A. B. Yehoshua: Adam

If I was sure he had been killed, I would give up the search. Whatright have we to be stubborn about a dead lover, there are some peoplewho have lost all that is dear – sons,  fathers and husbands. But, howcan I put it, still I´m convinced that he hasn´t been killed. Not him.I´m sure that he never even reached the front. And even if he waskilled, where is the car, where has that disappeared to? You can´t justhide a car in the sand.

There was a war. That´s right. It came upon us a complete surprise.Again and again I read the confused accounts of what happened, tryingto get to the bottom of the chaos that ruled then. After all, he wasn´tthe only one who disappeared. To this day there is before us a list ofso many missing, so many mysteries. And next of kin are still gatheringlast remnants – scraps of clothing, bits of charred documents, twistedpens, bulletŕidden wallets, melted wedding rings. Chasing after elusiveeyewitnesses, after the shadow of a man who heard a rumour, trying inthe mist to piece together a picture of their loved one. But even theyare giving up the search. So what right have we to persist. After all,he´s a stranger to us. A doubtful Israeli, a deserter in fact, whoreturned to the country for a short visit to sort out some inheritanceand stayed, perhaps also on our account. I don´t know, I can´t be sure.But I repeat, he hasn´t been killed. Of that I´m convinced. And that isthe cause of the unease that has been eating at me these last months,that gives me no rest, that sends me out on the road in search of him.More than that: strange ideas occur to me on his account, that in thethick of the battle, in the confusion and disorder of units disbandingand regrouping, there were some – let´s say two or three – who tookadvantage of this confusion to break off and disappear. I mean, theysimply decided not to return home, to abandon their old ties and goelsewhere.

It may seem a crazy idea, but not to me. You could say I´ve become an expert on this subject of missing persons.

Boaz, for example. Again and again since the cease-fire there hasbeen that announcement in the papers about Boaz, who disappeared.Something like this: Mom and Dad are looking for Boaz. And a picture ofa young man, a child almost, with short hair, a young soldier in theTank Corps, and some astonishing details. At the beginning of the waron such and such a date he was seen in action in his tank in the frontline in such and such a place. But ten days later, towards the end ofthe war, a childhood friend, a trusted friend, met him at a crossroadsfar from the front. They had a short conversation, and parted. And fromthat point on, Boaz´s traces have vanished.

A real mystery –

But we have hardened, reading announcements such as these in thepapers, pausing for a moment and continuing with a weary glance toflick through the pages. This last war has made us numb.

But Boaz´s parents persist, and why shouldn´t they? For years theybrought up a son, walked with him to the nursery, ran with him to thedoctor, made sandwiches for him in the morning when he went away to theyouth camp, waited for him at the railway station when he returned froma school trip. They washed and ironed and worried the whole time.Suddenly he disappears. And nobody can tell them where he is, what hashappened to him. The whole system, nation, society, which absorbed himso voraciously, now begins to falter. And when the parents persist, andwhy shouldn´t they, a young officer is sent to them, well meaning nodoubt but lacking experience. He arrives in a jeep and takes them, on abright winter´s day, on a journey to the middle of the desert, drivinglong hours in silence deep into the wilderness, on roads that are notroads, through the dust and the desolation to a bare unmarked littlemound of sand, vast emptiness all around. This officer boy goes red,stammers, here is where he was seen for the last time. See, even thedry rocks are broken in mourning. How is it possible ...

And I say, these parents who do not give up, who are not contentwith this sandy conclusion beside a lonely hill, who glare with hatredat the young officer, who from sheer anger and disappointment are readyto attack him, these parents demand further explanation, for who canassure them that their Boaz, Boaz their son, is not sitting at thisvery moment, in summer clothes, with long hair, on a distant beach, inthe port of a far-off country, watching the landscape that lies openbefore him and sipping a soft drink. Perhaps he had reasons for notreturning home, even at the price of his parents´ misery. He grewsuddenly disgusted by something, or something scared him. And if hisparents would only study the problem from such an angle, instead ofscurrying from one army office to another, there might be a chance ofpicking up his trail.

But how could they –

I too once visited such an army office, searching for him, and I sawhow hopeless it was, in spite of the smiles and the willingness and thesympathy. But that was only after two months or more, when we realizedthat the lover had really disappeared, that he wasn´t going to return.Until then we had said, he must still be on the move, caught up in newexperiences, confused by encounters with unfamiliar things. What doeshe know about the real Israel. Besides, we were so busy that we hardlyhad the leisure to think about him. Asya was at the school all thetime, filling in for teachers who had been called up, running around inthe evenings between meetings of the emergency committees, visiting theparents of pupils from the senior grades who had been killed orwounded. At night she used to come home exhausted, collapse on the bedand fall asleep right away. And I had a heavy load of work also, thegarage was full of cars already in the first days of the war. Some ofmy customers were on their way to the front, already in uniform, andthey brought their cars in for major repairs, thinking that the warwould be a short one, a quick journey of adventure, a good opportunityto have the engine overhauled or the bearings changed, or get a newcoat of paint, and in a few days they would be returning home, pickingup their cars and going back to their business.

But they didn´t return so quickly. My parking lot filled up. One ofmy customers didn´t return at all. I had to return the car personallyto his parents´ house, to shake hands with the mourners, to mumble somewords of condolence and, of course, to cancel the fee, which amountedto several hundred pounds. The other cars were taken away by the wives,those of them who knew how to drive. I never had so much to do withwomen as in those weeks immediately after the war. They took the carsover, and slowly but surely they ruined them. Driving without water,without oil, even forgetting to look at the fuel gauge. In the middleof the night the phone would ring, and a woman´s voice appeal for myhelp. And I would drag myself out in the middle of the night, roamingthe darkened city to find in a narrow side street a young woman, achild really, standing panic-stricken beside a huge luxury car with anempty fuel tank.

But that disruption also came to an end, and life began to return tonormal. The men came back from the army, wandering about in themornings in their khaki clothes and heavy boots, buying supplies in thegrocers´ shops, dust in gheir eyes, looking dazed, stammering a little.They came and collected their cars and postponed payment. A hard winterwas setting in. Dull days, sodden with rain. It became harder andharder for us to sleep at night. Waking in the middle of the night tothe sound of thunder, going to the bathroom, switching on the radio fora moment. So it was that I discovered the extent of Dafi´s insomnia.the lover´s disappearance began to penetrate. Yearning for him,wondering where he is. Asya knows no peace, running to the phone everytime it rings. She says nothing, but I catch her look –

In the mornings I have taken to driving to the garage by aroundabout route, by way of the lower city, passing his grandmother´shouse, looking for a sign of life behind the sealed shutters with theirpeeling paint. Sometimes even parking the car for a moment and runningup the deserted staircase to examine the broken letter box that hangsthere precariously, to see if there´s a letter or a message for him, orfrom him. Can we abandon him, forget him? After all, who but us couldknow he is gone?