Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

And by the way, to change and stick to the subject at one and the same time, a few days ago I noticed an odd item in the paper about an engineer named She'altiel ha-Palti. He supposedly sent you a memorandum about some revolutionary military rocket he claims to have invented. It may interest you to know that this She'altiel ha-Palti is none other than our old friend Shunya Plotkin, who was once a mounted guard in Nes Tsiyyona. One of the last Mohicans and no doubt as sick and weary at heart as you and me. Please, at least take the trouble to answer him kindly and in person. Who knows? Perhaps there really is something to his fantasies. Why not look into it? And don't answer me with "Another lunatic is not exactly what I need at the moment." Allow me to convey to you what I've learned from long experience. Whoever is not a partial lunatic is a total scoundrel. Simple as that. Either/or. And we certainly don't need any more scoundrels, do we?

Well, it's time to end this letter with comradely greetings. It's still storming outside and dark as the ninth plague of Egypt, and my only light is this smoking, flickering lamp. It's as if Death itself were pounding his fists on the window pane and refusing to put up with any more of my tricks or procrastination. I believe I'll drink another little glass of brandy to the health of the Devil and, with your permission, go to bed. Please answer posthaste about my son. You can easily plant him in your garden. You must. And by the way, I beg you not to take personally what I said about you at the meeting in Tel Aviv. You are very dear to me. Especially when I think of the Tatars looking over your shoulder.

Oh, yes, one last thing. Whether it's the brandy or the smoke from the lamp that's addled my brain, I have an idea. A proposition for you. Because you too must be passing a dreadful night in Jerusalem. And you too must be having trouble sleeping. Well, then, listen here. If there really is anything to this business of a world to come, and if it is, as our forefathers believed, a world of pure delight, how about agreeing to be my roommate? That is, if you think you could put up with me. The two of us might ask to share a tent together. We'll rise early every morning for work. We'll ask for and receive a little plot of rocky ground to clear and dig wells in and we'll plant grape vines, hoe irrigation courses, and fetch water in tin cans on donkeyback. And we'll quarrel no more, you and I. On the contrary. Every evening we'll light a candle or two in our tent and have a heart-to-heart talk. Whenever we disagree, we'll thrash it out between us, and when we've had enough of that, you'll play the harmonica and I'll sit down in my undershirt to compose a political tract. From time to time I'll ask your advice, and, even if I don't always take it, you'll bear with me. Maybe we'll find some heavenly terrace from which, at dusk, we can look down on this land. The two of us standing there barefoot in the breeze, keeping watch over our children. Who knows? Perhaps we'll even manage to wield some influence, to organize, manipulate, or wheedle the authorities into granting a reprieve, a commutation of sentence, a softening of the decree.

Because that decree is quite horribly grim. God forgive me for saying such a thing — my hand rebels against writing it — but you, Eshkol, know as well as I do that it's true. Or have I simply taken leave of my senses? I've been so ravaged by physical pain, and you too, if I'm not mistaken, have not been in the best of health. Take good, good care of yourself, then, and be strong.

Your

Yolek

He put down his pen and for a moment sat lost in thought. On his old face, by the waning light of the lamp, entrenched lines of irony, of love, of kindness, of suffering, of anger, and of cunning fought with one another to gain the upper hand.

Suddenly he changed his mind. Carefully tearing the pages of his letter from his writing pad, he fastened them with a paper clip and placed them at the far end of his desk. Then, reaching for the pen and beginning again, he wrote:

Dear Eshkol,

I need to ask for your help in a strictly private matter concerning my son. Can I meet with you sometime soon to discuss it in person?

Yours with comradely greetings,

Yisra'el Yolek Lifshitz

He rose from his chair with a groan, shuffled over to the bookcase, and opened a small panel between two shelves. With an unsteady hand he slipped the first draft of his letter into a bulging brown envelope that bore the heading "Personal/To Be Opened Posthumously" and shut the panel. Then he folded the second draft and put it in a plain envelope, which he addressed to Prime Minister and Defense Minister Levi Eshkol, The Government Compound, Jerusalem.

He extinguished the dying lamp, returned to bed, and lay there aching. The rain kept falling.

Now they're both fast asleep, and it's funny, because one fell asleep on the couch in the living room, burrowing beneath the pillow with his head to make himself a cave, and the other did just the opposite, sprawling on the bed in the bedroom without even taking off the cover, spreadeagled on his stomach. Watching anybody sleep makes you pity him. When you sleep, you look like the child you once were. In that book on human sacrifice in the Congo, it said that sleep is sent to us from the place where we were before we were born and will go back to after we die.

Both doors are open. The house is quiet. And so are we three. From where I am, I can see them both, one long and thin, one short and thin. Both absorbed in the same quiet. Not winning or losing any more. Not even at chess. This quiet comes from me. I have put Efrat to sleep, too, and now I am all alone. It is pitch dark through the window, but not so dark as in the two rooms where they are sleeping. Without jealousy. Without lies. Without moving. The one weak light comes from the kitchen, from me. Because that is where I am now, juicing grapefruit by the sink. Some of my light trickles over them through the open doors. They are both weak and good. That is how you are when you sleep.

I have my flannel bathrobe on. The brown one. It's winter outside. On the jacket of The Magic of Chad is a picture of a black warrior spearing an antelope. But a warrior spears only himself. A dead antelope will run like the wind at night, run to the meadow, to the forest, run all the way home. Because all of us do have a home.

I showered and shampooed to look my best for them. My hair is wet and loose. When they wake, I will give them juice to drink because they have both been down since yesterday with a fever, headache, and cough. All winter Etan has been living with two girls in his room by the swimming pool. Since the day before yesterday I have been living with Yoni and the boy.

I'm not the only one awake. Tia, at the far end of the rug in Azariah's room, is quietly snapping at whatever is burrowing into her fur. Snapping and snapping because she can't reach it. But she won't give up. For a second I heard Efrat cry far away. Now she's gone back to sleep. It is even quieter than before. The refrigerator has stopped humming.

I'll finish up in the kitchen and sit down to embroider.

There's the news again, on the neighbors' radio. Through the thin wall I can hear that Damascus is once again making threats. That's the kind of thing they both like to hear. That there have been grave developments. That things have taken a turn for the worse. That tensions have mounted. News like that makes Yoni clench his teeth and his eyes get narrower and darker. Zaro's eyes glow but first he turns pale, then he becomes flushed, then he starts to talk a blue streak. Just a rumor or a whiff of war is enough to make them both more dangerous, more handsome, more passionate, more alive to me. Like when they want to have sex and feel shame.