Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

A Bedouin was standing by the counter, a lean, bony, swarthy man in a striped robe and over it a tattered suit jacket. His long, dark fingers were crawling with lizardlike life. In a silken Hebrew he asked for a pack of cheap cigarettes. The counterman, apparently a friend of his, an excitable-looking Jew with a Rumanian accent and a rumpled plain white shirt beneath a checked apron, laid a pack of cigarettes on the sticky marble counter, swarming with flies. Adding a box of matches, he volunteered, "Go on and take 'em, they're on the house." A single gold tooth flashed in his mouth when he smiled. " Nu, vus hert zach, ya Ouda? Keif el hal? " "What's doing down your way these days?"

The Bedouin weighed the question at length, as if deliberating how it might be answered with no slight to either the truth or good manners. At last he said modestly, "We are doing okay, praise God."

"And that sorghum of yours, it's okay too?" asked the counterman, who sounded disappointed. "That sorghum of yours that they confiscated, you think you'll get it back in the end?"

The Bedouin was occupied with making a small rectangular incision just big enough to remove one cigarette from a corner of the pack. Then he tapped the bottom of the pack with a stiff finger as though performing a parlor trick, and a cigarette popped up like a gun muzzle in front of the counterman's eyes. "That sorghum? Maybe yes, maybe no. Help yourself, please, Mr. Gotthilf. T'fadal. Have a smoke."

At first the counterman declined with an ineffably Jewish gesture that signified, What, me smoke one of those? A moment later, however, with a second gesture that meant, Ah well, if I have to, I have to, he accepted the gift, thanked the Bedouin, and stuck it behind his ear. Then, after pulling down the handle of the espresso machine, he pushed a little plastic cup of coffee across the counter, sending a flurry of excitement through the convocation of impolitic flies. " Efsher you'll tishrab, ya Ouda? How about some coffee? And why don't we sit down for a few minutes and you tell me the gantse mayse of the sorghum. Maybe I can put in a good word for you when I see Major Elbaz?"

The two of them went to have a brotherly smoke at the table nearest the counter. The Rumanian dropped his voice to a whisper. Yonatan, who had been folding a paper napkin into the shape of a little canoe, now shot it across the table with his finger, scoring a direct hit on a saltshaker. Praise God, he murmured to himself. We are doing okay.

A noisy busload of American Jewish tourists burst into the cafe. Though most of them were elderly, they carried on like a group of schoolchildren whose teacher has stepped out of the room. On their heads, apparently freshly taken out of storage, were bell-shaped Israeli hats of blue cotton. Front and back, they bore the inscription, in Hebrew and English, TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF ISRAEL, HAVEN OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE.

In urgent need of cold drinks or the bathroom, they either fell upon the counter to banter with the Rumanian in Yiddish or threaded their way between the tables, struggling to squeeze by the ragged soldiers, the miners, the farmers in work clothes, the truck drivers, all engaged in the tribal pastime of feasting on grilled lamb, roasted drumsticks, french fries in pita bread, and plates of sesame dip washed down with an American cola or local soft drink. Now and then someone banged a saltshaker on a tabletop to free its clogged openings. Sometimes a roar of savage laughter would erupt from one of the corners.

Yonatan's eyes narrowed like gunslits. The counterman's Bedouin friend, he noticed, was wearing sandals made of rubber tires tied with rope. From his leather belt hung a curved dagger in an ornamental silver sheath. The skin of his face was pulled tightly back over his prominent cheekbones as if sculpted of flint. His dark hands, one of which sported a bright gold ring, were covered with a fine desert powder. His mustache was clipped smartly, but the matted hair on his bare head seemed to have been washed with cheap cooking oil, perhaps even, Yonatan thought, with camel piss. You never knew. Now he was standing with his back to the counter, watching the entrance with beady eyes to see who might pass through next. Watch out for Udi, pal. That's a friend of mine who wants to make a scarecrow out of you so that you can keep the birds off his garden and be the talk of the kibbutz. And forget about your sorghum.

Yonatan, craving a cigarette, rummaged through his pockets. Finding none, he went to the counter, where he stood scratching himself fiercely as he usually did when at a loss. Nevertheless, he managed not to take his eyes off his belongings for a second. Whatever wasn't nailed to the floor in a place like this had a way of walking off by itself.

"Yes, soldier boy. Anything else?" Mr. Gotthilf was too busy stacking coins on his sticky counter to look up. Behind him, on a shelf lined with candy and olive and pickle jars, was a photograph of a heavyset, coarse-looking woman in a tastelessly low-cut dress. A necklace of tear-shaped beads fell from her throat and vanished into the cleft. On her knees she held a small child with neatly combed hair parted in the middle, glasses, a tie, and a three-piece suit, with a handkerchief in the breast pocket. A black mourning ribbon cut diagonally across a bottom corner of the picture, which had been framed in a kitschy, fake mother-of-pearl. Why was it that other people's sorrows so often seemed just so much soap opera while our own always strike us as terribly poignant? What was the reason for all this suffering no matter where you looked? Even in this pathetic dump! Maybe it's a lousy cop-out to run away. Maybe my father and that whole chorus line of old men are right after all. Maybe I should go right home and devote my life from now on to the War on Suffering.

"Yes, soldier boy. Anything else?"

Yonatan hesitated. "Right," he said in his low voice, "you can give me some chewing gum. And I think I'll have a cup of espresso too."

He took his purchases back to the table as if his sally to the counter had cost him the last of his strength. Never mind, though. Everything was going smoothly. They could look for him all they pleased. The whole bunch of them. And bring the police and the border patrol with their bloodhounds. Why shouldn't they? Suppose I'd been killed. Let them comb the wadis. Let them look for my corpse. Why not? I'm already a million miles away. And they're never going to find me. Because I'm off to where I'm being waited for.

Two officers entered the cafe and sat down at a nearby table. Do I know them? Who could remember every face from the whole goddamn army? From some chess tournament, maybe, or that farm machinery course? Everyone here looked like everyone else. The safest thing to do is to keep your head down, your mouth shut, and clear out as soon as you've finished your coffee. Damn! I forgot to tell them to watch out for that cracked electrical outlet near the porch door. You can get a shock from it. I didn't even leave a note.

One of the two officers — a kibbutznik, Yonatan guessed — had a beautiful baby face, with ruddy brown cheeks, a classical nose, and cherubic blue eyes. He was wearing a patched army jacket and sneakers without socks. Smiling with milk-white teeth as if all too aware of his good looks, he was addressing his companion. "They just slay me, the two of them. That Shiko and his Avigayil. The minute she said she was leaving him and told him the whole truth about me and her. It must have been at least two in the morning, because she had just come back from my place, and it was cold as hell out, with a fog you couldn't see the tip of your nose in, but right away he jumps up and runs straight out into the wadi…."

"We've heard it, Ron, we've already heard all of it a hundred times," interrupted the other officer, laying a hairy, freckled hand on Ron's shoulder.