Which is still the tone between the two of us after more than thirty years, thirty-six to be exact—in fact, closer to thirty-seven. And by the way, don’t think I’ve forgotten the first time we met that October, or was it November, of 1928, when I came to you in despair. You were treasurer of the League of Kibbutzim, and I begged you, quite literally, for a small handout for one of our communes that had just arrived from Poland and was stranded up in the Galilee without a penny to its name. “You won’t get a red cent from me!” you roared, then explained apologetically that charity began at home and sent me to Hartzfeld. Ah, well! Hartzfeld, of course, sent me right back to you. At which point you relented and agreed to make us a loan of what you humorously called “hush money.” I haven’t forgotten. And neither—please be so kind as not to play the innocent—have you.

In a word, that’s been the tone between us all these years. Thirty-seven of them. And, by the way, we haven’t many more left. We’ve almost reached the bottom line. Not that you and I don’t still have a mutual reckoning to make for a long list of sins and transgressions committed against each other. Ah, well! I trust that you’ll forgive me for all of mine. Believe me, I have already forgiven you for yours (except, that is, for the Pardes-Hanna affair, for which there can be no forgiveness this side of the Pearly Gates). But the ledger is nearly full and I feel a great weight on my heart. Our time is up, Eshkol, and—forgive me for talking this way—we’re simply so much dead wood now. It can’t be helped. If only what promises to come after us didn’t give me gooseflesh, no, worse yet, the blackest of nightmares.