Azariah put in a fourteen-hour day to keep the farm machinery running. Even so, he managed to find time every evening to sit with the campers, discuss and defend kibbutz life, and sometimes lead them in song on moonlit nights.

On the fourteenth of May, our watchman shot and killed an infiltrator by the perimeter fence. On the seventeenth the barley harvest ended and the wheat harvest began. The following day the chamber quintet gave a recital in the dining hall of the neighboring kibbutz. Two days later, as evening began to fall, Yonatan Lifshitz returned. The next day he was back in the tractor shed in his work clothes as if he had never been away. He had grown a black beard, turned brown and lean as a Bedouin, and had as little to say as ever.

Chupka in person, so it was said, had collared him by a kiosk in Yerucham. “Let’s go home, pal. You’ve caused enough trouble already,” he said. “Now get into the command car.” “Okay,” said Yonatan, “just let me get my things.” It was evening when he finally arrived at the kibbutz, reluctantly kissed his parents, reached out to touch his brother, and lugged his knapsack, rifle, windbreaker, greasy blankets, and dirty sleeping bag back to his place. While in the shower, he asked Azariah to throw his things into the overhead closet and put his rifle in the chest under the bed. When he emerged, he asked what was new. And said no more. Until Rimona arrived, when he stated, “Okay. I’m back.”

“You look nice with that beard,” she said. “And with that tan. And you must be hungry.”

The two of them, Azariah and Yoni, slept in the living room that night, leaving the bedroom to Rimona. They continued to do so on the following nights too, Yoni on the couch and Azariah on a mattress on the floor. They moved the radio to their room so they could listen to the news.

“Tia looks fine,” said Yoni one night just before falling asleep. “And you took good care of the garden too.”

“I promised I would,” said Azariah.