Such whims, they said, always die away as quickly as they are born. And the very name Pomeranz is absurdly incongruous for Stefa.

And indeed, when the Germans began to surround the town of M, the dreamy son of a watchmaker fled alone to the forest, abandoning Stefa to her admirers, the local intelligentsia.

She hoped that he would succeed in surviving the present events and that she would see him again someday. She did not want to call her feelings by one name or another, but she sighed for him and had great faith in his powers.

Night by night the German guards made shooting sounds in the distance. The electricity was subject to frequent interruptions. The tradesmen became noticeably slacker. The dustman and postman neglected their duties. The drunken gardener, who was nicknamed by everybody "Run-Jesus," suddenly without asking permission took to living in the woodshed at the bottom of the garden, insolence and a secret menace flashing in his eyes. He grinned, flattered, spoke a lot, came and went as he pleased. And the maid, Martha Pinchme-not, as suddenly abandoned poor Professor Zaicek, in whose house she had worked for the past seven years. She was criticized by everyone, and there were those who saw in her move a bad omen for the future. Professor Zaicek, the pride of the city, was an elderly widowed scholar, whose name was well known all over Europe. He possessed a Karl Marx face deeply scored by suffering and wisdom.

The military governor of the town, a certain Baron Joachim von Topf, issued an edict: the army was compelled to requisition the Gymnasium buildings. For the time being all classes were canceled. The Baron saw fit to append to the edict a word of apology to the citizens: the hardships of wartime would soon be over, and before long a new order would be established.