How, then, to penetrate the smells, the indoors, the chitchat, the rugs and straw mats, the whispers, the tunes, the laughter, the feel of warm wool and the sweet fragrance of coffee and women and cookies and wet hair, the rustle of a newspaper and the rattle of dishes, the crisping of snow-white sheets spread by four hands on a soft wide double bed in a lamplit room, the rain drumming outside on the lowered blinds.

Somewhere along the path, in the rain, he saw three ancient men standing, catching a breath of air, then leaning toward one another as if to share some secret or perhaps just huddle against the cold. They were three wet bushes shaking in the wind.

The music from radios suddenly stopped, and the deep voice of a newscaster began to speak in a solemn, determined, patriotic tone. The words were carried off by a gust of wind. The drenched stranger was trying hard to remember Etan R.’s directions. The bakery and the cypress trees were in the right place, but the long buildings deceived him. Instead of just two, there were four or five of them, all lit up like warships in a foggy port. Since the path broke off abruptly, he found himself having to slosh through flower beds. When a low branch struck him square in the face and showered him with sharp needles of water, the humiliation filled him with such anger that he stormed up the nearest flight of stairs to a porch. He stood shivering for a while before finally rousing himself and knocking lightly on the door.

It was there, outside the kibbutz secretary’s front door, that the young man was at last able to make out what the newscaster on the radio was saying. “In response to the latest developments, an army spokesman announced a few minutes ago that our forces are prepared for all eventualities. Necessary though limited measures have been taken. Israel continues nonetheless to strive for a peaceful resolution of tensions. Prime Minister and Defense Minister Levi Eshkol cut short his vacation this evening to consult in Tel Aviv with a number of military and diplomatic officials, among them the ambassadors of the Four Powers, who have been asked …”

Azariah Gitlin tried to scrape the mud off his shoes, but in the end had to take them off. He knocked politely on the door a second time, and, after a brief pause, a third. It’s the radio, he thought. That’s why they can’t hear. He had no way of knowing that Yolek was hard of hearing.