Yolek was used to talking a great deal, to addressing meetings, conferences, congresses, and committees of all kinds, and to doing so wittily. Whether making a point with a joke or with some paradox or parable, he was a master at putting words together in a powerful way, which gave him a secret pleasure. For six years he had represented his kibbutz in the Knesset, and for six months he had been a minister in one of Ben-Gurion’s first cabinets. Among his friends in the movement and in the Labor Party he enjoyed the reputation of having a shrewd, almost clairvoyant intellect, one that saw things which others did not. He’s a strong man, people said, a careful, clever fellow, honest to a fault, and totally devoted to the cause. If you’re faced with a difficult decision, they said, you could do worse than visit Kibbutz Granot and spend some time sounding Yolek out.

“Excuse me,” said Azariah Gitlin, “I’m afraid I’m getting everything wet.”

“I’m the one who told you to sit, young man. Why are you still standing? Sit. Not here. Over there, by the heater. Why, you’re soaking wet!”

Azariah Gitlin placed his guitar case by the chair Yolek pointed to and sat down stiffly and politely, taking care not to lean against its back. Suddenly he jumped up in alarm, removed his knapsack from his shoulder, and laid it with great care on the guitar case as though it, or the case, or both, contained some highly fragile object. Sitting down again as close as possible to the edge of the chair, he grinned at the sight of the puddle forming beneath him on the floor.

“Please excuse me,” he began, “but are you Comrade Yolek? Could I possibly have a few minutes of your time?”

Yolek withheld an immediate answer. Gently, he settled his aching back into a padded armchair, stretched out his legs with infinite caution on a low footstool, and fastened the top button of his pajama top. Next he reached for the pack of cigarettes that lay on the coffee table to his right, extracted one of them, regarded it cunningly as if to show it he was nobody’s fool, and then, with something like a wink, laid it back on the pack without lighting it. “Yes,” he declared, turning his left ear toward his guest.

“I’m really not disturbing you? It’s all right if I get right down, as they say, to brass tacks?”

“Please do.”

“Well, then, first of all, please pardon my sudden appearance. My invasion, I should say. Not that I don’t know that rules of formal etiquette have been abolished on the kibbutz, and rightly so, but I still must excuse myself. I came on foot.”

“Yes,” said Yolek.

“I walked all the way from the junction. It’s a good thing no border raiders are out on a night like this.”