David Grossman - To the End of the Land

Sami turned the radio on. Galei Tzahal, the military station, had a special news edition, and the prime minister was speaking. “The government of Israel is determined to shatter its enemies’ cult of death, and in moments such as these we must remember that in the struggle against an enemy that has no moral reservations or considerations, we too are entitled, in order to protect our children—”

Sami quickly switched to an Arabic station and listened to a newscaster read an impassioned manifesto against a background of military music. Ora swallowed. She would not say anything. It was his right to listen to whatever he wanted. She should at least allow him that privilege. Avram was sprawled heavily in the back, snoring with his mouth open. Ora shut her eyes and imposed moderation and tolerance upon herself, trying to flood her sight with soft circles of color, which soon erupted into rows of dark, armed men, marching toward her with sparks flying from their eyes, humming a bloodthirsty tune that beat through all the spaces of her body. How can he not understand what I’m going through? she thought. How can he be incapable of thinking about what I’m going through now, with Ofer there? She sat motionless and riled herself up as she listened to the provocative music. Rapidly scanning the day’s events, she could not grasp how she had gotten herself mixed up with this annoying and infuriating man, who had hung from her neck like a weight all afternoon and then, with unbelievable nerve, had mired her in his own private complications with Yazdi and his IR, creating in her a sense of unease and guilt, when all she wanted was to implement her extremely modest plans, to employ his services in the most decent and unsoiled way, and in the end he had taken control of her agenda and messed it all up!

“Please turn off the radio,” she said with quiet restraint.

He did not respond. She could not believe this was happening. He was ignoring her explicit request. The men were thundering with their rhythmic calls and throaty breaths, and a vein in her neck started to throb painfully.

“I asked you to turn it off.”

He drove on, his face impervious, his thick hands stretched across the wheel. Only a tiny muscle in the corner of his mouth quivered. She restrained herself with great effort. She tried to calm herself, to plan her next move …

And she knew, somewhere in the margins of her brain, she remembered, that if she only spoke to him candidly, if she only reminded him with a word, with a smile, of themselves, of the private little culture they had built up over the years, within the roaring and the drumming—

“Turn it off already!” she screamed as loudly as she could and pounded her lap with both hands.

He flinched, swallowed, and did not turn off the radio. She could see his fingers trembling, and she almost gave up. His weakness shocked her, and touched her, and awakened again a dim sense of guilt. She also had the feeling that his innate Eastern gentleness would not withstand this tension and would eventually melt away in face of the determination, the recklessness, even — both so Western — that was suddenly roused in her. And there were always, too, his fear of Ilan and his dependence on Ilan. She licked her burning lips. Her throat pounded and burned with dryness, and the thought that she would eventually win, that she would bend him to her will, was just as painful as the desire to subdue him. She wished she could stop here, right now, and erase it all, everything that had happened today. You’re just going out of your mind, she thought. What has he done to make you torment him like this? What has he done to you, tell me, other than merely exist?

This was all true, Ora retorted to herself, but it made her crazy to see that he could not give in to her even an inch, not even out of basic human courtesy! It’s just not in their culture, she thought. Them and their lousy honor, and their never-ending insults, and their revenge, and their settling of scores over every little word anyone ever said to them since Creation, and all the world always owes them something, and everyone’s always guilty in their eyes!

The music grew louder and louder, waves that bubbled and surfaced and climbed up her throat, and the men with their thundering voices pounded deep inside her, and something in Ora cracked, a distillation of many forms of sorrow and anguish, and perhaps also the affront of their friendship, which had let them down, which had been let down, which had blown up in their faces. Her skin turned red, a blazing shawl wrapped itself around her neck, and she felt that she could murder him. Her hand flew out, hit the radio button, and turned it off.

They glanced sideways at each other, trembling.

“Sami,” Ora sighed, “look what’s become of us.”

They kept on driving in silence, startled by themselves. To the left was Rosh Pina, deep in slumber, and then they passed Hatzor HaGlilit and Ayelet HaShachar and the Hula Reserve and Yesud HaMa’ala and Kiryat Shmonah, which blinked with orange lights, and then they turned onto Route 99 through HaGoshrim and Dafna and She’ar Yashuv. Every so often, when they reached an intersection, he slowed down and turned a cheek to her with a silent question: How much farther? And she jutted her chin out in response: Farther, keep going, until the country ends.

After Kibbutz Dan they heard a groan from the back. Avram woke up and wheezed. Ora turned to him. Lying on the seat, he opened a pair of waifish eyes and looked at her with a kind, dreamy smile. “I have to pee,” he said in a deep, slow voice.

“Oh, we’ll stop soon,” Ora said.

“I need to go now.”

“Stop!” she told Sami in a panic. “Stop as soon as you can.”

He slowed down and drove off the road. Ora sat and stared straight ahead. Sami looked at her. She did not move. “Ora?” asked Avram imploringly, and she was terrified at the thought that in a moment he would be standing outside the car, leaning on her, and judging by his look she would probably have to unzip his pants and hold it for him.

She gave Sami a pleading, begging, almost ingratiating look, and when she encountered his eyes she was trapped in them for a long, bitter moment that quickly branched out into an endless maze, from Joseph Trumpeldor and the riots of 1929 and 1936 all the way to Avram’s dick. She got out of the car and walked to the back door. Avram sat up with great effort. “It’s that pill,” he apologized.

“Give me your hand.” She dug her heels into the ground and readied her back for the blow to come. Her hand hovered unmet. He nodded with his eyes closed. He wrinkled his face a little and smiled with relief, and she watched as a big, dark stain spread slowly over his pants and onto the new leopard-skin upholstery.

A few moments later the two of them were outside with their backpacks tossed nearby, and Sami was charging away madly. As he zigzagged across the white line, he shouted and bellowed bitterly into the night mist, cursing both the Jews and the Arabs, and mainly himself and his own fate. He beat his head and his chest and the wheel of the Mercedes.

NOW THEY ATE PRUNESand Ora buried the pits in the sludge and hoped two trees might grow there one day, trunks intertwined. Then they said goodbye to the lovely spot, loaded up their backpacks, his blue and hers orange, and everything Avram did took forever, and it seemed that each movement he made passed through every joint in his body. But when he finally stood up straight and glanced at the river, a slight vernal brightness ran over his forehead, as though a gleaming coin had shone its golden luster on him from afar, and she entertained a fleeting idea: What if Ofer were here with us? The notion was utterly unfounded. She had only been able to sneak Avram tiny crumbs of information about Ofer, as she’d been forbidden to talk about him or even mention his name all these years. But now, for a brief moment, she saw the two of them here, Ofer and Avram, helping each other cross the water, and her eyes shined at him.