corruption that lay hidden behind the façade, and then sit back and listen to the speeches of reply in which they told him once and for all exactly what they thought of him and his motives. But Dov slipped away without any argument, without accusations or excuses: he disappeared early one morning and did not return in the evening, or the following day. Gone.
As time passed our anger subsided. There was perplexity. There was a shrugging of shoulders: Heâs gone, let him go. Weâve known him a long time. We always knew.
Later a rumor sprung up concerning a girl from Mexico, an itinerant artist, and everything became clear. The kibbutz assumed responsibility for Zeshka and her children. It was Ehud who, at the age of fourteen and a half, constructed with his own hands the revolving milking-drum that transformed our dairy. When he was sixteen years old, he left school and began wandering about the mountains, and at that time he may already have been in the habit of slipping across the cease-fire line and returning unscathed. He made love behind the barn to girls from the Training Corps who were four or five years older than he. When he was drafted into the army he became more settled. At the age of twenty-three he was a major, and his name was known throughout the land. Only Geula caused us concern. Zeshka, too.
Dov went first to Haifa, where he worked on the docks to save a little moneyâhe had sixty-two piasters in his pocket when he left the kibbutz. From Haifa he went to the Novomeisky mineral works on the shores of the Dead Sea. And from there he traveled to places both in Israel and abroad, and we lost track of him. In recent yearsâand this we know from a first-hand sourceâDov Sirkin has settled in Jerusalem and become a geography teacher in the lower classes of a secondary school. His first heart attack forced him to slow down. After the second he gave up teaching and stayed at home. His face has turned very gray.
5
D OV SIRKIN was sitting in his home. It was night. He sat in his chair motionless and erect, not blinking, not yawning. He sketched with firm lines.
Two oâclock in the morning. An unshaded yellow electric light burned overhead. A flake of plaster drifted down from the ceiling and landed on an old wooden chair. Dovâs room was meticulously tidy. Every object lay in the exact spot where Dov had decided to place it, two years before the Declaration of Independence. Despite its precise order, the room seemed to be filled with a strident and unruly herd of piebald furniture. There was chaos in the combination of incongruous objects: the contrast between light, transparent curtains and an antique chest of drawers, an oval table dating from the years of Jerusalemâs Sephardic aristocracy and a dark wardrobe with legs carved in the shape of weird prehistoric creatures. In the middle of all this was a garish, flowery bedspread, colored red and blue and made of lingerie silk. A heavy chandelier hovered above the chaos. In the corner of the room a large flowerpot sent out twisted snakes of cactus in all directions, and in the center, at an ornate desk with gold and silver fittings, Dov Sirkin sat and sketched.
He laid down the compass and picked up a ruler. He put the ruler back in its place and began sharpening his pencil. He pressed too hard, breaking the point twice. Dov decided some compromise was necessary. From a heap of colored pencils he picked out a red and a black.
Many years before Dov had been a laborer in the port of Haifa, then a factory foreman, a trooper in His Majestyâs Bedouin Cavalry, an arms dealer in Latin America on behalf of the Jewish underground, a staff officer in the War of Independence, a development consultant in the Negev, and finally a teacher of geography, which in those days still retained its literal meaning of âdrawing the Earth.â
Â
He sat leaning forward with bowed head. His face cold, as if sparingly made, each detail for
As time passed our anger subsided. There was perplexity. There was a shrugging of shoulders: Heâs gone, let him go. Weâve known him a long time. We always knew.
Later a rumor sprung up concerning a girl from Mexico, an itinerant artist, and everything became clear. The kibbutz assumed responsibility for Zeshka and her children. It was Ehud who, at the age of fourteen and a half, constructed with his own hands the revolving milking-drum that transformed our dairy. When he was sixteen years old, he left school and began wandering about the mountains, and at that time he may already have been in the habit of slipping across the cease-fire line and returning unscathed. He made love behind the barn to girls from the Training Corps who were four or five years older than he. When he was drafted into the army he became more settled. At the age of twenty-three he was a major, and his name was known throughout the land. Only Geula caused us concern. Zeshka, too.
Dov went first to Haifa, where he worked on the docks to save a little moneyâhe had sixty-two piasters in his pocket when he left the kibbutz. From Haifa he went to the Novomeisky mineral works on the shores of the Dead Sea. And from there he traveled to places both in Israel and abroad, and we lost track of him. In recent yearsâand this we know from a first-hand sourceâDov Sirkin has settled in Jerusalem and become a geography teacher in the lower classes of a secondary school. His first heart attack forced him to slow down. After the second he gave up teaching and stayed at home. His face has turned very gray.
5
D OV SIRKIN was sitting in his home. It was night. He sat in his chair motionless and erect, not blinking, not yawning. He sketched with firm lines.
Two oâclock in the morning. An unshaded yellow electric light burned overhead. A flake of plaster drifted down from the ceiling and landed on an old wooden chair. Dovâs room was meticulously tidy. Every object lay in the exact spot where Dov had decided to place it, two years before the Declaration of Independence. Despite its precise order, the room seemed to be filled with a strident and unruly herd of piebald furniture. There was chaos in the combination of incongruous objects: the contrast between light, transparent curtains and an antique chest of drawers, an oval table dating from the years of Jerusalemâs Sephardic aristocracy and a dark wardrobe with legs carved in the shape of weird prehistoric creatures. In the middle of all this was a garish, flowery bedspread, colored red and blue and made of lingerie silk. A heavy chandelier hovered above the chaos. In the corner of the room a large flowerpot sent out twisted snakes of cactus in all directions, and in the center, at an ornate desk with gold and silver fittings, Dov Sirkin sat and sketched.
He laid down the compass and picked up a ruler. He put the ruler back in its place and began sharpening his pencil. He pressed too hard, breaking the point twice. Dov decided some compromise was necessary. From a heap of colored pencils he picked out a red and a black.
Many years before Dov had been a laborer in the port of Haifa, then a factory foreman, a trooper in His Majestyâs Bedouin Cavalry, an arms dealer in Latin America on behalf of the Jewish underground, a staff officer in the War of Independence, a development consultant in the Negev, and finally a teacher of geography, which in those days still retained its literal meaning of âdrawing the Earth.â
Â
He sat leaning forward with bowed head. His face cold, as if sparingly made, each detail for
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