Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

"Of course, Comrade Srulik. Anything you say. Your wish is my command."

"Azariah, if only to spare certain people a lot of heartache, would you agree to move back to the barber's shack until all this blows over?"

A cunning light flared and went out in his green eyes. "But she's my woman now. Not his. I mean in principle."

"Azariah, I'm asking for a favor. It's only for the time being. I'm sure you know the state of Yolek's health."

"Are you trying to say I'm to blame for that too?"

"No, not exactly. Maybe in part."

"For Yolek ?" exclaimed Azariah with impudent glee, like a prisoner who has slipped a pair of handcuffs on his jailer's wrists. "Get this, Comrade Srulik, because I have news for you. Yolek himself sent me a message just ten minutes ago to come see him this evening to have a little chat — and to bring my guitar. Yashek even told me that the brandy bottle would be out. Besides, Comrade Srulik, the only fair thing to do would be to ask Yoni if I have to leave his house. And since that's impossible, why not ask Rimona? You're in for a big surprise. The way I see it, you have every right to ask me to leave the kibbutz altogether. Whenever you like. Go right ahead. But no one can ask me to leave my woman. That's against the law."

I'd like once more to set down for the record what I wrote yesterday and the day before and will no doubt write again tomorrow. I don't understand a thing. It's all a closed book to me.

It's ten o'clock now. Etan R. is on duty at the switchboard. Azariah and Rimona have gone to visit Yolek. Maybe Azariah is giving a recital there. Anything is possible in this world. Still no sign of Yoni. Tomorrow we'll call the police and ask Chupka and his scouts to start looking for our prodigal son.

Hava Lifshitz is with me now. She has made us both tea and brought some honey for my throat. She's sitting on my bed and listening to the music. Brahms again. It's been ages since a woman was in my room at such an hour. I shall quote another passage from Griffin:

During a long flight, therefore, enormous quantities of body fat are consumed, just as they are on a cold winter night when a small bird is likely to burn most of its fatty tissue simply to maintain its body temperature until morning.

Meaning? Enough for tonight. I'll stop here.

Friday, March 4, 1966

It's evening now and raining again. Only a handful of people seem to have gone to the dining hall to hear a guest lecturer discuss Yemenite folklore. And still no word from Yonatan. The police chewed me out roundly this morning for taking so long to get in touch with them. They're already on the case but have nothing to report thus far. Chupka was here too. He listened carefully to what I told him, drank two cups of black coffee with Udi Shneour, said no more than nine or ten words at the most, made no promises, and departed. This afternoon we received a telegram from Miami. Mr. Trotsky intends to come as soon as possible, perhaps even by next week.

I also had a peculiar conversation with Rimona. When I asked her whether, when Yonatan came home safe and sound, she didn't think that Azariah would be best off living by himself, she replied, "But I have room for them both. And they both love and so do I." Did she understand the possible consequences? She smiled. "Consequences?"

I was at a total loss. Perhaps because of her beauty or simply because I'm not the right man for this office. For example, I couldn't muster the will to drop in on Yolek today. I was told that the doctor found him slightly better and that Azariah spent a good deal of time there. Playing the guitar, philosophizing, arguing politics, and God knows what else. Certainly I don't. Is that my job too, to know everything?

Besides, I'm sick with a high fever, chills, a cough, and a bad earache. Everything keeps swimming before my eyes. Hava has been taking care of me, insisting I stay in bed. "It won't do that lousy Stutchnik any harm to have to run around for a few days in your place." And on Sunday Trotsky will arrive. Or on Monday. Or never.

This evening I decided on my own to let Prime Minister Eshkol know that Yolek's son has disappeared without a trace and that we're worried about him. And now I'll sign off because I'm hallucinating a bit. Every time I close my eyes I have nightmarish visions of Yonatan in dire peril. And we have done nothing.

Saturday, 12:00 midnight

Not a word from Yonatan, the police, or the redoubtable Chupka. Toward evening the Prime Minister talked to Yolek on the phone and promised to extend all possible help.

I spent the day in bed with a temperature of one-hundred-and-four and assorted aches and pains. This evening the general meeting of the kibbutz elected me, in absentia, to be the new secretary. Stutchnik brought the news and carried on and on about how I was praised to the skies. The vote was virtually unanimous.

Hava has almost nothing to say. She knows about the telegram from Miami, as does Yolek, but neither mentions it. I don't think they've spoken to each other since yesterday. Stutchnik told me that Rimona and young Gitlin are taking good care of Yolek. And Hava sat up with me all night. My Florence Nightingale. I am wiped out. In my mind I keep seeing Yonatan wandering about, but something tells me that he's all right. I don't know what makes me feel so sure. I also don't know why I told her, my pen poised above this page, that Rimona might be pregnant and that either one of them could be the father. Have I gone out of my mind? The secretary of the kibbutz. I couldn't have made a worse blunder. My fever is way up again. Perhaps I shouldn't go on with this report tonight. I don't trust myself. Everything seems so complicated.

But what, after all, is the magic of Chad? Maybe no more than spending a few hours of this bright, lovely winter day sitting in a cafe on some street in Beersheba without a care, and with all the time in the world. And ordering soda. And an egg sandwich and a cheese sandwich. And some Turkish coffee. And another bottle of soda. With everything you own beneath the table at your feet. Your beat-up knapsack. Your gun. And the canteen you just bought at the PX. And the sleeping bag you swiped without thinking twice from the dusty pile lying by an army truck on a corner of the main street. What's one sleeping bag more or less? They can do without it. It's amazing what you can do without.

Just sitting with your legs stretched and watching the customers come and go through a door that hardly ever stays closed. Without a thought in your head. Like Tia. In a place where nobody knows you and you don't know anybody. Although everybody looks just like you. Tired, grizzled men in desert clothes, in army boots, in battle gear, with battered packs at their feet. Soldiers in khaki. Farmers in khaki. Quarrymen. Roadworkers. Surveyors. Hikers. With eyes red from the dust and a gray film of dust on their faces and in their hair. Nearly all of them with guns. And all of them, including yourself, belonging to the same distinct tribe, marked by chronic lack of sleep.

And what a relief. For the first time in your life you're not being watched by a soul. A total stranger, not a blip on somebody's radar screen, because no one in the whole world knows where you are. From the day you were born until this morning every single minute of your life was chartered, but that's all over with now. No more timetables. No more zero hours. No more assembly points. Light. Loose. And a little sleepy too.

With a lazy desert feeling trickling like wine through every cell of your body. And a smile winking on and off inside you. I shook them. I did it. There's no one to tell me what I can or can't do any more. If I want to go, I can go. If I want to stay, I can stay. If I want to mow them all down, I can do it with one beautiful burst and vanish into the desert forever. Just three hundred yards from here. The magic of Chad. And this is just the beginning.