David Grossman - To the End of the Land

“Beat up the Arabs?”

“Well, that’s another story,” she says, laughing. “Your kid had an overactive imagination.”

“Ofer?”

“Yes.”

“But why … why Arabs? Did something happen to him with—”

“No, no.” She waves her hand dismissively. “It was all in his head.”

They walk past the Mount Meron Field School, and Avram runs to fill their water bottles at a tap. Ora sees the water overflowing from the bottle and gushing down and discovers that he is looking out at the grove they’ve just emerged from and is smiling gently. When she follows the thread of his smile, she sees the golden bitch standing by the trees, panting. Ora fills a dish with water and puts it down not far from the dog. “It’s your dish,” she reminds her and fills it for her again and again until she is sated. At a nearby snack stand — only after the owner agrees to turn off his radio — they buy three hot dogs for the bitch and some food and candy for themselves. Then they continue their ascent up the mountain. The loudspeaker on the nearby army base emits constant calls for technicians, drivers, antenna operators. This human presence thickens and fills them with nervousness. They avoid encountering or conversing with other couples hiking on their trail — who look pretty much like us, Ora thinks with a moment’s jealousy: people around our age, friendly yuppies who’ve taken off work for a nature day, a little escape from the job and the kids; they probably think the same thing about me and Avram. He was really alarmed when I mentioned Ofer’s fear of the Arabs. What button did I press?

On the peak of Mount Meron they stand at a lookout point: “Restored by the family and friends of First Lieutenant Uriel Peretz, of blessed memory, born in Ofira on the 2nd of Kislev, 5737 (1977), fell in Lebanon on the 7th of Kislev 5758 (1998). Scout, soldier, devoted to Torah and to his country,” Avram reads — and they look north, to the purple-misted Hermon, and to the Hula Valley and the green Naphtali mountain range. They once again pat themselves on the back with proud modesty, trying to estimate how many kilometers they have traversed. A new and unfamiliar power diffuses their bodies. Knots of strength have amassed in their calves, and when they take off their backpacks, they feel as though they are floating on air.

“So, should we sleep up here?”

“It’ll be cold. Maybe we should go a bit farther down. Let’s follow the path downhill?”

“I’d like to go all the way around the peak first”—Avram stretches and shakes out his arms—“even though it’s not on the path.”

“Then let’s do it,” she says happily. “We don’t have to stick to the path.”

They circle the peak on a loop, and the dog runs ahead for the first time. Every so often she pauses to look at them, waiting and urging them on with her gaze, then runs on. The air is soaked with the scents of loose earth and blossoms. Ivy climbs up tree trunks, and sudden flames of colorful redbuds ignite among the oak and hawthorn trees. Thin branches erupt from the roots of a massive arbutus tree, like fingers from a huge open palm, and its body is bare of bark, almost embarrassing in its colors and textures, like human nudity, like a woman’s body.

Ora stops suddenly. “Listen, I have to tell you something. It’s been eating at me the whole time, but I couldn’t do it. Do you want to hear?”

“Ora,” he says, scolding.

“Look, when I said goodbye to him, to Ofer, when I took him to the army meeting place, there was a TV crew there. They filmed us.”

“Yes?”

“The reporter asked him what he wanted to tell me before he left, and Ofer sort of smiled and asked me to make him all kinds of dishes, I don’t remember exactly what, and then he whispered something in my ear, right in front of the cameras and everything.”

Avram stops and waits.

“And what he said was”—she takes a deep breath, pursing her lips—“that if, if he …”

“Yes?” Avram whispers. He wants to give her strength, but his body unwittingly responds as though a blow is about to land on it.

“That if something happens to him — do you hear me? — if something happens to him, he wants us to leave the country.”

“What?”

“ ‘Promise me you’ll leave the country.’ ”

“That’s what he said?”

“Word for word.”

“All of you?”

“I guess so. I didn’t even have time to—”

“And did you promise?”

“I don’t think so, I can’t remember, I was so stunned.”

They keep walking, their bodies hunched now. “If I’m killed,” Ofer had whispered, “leave the country. Just get out of here, there’s nothing here for you.”

“And what’s most depressing is that it’s obvious to me that it wasn’t something he just said on the spur of the moment. He’d thought about it ahead of time. He’d planned it.”

Avram tramples the ground heavily as he walks.

“Wait, slow down.”

He rubs his face and head roughly. A cold sweat breaks out. Those three words that had come out of her mouth: If I’m killed . How could she say them? How could they get through her throat?

“When Adam was in the army, he once said that if anything happened to him he wanted us to erect a bench in his memory opposite the Submarine.”

“What submarine?”

“The Yellow Submarine. It’s a music club, in Talpiot, where he plays sometimes with his band.”

They walk on in silence, without noticing the other hikers they occasionally pass. Near an ancient winepress carved out of rock, they sit down. The first of the salamanders swim in the pool of rainwater in the press. Clumps of green weeds chewed by wild boars are strewn around. They both sit silently, gathering strength.

“And somehow, in all these days … what can I say … in the moments I cannot repress, I feel that the whole time I’m walking, I’m also saying goodbye to the country.”

“You won’t leave,” he says firmly, almost panicking. “You can’t.”

“I can’t?”

“Come on. Let’s go.”

His jaw is tightly clenched, crushing thoughts and words. He wants to tell her that only here, in this landscape, in the rocks, the cyclamens, in Hebrew, in this sun, does she have any meaning. But it sounds sentimental and ungrounded, and he says nothing.

Ora straightens up. It suddenly occurs to her that Ofer guessed something about Avram. That he was almost saying: If it happens to me too, if it passes down to the next generation, you have nothing to keep you here. “But in any case,” she says quietly, “if I do, it won’t be just the country.”

“Ora—”

“Forget it. Forget that now, why ruin the view?” Her mouth trembles. She bites her lip hard.

Avram, by her side, drags his feet and a terrible, leaden heaviness fills him with every step. Perhaps that’s why she’s telling me about him, he thinks, so there’ll be someone here to remember him.

“Avram.” With her last remaining strength she pulls herself out of the muddy silence.

“What, Ora’leh?”

“Do you know what I feel like?”

“What do you feel like?” He smiles distractedly through his gloom. All you have to do is ask, he thinks, his feelings rushing at her.

“Tomorrow or the next day, I want to give you a haircut.”

“What’s wrong with the way it is?”

“Nothing’s wrong. It’s just an urge I get in high mountains.”

“I don’t know. We’ll see. Let me think about it.”

The air is clear and sharp. Cistus bushes abound in pink and white on both sides of the path. He thinks: She’s always jumping from one thing to another. She’s always in everything.

“Who usually cuts your hair?” She throws out the question with measured lightness.