Between Friends by Amos Oz Page B

he’s brave enough to go to college in Italy without knowing the language and without friends, he should have enough courage to come here himself and not send his mother.”
    “I’ll tell him to come and see you.”
    “Okay, good. But I’m afraid he won’t hear from me what he wants to hear. I’m against private initiatives and private funds in the life of the kibbutz. Yotam has to wait his turn, and when it comes, the Higher Education Committee, along with him, will decide where and how he goes to college and what he studies. When the time comes, if his uncle wants to help pay expenses, we’ll discuss it and take a vote. That’s our way. Those are the rules. But tell him to come and see me and I promise to listen to him and then explain these things patiently. Yotam is a sensitive, intelligent young man and I’m sure he’ll understand our position and withdraw his request of his own free will.”
    The faint, oppressive smell of plants sweating in the blistering heat lay over the kibbutz lands. The hot, dusty air was stagnant. The ficus and pine trees, the myrtle bushes, the bougainvillea and ligustrum shrubs, the lawns and rose beds—all breathed heavily in the darkness under the dense, blazing mass. A gust of arid air mixed with the smell of scorched thorns blew down from the hilltop ruins of the abandoned Arab village of Deir Ajloun. Perhaps distant fires were still burning there. At nine at night, without knocking, Henia walked into Yotam’s room, which was in one of the sheds in the discharged soldiers’ housing area, and told him that the meeting on Saturday night was probably going to reject his request. They’d most likely decide to tell Uncle Arthur that if he wanted to support the education of Kibbutz Yekhat’s youth, he was invited to contribute to the kibbutz college fund.
    “They’re fanatics, all of them,” Henia said. “They’re jealous. Resentful.”
    Yotam said, “Okay.” Then added, “Thank you.” After a brief silence, he said, “You shouldn’t have spoken to them, Mother. It’s too bad you did. Mechanical engineering isn’t really for me, anyway.”
    The night was still gravid and dusty. The thick, inert desert air pressed down on everything. Mosquitoes buzzed around them and two or three moths slammed into the naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling. The tin roof radiated the heat of the day into the room and no coolness came in at the open window. Yotam’s room was furnished with an iron bedstead, a wooden table painted green, a curtain-covered crate used as a closet, a straw floor mat, and two wicker stools. An electric fan stood in a corner of the room, stirring the air to no avail. Visible through the window were the hills that concealed the ruins of Deir Ajloun. Both mother and son were bathed in sweat. The stubble on Yotam’s head, his muscular shoulders, his tanned, broad back in a blue singlet, and his missing front tooth lent him an air of coiled violence he didn’t possess. His almost unnaturally large hands rested heavily on his naked knees. He sat on the unmade bed and his mother on one of the stools. Yotam offered her cold water from the jug that stood under the window, but Henia refused with a dismissive wave of her hand, as if she were swatting a fly.
    “Go and talk to Yoav. I don’t think anything will come of it, I’ve already spoken to him, but you should try anyway.”
    “I won’t talk to Yoav, Mother. There’s no point. They’ll never let me go.” After a brief silence, he added, “I’d like to travel to Italy. Or maybe not to Italy in particular. Just somewhere. But mechanical engineering is not for me.”
    “But you want to go to college, don’t you? And Arthur is offering to pay for it.”
    “What I want, more or less, is not to live here for a few months. Maybe a year. Maybe two. Then we’ll see.”
    “You want to leave the kibbutz?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t say leave. I said travel. We’ll see. I only know that I need to go