Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

Etan R. telephoned the police, who immediately notified the border patrol and regional army headquarters. The Saturday ended in general commotion. Someone suggested asking the air force for a small observation plane while there was still enough light to see by. Before nightfall, patrols had been sent out to comb the deserted village, the orchards of the kibbutz, and the three wadis that ran down from it. The depth of the mud impeded the search, and by the time darkness came not even the bloodhounds had managed to come up with anything. Etan R. proposed pushing on with the aid of artillery flares. On Udi's advice, the kibbutz doubled its guard force and switched on the large searchlight atop the water tower.

"I'm the one," said Azariah, "who first realized he was out there. Don't forget I warned you the very minute we set out."

"With a little luck we could have bagged him easy," said Udi.

"We could have," said Yonatan, "but we didn't."

"You're all tired," said Rimona. "Let's get some rest."

At three o'clock that same afternoon, before the first of the border patrol's olive-green jeeps had arrived, the hikers had sat down to drink coffee at Udi and Anat's before turning in for a sabbath nap. Udi did most of the talking, conducting a post-mortem of his unsuccessful blitz. The whole thing, he estimated, had taken no more than forty seconds. Rimona listened as if following another story altogether. She sat quietly on the mat, absorbed in herself, the calves of her bent legs resting against Yonatan and her shoulders against Azariah, who strove furtively to match her slow breathing with his own.

Around them, weedy plants grew from empty shell cartridges. Copper coffee mugs of all shapes and sizes, some sooty black, some silvery bright, stood on the shelves. An ancient nargileh adorned the coffee table, as did a charred helmet, from which there branched a wandering Jew. Several curved, oriental daggers jutted out from the inside of the front door. Hanging from the ceiling on a machine-gun belt was a chandelier of three light bulbs set in defused hand grenades. The mats and low stools were of wicker. A copper tray ornamented with Arab calligraphy, set on an old ammunition box, served as a table. Anat served coffee in little black cups that gave off a steamy smell of cardamom.

Even though he put little hope in its success, Udi intended to join the manhunt that was getting underway. If the man in the mosque had indeed been the escaped prisoner, he could easily have reached the main road long ago and hitched a ride to Haifa. On the other hand, if he was an Arab infiltrator, he had no doubt slipped back across the border. You could count on that nebbish of a Prime Minister, Eshkol, that nothing would happen to him there. He was probably sitting right now in his nigger hole and laughing his nigger laugh. Suddenly Udi's thoughts turned to money matters. He spoke of the profits from last year's cotton crop and of how the cowshed, always in the red, was only kept up because of old Stutchnik. Maybe Azariah had a Russian saying for such madness? No?

Instead, Azariah offered to amuse them with a spoon trick. Sticking the utensil deep into his throat, he proceeded to pull it out of the cuff of his gabardine slacks with a sheepish smile.

"But he does," said Rimona.

"Does what?" asked Anat.

"Have a saying for it," said Rimona. And without looking up she recited under her breath, "He who has never tasted defeat will never taste of triumph's sweet."

"That's enough magic of Chad," said Yonatan. "Let's go take a nap. You can rest at our place, Azariah. On the couch. Rimona won't mind. Let's go."

"All right," said Rimona, "if that's what you want to do."

It wasn't yet four o'clock when they left, but a dirty gray canopy of light already grazed the roofs of the small, white, symmetrically aligned houses. All the blinds had been drawn and the bedding hastily taken from the laundry lines. Not a soul was to be seen. A stealthy wind from the northwest blew in short, sharp gusts. A clap of thunder pealed far away like a piece of bad news, followed by a savage bolt of lightning that streaked across the whole firmament. The brief silence in its wake was shattered by an avalanche of thunder. Almost as soon as the first drops began to fall, the earth was lashed by ropelike whips of rain. Wet and out-of-breath, the three of them reached the house. Yonatan kicked the door open and slammed it behind them.

"I told you we wouldn't beat the rain," boasted Azariah. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. I've brought a present to cheer you up. Here, it's yours."

"Poor little turtle," smiled Rimona, taking it into her hand. "Just don't try climbing any walls."

"Leave it alone, Tia!" shouted Yonatan. "Rimona, we'll have to put it in that empty cardboard box on the porch. Come on, you two. It's time to take our nap."

"It's pouring," said Rimona.

The bottom of the blind banged against the window sill, spattering water across the pane. I, thought Yonatan Lifshitz, could have been on the road by now. I could already have been on the Bay of Biscay, where storms are really storms. And then it occurred to him: The dog stays with them.

The rain refused to stop, and the three of them had to eat supper inside — a meal of yogurt, omelets, and a salad. Through the streaming windows they could see people with raincoats pulled over their heads, running like hunchbacks with bundles of children in their arms. Of all the morning's birds only one could still be heard, its high, steady chirp like an automatic transmitter signaling from the site of an accident. Now Azariah regretted the lie he had told them: he must confess it right away, even if they laughed at him. Even if they asked him to leave. And they would have every right to. He would just go back to his tumbledown shack next door to Bolognesi where he belonged.

Yes, he had lied to them that morning. That is, about the cat.

What cat?

Why, the cat that Vassily the convert had cooked and they had all eaten on that Russian winter night in the abandoned farmhouse when he was a child. It was all a fraud. Not that it wasn't true that he had cried as he had never cried in his life; not that Vassily hadn't threatened to kill him, or that everyone, himself too, wasn't so hungry that they had taken to peeling the moss from the cellar walls and gorged on it until they gagged. Still, what he had told them that morning was a contemptible lie because he had eaten that cat just like the rest of them.

"But you didn't," said Rimona. "You never told us about any cat."

"Maybe I just wanted to and was afraid," said Azariah, taken aback. "That makes it even worse."

"He's crying," said Yonatan. After a moment's silence, he added, "Don't cry, Azariah. Why don't we play a game of chess."

With a quick, precise movement, Rimona lightly brushed her chill lips against the middle of Azariah's forehead. Azariah grabbed for his plate and raced with it out into the rain, stumbled, righted himself, splashed through puddles, trampled bushes, sank into mud, and fought his way out of it again until he reached Bolognesi's shack, where he found the Tripolitanian snoring loudly beneath his rough army blankets. He set down the plate at his side, tiptoed out again, ran all the way back to the Lifshitzes' door, pausing only to remove his dirty shoes, and announced triumphantly, "I've brought my guitar. We can have some music and sing if you'd like."

The storm raged all night. The army patrols gave up their search and returned soaking wet to their bases. In the end the electricity failed. Azariah kept on playing in the dark.

"In the morning," said Yonatan firmly, "we'll let our turtle go free."

That same night, at about one, having despaired of falling asleep and engulfed by dreary premonitions of death, Yolek rose, wrapped himself in a flannel bathrobe, and put on his slippers with a groan. He was furious with Hava for having turned out the night light in the bathroom, and his fury did not abate even when he realized that the power itself had failed. In Polish, he swore at himself and the drift of his life.