Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

Etan R. shrugged twice on his way to the cowshed. Did that guitar case really hold a guitar? This country, he reminded himself, is full of jerks. A guitar case can be for guitars, and it can be for other things too. It's anyone's guess. He felt a renewed uneasiness, perhaps because the stranger had seemed so ill-at-ease himself.

If that young man's looking for someplace to hide, Etan thought, he couldn't find a better place than a kibbutz. Everything's aboveboard, no questions asked. The only place you can still find a little justice in the world is on the kibbutz. An oddball? Well, we've got a Bolognesi who sits around knitting dresses, why not someone who's looking for justice. No skin off my back.

Just to be on the safe side, though, Etan decided that after he finished the night milking and took his shower, he would inquire about the newcomer. Maybe, he thought, I should have walked him to Yolek's to make sure he wasn't up to something.

By the time Etan had finished distributing the fodder to the feedstalls and was hooking up the rubber tubes of the milking machine, he had forgotten all about the stranger.

The last light had died away. It had grown colder. Carpets of fallen leaves turned black in front yards. Dead leaves, whispered to by the wind, gave off a wet, moldy odor that mingled with the smell of standing water. The lamps along the muddy path shone with a doubtful light, more like some sickly yellow substance than incorporeal waves. In the windows of the houses lights burned too. Looking at them from the outside, you saw only flapping curtains and human silhouettes because the panes had frosted over. You could hear a child shout; you could hear sounds of laughter and of scolding, and sometimes strains of music from a radio. As soon as they escaped through the windows and walls, the gayest of the sounds seemed to have a spell cast over them: once outside in the rain they turned woebegone. And yet in the midst of all this frost and darkness, which was not yet the darkness of night but a grayish, winter-sunset darkness, you could imagine, behind each fogged window, families laughing, straw mats piled high with babies' toys, the smell of bathed children, heaters burning with blue flames, women in woolen bathrobes. There, within, life was flowing truly and unhurriedly such as you have never known it, such as you have longed with all your soul to touch, to be part of, so that you need no longer be the outsider in the dark, but, as if by magic, the neighbor, the friend, the equal and brother of those inside, accepted and loved by all until nothing could stand between you and them.

How, then, to penetrate the smells, the indoors, the chitchat, the rugs and straw mats, the whispers, the tunes, the laughter, the feel of warm wool and the sweet fragrance of coffee and women and cookies and wet hair, the rustle of a newspaper and the rattle of dishes, the crisping of snow-white sheets spread by four hands on a soft wide double bed in a lamplit room, the rain drumming outside on the lowered blinds.

Somewhere along the path, in the rain, he saw three ancient men standing, catching a breath of air, then leaning toward one another as if to share some secret or perhaps just huddle against the cold. They were three wet bushes shaking in the wind.

The music from radios suddenly stopped, and the deep voice of a newscaster began to speak in a solemn, determined, patriotic tone. The words were carried off by a gust of wind. The drenched stranger was trying hard to remember Etan R.'s directions. The bakery and the cypress trees were in the right place, but the long buildings deceived him. Instead of just two, there were four or five of them, all lit up like warships in a foggy port. Since the path broke off abruptly, he found himself having to slosh through flower beds. When a low branch struck him square in the face and showered him with sharp needles of water, the humiliation filled him with such anger that he stormed up the nearest flight of stairs to a porch. He stood shivering for a while before finally rousing himself and knocking lightly on the door.

It was there, outside the kibbutz secretary's front door, that the young man was at last able to make out what the newscaster on the radio was saying. "In response to the latest developments, an army spokesman announced a few minutes ago that our forces are prepared for all eventualities. Necessary though limited measures have been taken. Israel continues nonetheless to strive for a peaceful resolution of tensions. Prime Minister and Defense Minister Levi Eshkol cut short his vacation this evening to consult in Tel Aviv with a number of military and diplomatic officials, among them the ambassadors of the Four Powers, who have been asked…"

Azariah Gitlin tried to scrape the mud off his shoes, but in the end had to take them off. He knocked politely on the door a second time, and, after a brief pause, a third. It's the radio, he thought. That's why they can't hear. He had no way of knowing that Yolek was hard of hearing.

Dressed in pajamas and a dark blue woolen bathrobe, Yolek opened the door to carry out a tray with the leftovers from his supper. The meal had been brought to him from the dining room because of his illness. To his astonishment he saw a thin, wet, frightened-looking figure standing face to face with him. Startled eyes glittered at him. Yolek had a start himself, but managed a slight laugh, and inquired, "Srulik?"

Azariah Gitlin was taken aback. Dripping wet, chattering with the cold, soaked with sweat, he answered haltingly, "Excuse me, comrade. I'm not Srulik."

Yolek couldn't hear him above the sudden blast of music from the radio. He simply put his arm around the newcomer to steer him inside and jovially chided him, "Come in, come in, Srulik. Don't stand out there in the cold. All we need now is for you to get sick."

He raised his eyes, only to see a stranger.

He quickly removed his arm from the thin shoulders, but mastered his annoyance and spoke in his friendliest, most positive tones.

"Ah, please forgive me. Do come in anyway. Yes. I thought you were someone else. Is it me you're looking for?" He didn't wait for an answer but announced, gesturing imperiously, "Sit down, please. Right there."

Every winter Yolek suffered from back pains, but now he had come down with a bothersome case of the flu, which made him grimly depressed. He was a compact, very physical man, with hair growing out of his ears. From this graying, furrowed face, set off by a strong mouth, protruded an almost obscenely large nose, giving him the gross, grasping look of a lascivious Jew in an anti-Semitic cartoon. Even when his mind was far removed from practical matters, dwelling on youthful triumphs, on death, on his elder son, who kept getting more remote from him, his was a face that reflected no sorrow, no spirituality, but rather an odd mixture of lust and a patient, bridled craftiness that seemed to be biding its time for some pleasure to come. Sometimes a quick little smile unintentionally flitted across his lips, as though at that exact moment he had finally become aware of the vile machinations of the person he was talking to, who had been foolish enough to think that he could hide his plots from Yolek's probing eyes.

Yolek was used to talking a great deal, to addressing meetings, conferences, congresses, and committees of all kinds, and to doing so wittily. Whether making a point with a joke or with some paradox or parable, he was a master at putting words together in a powerful way, which gave him a secret pleasure. For six years he had represented his kibbutz in the Knesset, and for six months he had been a minister in one of Ben-Gurion's first cabinets. Among his friends in the movement and in the Labor Party he enjoyed the reputation of having a shrewd, almost clairvoyant intellect, one that saw things which others did not. He's a strong man, people said, a careful, clever fellow, honest to a fault, and totally devoted to the cause. If you're faced with a difficult decision, they said, you could do worse than visit Kibbutz Granot and spend some time sounding Yolek out.