by Edeet Ravel
43.
Novelist55:
I read that girls automatically and universally
demand separate showers when they’re 12.
Nissim73:
Yes, I think that’s right.
Novelist55:
But in the documentary, one woman remem-
bered that she already wore a bra and had her
period etc. in grade 5 but she had to shower
with the guys until the end of grade 6 and she
was very embarrassed.
Nissim73:
I think that’s what the film wants to show—the
group and the collective were more important
than the individual.
Novelist55:
What about in your group, with the 2 girls?
Nissim73:
3 girls
Novelist55:
oh right 3
Nissim73:
In our case the girls were younger than most
of the boys so that it was actually the boys
who didn’t want to shower with the girls. You
know he mostly interviewed people who left
the kibbutz long ago—people who are still on
kibbutz really really don’t like this film. They
feel it’s distorted.
Novelist55:
Well he does leave out one part. We were
encouraged to think independently. I don’t
know about the other kibbutz movements but
I think that’s true of all the Shomer kibbutzim
no?
Nissim73:
Yes but at the same time you were being guided
in a certain direction. It was partly insidious.
Novelist55:
Did you see city people as inferior?
Nissim73:
I guess if I thought about it, but it wasn’t on my
mind.
Novelist55:
Where did Ran Tal get all that incredible
footage?
Nissim73:
He did amazing archival work. I’m dog-sitting
by the way and there’s no Internet here, I’m
using the neighbour’s. It’s a weak connection,
so I might get cut off any minute.
44. October 5, 1973: Shoshana, whom I’ve asked to see, sits on a deck chair outside her Room, dressed entirely in black. She appears to be at ease; she’s taking time off, enjoying the afternoon sun. I say hello and introduce myself. Shoshana shades her eyes and says, “I remember you. You had a good trick for getting rid of hiccups. Block your ears with both hands and drink a glass of water in one go. It worked.”
45. In order to boost the thinning population of Eldar, the Young Guard Federation encouraged a group of young Israel-born adults to join Eldar in 1954. Most were recruited from the Young Guard Youth Movement. A second group followed four years later. In both cases, most of the new arrivals did not last, and by 1960, only 14 percent of the Israel-born members remained. In 1961 the population hovered at 102 adults, 59 kibbutz-born children, and 42 city-born children; a year later it was down to 60 adults. (See Snarey, 1984)
“Every time we sat down for a meal in the Dining Hall, if he was sitting at that table he’d get up and move to another table. He was a heartless man.”
—Interview with Naftali Satie
46. Mess or chaotic situation.
47. The Songs We Sing, illustrated by Hendrik Willem van Loon (1882–1944). The book was a gift for Varda from Dafna, later Lulu’s mother, and the handwritten inscription reads:
12/2/47
Dear Chavera [comrade]—
It has been a real joy to me—your finding the Tongue to the magnificent language of music—keep using it—add to your vocabulary daily—turn and twist your new-found idioms until they become your own—
Wait for me—and together we will speak—in the voice of the world—
Dafna
48. Inn or pub.
49. From Yuval Dror, The History of Kibbutz Education.
50. From the 1922–1944 diary of a young man known only as Takh.i, member of a Young Guard commune engaged in paving a road in lower Haifa and then in swamp drainage and stone clearing; the commune later founded Kibbutz Mishmar Ha’emek.
51. DDT.
52. The Hebrew for “storm” is sa’ara.
53. “The Brave One”; the film won a 1957 Academy Award for best story, though the writer, Dalton Trumbo (of Johnny Got His Gun fame), was blacklisted at the time on suspicion of communist affiliation and could not claim it.
54. Pansies
55.
Novelist55:
Were you afraid of the dark?
Nissim73:
What do you mean “were”?
Novelist55:
Yes, I remember you like to sleep with the light
on.
Nissim73:
When are you coming again? You haven’t seen
my new place in Jaffa.
Novelist55:
I don’t know.
Nissim73:
What time is it there?
Novelist55:
Seven. We haven’t turned the clock back yet.
Nissim73:
I went swimming last night in the sea. It was
past midnight, there was hardly anyone there,
it was so beautiful, the waves rolling in. I
missed you.
Novelist55:
I wouldn’t have been able to go in with you
anyhow.
Nissim73:
Oh yes, I remember, you get a rash.
Novelist55:
Were you at the demo yesterday?
Nissim73:
You mean against the oath? No, I didn’t feel
like it. Too tired after work.
Novelist55:
How was work?
Nissim73:
Next you’ll ask me about the weather. How’s
the book going?
Novelist55:
I’m almost finished. I have this sense, but it
could be wrong …
Nissim73:
?
Novelist55:
Remember Sweet Mud?
Nissim73:
The film?
Novelist55:
Yes. Remember the Minder from hell?
Nissim73:
yes
Novelist55:
She washes their mouths with soap. And she
gives this lecture on sex …
Nissim73:
yes
Novelist55:
I could tell it wasn’t a Shomer [Young Guard]
kibbutz.
Nissim73:
Because of the sex?
Novelist55:
Because of the authoritarianism. I mean it’s
all connected. You need that totally progres-
sive radical approach that Shomer had to
counteract the dangers of the collective …
Nissim73:
I don’t know about that. I always felt the
adults were trying to emasculate us. This con-
cept they had back then, teaching us to obey
and also suffer a little along the way.
