Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

Once, he refused to speak to Srulik for six months because Srulik had proved to him that Denmark was not, after all, a Benelux country. Eventually he forgave, but not without insisting that Srulik's source was "badly out-of-date."

He declined a glass of tea, then extended his hand, which Srulik shook, not without surprise. Stutchnik turned around and trudged out of the office.

Srulik decided not to send the telegram before speaking with Stutchnik's wife Rachel.

But this time he was too late.

Stutchnik had gone home, removed his boots by the door, stripped off his work clothes, and stepped into the shower. Hours later Rachel found him, seated on the floor of the shower stall, his back against the tiled wall. His eyes were open. His sinewy body had turned blue from the torrents of water that had poured on it since early morning. His face bore a look of peaceful repose, the look of someone who has wept at great length and now feels better at last.

Srulik delivered the eulogy at the graveside. The deceased, he said, was a humble man and a good friend, though never one to compromise his beliefs. He valued comradeship, yet never backed down on a matter of principle. To his last day, Srulik said, indeed, to his last hour, he remained at his post. He died as he had lived, in humility and purity of heart. All of us would always remember his gentle soul until our day came to join him. Rachel Stutchnik and her daughter cried. Etan, Udi, and a few other young men spaded earth into the open grave. Azariah, too, grabbed a spade and tried to help. Once the grave had been filled, the mourners continued to stand around it as if waiting for something else to be said. But no one spoke after Srulik. The only sound was the murmur of the cemetery pines, answering the sea breeze in the sea's own language.

All day long, since his return from the hospital, Yolek sat in a deck chair under the fig tree near his porch. For hours on end, his arms resting limply on the sides of the chair, he would watch the magic of spring, as if for the first time in his life. On a small stool beside him lay a pile of newspapers and magazines, an open book, face down, a closed book, and his reading glasses. None of these seemed to hold any interest. Only the sights and the scents of springtime appeared to touch him. If a small boy in pursuit of a ball approached, Yolek would nod once or twice as if trying to puzzle out a difficult problem, only to pronounce, "A boy." If Hava came bearing his medicine and a glass of water, he submitted. " Shoyn. Everything is fine now," he would say. If the kibbutz secretary came to sit with him at dusk, to tell him of problems and solutions, Yolek would remark, "Really, Srulik, it's simple." Or, " Vus brennt? "

No more thunder and lightning, no more mea culpas, no more biblical rage. The doctor found his condition stable. He had become an obedient, tractable patient. When Rimona came to see him, always bearing a myrtle branch or oleander blossom, he would lay a broad, ugly hand on her head and say, "Thank you. Nice. You're a saint." More often than not, the flowers would remain in his lap until evening.

His hearing had grown worse, almost to the point of deafness. Even low-flying jet planes savagely crisscrossing the sky failed to make him look up. After consulting Hava, the doctor, and the nurse, Srulik ordered the latest-model hearing aid. Meanwhile he rested with Tia drowsing at his feet, no longer bothering to chase away flies.

Every weekend Amos came home on leave. One Saturday he turned up with a ladder, a can of paint, and a brush to paint his parents' kitchenette. Hava presented him with a small transistor radio. Azariah brought a wheelbarrow full of concrete and patched all the cracks in the pavement and stairs so that Yolek wouldn't stumble. On Saturday nights they all drank coffee together and listened to the sports roundup. Once, to the amazement of all, Amos picked up Azariah's guitar and managed to play three simple tunes. Where could he have learned to do that?

And yet another little wonder: Bolognesi appeared one day with a blue woolen wrap that he had knit to protect Yolek's knees from the evening chill. Hava gave him the two bottles of brandy that were left in the house, one full and one half empty. Since his return from the hospital, Yolek no longer drank. "Bless'a God Who wipe'a away the tears of the poor," remarked Bolognesi.

Srulik, the secretary, had meanwhile been busily planning some innovations. After a number of feelers that amounted to a careful canvassing of the whole kibbutz, he succeeded in convincing the general meeting to approve funds for vacations abroad. Over the next fifteen years, it was calculated, each member would be awarded three weeks to see the world. Srulik also revived the youth committee, commissioned preliminary plans for adding a room to each of the family units, reactivated the singles committee. He also appointed a team to study the possibility of introducing a light industry. Young people, he felt, needed a challenge.

He still found time for his quintet. Having agreed to the group's public debut in the dining hall of a neighboring kibbutz, he had begun to put it through a weekly rehearsal. Late at night, framed by the square of light in his window, he could be seen at his desk, writing. Some said he was working on an article. Others that he was composing a symphony. Still others speculated that he was writing a novel.

Udi's Anat was pregnant. So was Rimona. Her Haifa gynecologist, Dr. Schillinger, said that anything could happen. The conception, to be sure, was against his better judgment, but statistics, if you asked him, was still a primitive science. However, he did not wish to take any responsibility for deciding whether the pregnancy should be continued. Perhaps it would turn out well after all. Srulik heard of all this from Hava, who had insisted that it was her right and duty to go with Rimona to the doctor and hear what he had to say, Rimona herself being so hopelessly distracted.

Each day, when she came back from her work in the laundry, Rimona found on the marble counter in her kitchen oranges, grapefruit, jars of honey, dates, or fresh cream that Hava had smuggled into the house. Once, finding a record of Mississippi blues instead, she recalled that it was Yonatan's birthday.

Every Thursday, Rimona baked Hava and Yolek a cake for Amos's weekend visit. Sometimes, on a Saturday night, Major Chupka dropped by. He would sit for a while with the family, Yolek, Hava, Rimona, Azariah, and Amos, drink a cup of coffee, put away a few sandwiches, and say little. Yonatan was seldom mentioned. Each in his own way had concluded that nothing terrible had happened. But Yolek, once, waking from his lethargy, snapped, "What's going on? That rascal is still busy? Not coming today either? About time he grew up!"

One Saturday night Chupka maneuvered Srulik outside to talk with him in private. He had some news, or rather, a rumor, that he preferred to share with Srulik alone. "It's like this: One of our boys, Yotam from Kfar Bilu, was down in the Negev this week with two other fellows to check out a new back road that the Bedouin have run from Bagpipe to Donkeyfoal Mountain. Where you cross Scorpion Gulch, there's a track that's never used any more. What we call the Nowhere Trail. They came upon a civilian jeep and a half-naked character with a Father Time beard sweating away trying to change a tire. He wouldn't let them help out. In fact, he began to swear at them. So they said we'll be seeing you and drove on."

"So?"

"Wait a second. Listen to this. Yotam swore to me that he saw someone off in the distance who looked a little like Lifshitz, only with longer hair and a black beard. When they got near the jeep, only the old man was around. This other guy had scuttled off into the rocks like a lizard."