To inflict yet more to pity more.

To do so to another and to self.

Unto pain shall be thy desire, and thou shalt rule over it.

Rule over? Horribly enough, the monstrous shadow is already ensconced in the very heart of this nobly sensible commandment, tainted as it is by the exhortation to rule. What does that mean, to rule? What, if not to suppress? To put down. To crush. And then to pity and set free, as it were, so as to crush again more subtly. To rule? Over pain? While pain itself is the rule?

What a farce it all is. What a crude joke is being played on us. So banal and vulgar, so repetitious.

What is that saying Azariah is so fond of? “Only the man who has gone down to defeat knows that the taste of triumph is sweet.” Defeat? Triumph? No, thank you. All I ask is to know how the pain can be lessened, even if slightly, even if for a time. Through solitude? Asceticism? Language? Or, on the contrary, through mindless ecstasy, sensual riot, turning a deaf ear to everything but the clamor of the blood? How dearly I would like to know the answer.

Matthews calls this “purposeless navigation,” not because, in his opinion, it has no biological value, but because its function is simply not known to us.

And Yolek was also right. As always. This impossibly self-indulgent man saw right away that the bizarre, suspicious-looking, hysterically garrulous boy who turned up here one winter night had something special about him that needed to be cultivated, that he might accomplish great things one day and even prove a blessing to us all. Only how did Yolek detect it? Honesty compels me to admit that had it been up to me, and had I been secretary at the time, I would probably have sent Azariah right back out into the night, whether out of caution, narrow-mindedness, the inner equivalent of a shrug, or just a simple disinclination to stick my neck out.

What magical power made Yolek, in his way, and Rimona, perhaps in a totally different way, adopt Azariah? I wish I knew. But I don’t. I am sorry. I’ll stop here because it’s late.

21

The agricultural season was at its height. The days were long and hot and the nights were short. No breeze. Harvesting was done in three shifts, at night too, by the floodlights. Soon fruit picking would begin, followed by the grape and cotton harvests. On the northern border hardly a day went by without firing. One night the kibbutz was hit by border raiders, who sabotaged the water pumps, blew up the empty tin shack in the citrus groves, and crossed back into Jordan before dawn. Nearly everyone—men, women, and children—spent an hour or two weeding and thinning the cotton plants before the regular work day began.