Amos Oz - Between Friends

Oded hadn’t gotten out of bed when the others did but, instead, lay with his face to the wall and thought about a country from the stamp collection that his father said was called the Hazarmaveth, the Courtyard of Death. The name frightened him and he thought that the courtyard of the children’s house located in the darkness right on the other side of the wall was also a hazarmaveth. He pulled the blanket over his head and hugged the rubber duck, knowing it was dangerous to fall asleep or to cry. He waited for the others to get tired and go back to bed, hoping they’d forget about him tonight. His mother was away, his father had gone to smoke with his friends at their table in the dining hall, the caregiver, Hemda, was off somewhere, and the Hazarmaveth was right there in the darkness behind the thin wall, the door wasn’t locked, and there was a wolf lurking in the woods they had to pass on the way home.

Tadmor, Tamir, and Rina tore off his blanket and threw it on the floor, and Dalit chanted in an infuriating singsong: “Oded-pees-his-bed is out of his head.”

Eviatar said, “Now he’ll cry.” And he said in oh, such a sweet voice to Oded, “So, cry a little for us, Oded. Just a little. We’re all asking you nicely.”

Oded curled into himself, brought his knees up to his stomach, dropped his head down between his shoulders, and clutched his duck, which squealed weakly.

“His duck is filthy.”

“Let’s wash the duck.”

“Let’s wash his peepee. His peepee’s filthy too.”

“Give us the duck, Oded-pees-his-bed. Come on, give it to us. Be nice.”

Eviatar tried to pull the duck from Oded’s grasp, but the boy held on to it with all his might, pressing it hard against his stomach. Tadmor and Tamir pulled at Oded’s arms and he kicked them with his bare feet, and Rina pulled at his pajamas. Tadmor and Tamir pried his fingers away from the duck, and Eviatar wrapped his hand around it, wrenched it away from Oded, and waved it in the air, dancing on one leg, chanting, “Oded’s dirty duck is out of luck. Whattya say, let’s chuck it away!”

Oded gritted his teeth, fighting not to cry, but his eyes welled and snot ran from his nose onto his mouth and chin. He got out of bed barefoot and tried to attack Eviatar, who was a lot taller and stronger. Eviatar pretended to be afraid and waved the duck high over Oded’s head, passing it straight to Tamir, who passed it to Rina, who passed it to Tadmor. Oded, suddenly filled with the despair and fury of the weak, gathered momentum and charged Eviatar as hard as he could, smashing into his stomach and almost knocking him down. The girls, Dalit and Rina, squealed with delight. Eviatar straightened up, pushed Oded away, and punched him hard in the nose. When Oded was finally lying on the floor sobbing, Dalit said, “Let’s get him some water,” and Tadmor said, “Stop it. That’s enough. What’s wrong with you? Leave him alone.” But Eviatar went to the dining room, took a pair of scissors out of the drawer, cut off the rubber duck’s head, and went back to the bedroom, the duck’s body in his right hand, its head in his left. He bent over Oded, who was still lying on the floor, and laughed. “Choose, Oded,” he said. “You can choose.”

Oded got to his feet, pushed his way through the children crowded around him, ran blindly to the door, opened it, and bolted straight out into the darkness of the Hazarmaveth that lay beyond the children’s house. He ran barefoot in the mud, shaking all over in his pajamas from cold and fear, ran and hopped, like a hunted rabbit, completely soaked by the rain that dripped from his hair down his cheeks and mixed with his tears; he passed blocks of dark buildings, crossed through the darkness of the small grove near the dining hall, heard the thudding of the black wolf’s paws pursuing him, felt its breath on the back of his neck, ran faster as the rain grew stronger, the wind beat against his face, and he stumbled and fell onto his knees in a puddle, stood up wet and covered in mud, and ran on alone in the darkness between one streetlamp and the next, ran and wept in small, rapid sobs, ran, his ears frozen and stinging, ran until he reached his parents’ house where he dropped onto the steps, afraid to go inside, afraid they’d be angry with him and return him to the children’s house; and there, on the steps, his little body curled up and frozen and shaking, his father found him crying soundlessly when he came back from the evening’s gossip session in the dining hall.

Roni took his son in his arms, carried him inside, removed the wet pajamas, and cleaned off the mud and mucus with a washcloth, then rubbed his frozen body with a large, coarse towel to warm him. He swathed the boy in a warm blanket and turned on the heater while Oded recounted what had happened in the children’s house. Roni told him to wait beside the heater and bolted out into the rain, running, panting, burning with rage, as he raced up the hill.

When he reached the children’s house, his shoes heavy with mud, he saw the night guard, Berta Brom, who tried to tell him something, but he didn’t hear and didn’t want to hear. Blind and deaf with despair and fury, he burst into Oded’s room, turned on the light, bent over and yanked a gentle, quiet boy named Yair from under his blanket, stood him on his bed, and slapped his face savagely over and over again until the boy’s nose began to bleed and his head banged against the wall with the force of the blows, as Roni shouted in a rasping voice, “This is nothing! Nothing! I will kill anyone who touches Oded again!”

Berta, the night guard in the children’s house, grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him off the child, who flopped onto the bed, his sobs thin and piercing, and said again, “You’ve gone crazy, Roni, completely crazy.” Roni punched her in the chest, then ran outside and dashed through the mud and rain back to his son.

Father and son slept with their arms around each other all night on the sofa that opened into a double bed, and in the morning, they stayed in the apartment. Roni didn’t go to work and he didn’t take Oded to the children’s house; he spread jam on a slice of bread and warmed a cup of cocoa. At eight thirty in the morning, Yoav, the kibbutz secretary, appeared grim-faced at the door and curtly informed Roni that he was expected in the kibbutz office at exactly five o’clock the next afternoon for a personal interview at a joint meeting of the Social and Preschool Education Committees.

At lunch, Roni’s friends sat at the gossip table without him and talked about what the entire kibbutz had been talking about since morning. They speculated about what Roni would say if someone else had done those things. You can never know, they said, such a quiet guy with a sense of humor, and look at what he’s capable of. At three in the afternoon, Leah appeared, having been summoned by phone from her course. Before going home, she stopped at the children’s house and left warm underwear, clean clothes, and boots for the boy. Tight-lipped, a cigarette burning between her fingers, she informed Roni that after what had happened, she and she alone would be in charge of Oded, and, what’s more, she had decided that, for the boy’s own good, he would return to the children’s house that night.

The rain had stopped, but the sky was still heavy with low clouds and a cold, damp wind had been gusting in from the west. The room filled with a cloud of cigarette smoke. At seven thirty in the evening, Leah bundled Oded into his coat, pulled his green boots firmly on his feet, and said, “Come on, Oded. You’re going to bed. They won’t bother you anymore.” And she added, “No more running wild for them. Starting tonight, the night guard will do her job properly.”