Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

Yonatan threw his things on the ground, scratched himself, and looked about him. The shadow of the mountains cut the moonlit sky. Dogs barked hoarsely. In the nearby darkness some girls were singing. A smell of campfire smoke drifted among the tents and shacks. With a muffled drone punctuated by little backfires a generator throbbed away. Yonatan had been in Ein-Husub before, once with a hiking party and again two years ago, when his unit reassembled here after a nocturnal sortie into Jordanian territory near As-Safi, at the southern end of the Dead Sea. Even if someone around here knows me, he thought, they'll never recognize me now. But just to be on the safe side he put on his old woolen cap, pulled it down over his eyes, and raised the collar of his jacket almost to his ears.

For a few minutes Yonatan stood motionless beside a filthy ditch running between two prefabs. He looked like a cross between a soldier and a gypsy. Yellow lights shone far off in the darkness. He tried to think ahead. First find something to eat and drink and water to fill his canteen. The second thing was to crawl into this ditch or find some trees somewhere where he could unroll his sleeping bag. Before sacking out, though, he'd better swipe a couple of blankets because it would probably get very cold here tonight. Tomorrow he would have the whole morning to kill. He would have to go over the map carefully to make sure of the safest route to take. His best bet would be to leave Ein-Husub at about two in the afternoon, hitch a ride south to Bir-Meliha, and then head eastward on foot into Wadi Musa, in the general direction of Jabel Harun. There must be some old guidebook available around here that would tell all about Petra. He should oil his gun too.

And I've already gone seventeen hours without a cigarette! That means everything is shipshape and right on schedule. All I need right now is food and blankets. C'mon, pal, let's see some action.

"Hi, baby."

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Are you by any chance from around here?"

"I'm by any chance from around Haifa."

"But you're stationed here?"

"May I have the pleasure of knowing who's asking?"

"That's beside the point. The point is that I'm about to perish from hunger."

"That's all very well, sir, but maybe you'd like to tell me just who you belong to anyway."

"You're going philosophical on me. But if you're really interested, and provided you give me something to eat first, I'll be happy to give you a short course on Justice and the theory of who we belong to. What do you say?"

"Did anyone ever tell you you've got a sexy voice? The trouble is, I can't see the rest of you in this darkness. Oh well! Go ask Jamil if he has any cold potatoes left. If you'd like some coffee to wash them down, I'm afraid you've got a problem. So long."

"Hold on, baby. Where are you going? Your name isn't Ruti, by any chance, is it? Or Etti? Mine, by any chance, is Udi. And you might as well know the statistics. Reconnaissance officer. Five-foot-ten. Likes chess, philosophy, and farm machinery. Stuck all alone here at least until tomorrow morning. Is it Ruti or Etti?"

"Michal. And I'll bet you're a kibbutznik."

"Used to be. Now I'm a wandering philosopher, looking for signs of life in the wilderness. And hungry as hell. Michal?"

"Yes, sir! "

"Has anyone ever told you what a terrific hostess you are?"

"Sorry, but I don't get the hint. All I'm getting is colder and colder."

"I'm more than willing to trade you warmth for food, baby. I'm all alone here, see, and I've got half-a-ton of gear on my back. Have you ever heard of the word 'compassion'?"

"I already told you. Try Jamil up there. He might have some cold french fries or something else left over."

"Some hospitality! You're a real sweetheart, baby. I can't tell you how nice it is of you to offer right in the middle of the desert to take a total stranger to the kitchen for a banquet and a hot cup of coffee. Especially since I haven't the foggiest idea where the kitchen is and wouldn't know Jamil if I tripped over the guy. Okay? So give us a hand. Right! That one. Now let's take me to the grub."

"What's going on here, mister? Second-degree rape?"

"Right now it's only an obscene act. But if I enjoy it, we can take it from there. On a full stomach. Did you or didn't you tell me how sexy I was?"

