He slept all of the next day. In the evening the old man made him a salad and served it with dark bread and jam. Within a day or two Yonatan was doing the cooking. Before the week was out he was accompanying Tlallim on expeditions to survey sites and on forays to collect rock and mineral samples from all over the desert. He cleaned up the trailer. He scrubbed the theodolites. The old man called him malchik. He brayed with laughter every time he remarked, Pshol von, ty chudak, and Yonatan would respond with a faint, bewildered smile. One day, Yonatan happened to see that smile reflected in a broken mirror in a corner of the trailer, and he was struck dumb. It was an exact replica of Rimona’s, the woman who had been his wife.

“Listen. Once I had a little friend who taught me a Russian proverb—‘He who helps a friend in woe is like a fur coat in the snow.’ ”

“A lie!” roared the old man. “No such proverb in the whole Russian language! Never was! Never will be! A bald-faced lie!”

But nothing else is. I’m rid of my allergy. I’ve stopped smoking. And I’ve grown a beard. I’m beginning to understand. And my heart is getting true because everything is looking up. Maybe I should go see Michal tonight? Why not?

19

At last the winter came to an end. The rains had stopped. The clouds were gone. Punishing winds gave way to soft sea breezes. By the last week of March Srulik could sit every evening on his little porch and watch the flocks of migrating birds cross the reddening heavens on a northwesterly course.

Despite the winter floods the crops did well. By April the barley and wheat fields had spread ripples of green all the way to the hills in the east. Only now did the apple orchards burst into full bloom. The pears put on their nuptial raiment of trembling white blossoms, and westerly winds carried their carnal scent. The mud roads had dried up. The fig, the almond, and the walnut put forth their rejoicing leaves. Dormant grape arbors reawakened to their entwined green lives. The rose bushes, pruned during the winter, were again in bud. Early each morning, long before sunrise, the whole kibbutz echoed with the outcry of sparrows in treetops. The hoopoe tirelessly repeated its daily matins and doves cooed insistently under the eaves.