Hello there, desert! I happen to know all about you. I know your red cliffs and your black cliffs. I know the mouths of your wadis and their gravel beds, your rock ledges and the secret pools of rainwater in your crannies. Since I was a child I’ve been told how good I am. And all my life that’s what I’ve been embarrassed to be—good. But from now on, all that changes. From now on, I really will be good. To begin with, I’ve given my wife away to an immigrant kid. I wish him lots of happiness with her and an end to all his troubles. And I’ve solved a twenty-year-old problem for my parents, because when they got out of bed this morning, the problem was gone. The best of luck to them. And I’ve handed Rimona a brand-new husband on a platter. He’ll be the perfect little boy for her to baby and bring up. And left them Tia too. And my bed. And the chess table I carved out of olive wood. That’s how good I am. And always have been. Because it’s our duty to be as good as we can until the suffering stops. Srulik once said to me that there’s enough pain in this world as it is and our duty is not to cause any more. And I said to him, hey, why don’t you cut out that Jewish bullshit. A dumbass thing to say, because it was bullshit straight from the heart.

Eshkol and my father and Srulik and Ben-Gurion, the whole bunch of them are the most wonderful Jews who ever lived. You won’t find any better in the Bible. Even the prophets, with all due respect to them, talked a nice line but never did a damn thing about it. But these old men suddenly figured out fifty years ago that the end was in sight and the Jews were up against the wall, and so they took their lives in their hands and ran with them together straight at that wall, do or die, and came busting out the other side and made us a country, for which I take off my hat to them. And cheer at the top of my voice.