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By Root 1001 0

that I got up at five o'clock on the first morning of the summer holidays to go to the Central Bus Station on Jaffa Road. My father had gotten up half an hour before me: by the time my alarm went off, he had already made me two thick cheese and tomato sandwiches, two egg and tomato sandwiches, some peeled cucumber, an apple, and a slice of sausage, and wrapped them in greaseproof paper, with a bottle of water with the top screwed on very tight so it wouldn't leak on the journey. He had cut his finger slicing the bread and was bleeding, so before I left, I bandaged it for him. At the door he gave me a hesitant hug, then a second, harder one, put his head to one side and said:

"If I have hurt you in any way lately, I apologize. I haven't had an easy time of it either."

Suddenly he changed his mind, hastily put on a jacket and tie, and walked me to the bus station. The two of us carried the bag that held all my worldly belongings through the streets of Jerusalem, which were deserted before dawn. All the way my father spouted old jokes and puns. He talked about the Hasidic origins of the term "kibbutz," which means "ingathering," and the interesting parallel between the kibbutz ideology and the Greek idea of koinonia, community, from koinos, meaning "common" He pointed out that koinonia was the origin of the Hebrew word kenounia, "collusion," and perhaps also of the musical term "canon." He got on the Haifa bus with me and argued about where I should sit, then he said good-bye again, and he must have forgotten that this was not one of my Saturday visits to the aunts in Tel Aviv because he wished me a good Sabbath, even though it was Monday. Before he got off the bus, he joked with the driver and asked him to drive with special care because he was carrying a great treasure. Then he ran off to buy a paper, stood on the platform, looked for me, and waved good-bye to the wrong bus.

56

AT THE END of that summer I changed my name and moved with my bag from Sde Nehemia to Hulda. To start with I was an external boarder at the local secondary school (which modestly called itself "continuation classes"). When I finished school, just before I started my military service, I became a member of the kibbutz. Kibbutz Hulda was to be my home from 1954 to 1985.

My father had remarried about a year after my mother's death, and then a year later, after I went to live in the kibbutz, he and his wife moved to London. He lived there for about five years. It was in London that my sister Marganita and brother David were born, that he finally—with immense difficulty—learned to drive, and that he gained a Ph.D. from London University for a dissertation on "an unknown manuscript by I. L. Peretz." Periodically we sent each other postcards. Occasionally he sent me copies of his articles. He sometimes sent me books and little objects intended as gentle reminders of my true destiny, such as pens and pen holders, handsome notebooks, and a decorative letter opener.

Every summer he used to come home on a visit, to see how I really was and if kibbutz life really suited me, and at the same time to check on the state of his apartment and how his library was feeling. In a detailed letter my father announced to me at the start of the summer of 1956:

On Wednesday of next week, provided it is not too much trouble for you, I plan to come and visit you in Hulda. I have made inquiries and ascertained that there is a local bus that leaves the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv daily at 12 noon and arrives at Hulda at approximately 1:20. Now here are my questions: 1. Would you be able to come and meet me at the bus stop? (But if it is a problem for you, if you are busy for example, I can easily ask where you are and find you by myself.) 2. Should I eat something before I board the bus in Tel Aviv, or would it be possible for us to eat together when I reach the kibbutz? Only on condition that it is no trouble for you, naturally. 3. My inquiries show that in the afternoon there is only one bus from Hulda to Rehovot, from where I can take a second bus to Tel Aviv and