Rhyming Life and Death by Amos Oz Page B

appear many years ago. The weekend supplement of
Davar
is on its last legs. The trade-union movement, the Histadrut, is no longer what it was. Instead of workers’ councils with cultural commissions with a sense of mission and a moral obligation to go out to the ordinary people and raise their cultural level,the country is full of clever manpower resource companies and slave dealers who import herds of maids and forced labourers from poor countries.
    Probably this poet passed away long ago, died of a cerebral haemorrhage and was hastily buried one windy, rainy day, in a funeral attended only by a clutch of elderly party workers swathed in overcoats and huddling under a canopy of black umbrellas, and now he is buried not far from here, in a plot reserved for militant poets and thinkers, surrounded by his friends and foes, the poets of his generation, Bartini and Broides, Hanania Reichman, Dov Chomsky, Kamzon, Lichtenbaum and Maytos, Hanan Shadmi, Hanani, Akhai and Ukhmani.
    Their love and their envy have faded away
    The pages are dust now and rusted their sword;
    The flowers in their garden are withered and grey –
    In silence they sleep and they praise not the Lord.
    *
    Hallo, sorry, is that Lucy? Lucy? This is Ricky here. I don’t suppose you remember me. Just a minute, I’ll tell you where from. Just a moment. I’m sorry. You’ve got such a pretty voice still, Lucy, like the taste of red wine. I’m Ricky – remember? Charlie’s Ricky? From the thing with Charlie? You remember, Lucy? About fifteen years ago? I’m the Ricky that used to work at Isabella and Carmen’s Beauty and Bridal Salon at the bottom of Allenby? Yes. It’s me. Like, you and me was rivals then? Do you remember all that, Lucy? It’s like even then I felt like I liked you even more than him? Like maybe I started going out with him just so’s I could, like, smell your smell on him? No, wait, Lucy, don’t hang up, I swear, it’s not what you think, believe me I’m the most normal human being in the whole world, just listen, give me two minutes. Never mind how I got hold of your number, with your new surname. I found it and that’s that. Is it, like, your husband’s name? Never mind. My fling with Charlie, do you remember? It took about a week, eight days maybe. Something like that. Barely. Then he went back to you. Crawled back, I should say. In any case, the whole thing with me was only because of you, Lucy, it only happened because you’d finished with him for a bitand specially because even then I was mad about you but I was too shy to tell you. Well, now, let’s get to the point. It’s like this. The reason I’m calling you is that maybe you feel like meeting up sometime, just the two of us, somewhere, we can sit and chat about all of that? And other things too? No, I don’t mind where, you choose? But I’m paying? The coffee’s on me? Tell me, Lucy, have you got a husband? Or somebody? Children? God forbid, I’m not giving you the third degree. Absolutely not. What gave you that idea? OK, Lucy, fine. Why not? Only don’t think that I’m some kind of a psycho. It’s like this. I often find myself thinking about you, Lucy, about your neck, your voice, your kind heart, your eyes, the mind you had in those days. A thousand times better than mine. It was as if you and me was on one side and Charlie was, well – believe me, I’ve already forgotten that Charlie. Why do we need to talk about him? Like, I’ve got nothing in common with him? Just with you, Lucy. Even though quite a few years have gone past, I haven’t got over you. Listen, Lucy, this is how it is with me, just don’t laugh at me, don’t get the idea that I’m some poor bitch who’s got nothing better to do with herself than to ring up someone from way back? No, don’t takeit like that. Try to take it, like, you and me, we’re in the same