65 An Old Page

On my bicycle trip on Saturday I sat down to rest on a bench under a beautiful tree in the Ramat Hanadiv National Park. I drank some water, took a bite of my energy snack, reached into my little back-pack to take out a small book "The Judgment and Other Stories" and read the story entitled "An Old Page". In three pages Kafka creates an ominous feeling of the collapse of civilization because of wild nomads that had invaded and reached the square in front of the Emperor's palace and no one dared to confront them.

While reading I was reminded of Coetzee's book "Waiting for the Barbarians" wherein the feeling of disintegration and fear of the barbarians is spread over many depressing pages. And suddenly it occurred to me that Coetzee's book is in some way an extension of Kafka's brief story.

I also thought that today we are celebrating the state's sixtieth anniversary and a dark cloud hovers over the head of our leader. He himself sits withdrawn in his official residence and does not come out and speak to us about the holiday. It seems that the fear of the nomads in Kafka's story and of the barbarians in Coetzee's novel has been turned by us into fear of ourselves. For we, or our elected leaders, or our new financial idols – and not nomads or barbarians – gallop in the city square and trample over the masses.

But on the holiday I shall wave the flag and sweep away the evil spirit. I shall call the good winds that moved the branches of the tree under which I read the old page and I shall think of the good there is and still will be in the future.