David Grossman - To the End of the Land

“But where was I for a whole month?” he moaned, and the sound of his own voice startled him.

He hurried over to Ora, almost running, just at the moment she called out to him.

She was sitting huddled in her coat. “When did you get up?”

“I don’t know, a while ago.”

“And where did you go?”

“Nowhere, I just walked around a bit.”

“Did I disturb you when I cried?”

“No, it’s okay. You can cry.”

Dawn slowly opened its eyes. They sat quietly and watched the night bleed out its blackness.

“Listen,” she said, “and let me finish saying this. I can’t go on this way.”

“What way?”

“With you not saying anything.”

“I’m actually talking a lot.” He forced a laugh.

“Yes, you’ll get hoarse if you keep it up,” she said drily. “But I just can’t stand that you won’t even let me talk about him.”

Avram made a not-that-again gesture, and she slowly inhaled and then said, “Listen, I know it’s difficult for you to be with me, but I’m losing my mind with this, too. It’s worse than if I was on my own. Because then at least I could talk out loud to myself, about him, and now I can’t even do that, because of you. I was thinking, what was I thinking”—she stopped and studied her fingertips; she had no choice—“that soon, when we reach the highway, we can try to get a ride to Kiryat Shmonah, and then we’ll put you on a bus to Tel Aviv and I’ll stay here and go on a bit farther. What do you say? Can you make the trip home on your own?”

“I can do anything. Don’t make an invalid out of me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’m not an invalid.”

“I know.”

“There’s nothing I can’t do,” he said angrily. “There are only things I don’t want to do.”

Like help me with Ofer, she thought.

“And how will you manage here?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll manage. I’ll just walk. I don’t even need to walk much. I’ll be happy just crossing one field, back and forth, like yesterday or the day before. What’s important to me is not where I am but where I’m not, do you understand?”

He snorted. “Do I understand?”

“It will be best for both of us,” she said dubiously, sadly, and when he did not answer, she continued. “You may think I can stop it, that I can just not talk about him, I mean, but I can’t. I’m incapable of holding back now, I have to give him strength, he needs me, I can feel it. I’m not criticizing you.”

Avram lowered his head. Don’t move, he thought, let her keep talking, don’t interrupt.

“And it’s not just because of your memory.”

He gave her a puzzled look.

“You know, ’cause you’ll remember everything, and my mind is like a sieve lately. That’s not why I wanted you to come with me.”

His head nestled against his chest and his whole body was hunched forward.

“I wanted you to come with me so I could talk about him with you, just tell you about him, so that if something happens to him—”

Avram crossed his arms and dug his hands deep into his sides. Don’t move. Don’t run away. Let her talk.

“And believe me, I wasn’t thinking about all this before.” Her nose was stuffed up. “You know me, I didn’t plan anything. I wasn’t even thinking about you when you called, and the truth is, you’d completely gone out of my thoughts that day, with everything that was going on. But when you phoned, when I heard you, I don’t know, I suddenly felt that I had to be with you now, you see? With you, not with anyone else.” The more she spoke, the straighter she sat and the sharper her eyes became, as though she had finally begun to decipher a secret code. “And I felt that we had to, both of us together, how can I put this, Avram—” She struggled to keep her voice steady and clean. She did not want her voice to shake. Not even a tremor. She constantly reminded herself of the allergy Ilan and the boys had to her frequent inundations. “Because really, we’re his mother and father,” she said softly. “And if we, together, I mean, if we don’t do what parents—”

She stopped. He had stretched his arms out and up as far as he could, and his body was jerking as though ants were gnawing at his flesh. She scanned him and shook her head heavily a few times.

“All right.” She sighed and started to stand up. “What more can I … I’m an idiot, how could I even think you—”

“No,” he said quickly and put his hand on her arm, then pulled it away. “I was actually thinking … what do you say … maybe we could stay for another day, one day, no big deal, then we’ll see.”

“See what?”

“I don’t know. Look, it’s not like I’m all that, you know, it’s not like I’m suffering, is it? It’s not like you said”—he swallowed hard—“it’s just that when you pressure me with it, with him …”

“With Ofer. At least say that.”

He said nothing.

“You won’t even say that?”

He dropped his arms to his sides.

Ora distractedly took off her glasses, folded them, and stuck them in a backpack pocket. She ran both hands firmly over her temples and kept them there for a moment, listening to a distant sound. Then suddenly she lunged at the ground and started to dig with her hands, pulling out clods of earth and stones, uprooting plants. Avram, with surprising quickness, jumped up and stood watching her tensely. She did not seem to notice him. She got up and started kicking the ground with her heel. Clods of earth flew, some of them hitting him. He did not move. His lips were pursed and his gaze was focused and stern. She knelt down, dislodged a sharp stone, and hit the ground with it. She pounded rapidly, biting her lower lip. Her thin-skinned face turned instantly red. Avram leaned over, knelt on one knee opposite her, and did not take his eyes off her. His hand rested on the earth with fingers spread, like someone about to run a race.

The pit grew deeper and wider. The white arm holding the stone rose and fell without pause. Avram cocked his head to one side in bemusement and looked somewhat canine. Ora stopped. She leaned on her arms and stared at the broken, unraveled earth as though not comprehending what she saw, then stormed at it again with the stone. She moaned from the effort, from the fury. The back of her neck was flushed and sweaty, her thin shirt clung to her flesh.

“Ora,” Avram whispered cautiously, “what are you doing?”

She stopped digging and looked around for a larger stone. She pushed a short tuft of hair off her forehead and wiped away the sweat. The pit she had dug was small and egg-shaped. She sat on her knees, grasped the stone with both hands, and struck down hard. Her head jerked forward with every strike, and each time she let out a groan. The skin on her hands began to tear. Avram watched, terrified, unable to look away from her scratched fingers. She did not seem to be weakening. On the contrary: she picked up her pace, pounded and groaned, and after a moment she tossed the stone away and started to burrow with her hands. She dug up little stones and large ones and flung them away, and handfuls of damp earth flew through her legs and over her head. His face stretched and lengthened and his eyes bulged. She did not see. She seemed to have forgotten he was there. Dirt clung to her forehead and cheeks. Her beautiful eyebrows were covered with arches of earth, and sticky channels plowed their way around her mouth. With an outstretched hand she measured the little crater before her. She cleaned it out, smoothed the bottom with a gentle motion as though she were rolling dough into a baking pan. “Ora, no,” Avram whispered into his palm, and even though he knew what she was about to do, he pulled back in fear. With three quick movements Ora lay down and buried her face in the gaping earth.