the judo both, seemed to have put the mockers on this particular idyll. We left soon after.
5
It was dusk when we picked up the road to the Dead Sea, night when we finally dropped down to it. We ran along the shore, headlights blazing. It was hot, close, very still. Across the water the Mountains of Moab lay like crouched animals. It had been raining up above, but here it was just overcast.
‘It’s Shabat already. We won’t make a disturbance,’ she said, pulling in under the trees at Ein Gedi. ‘They’ll just have gone into the dining-hall. We’ll wait a bit. We can wash.’
A rather switched-on version of L’Cha Dodi , the ancient hymn that greets the sabbath as a bride, was coming out of the dining-hall as we washed. We sat and smoked in the steamy darkness and listened to further renditions. Presently, the season of song over, we went in.
A couple of hundred young kibbutzniks of both sexes, in shorts and shirts, were at their sabbath victuals. We made for the table under the sabbath candles where the sister had kept a place for us, and shortly after, my hand was being wrung all round the table.
All this was very genial, and after dinner became more so, when a social do in our honour developed at the sister’s place. The sister, Miriam, bearer of the family look as Shoshana had said, bore it however in a heavier and more lowering way. She seemed to regard me, an Englishman and a Gentile, with some suspicion as a friend of her sister’s. At all events, when the party broke up she announced that Shoshana would be sleeping with her. The husband, one Avner, walked me to a guest hut.
‘So tomorrow you’ll relax,’ he said. ‘It’s a relaxing place. Just look at us – we relax all the year round.’
I’d already ringed him as the family joker, simple deadpan type, and I contributed a weary smile.
‘Shoshana will show you round. She’s a great kid, full of life.’
‘Is she?’
‘Of course. It’s a shame she’s saddled herself with this Moroccan .’
‘What’s up with him?’
‘He’s a strong silent type – a pain in the arse. Still, Miriam likes him.’
‘So does Shoshana.’
‘She doesn’t know what she likes. Incidentally, get her to take you up to the Cave of Shulamit when it’s cooler tomorrow.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Up beside the waterfall. You’ll like it. Shalom.’
‘Shalom.’
*
In the morning I ran myself in the jeep to Barot. No account was being taken of the sabbath there; work was in full swing. I found Agrot in the administrative tent, out of sorts. He said, ‘I want to give you a run-down on my problems. Then you tell me yours.’
I’d been prepared for this, but I listened. His classification system had gone wild in the scramble to complete; two seasons of work were being endangered; on the results of this expedition would depend his financing for the next; etc. All good and sufficient reasons.
‘Have you finished?’ I said.
‘Also I know what you want me to do. I want you to try and understand the difficulties.’
I listened to them, too: the invaluability of the Faculty of Science; the need to avoid conflicts; the dangers of chemical treatment to an old skin; the fact that decisions on the latter subject were not his but the Department’s.
‘Is that the lot?’ I said again.
‘Speak if you want to! We’re not in a law-court.’ He’d been hanging on to his temper, but he lost it then, and I was glad. It’s easier to be angry with an angry man than a reasonable one, and I’d been feeling my own troubles drowning in the general sea of his.
I said, ‘Because my position is much simpler. I’m doing no good up there, and I won’t, until we get some more dope. I’m not prepared to stay without it.’
‘So we won’t get excited. We’ll try and stay calm. Just tell me what you think I can do. In the light of everything I have told you.’
‘You can take the skin from Himmelwasser and give it to Isaacs. If necessary you can allow
5
It was dusk when we picked up the road to the Dead Sea, night when we finally dropped down to it. We ran along the shore, headlights blazing. It was hot, close, very still. Across the water the Mountains of Moab lay like crouched animals. It had been raining up above, but here it was just overcast.
‘It’s Shabat already. We won’t make a disturbance,’ she said, pulling in under the trees at Ein Gedi. ‘They’ll just have gone into the dining-hall. We’ll wait a bit. We can wash.’
A rather switched-on version of L’Cha Dodi , the ancient hymn that greets the sabbath as a bride, was coming out of the dining-hall as we washed. We sat and smoked in the steamy darkness and listened to further renditions. Presently, the season of song over, we went in.
A couple of hundred young kibbutzniks of both sexes, in shorts and shirts, were at their sabbath victuals. We made for the table under the sabbath candles where the sister had kept a place for us, and shortly after, my hand was being wrung all round the table.
All this was very genial, and after dinner became more so, when a social do in our honour developed at the sister’s place. The sister, Miriam, bearer of the family look as Shoshana had said, bore it however in a heavier and more lowering way. She seemed to regard me, an Englishman and a Gentile, with some suspicion as a friend of her sister’s. At all events, when the party broke up she announced that Shoshana would be sleeping with her. The husband, one Avner, walked me to a guest hut.
‘So tomorrow you’ll relax,’ he said. ‘It’s a relaxing place. Just look at us – we relax all the year round.’
I’d already ringed him as the family joker, simple deadpan type, and I contributed a weary smile.
‘Shoshana will show you round. She’s a great kid, full of life.’
‘Is she?’
‘Of course. It’s a shame she’s saddled herself with this Moroccan .’
‘What’s up with him?’
‘He’s a strong silent type – a pain in the arse. Still, Miriam likes him.’
‘So does Shoshana.’
‘She doesn’t know what she likes. Incidentally, get her to take you up to the Cave of Shulamit when it’s cooler tomorrow.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Up beside the waterfall. You’ll like it. Shalom.’
‘Shalom.’
*
In the morning I ran myself in the jeep to Barot. No account was being taken of the sabbath there; work was in full swing. I found Agrot in the administrative tent, out of sorts. He said, ‘I want to give you a run-down on my problems. Then you tell me yours.’
I’d been prepared for this, but I listened. His classification system had gone wild in the scramble to complete; two seasons of work were being endangered; on the results of this expedition would depend his financing for the next; etc. All good and sufficient reasons.
‘Have you finished?’ I said.
‘Also I know what you want me to do. I want you to try and understand the difficulties.’
I listened to them, too: the invaluability of the Faculty of Science; the need to avoid conflicts; the dangers of chemical treatment to an old skin; the fact that decisions on the latter subject were not his but the Department’s.
‘Is that the lot?’ I said again.
‘Speak if you want to! We’re not in a law-court.’ He’d been hanging on to his temper, but he lost it then, and I was glad. It’s easier to be angry with an angry man than a reasonable one, and I’d been feeling my own troubles drowning in the general sea of his.
I said, ‘Because my position is much simpler. I’m doing no good up there, and I won’t, until we get some more dope. I’m not prepared to stay without it.’
‘So we won’t get excited. We’ll try and stay calm. Just tell me what you think I can do. In the light of everything I have told you.’
‘You can take the skin from Himmelwasser and give it to Isaacs. If necessary you can allow
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