Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

"Rimona," I said. "I want to ask you something. Please try to concentrate before you answer me. Because it's important. Do you have any guess where Yoni might be now?"

"He's gone."

"He certainly is. But where?"

"To look for something."

"To look for something?"

A brief silence, followed by a smile, a calm, autumnal smile, as if to say the two of us knew things other people have never dreamed of. I smiled back at her and said, "Rimona. Please. This is serious."

"I'm thinking," she said.

"What are you thinking?"

"That he left because he said he would.

"But left for where? Why?"

"To wander," she said. "Perhaps."

In the early 1940's the kibbutz had made an arrangement with a pair of dentists, a husband and wife, Dr. Fogel and Dr. Fogel. They had recently arrived from Poland and offered to treat us at lower rates. The two of them never learned any Hebrew. Anyone who had a dental problem made a trip to their poorly equipped clinic in town. Until the wife was killed in an accident and the husband contracted a fatal disease. In return for a fixed annuity, we agreed to take their only child into the kibbutz. A sweet, self-absorbed little girl, very neat and orderly, although a bit slow and withdrawn. When she reached draft age, Yonatan Lifshitz married her. Every cabinet minister and party leader attended their wedding, and not a few members of the Knesset. Afterwards she began to work in the laundry. And became pregnant. And apparently something went wrong. Now and then people talked about her. I tried not to listen. What does a man like me have to do with gossip. Or with pretty girls. Or with anyone's psyche.

"Rimona," I said. "One more question. And this time you needn't answer, because it's of a personal nature. Did Yoni suffer from, or complain about, or seem hurt in any way by… your ties with Azariah Gitlin?"

She paused. "But they like to."

"Like to what?"

"Suffer."

"I'm sorry. I don't understand. Who likes to suffer?"

"These people. Not everyone. Some do. Hunters who spear antelopes do."

"I'm afraid this is beyond me. Who likes to suffer?"

"Yoni. And Zaro. And my father too. And Bach. And Yolek as well. Lots of them." Then her strange smile reappeared, and she added, "Not you."

"All right. Let it be. But what do you suggest we do now?"

"Whatever has to be done."

"Like what?"

She couldn't answer.

"Should we wait?"

"Wait."

"Or should we look for him?"

"Look for him. Because Yoni sometimes likes danger."

"Rimona. I need a straight answer. Should we wait or should we look for him?"

"Look and wait."

One last thing: Did she need anything? Any help from the kibbutz? The question seemed to confuse her. Any help? Oh, yes. Perhaps I could see to it that Zaro wasn't picked on, though he always asked for it. Just not make him leave. He's good.

"Tell me, Rimona, where are you going right now?"

"To see if he's had breakfast. And to make sure that he does, because all morning long he's been looking for Yoni. He even went to Sheikh Dahr, but he'll be back soon. Then, I don't know. Maybe to the laundry. Maybe not."

I finally found Azariah sitting by himself in the empty recreation hall. I must have given him a start. He was sorry, but he simply couldn't go to work in the tractor shed today. I had his word of honor that tomorrow and the next day he would work overtime to make up for it. He had already looked everywhere on the kibbutz, in all the orchards, as far as the ruins of Sheikh Dahr, but no trace. Now he wanted to die because he was to blame for everything. "Srulik, maybe you should get Little Shimon, he's in charge of exterminating stray dogs around here, and that's what should be done with me. Only you have to let me find Yoni first. I'm the only one who can. And lots more. Just give me a second chance, and you'll see what I can do for this kibbutz."

There was a panicky glint in his green eyes, which refused to meet mine, and frightened lines at the comers of his mouth. Yoni, he promised, would be back by this evening. Or, at the latest, by tomorrow or the day after. Or sometime soon. His intuition, which had never failed him, told him so. There were only two things that Yonatan had been missing. One was love. The other was purpose. Some Jewish ideal, if one might still put it that way, because something had died inside him. Unlike himself, Azariah, who had resolved to devote his life to the kibbutz, to society, to the country.

And what exactly was he doing alone in the recreation hall? He was trying, I might as well know, to put together a statement. Or a poem. A strong one. Something with the power to console and to rekindle the flame. (By the way, he really is a good guitarist. That much I've discovered at our rehearsals.)

"Azariah," I said. "Listen, please. If you really want to help, there's something I'd like you to do for me. First, calm down. It would make life easier for all of us if you tried not to be so emotional. And second, I'd like you to spend the day at the switchboard. I want you to make sure that the line is free as much of the time as possible. Someone may try to get in touch."

"Srulik, excuse me for saying so, but I feel I must tell you that I appreciate you greatly. Not appreciate. That's a ridiculous word. On the contrary, I respect you and wish I could be like you. In control of myself. While I agree with practically everything Spinoza ever said, I haven't been very good at living up to it. I keep catching myself all the time in the ugliest lies. Not ugly really. Unnecessary and low. Lying only to impress, though in the end I achieve the opposite. Yet I want you to know I'm working on myself. Little by little I'm changing. You'll see. And when Yoni comes back—"

"Azariah, please. We can discuss all this some other time. Right now I'm in a hurry."

"Of course. Excuse me. I just wanted you to know that, how should I put it, I'm entirely at your service. And at the kibbutz's. Twenty-four hours a day. I may be a fink. I definitely am. But I'm not a parasite or a leech. And I am going to marry her."

"You're what? "

"Because that's what Yoni wanted, I swear. And if it will make Yolek happy, because he's been like a father to me, and Hava, and the rest of the kibbutz, then that's what I'll do, marry Rimona. And now I'm off to tend to the switchboard. To keep the line free day and night. Srulik?"

"Yes. What?"

"They don't come any better than you, if you don't mind my saying so."

Azariah spoke these last words with his back to me and set off on a run. Yoni, Udi, Etan, and that whole crew strike me as a strange tribe. They will never accept Azariah, and yet he isn't strange to me. In fact, he seems almost intimately familiar, yet he doesn't have a chance of fitting in. I never did believe a Jew could really and truly assimilate. That's what turned me into a Zionist.

After I returned to the office, I finally managed to get through to Yonatan's army unit. No, there had not been a call-up last night. They knew nothing about it, and since when was such a thing a fit subject for a telephone conversation anyway? As a special favor, however, they were willing to promise me that Yonatan Lifshitz was not on the base. Of that the young female soldier at the other end of the line was "one-hundred-and-one-percent sure." They were all one big family there, and she knew everyone who came and went. I thanked her but persisted: could I possibly talk with an officer called Chupka? (Rimona had recalled that this was the name of Yonatan's C.O.) I was asked to hang on but was then cut off. I dialed again, battling all the gremlins at different exchanges along the way, until finally I got the same young clerk. Chupka, I was now told, had left the base that morning. To go where? Hang on for a second, will you? And again I was cut off. And again I fought back with the patience that I've learned from a lifetime of playing the flute. And again I got the same girl, who this time, in a fit of pique, demanded to know just who I thought I was and who had authorized me to ask such questions. Without batting an eyelash, I immediately fired off three lies. That I was Yonatan's father. That my name was Yisra'el Lifshitz. And that said Yisra'el Lifshitz was still a member of the Knesset. Whether out of respect for Yisra'el or the Knesset, she finally consented to reveal the dark secret. Chupka was on his way, already in, or on his way back from, Acre, where he had gone to attend the circumcision of the son of one of his soldiers, whose name she gave me.