The cabin door swung open. Standing there in his uniform with his officer’s bars and paratrooper wings, Yosi demanded to know the identity of ‘the pious bombshell in my parents’ house’.
Uri burst out laughing. The twins laughed. I could feel my gorge rise at the affection they displayed despite the differences between them. Yosi had also received mail from his parents, and now the two of them sat down to compare letters and photographs.
‘It’s about time Father got some fun out of life,’ smiled Uri, though Yosi thought that ‘instead of teaching all those darkies’, Avraham should have found work as an adviser in some new settlement on the Golan Heights.
I stood by the sink, slicing vegetables for a salad. First the onion and tomatoes, then the cucumbers and green pepper. Perhaps their fresh tang would be wafted far away, as far as the ends of the earth.
I liked being with Uri, and Yosi’s appearance annoyed me. I knew I would have to put him up in the cabin and regretted having agreed to give Avraham and Rivka’s place to the cantor.
‘Why don’t you two take a walk,’ I said. ‘Supper will be ready in half an hour.’
‘What’s the matter, Baruch?’ asked Yosi. ‘Don’t you like being with your cousins? Or are you afraid we might sting you for a loan?’
‘I’m not afraid, and I’ll be glad to get out of here as soon as either of you wants the farm back,’ I said.
‘Who said anything about wanting the farm back or you leaving it?’ asked Uri. ‘Why do you always take everything so seriously?’
‘It would take a heavy infantry company to get you out of here,’ said Yosi in the clipped military tone he had learned from Uzi Rilov. He began chuckling too loudly with that wrong-way laugh of his, breathing in instead of out in spasmodic, infuriating jerks. The muscles in the back of my neck tensed.
‘If Uri wasn’t here now,’ I told him, ‘you’d go flying out the window, right back into that damn jeep of yours.’
‘Comrades,’ said Uri, ‘suppose we all calm down, okay? My dear Baruch and Yosi, in these difficult times when the entire Movement is looking for new horizons, let us not waste our energy on sterile disputes. The three of us haven’t been alone like this for years. The three grandsons of the one and only Ya’akov Mirkin, pioneer, swamp drainer, and desert blossomer. Let’s give him a hand, people!’
‘Two grandsons and one Jean Valjean,’ corrected Yosi.
‘I’d rather be Grandfather’s calf than your mother’s son,’ I shot back.
Yosi rose, said he was going to remove the radio from the jeep, and left the cabin.
‘Just what was that brilliant Chinese proverb of yours supposed to mean?’ asked Uri.
‘At least you have a mother,’ I answered.
‘Stop the dramatics,’ he said crossly. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve heard you talk crap, but I know you well enough to know when you mean it.’
‘Why don’t you call your brother,’ I said. ‘The salad is ready, and I’ll make the eggs when you’re at the table.’
Uri went out and came back with Yosi half an hour later.
‘We were at the cemetery,’ Yosi said. ‘God Almighty, what have you done to our father’s farm?’
‘It was your father’s decision to go abroad,’ I answered him. ‘And since you both announced that you weren’t coming back, you have no right to complain now.’
‘Enough,’ said Uri. ‘Either we eat or I leave you here by yourselves and find someone to climb the water tower with.’
When supper was over and we had calmed down, we went to wrestle in Meshulam’s abandoned hayloft, since the Mirkin farm was out of hay.
‘It’s the Twins versus the Monster!’ panted Uri, riding my back and trying to strangle me while Yosi bobbed, weaved, butted, and punched me. The three of us couldn’t stop laughing. The straw stuck to us, getting in our hair and all over us, until at last I threw Uri down on it and pinned him with my foot while lifting Yosi in the air by his belt. This time he did not cry. His mouth opened wide and he shouted battle cries, choking on his laughter.
A oil lantern approached us from the direction of Founder’s Cabin, bobbing up and down in the dark. Frightened and angry, Meshulam stepped into the hayloft.
‘Attention!’ cried Yosi.
Uri jumped at Meshulam and snatched the lantern away. ‘Are we back from a rendezvous with a water tap?’ he asked. ‘Or have we come to set fire to the hayloft?’
‘What do you think you’re doing here?’ demanded Meshulam furiously.