To the End of the Land - By David Grossman Page 0,120

chick, and her insides would flutter.

Toward the end of the gig he finally let loose and suddenly started banging on his bongos with a strange, violent glee, bursting out of his own skin. His three band mates were at first amazed by the outburst, and then, exchanging glances, hurried to keep up with his pace on their own drums, and the whole thing became a noisy commotion, a jungle of beating drums and screaming and groaning, the three of them against Ofer. Ilan shifted in his seat, about to get up and put an end to it, but it was she—who usually did not read situations well at first, and had real dyslexia when it came to comprehending basic human interactions—Wasn’t that what he’d said? Weren’t those the central tenets of his I’ve run my course speech?—who’d placed a hand on his arm and stopped him, because she noticed something, a very slight change in Ofer’s rhythm, a new channeling of the streams of violence and competitiveness that flowed between him and the three others, and she had the feeling (unless she was wrong as usual) that Ofer was infiltrating the other three without them realizing it. At first he mimicked them, doing a perfect impersonation of their apish rowdiness, and then he started to echo them with his own gentler drumming, just a hairsbreadth behind them, and she thought he was letting them hear themselves in a softer, more ironic version. He had that seemingly perplexed look on his face, the eyes drawn diagonally upward in an innocent slant, an expression that was entirely Avram, and then she knew she was right: he was seducing them with a subtlety and cunning that she did not know he had, with a whispered rhythm that was new to them. They responded immediately, unable to resist the temptation, and they too whispered and murmured, and suddenly they were engaged in a conversation of hints and secrets that only eleven-year-old boys could understand.

A breeze of enjoyment blew through the basement. The parents exchanged looks. The four boys’ eyes shone, beads of sweat glistened on their faces, and they wiped them away with a sleeve or a tongue darting over lips, and kept on chattering and mumbling in drum-speak, in a thick whisper she had never heard before, which circled around her, approaching and retreating.

A minute went by, and another, until the four of them could no longer continue whispering, and all at once they burst out in a storm of thunder and lightning, and sang the opening song again at the top of their lungs, and the audience sang with them and went wild. Ofer retreated to his usual position, gathered up his forces, and shut the door, looking serious and somewhat gloomy, but his forehead still bore the occasional wrinkle, in which she could read something of his tempestuous thoughts. A flush of pride burned on his cheeks, and she thought: Avram, you are so much with us. Ilan put his hand on her thigh. Ilan, who almost never touched her in public.

• • •

“You can’t sleep with me,” she said ponderously.

“I can’t sleep with you,” he echoed in a hollow voice.

“You’re incapable,” she said and put down the knife and stood motionless at the sink.

“I’m incapable,” said he, curiously probing for the meaning of the strange tone in her voice.

She reached out sideways without looking at him, found his hand, and pulled it to her.

“Ora.” His voice was hesitant, cautionary.

She took the knife out of his hand. He did not resist. She lingered for a moment, her head bowed, as though seeking advice from someone invisible. Maybe even from the old Avram. Then she led him to the bedroom. He walked with her as though he had no volition. As though all his vitality had leaked out. She lay him on his back and placed a pillow under his head. Her face was close to his. She kissed him lightly on his lips for the first time since he had come back and sat next to him on the edge of the bed and waited to understand.

“You can’t sleep with me,” she said after a moment in a slightly firmer voice.

“I can’t sleep with you,” he repeated, astonished at her intention, and very hesitant.

“You simply cannot sleep with me now,” she said decisively, and started to take her blouse off.

“I simply cannot,” he repeated suspiciously.

“Even if I take my shirt off, it won’t make any difference to you.”

“Even then.” He looked