Amos Oz - A Perfect Peace

Srulik wrote back without delay: "Thank you for your offer. In two or three weeks I will bring it before our steering committee. I myself am in favor."

Azariah had put away the kerosene heater in the storage space above the shower and taken down the electric fan, for spring had already given way to summer. On the top shelf of the bookcase he had neatly arranged all of Yonatan's chess books. On the bottom shelf, in alphabetical order, he had arranged Rimona's books on Africa.

At ten-thirty the double bed was turned down for sleep, Rimona sat in her easy chair, in a sleeveless blue summer house frock that revealed her pregnant state. Her hands lay in her lap. A subdued light in her eyes. What might she see among the folds of the brown curtain? Perhaps the forms of the music that issued from the record spinning on the turntable — not The Magic of Chad, not the Mississippi blues given her by Hava, but a Bach violin concerto. Azariah could scarcely take his eyes off her, the stomach swelling beneath her small breasts, the thin knees parted slightly under her blue frock, the blond hair falling on her shoulders, on the left one a bit more than the right. The radiance of her face enveloped her like a fragrance.

She no longer copied out African charms on little index cards. She no longer shaved the light fuzz under her arms either. What was she waiting for? For the cake that was baking in the kitchen? For Azariah perhaps? Almost manly-looking now, not so homely as before, he sat quietly pondering some chess problem on the little board Yonatan had carved out of olive wood. The board was set with only a few pieces: the black king and queen, a black rook and black knight, two black pawns, the white king and queen, two white rooks, and one white pawn. He was taking his time. All was still in the house except for the sound of the turtle scratching away at his cardboard box on the porch. Once Azariah had a secret name for him, Little John. Now he simply called him The Turtle. Once he had played chess intuitively, gambling on wild inspirations. Now he studied it systematically from the books and journals Yonatan had left behind. Once he had relied in the tractor shed on his knowledge of mechanics acquired in army workshops. Now he pored over the maintenance manuals of Ferguson, John Deere, and Massey-Harris. Once he had chain-smoked at this very table across from Yonatan. Now he had cut down, having read in the newspaper that smoke was harmful to pregnant women and could even endanger a baby in the womb.

Rimona suddenly got up from her chair and smiled at Azariah like a child whose naughtiness has been forgiven. She went to the kitchen to test the cake with a match to see if it was done. It was not. As she passed him on her way back, her fragrance of lemon shampoo and bitter almond soap wafted over him. She laid a hand on his forehead, and he responded by touching her on the shoulder.

"Rimona, do sit down."

"Next to you, so you can explain something in chess to me? Or where I was before?"

"Next to me."

"You're so good."

"What have I done?"

"You took him some lettuce."

"I did? Who? What lettuce?"

"The turtle. And you fixed our faucet."

"Because that drip was getting on my nerves. I put a new washer in."

"I'll bring you some tea now and soon there'll be cake. I'll have tea too. Not hot tea, though. Cold."

"Incidentally, I just happen to have had something to drink. With Etan and his volunteers. Did you know he's got a new one? Brigitte, you remember her, has gone. Now there's Diana. But Smadar is still there."

"That's not true," said Rimona cautiously.

"What isn't?"

"Incidentally. Once you explained to me that nothing was incidental. You said that Spinoza discovered that. And you told us about your teacher, Yehoshafat. I believed you, but it made Yoni sad."

Azariah removed a white rook from the board, replaced it with a knight, and shook his head. "You remember everything, don't you? You never forget a thing."

They lapsed into silence. The violin concerto concluded in diminuendos of resignation. The cake was done. Rimona sliced and served it, then poured them both cold tea. "I dreamed about Yoni last night," she said. "That he was in some army barracks playing your guitar. You could see in the dream that he liked it, and that all the soldiers who were there did too. You were also there, knitting him a sweater."

Although the cold weather was long gone, and Rimona no longer pulled her hands back into her sleeves, she still gripped her glass of cold tea with both hands as if trying to warm herself.

The floor gave off a subtly clean smell. Azariah absentmindedly shifted his gaze to the bookcase on the other side of the room. The framed gray snapshot of Rimona and Yoni on their honeymoon in the Judean Desert caught his eyes, a squashed jerrycan in the sand before them, behind them the back of a jeep. It's an odd thing, he thought, but I never noticed that there's someone else in that photograph, a hairy leg in shorts and paratrooper boots.

"He had ten or twenty children, and he was a poor man. He played the organ in church and he did not earn much. Mrs. Bach had no time for him with all her children. Surely he had to help her with washing and cooking, he had to borrow money to buy coal, since it's always winter in Germany. It was very hard for him, yet sometimes he exudes joy."

"I've had no one since I was a child," said Azariah.

Rimona asked whether she should turn on the radio for the eleven o'clock news.

"Forget it," said Azariah. "They talk endlessly, not realizing that we are on the verge of war. Everything points to it: the Russians, the arms race, their impression that Eshkol is weak and sheepish and that we are all tired."

"He is good," said Rimona.

"Eshkol? Yes, he is, though even someone like me reads the situation better than he does. Only I've decided to keep my mouth shut. What I have to say always makes them laugh."

"Wait," said Rimona, "wait, Zaro, time will pass, you will grow and they will start listening. Don't be sad."

"Who's sad?" Azariah asked. "I am not. Just a little tired and have to be up at four. Let's go to sleep."

In bed, by the glow of the radio, which was playing late-night music, he kissed her tenderly a few times. The doctor in Haifa had advised that since her pregnancy was not a routine one, she must refrain from completed sex. She moistened her palms with saliva and began stroking Azariah's penis between them. Almost at once his sperm jetted upon her fingers, and he buried a high, sharp cry in her hair. Once at peace, he kissed her in the corners of her eyes.

By the time she returned from the bathroom, he was already sleeping like a child. She turned off the radio and lay down wide awake beside him, listening as peacefully as the earth itself to Efrat breathing in the dark. As soon as Efrat had fallen asleep, she did too.

Much later, near midnight, Srulik passed by on his nocturnal stroll. He turned off the sprinkler that Azariah had forgotten to tend to on the lawn.

By four, Azariah was out of bed and off to work in the tractor shed. After changing the radiator in a D-6 and fixing an oil leak in one of the combines, it occurred to him to remove the picture of the Minister of Welfare that he had clipped from an illustrated magazine during the winter. In place of Dr. Burg, he put up a colorful picture of the sea, which had been much on his mind as the summer heat grew more intense.

Rimona was off to work in the laundry room two hours later.

"So how's everything?" asked Hava. "Are you sure you're all right? Nothing hurts? Just remember you're not to carry anything."

"I made you a pot of orange marmalade yesterday," said Rimona. "Please don't forget to look for it. I left it on the marble counter in your kitchen."