Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

Yonatan felt a wave of affection wash over him. Biting his bottom lip he struggled to force it all back.

The jeep drove off. The roar of its engine was gone. A breeze arose from the north. The desert darkened. At long last he was truly alone.

Night fell. The tepid desert breeze blew salty dust from north to south. The first stars were out, though a trace of light still lingered on the ridge line. A far-off scent of smoke tickled his nostrils and was gone. Yonatan stood on the embankment bent beneath his burden, as if waiting for someone to join him. He had a long pee, filled his lungs with air, and noted with satisfaction that he had not had a cigarette in nearly forty hours. He loaded his rifle with one of his three ammunition clips and slipped the other two into his trousers. It pleased him to think that never before had he been so utterly alone, so far from another living soul. Even Ein-Husub suddenly seemed a wearisome, noisy place of onerous chores. But that was all over with. The loudmouthed old man as well. It's all over with, he kept repeating to himself as if it were a password. Far ahead, in the mountains that rimmed the sky to the east, a weak light flickered. A Jordanian outpost? A Bedouin encampment? There lay the Land of Edom. The Kingdom of Transjordan. The city half as old as time. The enemy's home.

Not a sound to be heard. Trying the depth of silence, Yonatan said, "Silence."

A milky vapor swirled at his feet. The breeze died down. A car sped by on the road behind. The noise of its engine roused him to action.

"Let's go. Now."

At the sound of the words his legs began to move. So light were his strides that he could barely sense them. Despite his load, his movements were silken. The soles of his paratrooper boots were Mercury's sandals. A slow, caressing relief spread through his limbs. Even the sweat on his brow felt pleasant, like a cool touch. The very ground he was treading seemed no harder than a carpet of ash left from a whirlwind of fire. Almost magically he was swept eastward, emptied of thought, emptied of longing, in the thrall of ecstasy. His potent muscles sang as they bore him along, wafting him on air.

Who's calling me? I'm coming. Didn't I always say I would? To another country? To a huge, mysterious city? And study and work and meet enchanting women and sit behind blinking panels? But who needs the women and the panels. I have my freedom. I have what I want and I don't give a damn. Let those Bedouin jump me right now. Who cares? I'll put my rifle on automatic and mow them all down. Tak-tak-tak-tak.

Azariah's story about the teacher who had his brains blown out by a bullet wasn't really true. And Azariah himself wasn't real. And neither were all those years. Or home. And neither are Michal and that old madman. What's real is my life that's beginning now. That's my justice, to be by myself in the night, to belong to the silence, to go at my own pace, heading eastward, taking a bearing on the highest peak.

A patriotic song kept running through his head. "What more, O what more do you want, our land, that we haven't given you yet?" A question for which he had no answer, but he couldn't stop humming the melody. "Full are our granaries, teeming are our homes." That's all over with. I have no more home. Up in that wadi in the mountains of Edom the nomads are on the move. And I'm a nomad now myself. I'm as good as dead to them all, but I've never been more alive to myself. No one will ever tell me what to do any more. Just let them try and I'll plug them full of holes. I was born dead. Like Rimona's baby last year. I never even asked what that Syrian gynecologist in Haifa did with her body. What do they do with the stillborn? Store them in some ghost town in the mountains? In special hideaways cut out of stone? Deep in the valley of the shadow of death?

Rimona's Efrat must be there. My daughter? Am I her father? How scary, that word "father." Me? And how could I recognize a child I've never seen? Among so many children? If I called her name out loud — Efrat! — would she come to me and give me a hug?

He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and slightly loosened his shoulder straps.

She used to put my hand on her belly to feel the baby move, and peer at me as if I really cared. Me? A father? Efrat's? The other baby's too? When she had that abortion? Madness!

Mysteriously, Yonatan had the sensation of the baby moving in his own belly. Just then, the soles of his boots made a crunching sound. Clearly, he was now walking over gravel. Am I in the bed of a wadi? It wasn't long before his feet could once again feel the silent sand beneath them.

Soon the moon will rise. That wadi I crossed a few minutes ago must have been Wadi Araba. That means I'm over the border. Out of Israel. In the Kingdom of Jordan, home of the cutthroat nomads. I'd better be alert.

How come I never cried over her? How come, whenever Rimona wanted to talk about her, I told her to cut it out? She was my child. How could I have forgotten that Rimona was pregnant two years before Efrat? Come on, I yelled at her, it's too soon for us to have children. The two of us are fine by ourselves. It's not my job to sire a dynasty for my father. I don't want my parents getting into bed with us. And so one morning she went to Haifa and came back empty. I bought her a record for a present and for five days she did nothing but listen to that record over and over. It was because of that abortion that Efrat was born dead. That's what the Syrian doctor said when he told us not to try again for a while, because Rimona was lucky to have pulled through. I killed my own two children. And I drove my wife mad. That was how the magic of Chad started.

What was that? A jackal? A fox? Nothing. Just stars and silence.

At this time of night we would have been putting Efrat to bed. Putting her into pajamas. Singing her a lullaby. Telling her stories and making animal sounds. I'm good at that. This is how the fox goes. And this, the hyena. We would have been giving her a warm bottle with some sugar or a little honey. Putting a teddy bear or a toy giraffe into bed with her. Don't be afraid, Efrat, Papa will lie on the floor beside your crib and hold your hand until you fall asleep. And Mama will cover you.

And then Rimona and I could have sat quietly in the next room, I with my evening paper and she with her embroidery or a book. Maybe she would have sung something. Before Efrat died she used to sing. Zaro and I could have played chess. And drunk coffee together. And Rimona could have ironed Efrat's blue dress instead of all her magic of Chad. One peep from her and the three of us would have run to change her diaper, to cover her, to give her a fresh bottle.

Why did I kill them all? Why am I killing them now? What did they do to me? What did I ever want that I didn't get? Who am I looking for out here in the wild? I must be stark raving mad. That old man in Ein-Husub called me a wretch. My mother is a wretch. And my father. For I killed Efrat, and that other baby before her, and turned Rimona into a corpse. And now I'm killing their son. And Zaro's a wretch too. It's only me who isn't, because here I am, as happy as a lark, going straight to hell. Let Zaro give her a baby? Let my father die? What was I thinking of ail those rainy nights when I wanted to pick up and go? Warmth? Life? Love? Pain and anger mixed? Is that what I was missing? To kill? To be killed? To destroy? No, he isn't a wretch any more. In fact he's on top of the world. He's going to get Efrat.

Yonatan halted, wiped his face, and scratched his stubbly beard. He swallowed nearly half a canteen of water and strained to catch the slightest sound. There was none. But in the silent sky, a lightning-quick movement took place. A star bolted loose, traced a fiery arc across the firmament, and disappeared near the southern horizon. Its companion stars went on twinkling coldly, undismayed.