Shulamith Hareven (1930–2003)

[Eshkhar] knew things that they did not: that the desert was inhabited, that it had limits, that it could be crossed from end to end in a matter of weeks. The deception of miracles was keeping them purblind and lost… None of this was known in the camp. They wandered on. No one asked anymore why they lingered so long in the desert. No one knew why they camped in one place for two weeks and in another for two or five years. If no rains fell, they sowed in dry ground and pounded the meager yield into a coarse flour. It was hard to imagine that there once had been a world apart from this desert, their only home, their only love, their birthplace and burial ground. Most of those who had left Egypt were no longer alive. The others, like doorless and windowless houses, had no other memories. Life in the desert consumed them utterly and left nothing over. Was there really any place else?

He sensed a strange presence behind him, unfamiliar yet perfectly clear… Something, someone, was calling laughingly to him from the wind, from the mountains, perhaps from the long-remembered years of wandering, someone smiling and forebearing who expected something of him without his knowing what it was… you are close now, Eshkhar, very close; just one more little effort and you will understand… He shook his head, as if trying to rid himself of a bothersome thought; then, all at once, like a man who has not done so for years, he began to laugh.