At half-past-six, as requested by a note slipped under his door, Yonatan Lifshitz arrived to take the new mechanic to work. He found him fully awake and engaged in light calisthenics. Over greasy coffee in a corner of the dining hall, whose fluorescent lights were already on because of the dimness of the morning, the newcomer talked a blue streak and Yonatan understood hardly a word. It struck him as comical that his charge had dressed for work in clean clothes and a pair of ordinary walking shoes. The questions he put to Yonatan were queer too. When and how had Kibbutz Granot been founded? Why had it been built on the slope of the hill instead of on the hilltop or in the valley below? Was there archival material available from its pioneering days? Was there any point in trying to get the founders of the kibbutz to talk about those times for the record? Would they tell the truth, or would they simply glorify their own works? And the price they paid: Did many of them really lose their lives to Arab marauders, malaria, heat stroke, killing work?

Most of these queries the young man answered himself, and with considerable astuteness, perhaps even some knowledge. Now and then he let drop some bon mot about the eternal, tragic conflict between high ideals and gray realities, or between the social vision of the revolutionary and the passions of the human heart. At one point Yonatan thought he caught the phrase “the clear, certain premises of our mental life,” and he began to feel a weary longing for some clear, bright faraway meadow bathed in sunlight by the banks of a broad river, perhaps in Africa. Once that image faded, he had a faint desire to know what might be eating this young man so early in the morning. Yet this desire too faded rapidly. The rawness of the weather and his own fatigue made Yonatan bunch up inside his clothes. Water leaking through his torn boot was freezing the tips of his toes. What was there to keep him from proclaiming himself sick like his father and half the kibbutz and going back to his room this very minute? No. On a day that should have been declared an official bed day, he had to show this yackety mechanic the rounds.

“Let’s go,” he said, disgruntled, pushing away his mug. “Come on, let’s head for the tractor shed. Have you finished your coffee?”

Azariah jumped up from his seat. “A long while ago. I’m one-hundred-percent at your service.”

To this remark he added his full name, volunteered the information that the secretary of the kibbutz had told him that Yonatan’s name was Yonatan and that he and Hava were his parents. He concluded by quoting some little proverb.

“This way,” said Yonatan. “Watch out. These steps are slippery.”