The tractor shed was now being run by Azariah Gitlin. He had a hired hand to help him. It had taken all of Srulik’s influence to get the young mechanic’s candidacy for membership approved at a general meeting, and since that time, Azariah’s garrulousness had somewhat diminished. Only rarely would he inform Yashek and Little Shimon over breakfast that there is no embarrassment like a bad comparison or remind Etan R. of what Spinoza already knew hundreds of years ago, namely, that we must accept all things with serenity because fate in all its manifestations is as much the product of Eternal Decree as the sum total of the angles of a triangle must always be one-hundred-and-eighty degrees.

If someone prodded Azariah these days to hurry up and finish working on the combines before the barley harvest began, he would stick his hands in his pockets and drawl in the lazy voice he had picked up from Udi Shneour, “Haste killed the bear, my friend. Why don’t you just leave it to me.”

Yet he started the day before any of the others, rising at four with the first chill light, and put on the beat-up brown jacket Rimona had fixed for Yonatan. Now and then the two of them spent their evenings at Udi and Anat’s or with Etan R. and his girlfriends in their room by the swimming pool. At such times Azariah not only played his guitar but felt free to air his political views. He also found time to turn the earth behind the house with a pitchfork and plant it with sweet peas, and to look after Yolek and Hava’s garden as well. There he cheerfully hoed, raked, pruned, and mowed, fertilized chemically and organically, planted everything from cactuses to carnations, and decorated the fences with various gears, pistons, and other pieces of junk taken from the discard pile in the tractor shed.

Every day after breakfast, before returning to work, Azariah would sit for about ten minutes with Yolek under his fig tree, reading aloud from the headline news of the morning paper. Yolek didn’t hear a word, since he loathed his new hearing aid and refused to wear it. Laying a large, leathery hand on the back of Azariah’s, he might ask, with a trace of wonder, “Eh? What was that? What’s new?” Or declare sadly, “Berl was an old fox himself.” Or else, “No question about it, Stalin never liked us.”

Azariah would straighten Yolek’s knit woolen knee wrap before returning to the tractor shed. He saw to it that the vet who visited the kibbutz every two weeks gave Tia her annual injection, reconditioned and painted an old wheelchair in case Yolek should need it, and accompanied Rimona to Haifa to buy her maternity clothes. On that occasion he bought her a little English book from India on reincarnation and the way to inner peace.