Amos Oz - Don't Call It Night

At one or two in the morning, alone on the balcony facing the silent plain, I sometimes imagine her solitary traveller wandering still among the empty hills of Galilee. Looking for his Daphne in the sheepfolds, or maybe he's abandoned the search and still travels on slowly, aimlessly, along deserted roads. Anyone who has some goodwill can find goodwill everywhere. I still haven't the faintest idea what this means, but the music of the words pleases me more and more. And now he's falling asleep, his breathing is light and even, he looks like a pretty girl, with his head on his heavy backpack, and his flaxen hair falling like a fine veil over his face that I have never seen, alone in the evening light in an uninhabited place, in a remote and pleasant valley where there are birds and a wood and a spring. Or it's not the carpenter's apprentice from Ireland but me lying there, at the foot of the trees, sleeping in the light breeze among peaceful shadows in a valley where there is nothing but a spring and a wood and a bird, and why should I ever want to wake?

IN the morning when he left for his office I went back to the kitchen and continued reading Youngsters in the Trap. I jotted down various details that I intended to follow up. There are three public rehabilitation centres in the Tel Aviv area: one in the Hatikvah district, another in Jaffa, and the third in Neve Eliezer. None of the three is actually a residential centre. Hashish and opium are mainly smuggled from Lebanon. Recently the use of crack, an impure form of cocaine, has become widespread. The hard drug that is most readily available on the market is Persian coke. Most users need one dose in the morning and another in the evening, and its advantage is that its effects continue for several hours and the addict under its influence can continue to function apparently normally. Up to a point at least. As for rehabilitation, some undergo it in prison, whereas other people are actually exposed to drugs for the first time during extended periods of imprisonment. The attempt to keep those undergoing treatment in the company of others who have been cured, and isolated from their usual surroundings, has pros and cons. The dramatic phase of the cure is the "withdrawal", which lasts on average ten days or so but can be as brief as a week and sometimes extends for three weeks or more. The ordeal usually reaches its peak on the second or third day, and is marked by pains, nausea, convulsions and fits of depression or aggression. In extreme cases suicide can occur. Sleeping pills and painkillers as well as intensive massage can alleviate, but do not remove, the withdrawal symptoms. It is recommended to spend the period of withdrawal at home, under constant supervision, with the involvement of the family and an expert team and occasionally also a support group of former addicts who have successfully kicked the habit. This is on condition the family home constitutes a supportive environment and not an aggravating factor, in which case a clean break is preferable. Withdrawal is followed by a period of detoxification lasting six months to a year. During this period it is advisable to keep track of the patient's progress by means of frequent urine tests, although it is possible to cheat the tests by bringing specimens of someone else's urine. It is best not to incarcerate youngsters who have started using drugs but to put them under the supervision of a probation officer and compel them and their families to commit themselves to a custom-built programme of treatment. In the following chapter I read that the heavy addict is someone who lives exclusively on the emotional level, which is why any emotional injury is liable to make him backslide into his old ways. I found the expression "make him backslide into his old ways" wrong and even offensive, while "emotional level" struck me as a crude expression.

Should I go to Elat tomorrow?

Should I look for a girl called Martha?

Should I investigate? Compare testimonies?

And what about the father? Why hasn't he been to Elat? Or has he been and not told me? And why should he have told me?

What did his aunt know? And when?

What was he looking for in the nurse's room? Why did he sneak in there? And why did I freeze up when he hesitantly asked for something to write with? Did he really flutter his eyelids or am I just imagining it now because of Avraham's story?

You can invest all your resources for a hundred years. In the end you won't know anything.

It is better to do the right thing than to try to decipher the truth. Better, like that policeman, to work as far as possible in a drily compassionate way: with the precision and persistence of a tired, experienced surgeon who volunteers for an extra shift because at the last minute as he is driving out of the parking lot of the hospital, on his way home at the end of a long day, he notices that more casualties are being brought in. So he turns round, parks his car, quietly puts on gown and mask again, and returns to the operating theatre.

At the end of July, Avraham Orvieto arrived, alone, without Arbel this time, a lean, ageing, weak-shouldered man in cream-coloured jeans and a crumpled bush jacket. In his quiet, sad voice he promised Theo that he would transfer twenty thousand dollars to him within a fortnight on account for the loan, and that the rest was imminent. Theo said, What's the hurry? Then they talked between themselves about some oversight or error way back in the War of Independence. Avraham hardly said a word to me, except to thank me for the coffee; it may have been because Theo did not let go of him for an instant. I went out to the grocer's and when I got back I found that they had both reached the same conclusion concerning a certain decision taken by Yigal Allon and another famous military commander by the name of Nahum Sarig, nicknamed Sergei. It turned out they had both known him well and been opposed to his tactics, whereas I had never even heard of him, but when they offered to explain to me in what the particular greatness of this legendary commander consisted, and in what way his tactics had been faulty, I said, Thank you, but I am not interested in the subject, and besides, I haven't got the background. In fact I found it pleasant, even enjoyable, to sit between them and listen to them conversing in low voices, like a pair of conspirators hatching a secret plot, as though the War of Independence were still being waged underground somewhere in the Negev Desert, and the blunders and missed opportunities and alternative strategies could be discussed only indirectly, in coded language. Avraham Orvieto mentioned some fortified height by the name of Bir Aslug, and Theo disagreed with him and said, I think you're mistaken, to the best of my recollection that was a little further south, near Kadesh-Barnea. Avraham said thoughtfully, Still, the credit for the flanking movement by way of the ancient Roman Road belongs to Pini Finkel. And Theo said, Permit me to disagree with you there, I think you deserve the credit for that one, Avraham. Pini Finkel was insignificant, when it comes down to it he was killed because of his own superficiality, and by the way he had a son called Nimrod, I brought him up, he lived with me for two years when he was still a wretched youth, I gave him a job, I gave him a hand up, and the upshot was that he was the one who kicked me out of the Development Agency, he didn't do it on his own but he was the one who was behind the cabal. Never mind. It was all a long time ago.

He had never told me. I had never asked him.

I poured them some more coffee and left them alone together. I decided to go and collect a pair of sandals that were being repaired.

I had called a meeting of the committee for eleven o'clock in the morning at our apartment. Theo prepared plates of fruit, glasses for cold drinks, walnuts and almonds, thinly sliced whole-meal bread and a selection of cheeses on a wooden board, and set it all ready on the coffee table. Ludmir arrived twenty-five minutes early, panting, in his khaki shorts and battered flip-flops, and after pronouncing his usual slogan, Noa smoke without a fire, he demolished all the walnuts and most of the almonds by himself. The Ethiopian immigrants, he declared, were being treated here like shir, not that the Russians were faring much better, anyway the Absorption authorities ought to be lined up against the wall and shot, and the quarries ought to be dynamited before they poisoned us all with their dust. Muki Peleg was a quarter of an hour late, looking like that young thinker on the brandy advertisement again, with his flowing locks, and an artistic silk scarf round his neck; he told a couple of jokes, apologized on behalf of Linda, who had joined an organized tour in the Jordan Valley, quizzed Avraham ©rvieto about the girls over there in the Congo, what's that, Nigeria, same difference, then said, Come on then, Theo, start the meeting and let's get it over with.