Between Friends (10 page)

His legs carried him across the square in front of the recreation hall and past the children’s house on the way back to the kibbutz office next to the bus stop. He crossed the lawn in front of the dining hall. As if in a dream, he stopped and stood in front of the office window. Had she fallen asleep without turning off the light? Or was she still awake? On tiptoe, he approached the window and peered inside. Nina was lying on the bench covered with the woolen blankets he’d brought her, her blond head resting on the pillow, open eyes fixed on the ceiling. If he were to tap lightly on the window, she would startle and he didn’t want to alarm her. So he backed away quietly and stood there, the rifle slung over his shoulder, among the cypress trees in the darkness. And asked himself, but got no reply.

He could just knock on the door, go inside, and say, I saw that the light was still on and only came in to see if you need anything. Or: I came in to check that you’re not cold. Or: I came in to see if you feel like talking for a while. All this time, she’s been lying there on the other side of the wall with her eyes open, he thought, and maybe you’re what she’s waiting for and it’s two in the morning now and the entire kibbutz is asleep.

He went back to the lit window, his hat down over his ears, head jutting forward, glasses glittering faintly in the dark as the light reflected off them, his heart going out to her but his legs planted firmly in place. Hadn’t he been waiting all these years for just this moment? So why, instead of bursting with daring or passion, was he filling up with a vague sense of sadness? Then he walked silently around the building and stood for a while at the door, listening as hard as he could, hearing only the wind gusting through the pine needles. Finally, he sat down on the step in front of the door, pulled his hat even further down over his ears, and waited. He sat like that for about half an hour, feeling that something was almost becoming clear to him, but what that something was, he didn’t know. A jackal cried from the darkness beyond; others answered it with a despairing sound from the direction of the orchard. He raised the rifle, his finger found the trigger, and only with the last vestige of his rational mind did he resist the urge to fire a long barrage into the air and tear the silence apart.

At three thirty, he stood up and went to wake the dairy workers for the predawn milking. Then he did a last check along the fence and crossed the square back to the dining hall to turn on the electric samovar for the early-morning shift. The sun wouldn’t rise until after six, and his guard duty ended at five. He still had to walk among the houses and wake the people whose names appeared on the list he had in his hand. There was no point in waiting for sunrise because it would most likely take place behind the mass of thick clouds. He had to go home now, shower, lie down, close his eyes, and try to sleep. Tomorrow, something might finally become clear to him.

I
T WAS A
sweltering, oppressive day. A low, dirty gray sky hunched over us as if the desert had risen up and spread out upside down above the roofs of our small houses. The air was filled with fine dust that mixed with sweat and covered foreheads and arms with a sticky layer of whitish mortar. Henia Kalisch, a widow of about fifty, went into the bathroom during the lunch break, took off her work clothes, and stood for a while under a torrent of cold water. Her lips were always tightly clenched and two bitter lines stretched from the corners of her lips to her chin. Her body was as angular and flat as a boy’s and her legs were crisscrossed with blue and pink veins. The cold water washed off the dust and refreshed her skin, but did not allay the sense of malaise. After her shower, she toweled herself brusquely, dressed again in her gray work shirt and navy-blue work trousers, then walked resolutely back to her shift in the kibbutz kitchen. That very evening she planned to talk to Yoav Carni the secretary, David Dagan the teacher, Roni and Leah Shindlin, and a few other influential members of the kibbutz in an effort to drum up support for the vote at the general meeting on Saturday night.

On the back porch of the kitchen, bathed in sweat, they sat on stools across from each other peeling vegetables and slicing them into a large pot, and Brunia said to her, “There’s no point in bringing that up at the meeting, Henia. They’ll bite your head off.”

Henia said, “But it’s good for everyone. The kibbutz’ll be able to shorten the waiting list for college.”

Brunia chuckled. “Your Yotam has no special standing here. No one does. Except for the select few.”

As she pushed away the pile of peelings and put a new crate of vegetables between them, Henia tried to sound out Brunia: “But at least you, Brunia, you’ll vote for Yotam’s request at the Saturday night meeting, won’t you? You’ll support us, right?”

“Really? And why should I vote for him? When my Zelig asked to work in the vineyard six years ago, did you support him? You all voted against him. All you hypocrites and paragons together. Then you spoke so nicely at his funeral.”

Henia said, “The pot is already full. We need to start a new one.” Then she added, “Don’t worry, Brunia. I have a very long memory, too. A very, very long memory.”

The two widows continued peeling and cutting vegetables in total silence, their knives glittering.

After work, Henia Kalisch returned to her apartment, showered with cold water again, shampooed her graying hair, and this time dressed in her after-work clothes—a beige blouse, straight cotton skirt, and lightweight sandals. She had coffee, cut two pears into slices exactly the same size and ate them slowly, washed her cup and plate, wiped them, and put them in the cupboard. The windows and shutters were closed against the blazing heat and the curtains were pulled tightly shut. The room was dark and cool, a pleasant clean smell rose from the washed floor tiles. She didn’t turn on the radio because the arrogant voices of the news announcers made her angry: They always sound as if they know everything, and the truth is that no one really knows anything. People don’t love each other anymore. At first, when the kibbutz was founded, we were all a family. True, even then there were rifts, but we were close. Every evening we’d get together and sing rousing songs and nostalgic ballads till the small hours. Afterward, we went to sleep in tents, and if anyone talked in their sleep, we all heard them. These days, everyone lives in a separate apartment and we’re at each other’s throats. On the kibbutz today, if you’re standing on your feet, everyone is just waiting for you to fall, and if you fall . . . they all rush to help you up. Brunia is a monster and the whole kibbutz is right to call her a monster.

