The Last Rain Read Online Free Page B

often assume delicate human angles.
    The weekly Meeting, 16 for instance—and it deserves the capital letter—is the most sacred, the most complex, and the most easily violated of the institutions of kibbutz. It is the chief organ of democratic procedure in which every member of the kibbutz stands as an equal and has the right to express his or her views on any and every subject. All committees, institutions, and individuals must bow before the decisions of the Meeting. The Meeting is the dynamic and intangible repository of the philosophy of kibbutz collectivism.
    Quite obviously such an institution cannot be mastered within a few days. In my opinion some of our Meetings are miserable failures. There are endless repetitions of the same point; lengthy, vapid speeches; undisciplined and prejudiced expressions of opinions; a senseless burrowing into detail. The Meeting is a sort of extremely complex and monumental fugue in which a large number of the motifs of kibbutz life are brought together in what must be an aesthetic and productive composition, and if some of these motifs get out of hand, they produce a clattering and painful discord in the close counterpoint. This evening we discussed everything from whether or not babies should be picked up when they cry to the price of onions in California.
    Often somebody has to sound out an individual or a problem beforehand, in order to prevent an uncomfortable and aggravating impasse during the Meeting. Certain simple procedural rules must be strictly followed, otherwise the democratic nature of the discussion may be intolerably violated.
    Our third problem is recruitment. We have composed an appeal that will appear in the next issue of the YG periodical Youth and Nation:
We, the Pioneers of Eldar, demand as Jews that the entire façade of the cracked and crumbling mausoleum that is bourgeois society be ripped down and replaced with a new socialist structure based on spiritual and economic egalitarianism. Here we will create the new man and the new child, for whom collectivist values and high moral standards are natural and innate. We appeal to those who cannot warm themselves under the bright glow of an illusion. Join with us, struggle, and build.
    Dori
    Daddy holds my hand and we walk towards the Children’s House. Luckily he meets some people and stops to talk to them. If I’m very lucky it will be a long conversation.
    I don’t know too many people on Eldar. I only know my Group and Daddy and Mummy and my sister Sara and my brother David and his two friends Noam and Amnoni and Amnoni’s sister Hagar because they’re twins and Coco because she has a shaggy dog and Dafna the nurse and Lulu’s father and mother and Mummy’s friend Edna who was my Minder when I was a baby. I also know Doreet who was my Minder before Shoshana but for some reason I never see Doreet. And I know Elan’s father. He’s the round jokey man who loves Sara.
    Wait—there’s also Simon’s mother Nina. She does afternoon Wake-Up a lot of the time. She’s very nice. She works in the laundry.
    The only other adult I know is Shoshana. Unfortunately.
    Baby Diary

    Born: 30 Sivan, 5715/June 20, 12:00
    Weight: 3.450
    Length: 52 cm.
    Came home on 23 June.
    June 20–29
    I have a sweet, pretty daughter. She looks a little like my family, a little like David. Every day she grows and develops. She has blue eyes, blonde hair, a round face, a button nose, a sweet mouth. Her body is long. She lifts her head when lying on her stomach. She has the strength to kick and throw off her diaper when she demands food.
    On the third day after she came back, the bellybutton fell. It’s still a bit moist and protruding. It’s been covered with Dermetol and a cloth belt.
    She feeds seven times a day. For the first few days she fed every three hours. Yesterday and today she began to feed every three and a half to four hours. At night she gets a bottle half-filled with milk for her seventh feeding.
    At first when she woke