"Your name's Udi? Then listen, Udi. I'll take you to the kitchen to eat and get you some coffee, but first you've got to take your hands off me, and pronto! And if you've got any other ideas, you'd better ditch them right now."

"Are you a redhead, baby? Just a tiny bit?"

"How could you possibly tell?"

"It's all in Spinoza. That was one hotshot philosopher. After you've fed me and let me have my coffee, I'll give you a crash course. And if you've got any ideas of your own, don't forget them, baby. It's cold as hell around here."

He had never before made love like this. Not humiliatingly, not resentfully, but fiercely and tenderly, and with a fine, delicate precision, again and again all night long until dawn. As if he had found a twin whose body had been cast in the matching mold of his own.

After the Spam, the cold french fries, and the sooty, disgustingly sweet coffee, the two of them went arm-in-arm to her room near a wireless shack. There they found a highly superfluous Yvonne. Michal, without batting an eyelash, sent Yvonne off to sleep with Yoram, "because what's about to happen in this room is going to be strictly X-rated."

The bed was a hard, narrow military cot. A freakish desert moon shone in the curtainless window. There was a baying of dogs, and Yonatan suddenly felt choked by an ancient rage. Whatever happened to that poor bastard Shiko, who ran out into the wadi just when the flash flood hit? But the rage gave way at once to a feverish tenderness. In my whole goddamn life I've never been so goddamn alive. And with a woman in my hands.

The room was so shiveringly cold they didn't bother to undress. Fully clothed and laughing, they slipped between her prickly woolen blankets. Yonatan propped himself on an elbow to study her face in the moonlight. He kissed her wide-open eyes and raised himself on his palms to get a still better look. "You're so handsome and sad-looking," she said, "and such a terrible liar too." With a fingertip he traced her lips and the fine line of her jaw until she took both his hands in her own and placed a breast in each. He felt no urge to make haste. Step by silent step he caressed her body, as if trying to find his way across unfamiliar terrain in darkness, until, burrowing into his uniform, Michal found his sex and took it out. She kissed it in the moonlight and laughingly addressed it with his very own words. "You wandering philosopher, you, let me know when you've found signs of life in the wilderness." His fingers worked their way to the trea-surehouse of hers at once, where slowly, almost thoughtfully, they picked out a tune so compelling that she arched roundly against him. With a mock guffaw, he blurted, "Hey! What's the big rush?" Her answer was bites and nips and scratches. "Your name is Woman," he said to her, in his basso profundo, "and mine is Man."

And he undid the buttons of their bulky uniforms and cupped first one breast and then the other with such tender angry choking passionate fierce gentle precise persuasion that she begged him to come to her. Come you crazy I can't take it any more. Shut up he said what's the rush while his sex beat about like the cane of a furious blind man, crawling and slithering among the layers of her clothing, coiling and lunging at her belly at her mons veneris until all of a sudden the cane slipped into place and slid home. Honeystruck, it paused and there was a lull. And a trembling. And a movement beneath him like a sea.

And she bit his ear and raked his back with her nails inside his clothes and groaned come quick I'm dying and her match made Yonatan catch fire and drive home again and again, hammering away inside her, snorting and thrashing and lashing and butting as though battering impregnable walls and so overwhelming her that it tore a sharp cry from her gut, and then another, and suddenly, like a dog shot in the dark, let out a cry himself and burst into a flood of tears and sperm as if every wound in his life had opened at once and the very blood of that life was pouring out. Never had he opened up like this to anything, nor anything to him. The ineffable ecstasy jarred the root of his sex and ran from there to his gut to his back up his spine to the scruff of his neck to the roots of his hair sending a shiver through the soles of his feet so that she said you're crying real tears look you have goose-pimples your hair is even standing on end and kissed him on the mouth and all over his face while he gasped I'm not done I have more. You're crazy she said you're stark raving mad but he silenced her at once with his lips and came within her a second and a third time. You madman I have no more strength for you.