David Grossman: To the End of the Land

My parents, my mom, she said it was better not to.

And you agreed?

So we go around the block …

But how do you—

Avram, hold me!

Repelled by her, drawn to her fear, he felt his way with his hands and bumped into knees, then a thin, sharp elbow, a slight curve, hot dry skin, the moisture of a mouth. When he held on to her shoulder she clung to him with her entire body, trembling, and he held her to him and was instantly filled to the brim with her sorrow.

They sat that way, clutching each other frantically. Ora cried with her mouth wide open, with snot, the way a lost little girl cries. Avram smelled her breath, the smell of illness. It’s all right, it’s all right, he said, caressing her damp head over and over, her sweaty hair, her wet face. They sat crowded together on her bed, and Avram thought it was fine with him if they had been forgotten by everyone. He wouldn’t care if it went on like this for another few days. Sometimes his hand stole down of its own accord and touched her warm neck or accidentally slid over her long thin arms with their walnut-like boy-biceps. With all his strength he struggled to remain merely good and kind, but as he did so, against his will, he also labored to gather supplies for his tortuous masturbation travels. Ora’s head leaned back a little as if nestling into his hand. A moment like this, Avram calculated through his fog, would last him a good few weeks. But no, leave her alone, he scolded himself. Not her.

Afterward, long afterward, she wiped her nose on her pajama sleeve. You’re very kind, you know? You’re not like a regular boy.

We starting with insults?

It’s good this way. Don’t stop.

And this way?

Also.

THE NEXT NIGHT—by now she had lost count of the days and nights — Avram pushed a wheelchair into her room. She woke up covered with cold sweat. She’d had the same strange nightmare again, with a metallic voice that crept around her describing horrible scenes. At times she was convinced it was coming from a transistor radio somewhere in the ward, down the corridor or in one of the empty rooms. She had even identified it as “The Voice of Thunder from Cairo,” which broadcast in Hebrew — the kids in class could already mimic the flowery Egyptian announcer, with his ridiculous Hebrew mistakes — and at other times she was certain the voice was coming from inside her, telling only her that the Zionist entity had been almost entirely occupied by the glorious Arab armies, who had “taken the enemy underwears.” Waves upon waves of courageous Arab warriors are at this moment flooding Beersheba and Ashkelon and Tel Aviv, the voice declared, and Ora continued to lie there with her heart pounding, bathed in sweat. And to think that Ada knew nothing of this, of what was happening to Ora here. And that it was not in Ada’s time anymore. What did that mean, not in her time? How could one make sense of the fact that they once shared the same time, and now Ada’s time was over, she was no longer in time at all. How could that be?

Then Ora heard the sound of wheels and sharp, wheezing breath. Avram? she murmured. I’m so glad you came, listen to what happened to me … Then she realized there were two people breathing, and she sat up in bed, wrapped in her sticky sheets, and stared into the dark.

Look what I brought you, he whispered.

All day she had waited for him to come back and be with her, talk to her, listen to her as if every single word she said was important to him. She missed him stroking her head and the back of her neck with his soft, hypnotic fingers. Soft like a girl’s fingers, she thought, or a baby’s. During the few lucid moments between the chills and the nightmares, she had tried to reconstruct the nights she had spent here with him and found that she had forgotten almost everything except the boy himself. Even he was difficult to remember. She could not picture him as someone she had seen and known. But she lay for long hours, asleep and awake, imagining his hand caressing her face over and over, strumming her neck. She had never been touched that way, and so few had touched her at all, and how did he know exactly how to do that if he’d never been with a girl that way? And now, amid the surge of kindness she felt toward him, after waiting for him all day so they could lie down together and have one of their talks, he had to make such a crude mistake, such a boy’s mistake, like those guys who make rude noises at the movies when there’s a kiss on-screen, like coming to her room with this other guy—

Who was asleep in his wheelchair, snoring lightly, and apparently didn’t know where he was. Avram maneuvered him into the room, bumped into a cabinet and a bed, and poured forth apologies and explanations: I feel bad leaving him alone in the room all night. Ilan has nightmares, his temperature is forty, maybe higher, he hallucinates all the time, he’s scared of dying, and when I leave the room to come to you, Ilan keeps hearing noises of the Arabs winning, horrible things.

He turned Ilan in his wheelchair to face the wall and felt his way over to her. From afar he could already sense her bristling, and with a delicate wisdom that surprised her, he did not get on the bed but sat down meekly on the chair next to her and waited.

She folded her legs in, crossed her arms over her chest, and sat in angry silence. She vowed not to say anything for all eternity, and she soon burst out: I want to go home, I’ve had it with this place!

But you can’t, you’re still sick.

I don’t care!

You know, Avram said sweetly, he was born in Tel Aviv.

Who?

Him, Ilan.

Good for him.

He just moved to Jerusalem a year ago.

Whoop-di-doo.

His dad was made some kind of commander on an army base here. Colonel, or something like that. And d’you want to hear something funny—

No.

Avram threw a cautious glance to the edge of the room, leaned forward, and whispered, He talks without knowing it.

What d’ya mean?

In his sleep, ’cause of his fever, he babbles on and on.

She leaned forward too and whispered, But, doesn’t that … that’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it?

Wanna hear something else?

Go on.

Normally, we don’t speak.

Why not?

Not just me, the whole class, we don’t talk to him.

You blackballed him?

No, it’s the other way around. He’s the one blackballing us.

Wait a minute, one boy is blackballing the whole class?

It’s been like that for a year.

And?

I told you, with the fever, he doesn’t shut up … What?

I don’t know. Isn’t that a little …

I’m bored, so sometimes I … I pull him along, you know, and he answers.

In his sleep?

Well, he kind of half understands, not really.

But that’s—

What?

I don’t know, it’s like reading someone’s letters, isn’t it?

What can I do, put my hands over my ears? And the truth is, also—

What?

When he’s awake I really hate him, like at school, but when he’s asleep …

What then?

It’s like a different person. Let’s say he talks about his parents, right? About his dad and the army and all that?

Yeah.

So I tell him about my dad and my mom, and how he left us and what I remember about him, that kind of stuff.

Oh.

I tell him the straight truth, everything. So we’ll be even.

Ora adjusted her position and covered herself with a blanket. For the last few moments his voice had contained a shadowed hint, and a slight tension grabbed at her calves.

Like yesterday, Avram said, after I got back from you in the early morning, he was talking feverishly, and he told stories about a girl he saw on the street, he was too embarrassed to talk to her, afraid she wouldn’t be interested … Avram giggled. So I did, too.