Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

Woman he said woman I never knew that a woman could be like this. And then they lay in each other's arms and watched the moon wander from their window.

"Are you rejoining your unit tomorrow, Udi?"

"I have no unit. And my name isn't Udi. But I do have to go somewhere."

"And then you'll come back to me?"

"Look, Woman. That's a question I happen to hate."

"But you must have a home, or at least an address somewhere."

"I did. Not any more. The Himalayas, maybe. Bangkok? Bali? Who knows?"

"I'd go with you. Would you take me?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Why not. Michal?"

"What, child?"

"Don't call me child. Because my name once was Yoni and now I have no name."

"Shhh. Don't talk now. If you're still, you'll get a kiss."

They curled up in their blankets and slept until an hour or two before dawn, when she woke him and whispered, laughing, "Come on, Man, let's see what you're really made of." And when he took her this time it was not in an iron drive like a plow breaking earth but with a wistful yearning, like a small craft upon a smooth sea.

It was still dark outside the window when Michal rose from the cot, put on her uniform, and bade farewell. "Goodbye, Udi Yoni, I have to catch a jeep to Shivta but if you're still around when I get back tonight, maybe we can have a little talk." Yonatan groaned, or grunted, in his sleep and did not awaken until roused by the first fingers of daylight and the unhappy howl of a stray dog. He dressed, contentedly fingering his growing stubble of beard, fixed himself some coffee in a tin cup, haphazardly made the bed, and took from the shelf above it an army booklet entitled Sites in the Arava and the Desert. From the other bed he filched without a qualm a gray army blanket, flung open the door, and, standing in the doorway, had himself a long pee with his head cocked to one side and his lips parted like those of a dreamer in an untroubled sleep.

The dawn chill was sharp but bracing. Yonatan put on his jacket, wrapped himself in the blanket with the solemnity of a Jew donning a prayer shawl, and stood with his face to the mountains in the east. Thin and hazy like ancient glass, the air exuded anticipation. The lights of the perimeter fence were still on. Here and there a few heavily clad figures scurried about the tents and shacks. Beyond the camp stretched the desert vastness, serenely attending night's end. Yonatan squinted into the wind, pulled down his woolen cap, and lifted his jacket collar. His nostrils flared, like those of an animal feeling the call. His whole body was being swept away by an urge to set out at once, to the mountains, the wadis, the canyons, the steep, slippery rock ledges, the dwelling places of the deer and the mountain goat, the lair of the wildcat, the mighty pinnacles where nested the vulture, the griffin, and the lammergeier, where twisted and swiveled the efa and the horned viper. Names known by heart from maps, from years of army maneuvers, took on magic. Mount Ardon. Mount Gizron. Mount Lotz. Woody Mountain, on which no wood ever stood. Mount Arif. The Tsichor Range. The Shizafon Plateau, on which, a thousand years ago, Rimona and he had once sighted four or five stray camels wandering like specters on the horizon. The Ye'elon Plateau, its treeless, shrubless, lifeless canyons broiling in the sun without a penciling of shade. Uvda Canyon. Scouts Canyon. The broad shingle flats. Yes, even that remote stretch of level ground north of Ramon Canyon, Demons' Plain.

What have I done with my life all these years? From the citrus groves to the dining hall, to a dead double bed to this committee, to that meeting. Here, praise be, I've come home at last. Here, I'm no longer theirs. Thank you for all this beauty. For Michal. For every breath. For the very sunrise. I should break out in applause without further ado — or make a deep bow.

The advance guard of sunlight flared on the western hills behind him. And then, in a nascent halo over Edom, in an ancient script of molten violet and lime green, in an unearthly Roman candle of awesome fiery gold, a toothed arc on the horizon burst into flame, splitting the sky as a spear as a wound as a blood-red sun.

This is my last day. By sun-up tomorrow I shall be dead, and that is just what I should be, what I've waited for all my life, and here, at last, it is. How cold I feel in my bones.

But just look at what a show the sky, the mountains, the earth are putting on for you. What you have to do now is find that Jamil and put something in your stomach. And clean and oil your gun, and then sit down somewhere for a couple of hours to study your maps and pick the route that makes the most sense. A cigarette sure as hell would hit the spot right now, but you don't smoke any more. And maybe you ought to write a note to Michal and leave it on her bed. But you don't have anything to say to her, or to any man or woman in the world, and you never did. Except for thank you. That's a pretty dumbass thing to say if you do say so yourself. Let Azariah say it for you, because he and your father and Eshkol and Srulik and all the rest of them are so impossibly good at it.

You bet your sweet life I'd have hit it from a pace-and-a-half if I'd wanted to. Only their hearts were not true. Hurrah for Saint Benya, who didn't spill a single drop of blood. But my heart is true as hell. And all this holy light is starting to glare. May He be exalted? And sanctified? In His great name? Is that what you say over an open grave? I can't remember the rest of it. I don't have to. They'll never find me in any case. Not even my corpse. Much less my shoelaces. I've been around long enough to see that it isn't for me. Whatever I've touched has gone wrong. Still, I am grateful for all this beauty and will say again, if no one minds out there, thanks for everything.

And now you'd better find something to eat and get organized. It must be six o'clock at least. Or even seven. Your watch has stopped again because you forgot to wind it.

"A glass of tea? Or some brandy?" asked Yolek. "Mind you, it's only my allergy acting up again. Otherwise I haven't popped a tear since it happened. I don't deny that when the door opened and you suddenly walked in and hugged me and said what you did, well, my emotions just got the better of me for a second. But there now, I'm over it. You remember Hava, don't you. And sitting here to my left is Srulik. My replacement. Our new secretary here on the kibbutz. And a saint in disguise. Give me ten men like him and I could move the world."

"Good to meet you, Srulik. Please don't bother getting up. I'm no longer one-and-twenty, and believe me, this is the first time in memory that I've ever heard a good word from Yolek Lifshitz about anyone. As for you, Hava, words simply fail me. I embrace you in my thoughts and have nothing but admiration for your courage."

"Hava, if it's not asking too much, please make Eshkol a strong glass of tea. Never mind what he says. And give our good friend Srulik some too. And Rimona and Azariah. None for me. If Rimon'ka will be gracious enough to pour me a sip of brandy, I'll make do with that."

"My dear friends," said the Prime Minister, who, squeezed and crumpled though he was into the narrow kibbutz chair, was still a commanding presence, a tall, broad, heavy, gullied mountain of a man, a protuberant outcropping of superfluous bulges, sagging rolls of flesh, and improbable pouches of skin, a cliff partially collapsed by a landslide. "I want you to know that what you've been going through has been continually on my mind these past two days. Just thinking of you makes my heart ache and my head feel like a jar of scorpions. From the moment I heard the sad news I have been beset by anxiety."

"Thank you," said Hava from the kitchenette, where she had been busy herself setting out her very best china on a tray, arranging quartered oranges on a plate in a chrysanthemum pattern, taking out her fancy paper napkins, and entrusting Rimona with a fresh white tablecloth. "It's very kind of you to have taken the trouble to come."