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Authors: Linda Grant
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and then turn back again. I felt despondent when I realized how far I would have to walk to reach the nearest settlement that was not just another kibbutz.
Occasionally I looked at the babies in the communal kindergarten. There was a kind of controlled anarchy in there, like a Marx Brothers picture. They crawled about without any discernible regulation and made various colorful messes. I wished my own life were so free from regulation.
I had come to a place where life was stripped back to the basics, where survival was, if not the only point, the underlying system from which everything else flowed. Once there had been an original community of wanderers who had come together from the Soviet Union and had acted always through a sense of joy. But where was the joy now? It was no longer the dream of a collective life which seemed to urge them on, but the efficient maintenance of the collective life’s conditions in order that crops were grown and buildings erected. And the happiness which saturated their early labors had seeped away with their sweat into the dry soil.
As I hosed down the urinals I longed for the city’s friction, for its disorder and everything else that made things interesting. And
still
there was no sign of Meier wanting to have sex with me, a desire which had started to occupy almost all of my attention.
A group was putting together proposals to paint a mural on the side of the administration block, depicting the founding years of the settlement. There was no official rejection of art as an inappropriate activity for a kibbutznik, just an understanding that it came very low on the list of priorities for building the utopian life. There was one artist, but he was so embarrassed about being seen going out with an easel strapped to his back and a box of colors, that he preferred to paint indoors, depicting over and over again the same rectangle of scenery that lay more or less unchanging apart from the minor differences made by the seasons, outside his window. I had had no great urge to paint since I had been on the kibbutz. How could I paint the heat? I had no idea.
A mural, however, was considered to have a utilitarian function. It would act as a visual record, particularly useful for new arrivals who did not speak the language, and would motivate them to continue the sameback-breaking labor as the original pioneers without which there would have been no housing units or kitchen or dining room or showers—those luxuries the latecomers like me seemed to take for granted. I was approached and asked if I would like to contribute, and with a paintbrush in my hand I was Evelyn again, even while sketching out scenes in which I showed Meier digging the foundations of our houses or addressing a meeting of the council.
“Do you like Meier?” Leah asked me.
“Of course not,” I lied. “He’s ancient.”
“He likes young girls.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has a young girl sometimes. His wife doesn’t approve but she has to put up with it. It was discussed in a meeting last year but he defended himself. He says is it a bourgeois romantic illusion to believe that one person can fulfill everything for another person.”
“What happens with these girls he has?”
“Just a little sex, a little talking. But the sex always comes before the talking.”
“He talks to me.”
“Well, if he hasn’t wanted sex with you yet, he isn’t going to. Maybe you’re too old.”
“I’m only twenty.”
“Fira was seventeen when she had her time with him.”
“Why does he do it?”
“He likes to remember what it was like to be young. He wants to be a young pioneer all over again, and not a man of forty-five with a wife who is also forty-five.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Everyone knows. And anyway, it’s perfectly clear if you understand psychology. I want to leave here soon and go to Jerusalem and study at the university.”
“This isn’t enough for you?”
“No.”
“It’s
Occasionally I looked at the babies in the communal kindergarten. There was a kind of controlled anarchy in there, like a Marx Brothers picture. They crawled about without any discernible regulation and made various colorful messes. I wished my own life were so free from regulation.
I had come to a place where life was stripped back to the basics, where survival was, if not the only point, the underlying system from which everything else flowed. Once there had been an original community of wanderers who had come together from the Soviet Union and had acted always through a sense of joy. But where was the joy now? It was no longer the dream of a collective life which seemed to urge them on, but the efficient maintenance of the collective life’s conditions in order that crops were grown and buildings erected. And the happiness which saturated their early labors had seeped away with their sweat into the dry soil.
As I hosed down the urinals I longed for the city’s friction, for its disorder and everything else that made things interesting. And
still
there was no sign of Meier wanting to have sex with me, a desire which had started to occupy almost all of my attention.
A group was putting together proposals to paint a mural on the side of the administration block, depicting the founding years of the settlement. There was no official rejection of art as an inappropriate activity for a kibbutznik, just an understanding that it came very low on the list of priorities for building the utopian life. There was one artist, but he was so embarrassed about being seen going out with an easel strapped to his back and a box of colors, that he preferred to paint indoors, depicting over and over again the same rectangle of scenery that lay more or less unchanging apart from the minor differences made by the seasons, outside his window. I had had no great urge to paint since I had been on the kibbutz. How could I paint the heat? I had no idea.
A mural, however, was considered to have a utilitarian function. It would act as a visual record, particularly useful for new arrivals who did not speak the language, and would motivate them to continue the sameback-breaking labor as the original pioneers without which there would have been no housing units or kitchen or dining room or showers—those luxuries the latecomers like me seemed to take for granted. I was approached and asked if I would like to contribute, and with a paintbrush in my hand I was Evelyn again, even while sketching out scenes in which I showed Meier digging the foundations of our houses or addressing a meeting of the council.
“Do you like Meier?” Leah asked me.
“Of course not,” I lied. “He’s ancient.”
“He likes young girls.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has a young girl sometimes. His wife doesn’t approve but she has to put up with it. It was discussed in a meeting last year but he defended himself. He says is it a bourgeois romantic illusion to believe that one person can fulfill everything for another person.”
“What happens with these girls he has?”
“Just a little sex, a little talking. But the sex always comes before the talking.”
“He talks to me.”
“Well, if he hasn’t wanted sex with you yet, he isn’t going to. Maybe you’re too old.”
“I’m only twenty.”
“Fira was seventeen when she had her time with him.”
“Why does he do it?”
“He likes to remember what it was like to be young. He wants to be a young pioneer all over again, and not a man of forty-five with a wife who is also forty-five.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Everyone knows. And anyway, it’s perfectly clear if you understand psychology. I want to leave here soon and go to Jerusalem and study at the university.”
“This isn’t enough for you?”
“No.”
“It’s
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