Novelist55:
So you don’t think it’s related to being Shomer
or not …
Nissim73:
I don’t know. Sometimes I visit another kib-
butz, it’s like walking into a movie set, it feels
so unreal. Even if you go to the same place ten
years later, it’s already a whole new story.
Novelist55:
Just like no two families …
Nissim73:
Except the happy ones, which don’t exist.
Novelist55:
Still, Shomer had very progressive ideas
about kids, education, etc.
Nissim73:
Didn’t you say Shoshana tied kids to the bed?
N
ovelist55:
One kid. But she did it secretly. If they’d
known, they would have been shocked. They
still don’t know. One guy from Eldar won-
dered about something I said in an interview
and he asked me what I was referring to.
When I told him about Shoshana, he wrote
back Everyone here remembers Shoshana as
a warm, caring person.
Nissim73:
So what else is new …
Novelist55:
But in Dror Shaul’s film everyone accepts that
Minder. Her policies are the policies of the
kibbutz.
Nissim73:
Maybe.
Novelist55:
Did you ever get hit?
Nissim73:
Yes and no.
Novelist55:
?
Nissim73:
We did have one Minder—a guy, actually. He
hit us all the time but he disguised it as play.
And the problem was that we liked him. And
we didn’t know how to think about his hitting.
I still see him sometimes, at demos. Anyhow,
he left the kibbutz.
Novelist55:
There was someone at Eldar who did shmirat
leila [Night Guarding] who choked and slapped
babies. I mean, not everyone likes babies, not
everyone is nice or sane. You’re in your twen-
ties, you’re exhausted, the babies wake you up
for the sixth time, they’re not your kids, four
of them are shrieking at the same time—not
everyone is going to deal with that situation
the way they should.
Nissim73:
How do you know?
Novelist55:
Everyone knows when things happen to them.
What I can’t know is whether it was only the
once or more than once. And I’ll never know
who. Why does that surprise anyone?
Nissim73:
It’s very disturbing.
Novelist55:
Well, you don’t leave babies with random
strangers, it’s asking for trouble. Poor Edna,
she put so much into bringing us up and then
in one night someone undoes it all … Anyhow
we all survived. It’s very moving, in Children of
the Sun, how one woman says at the end that
when she visits her old kibbutz her feet enjoy
stepping on the ground—na’im li baragla’im
lidrokh. I love that phrase.
Nissim73:
What are you wearing?
Novelist55:
I always felt lucky that we grew up without
inhibitions.
Nissim73:
That may be just you.
Novelist55:
I guess I bought it all. I still don’t own any
clothes.
Nissim73:
?
Novelist55:
I mean that I only have 5 or 6 items of cloth-
ing. I like seeing beautiful clothes on other
people but feel strange wearing anything but
jeans myself.
Nissim73:
That’s definitely just you.
Novelist55:
You mean I can’t blame everything on Eldar?
Nissim73:
My parents are into having every latest gadget.
Novelist55:
You mean the whole ascetic ethic is gone …
Nissim73:
hold on a sec
Nissim73:
ok I’m back, had to check something.
Novelist55:
Rakefet’s novel made me realize something.
Taboos are there for a reason. They protect
the vulnerable.
Nissim73:
What happened on her kibbutz, the pedo-
phile—that can happen anywhere. And people
can ignore it anywhere.
Novelist55:
That’s true. Did you have a chance to ask your
aunt if she knows who that sleepy teacher was,
with the honey-coloured hair? I really liked her.
I think the early mornings were hard on her …
Nissim73:
I keep forgetting. I don’t talk to her that often.
Novelist55:
I’m trying to figure out how much I want to say
about Martin’s suicide/accident.
Nissim73:
What happened exactly?
Novelist55:
He was on guard duty, alone for some reason,
and he either shot himself or his Sten went off
by mistake, which apparently does happen.
Nissim73:
Yes, it happened to someone on our base. Not
a Sten of course.
Novelist55:
Poor guy.
Nissim73:
Who, Martin or the guy on my base?
Novelist55:
!
Nissim73:
Have you ever considered suicide?
Novelist55:
No. Life always interested me too much. And
especially since I’ve had my daughter, there’s
nothing I want more than to look after her. It
makes me happy
Novelist55:
just to buy her a new toothbrush …
Nissim73:
Do you breathe down her neck?
Novelist55:
I’m way too busy, Nissim. What about you?
You’re not planning to kill yourself I hope.
Nissim73:
Are you kidding? And miss the next elections?
Novelist55:
:)
Nissim73:
You know about the murder-suicide at Ramat
Hakovesh? I think it was last year.
Novelist55:
Is that a kibbutz?
Nissim73:
Yes. I once went out with someone from there.
Anyhow, one old guy killed the manager and
then himself in an argument over money. Not
exactly money, but the whole privatization
process.
Novelist55:
?
Nissim73:
A lot of kibbutzim are calling in outsiders to
manage the process and suddenly after being
in charge of your life for forty years and not
having to think about money, some stranger
is deciding what your job is worth, what your
pension should be.
Nissim73:
So there’s huge resentment and conflict. The
transition is too radical. I can really under-
stand that guy. It’s cruel, the way it’s being
done in some places. A blogger said it’s
straight out of Orwell. I agree.
Novelist55:
I keep finding out more and more. And I want
to include everything in my novel … I haven’t
even dealt with the whole communal sleeping
thing. How it started, how it ended. I wanted
to include what my father said—that the best
thing about Eldar was having my mother
to himself in the evenings, without the kids
around. But I don’t know where to put that.
Nissim73:
Don’t get overwhelmed.