Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

Right away I dialed Grossmann in Acre. (An old friend from my days in Leipzig, who works for the electric company.) An hour later he called back. Chupka was taking a nap, apparently at his sister's home in Kibbutz Ein-Hamifratz.

Two-and-a-half hours had already passed in the Great Phone War. I would have missed lunch if Stutchnik's wife, Rachel, hadn't been considerate enough to bring me a covered plate from the dining hall. I ate the meat croquettes, squash, and rice without ever once putting down the receiver.

At a quarter-to-two, I managed to get through to the office at Ein-Hamifratz. It was not until about four o'clock, however, that I got hold of Chupka himself. He said he hadn't a clue where Yonatan might be and promised that if "it turns out to be serious," I could count on him and his men to find their missing friend even if he was "on the far side of Bab Allah." I asked whether he thought Yonatan might do something rash.

"Let me think," he replied in a hoarse, fatigued voice. After a brief silence he declared, "Why ask me? Anybody is liable to do something rash." (Incidentally, he couldn't be more right.) In the end we agreed to keep in touch.

All the while I was playing detective on the phone, Udi Shneour and Etan R. were, at my request, combing those surroundings of the kibbutz that were too muddy to be negotiable by jeep. With no results. Then, once more at my prompting, Etan took Tia around on a leash to try to pick up a scent. Also without results.

I couldn't make up my mind whether it was necessary or desirable to call in the police at this point. The reasons for doing so were obvious. The reason against it was that if the whole affair turned out to be nothing but a lark, Yonatan would most likely be angry that we had involved the law.

By five o'clock I had finally decided I would talk to Yolek after all. Earlier in the day I had suggested to Hava that she call any friends or relations with whom Yonatan might be staying. She took this task upon herself with a look of genteel revulsion, leaving me with the feeling that, even though nothing else could be expected from an incompetent like me, any measures I had taken so far were perfectly brainless. Her only insistent request was that I place a transatlantic call to Benya Trotsky in Miami. This seemed to me rather pointless, but I agreed without disclosing my true feelings.

Thirty-nine years have gone by since my first encounter with Yolek Lifshitz. There was something offhandedly domineering about him that made me feel like an underling. He was a cautious, keen-witted man with not a youthful bone in his body even then, when we were all very young — as if he had come into this world as a fully formed adult. To this day I feel intimidated by his presence. It was he, incidentally, who first taught me how to harness a horse.

Frankly, I had expected him to go straight into his mea culpa routine, but he didn't. Assertively absorbed in his cigarette and staring at the ceiling, he thanked me for what I had done, the expression of his face reminding me of the times I had seen him faced with a critical political decision, his nostrils flaring, his huge, profligate nose eloquent with a profound contempt. He talked sparingly and unemotionally, as if his mind were made up to take some dramatic, irrevocable step. Like a general or head of state who has just pronounced the secret code word for crossing some fatal Rubicon still undisclosed to his entourage and who now sits waiting, exuding something that might be called serenity were it not for the chain smoking.

"Yolek," I said. "I want you to know that we're all behind you. The whole kibbutz."

"That's good," said Yolek. "Thank you. I can really sense it."

"And that we're doing all we can."

"Of course you are. I never doubted that."

"We've combed the area. We've contacted the army too. And made a discreet check of friends and relations. So far, no results."

"Well done. And I'm glad you put off going to the police. Srulik?"

"Yes."

"Some tea? Or a little brandy?"

"No, thank you."

"By the way, that boy needs to be watched and kept out of harm's way. He's in bad shape."

"Who is?"

"Azariah. You mustn't let him out of your sight. He's a precious young man who may be meant for great things. He needs to be watched around the clock because he blames himself for all this, and there's no telling what he may do. As far as Hava is concerned, do whatever seems best. I'll keep out of it."

"Meaning?"

"That she'll play this to the hilt. She will insist that Azariah move back to his room, and most likely that he leave the kibbutz altogether."

"What should I say to her?"

"I think that you're a great fellow, Srulik, and a first-rate bookkeeper to boot, but some questions are better not asked. Why don't you just consider it for a while. Yoni, I'm sorry to say, is a damn fool, but he isn't a scoundrel. And not just another dumb yokel either."

I apologized at once. Yolek made a weary gesture and assured me that he bore no hard feelings. He too thought we should get in touch with Trotsky to see if he had had a role in the affair, but that this needed to be done prudently, perhaps even indirectly. We were, after all, dealing with a pathological liar, an international crook who would stop at nothing. It might perhaps be worth putting out feelers in America. Not that there weren't advantages to a more straightforward approach.

I had to confess to not knowing what he was talking about.

Yolek, however, simply made a face and let drop some remark of Nietzsche's about begetting children and giving hostages to fortune.

I rose to go. My hand was on the doorknob when his cracked but commanding voice overtook me. He was almost glad that the weather was good. It would be too horrible to imagine Yoni wandering about in a drenching thunderstorm. The damn fool! Perhaps he was holed up right now in some old ruin or dinky gas station, no different from when he was a boy, full of self-pity and feeling angry at the world. Should he suddenly decide to return, we would have to play the whole thing down to spare his tender soul. It was a nasty business. But one way or another, whether from America or a gas station, the boy was sure to come back. True enough, we would have to get him out of the kibbutz for a year or two. Perhaps to study somewhere, or to work for the movement, or to engage in anything that would allow him to feel he was doing his own glorious thing. If he insisted on going overseas, we would find him something overseas. The boy was a spoiled brat with a head full of worms, but then the whole lot of them were soft in the brain. I myself — I trust you to keep this a secret — I had already decided to accommodate him because I saw how miserable he was. I even wrote to Eshkol. But where did we go wrong, Srulik? How did we ever manage to raise such a collection of halfwits?

All the while I kept thinking Scyths, Huns, Tatars, etcetera, and left with the promise that I would drop by again as soon as I could.

Does he love the boy? Detest him? Both? Want to mold him according to his will? Found a dynasty with him like some Hasidic rabbi? I understand nothing. Nothing at all. There is a poem of Bialik's in which he asks what love is. If Bialik didn't know, how should I?

Once more let me make a more or less theological observation. About fathers and sons. Any father and any son. King David and Absalom. Abraham and Isaac. Jacob, Joseph, and his brothers. Each, as it were, trying to make of himself a fulminating Jehovah. Complete with thunder and lightning. Hailing fire and brimstone.

Not that I have the slightest notion of who young Yonatan Lifshitz really is. Yet writing these words I feel a sudden concern for him. That he may be at the end of his rope. Maybe I was mad not to have gone to the police immediately. A human life could be at stake. Or perhaps we should simply sit tight. A young man wants time out to be by himself. It's his right. He's not a child, after all. Or is he? I don't know.