In her mind, Henia wrote a letter to her younger brother Arthur, who’d been living in Italy for a few years now and had become rich from his business there. She didn’t know the nature of that business, but, putting two and two together, she thought it had something to do with spare parts for machines that manufactured weapons: in 1947, on the eve of the War of Independence, Arthur had been sent to Italy by the Haganah, with the consent of the kibbutz, to purchase arms for the underground and machines to manufacture light weapons for the nascent country. After the war, he stayed in Italy, and ignoring the anger of the kibbutz members and the general meeting’s condemnation, he settled down in a suburb of Milan, where he began to spin the web of his shadowy business. In 1951, he sent Henia a picture of himself with his new wife, who was fifteen years younger than he was, an Italian girl who looked soft and a bit mysterious in the photo because her thick black hair covered her eyes and she was hiding one of her cheeks with her hand. Several times, he’d sent Henia small gifts.

Two weeks ago, Arthur wrote to her saying that he was going to ask Yotam to come and study mechanical engineering at the Milan Polytechnic Institute. He could live with him and Lucia, they had a large home, and he, Arthur, would pay the boy’s tuition and all his living expenses for his four years at the Institute. Tell them on the kibbutz, Arthur wrote, that I’m saving them a lot of money, or they would have to pay Yotam’s tuition and living expenses when it’s his turn to go to college. With the money I save them, they can send someone else to college. And I’ll invite you too, Henia, to come and visit us once or twice a year.

Once, when Yotam was about six, Uncle Arthur came for a visit, on a Haganah motorcycle, and took him for a ride around the kibbutz. How surprised and envious the other children were when they saw him sitting pressed up against his uncle’s strong body, which gave off a pungent, pleasing smell of pipe tobacco when he held him high in the air and said, “Grow up, grow older, be a soldier.”

Yotam was short, tanned and muscular, broad and sturdy, and his roundish head was topped with hair clipped almost to the roots. He had large, very strong hands. He wasn’t good-looking, and when he was spoken to, a faint expression of wonder spread across his face, as if all the words directed at him surprised or frightened him. A missing front tooth, along with his wrestler’s body, made him look belligerent. But contrary to his appearance, Yotam was a shy young man who spoke little, though from time to time he would suddenly come out with a strange, sweeping statement. On the kibbutz, we called him a philosopher because he once emerged from his silence to claim that man has the basic nature of a freakish animal. Another time, at dinner in the kibbutz dining hall, he said that there were more similarities than differences among humans, animals, plants, and inanimate objects. Roni Shindlin’s response to that, given behind Yotam’s back, was that Yotam Kalisch himself really did bear a slight resemblance to a box or a packing crate.

Yotam had been discharged from the army about six months before his Uncle Arthur’s letter and went to work in the orchards. He wasn’t an outstanding worker; there was a certain languor about him. But his coworkers were impressed by his great physical strength and his willingness to work overtime when necessary. When Uncle Arthur’s letter arrived from Italy, Yotam delayed for two or three days, then finally said to his mother in a low voice, as if admitting guilt for some crime, “Yes, but only if the kibbutz agrees.”

Henia said, “It’ll be hard to get a majority at the meeting. There’ll be a lot of jealousy and resentment.”

Roni Shindlin said to his regular tablemates in the dining hall, “What a shame that rich uncles in Italy are in such short supply these days. It wouldn’t hurt if we each had one. Then we could send all the young people to college at his expense. Problem solved.”

And David Dagan, the teacher, said to Henia that he would oppose Yotam’s request for three reasons. First, on principle, every young man and woman has to work on the kibbutz for at least three years after the army and only then can the possibility of college be considered. Otherwise, there won’t be anyone left here to milk the cows. Second, such gifts from rich relatives strike a serious blow against the principle of equality. Third, the young people who leave to attend college should study something that will benefit our society and our enterprises here on the kibbutz. What do we need a mechanical engineer for? We have two mechanics working in the garage and they’re doing just fine without a certified professor there.

Henia tried in vain to soften David Dagan, citing young people’s innate right to self-fulfillment. David Dagan chuckled and said, “Self-fulfillment, self-fulfillment, it’s nothing but self-indulgence. Just give me a minute so we can set things straight: either every one of us, without exception, gives an eight-hour workday six days a week or there’ll be no kibbutz here at all.”

That evening, Henia went to see Yoav Carni, the secretary, in his apartment and told him that she had to put all her cards on the table: if the kibbutz meeting on Saturday night didn’t let Yotam accept his Uncle Arthur’s invitation to go to college in Italy, there was a chance he might go anyway, without their permission. “Do you really want to lose him? Don’t any of you care at all?” This ultimatum was entirely Henia’s idea because Yotam had, of course, told her the opposite, that he would accept Uncle Arthur’s invitation only if the kibbutz agreed.

Yoav Carni asked, “Why did you come here, Henia? Why doesn’t Yotam himself come to talk to me?”

“You know Yotam. He’s a boy who keeps things close. Introverted. He has inhibitions.”

“If he’s brave enough to go to college in Italy without knowing the language and without friends, he should have enough courage to come here himself and not send his mother.”

“I’ll tell him to come and see you.”

“Okay, good. But I’m afraid he won’t hear from me what he wants to hear. I’m against private initiatives and private funds in the life of the kibbutz. Yotam has to wait his turn, and when it comes, the Higher Education Committee, along with him, will decide where and how he goes to college and what he studies. When the time comes, if his uncle wants to help pay expenses, we’ll discuss it and take a vote. That’s our way. Those are the rules. But tell him to come and see me and I promise to listen to him and then explain these things patiently. Yotam is a sensitive, intelligent young man and I’m sure he’ll understand our position and withdraw his request of his own free will.”