To the End of the Land - By David Grossman Page 0,294

him a kiss. He smiles, his hands on his waist, the white sharwals flapping around his body, and the dog sits erect beside him. He looks good, Ora thinks. The new haircut and Ofer’s clothes are good for him, and there’s something refreshing in the open way he stands and in his smile. “He’s coming back to life,” she tells herself out loud. This walk is bringing him back to life. What does that say about me? What place will I have in his life when the journey is over, if I have any place at all?

Wait, she thinks, suddenly troubled—why isn’t the dog coming with me? But even before she can finish the thought, Avram leans down and pats the dog on her butt, urging her to run along.

An hour later Ora silently unloads her purchases from the Kfar Hasidim supermarket’s plastic bags—labeled “Strictly Glatt Kosher”—and divvies them up between the two backpacks: biscuits, crackers, canned goods, packets of bouillon. Her movements are quick and sharp.

“Did something happen, Ora’leh?”

“No, what happened?”

“I don’t know. You seem …”

“I’m fine.”

Avram licks his upper lip. “Okay, okay.” And after a moment, “Ora—”

“What is it?”

“Did you hear the radio down there? Did you see a newspaper?”

“There’s no radio there, and I didn’t look at the paper. Come on, let’s go. I’m sick of this place.”

They hoist up their backpacks, pass the playground at Kibbutz Yagur, and choose a path with red markers. They soon replace it with a blue one that leads to the Snake River, recently renamed Ma’apilim River, and start climbing up the mountain. The day is still swathed in morning mist, indulging itself and lazily putting off its brightening. The climb soon grows steep, and the two of them and the dog are all breathing heavily.

“Wait a minute,” he calls after her, “did someone tell you something there?”

“No one told me anything.”

She practically runs up the incline. Stones spark from her heels. Avram gives in and stops to wipe the sweat off. At the same moment, without looking at him, Ora also stops and stands like an angular exclamation point one rocky step above him. Through oak trees and the milky morning vapors, they can see the Zevulun Valley, the suburbs of Haifa, and the Yagur Junction as it comes to life. The pair of towers at the oil refinery in the bay emit plumes of white steam that slowly curl and mingle with the mist. Avram wants to give her something, to quell the sudden irritation bristling around her. If only he knew what to give. Glimmering cars fly by on the roads leading to the junction. A distant train sends out rhythmic sparks of metal and light. But here on the mountain the silence is broken only by the occasional truck horn or the stubborn wail of an ambulance.

“Here, this is how I live,” he finally says quietly, perhaps honestly, perhaps as a modest bribe of candor.

“How?” Her voice above him is grating, scratching.

“Like this. I watch.”

“Then maybe it’s time you went in,” she hisses and starts walking again.

“What? Wait—”

“Listen, Ofer’s fine,” she cuts him off, and Avram rushes after her excitedly. “What? How do you know?”

“I called home from the grocery store to pick up my messages.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course you can.” Then she mutters to herself, “You can do a lot more than that.”

“And? Did he leave a message?”

“Twelve.”

She lurches forward again, cutting like a razor. Fine strands of a morning spiderweb graze her face, and she brushes them away angrily. The ghost of an adolescent, grumbling girl flashes in her movements.

“At least until last night he was fine,” she reports. “The last message was from eleven-fifteen.” She glances at her watch. Avram looks to see how high the sun is. They both know: eleven-fifteen is good, but meaningless now, like yesterday’s newspaper. As soon as he was finished leaving the message, an hourglass turned over somewhere, and the timer started from zero again, with no advantage to hope over fear.

“Wait, why didn’t you just call him on his cell phone?”

“Him?” She shakes her head, giggles nervously. “No, no way.” She half turns her head to him, like a doe to a hunter, and asks wordlessly, with her desperate eyes: Do you really not understand? Do you still not get it, that I can’t, I absolutely can’t, until he’s home?

The path grows difficult and stubborn, and Avram is anxious. Ofer is suddenly so close, his voice still echoing in Ora’s ears. Even his clothes, which swathe