Free Between Friends by Amos Oz Page A

since morning. They speculated about what Roni would say if someone else had done those things. You can never know, they said, such a quiet guy with a sense of humor, and look at what he’s capable of. At three in the afternoon, Leah appeared, having been summoned by phone from her course. Before going home, she stopped at the children’s house and left warm underwear, clean clothes, and boots for the boy. Tight-lipped, a cigarette burning between her fingers, she informed Roni that after what had happened, she and she alone would be in charge of Oded, and, what’s more, she had decided that, for the boy’s own good, he would return to the children’s house that night.
    The rain had stopped, but the sky was still heavy with low clouds and a cold, damp wind had been gusting in from the west. The room filled with a cloud of cigarette smoke. At seven thirty in the evening, Leah bundled Oded into his coat, pulled his green boots firmly on his feet, and said, “Come on, Oded. You’re going to bed. They won’t bother you anymore.” And she added, “No more running wild for them. Starting tonight, the night guard will do her job properly.”
    They went out, leaving Roni alone in the apartment. He lit a cigarette and stood at the window, his back to the room, his face to the darkness outside. Leah returned at nine and didn’t say a word to him. She sat down on her wicker armchair, smoked, and read her education magazine. At ten, Roni said, “I’m going out for a walk. To see how he is.”
    Leah said quietly, “You’re not going anywhere.”
    Roni hesitated, then gave in because he no longer trusted himself.
    At ten thirty they turned off the radio, emptied the ashtray, opened the sofa, and made up the double bed. They lay under their separate blankets because tomorrow they had to get up for work before six again. Outside, the rain had resumed and the wind blew the stubborn ficus tree branch against the shutters. Roni lay on his back for a while, his open eyes staring at the ceiling. For a moment, he imagined that he heard a faint whistling in the darkness. He sat up in bed and listened hard, but he could hear only rain and wind and the branch brushing against the shutters. Then he fell asleep.

 
     
     
     
At Night

 
     
     
     
    I N FEBRUARY, IT WAS Yoav Carni’s turn to be night guard for a week, from Saturday to Friday. He had been Kibbutz Yekhat’s first baby, and the founders, including his parents, were very proud when, years later, he was elected to be secretary, the first person to hold that post who was actually born on the kibbutz. Most of his friends were tanned, muscular, and sturdy, while Yoav was gangly and slightly stooped, pale and big-eared, carelessly shaved, absent-minded, and contemplative. He looked like a Talmudic scholar. His head always jutted forward as if he were examining the path before him, his gaze usually fixed beyond the shoulder of the person he was speaking to. He managed kibbutz matters with delicacy and tact. He never raised his voice or banged on the table, but the members knew that he was honest, quietly persistent, and good-natured. He, for his part, was almost ashamed of his good nature and always tried to appear scrupulous, strict, and zealously adherent to kibbutz principles. If you asked him for an easier job or fewer work hours, he would answer gravely that such things were absolutely out of the question here and that we must always abide by our principles. But he would immediately begin a discreet search for a loophole, a way around the rules, in order to help you.
    A few minutes before eleven at night, Yoav pulled on his boots and dressed warmly in his heavy, worn-out army jacket and a wool hat that covered his ears; then he went to the duty night guard, Zvi Provizor, to take over the rifle. Zvi, the gardener, said sadly to the secretary, “Did you hear, Yoav? Minnesota is having its worst snowstorm in forty years. Eighteen dead and ten missing so far.”
    Yoav said,