“Well, what’s the matter? The bell is ringing.” Yes, it really is the bell, as if from the sky, like the ringing of cowbells. And I have no books and no notes and I don’t know what I’m supposed to be teaching or which classroom I’m supposed to be in. I say to him, “This is a real revolution …” and as always he echoes my words:
“A revolution … precisely, a revolution …” He laughs. “People don’t understand that … come and see …”
And suddenly he has time to spare despite the bell, leading me to a little cave, a crevice really, and there under a pile of stones is a bundle of page proofs for a book. There the true revolution is written. But the text itself I recognize as the text of his old handbook for the matriculation exams in Bible studies. Simplified explanations of passages set for the exams.
And meanwhile there is silence all around. The great camp is still, students sitting in tight circles and the teachers knitting in the centre and someone reading from a book. I feel tense and excited. The word “revolution” will not leave me alone. I want to find my class. I want desperately to teach. Such a pain in my chest from wanting to be with my pupils. I know that they are beside the little acorn tree. I go in search of them but now I can’t remember what an acorn tree looks like, I’m staring at the ground searching for acorns. Going down a hill slope to a big wadi. It seems the enemy lines are not far away. Not children patrolling here but grown men, soldiers. Grey-haired men with helmets and firearms. Advance positions among the rocks. The sky clouding over towards evening.
I ask about the little acorn and they show me a little acorn on the ground, light brown. “We are your class.” They laugh. I don’t mind talking to adults. On the contrary. And the faces are familiar, fathers of children in the seventh and eighth grades who come to parents’ meetings. And they are sitting on the ground but not looking at me, their backs are turned and their eyes are on the wadi. They are so uneasy. And I want to say something of general significance about the importance of studying history. Someone stands up and points to the wadi. A suspicious movement there. It’s an old man wearing a hat and he’s walking down the wadi with such determination, receding in the distance towards the enemy lines. My heart stands still. He looks like my father. Is he here too? Does he belong here or not? Walking erect and excitedly down the rock-strewn ravine. What sort of a revolution is this, I wonder, what are they talking about? It’s a war, it’s only a war.
VEDUCHA
A stone laid on a white sheet. A big stone. They turn the stone wash the stone feed the stone and the stone urinates slowly. Turn the stone clean the stone water the stone and again the stone urinates. The sun disappears. Darkness. Quiet. A stone weeping why am I only a stone weeping stone. She has no peace begins to stir rolls without sound hovers over a dirty grey floor a great desert there is nothing a giant swamp a dead burned land. Wanders till she stumbles on tight ropes cables in a dark tent touching a spade. A stone halting a stone sinking. A root stirs in the stone, embracing crumbling entwining within. A stone not a stone dying and sprouting a stone sprouting a stone a plant among plants among stillness burrowing in the dust rising from darkness a strong branch and more branches. Strong growth a plant clad in leaves among leaves. A great sun outside. Day. A great old plant on a bed. They turn the plant clean the plant give tea to the plant and the plant still lives.
ADAM
Actually it was us who sent him to the army, he received no orders, nor could he have. Two hours after the alarm was sounded he was already with us. Apparently we didn’t hear his knock and instead of waiting he opened the door with a key that Asya had given him. So he’s already got a key to the house, I thought, but I said nothing, just watched him as he came into the room, confused, agitated, talking in a loud voice. As if the war that was breaking out was directed personally against him. He asked for explanations, and when it became clear that we had nothing to tell him he seized the radio and began frantically searching for news, for information, going from station to station, French, English, even pausing for a while over a Greek or a Turkish broadcast in his attempt to put some facts together.
He was growing pale, his hands shaking, he couldn’t relax.
For a moment I thought, he’s going to faint, like that time in the garage.
But there was also the freedom with which he behaved in the house. The way he touched things, going to the kitchen and helping himself to food, raiding the fridge. He knew exactly where to find the big atlas when he wanted to look at a map. And there was the way he behaved towards Asya, interrupting her in mid-sentence, touching her.
In recent months pictures of that evening have come into my mind again and again. The last pictures of him before his disappearance.
The twilight hour, him standing in the middle of the big room, his white shirt straggling out of his black trousers, his thin delicate back a little exposed. The big atlas open in his hands and him standing there explaining something to us, and she, her face flushed with embarrassment and fear, nervously watching, following his movements as if afraid that he’ll break something. This is a real lover, I thought, she’s really fallen for him.
And in the middle of all this, the war breaking out with such force. The certainty of a new reality overtaking us, there would be no going back. The evening came down quickly and we put no lights on in the house so we could leave the windows open. Every plane flying overhead sent him rushing out to the balcony. Was it one of ours or one of theirs, he had to know. He even gave me a piece of paper and asked me to draw a MiG and a Mirage and a Phantom, and he would take the miserable sketch outside with him, his eyes fixed on the sky.
“What do you mean one of theirs?” growled Dafi, who was sitting all the time in a corner, scowling, not taking her eyes off him.
“But their air force hasn’t been destroyed,” he explained with a grim smile. “This time it will be a different story.”
A defeatist? Not exactly. But there was something strange about him. He was interested only in peculiar practical questions. What was the range of their missiles, could they blow up the ports from sea, would there be food rationing, how soon would he be able to leave the country? He had been abroad for more than ten years, he had no idea what goes on here in wartime. He had old-fashioned, European ideas.
I was patient towards him. I answered his questions, tried to reassure him. Watching Asya, who sat on the edge of the sofa under the lamp, which had an old straw hat for a shade, a stack of exercise books on her lap, a red pencil in her hand, trying to calm herself, I know, but not succeeding, a grey woman with white streaks in her hair, wearing an old dressing gown and flat slippers, her face drawn and the tension filling it with light and power. In love despite herself, against her will, confused by her love, ashamed perhaps. Saying hardly a word, just getting up from time to time and fetching something to eat or drink, coffee for me, fruit juice for Dafi, a sandwich for Gabriel, and all the time the endless stream of garbled information — reports from correspondents, television interviews, foreign stations, news pouring out from all directions but obstinately repeating itself. The phone rings. It’s the garage foreman, telling me he’s been called up. I myself phone several of the mechanics at home, it turns out they’ve all been called up, some of them as long ago as yesterday afternoon.