CHAPTER 3
One day after the Six-Day War, I was told that Yulik had been killed during the attack on the Syrian hills. It came as a shock.
I hadn't seen Yulik for fifteen years. I remember him as a six-year-old child, not strikingly beautiful, but immensely alive, his face covered with freckles, speaking a rich Hebrew that would have sounded improbable coming from anyone but a kibbutz child.
My first question on hearing the news was, "How did Grysha and Nadia take it?'' I was told that they took it as would be expected, not showing any sign of grief, seeming to comfort those who came to comfort them.
Grysha and Nadia are Yulik's parents. I used to know them when I was friendly with Yulik's sister, and she would take me home to her kibbutz sometimes during the Jewish festivals. They must have been shocked that their daughter went around with a fellow like me-not only a city boy but notorious for claiming to be, incredibly, an anti-Zionist. Not to be a Zionist must have seemed as curious to them as declaring oneself not to be a human being. But because I was their guest, they insisted upon accompanying me to the communal dining room at all the meals, shielding me from hostile looks of the other kibbutz members, who were as much bewildered as they to find such a strange animal in their midst.
During the frugal meals, always poor and always badly cooked, I kept looking at Grysha and Nadia and asking myself what made them tick. What made Nadia, who
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