David Grossman - To the End of the Land

The midwife was called Fadwa, I think, or Nadwa? From Kfar Raami anyway. I met her another few times during the two days I spent there, and we chatted a little. I was interested to know who this girl was, whose hands were the first to touch Ofer when he came into the world. A single woman. Strong, a feminist, really sharp, and very funny, she always made me laugh .

Ofer’s feet were slightly blue. When he was born he hardly cried, just made one short sound and that was it. He had huge eyes. Exactly Avram’s eyes .

She turns on a flashlight and reads what she’s written. Maybe she should be more detailed? She reads it again and finds she likes the style. She knows what Ilan would say about it, and how he would erase her exclamation marks, but Ilan will probably never read it.

But maybe there is room for a little more detail? Facts, not embellishments. What else happened there? For some reason she goes back to Adam’s birth again, a long and difficult delivery, and to how she kept trying to make the midwife and the nurses like her, wanting them so badly to admire her endurance and to praise her when they talked in the nurses’ room and compare her to the other mothers, who screamed and wailed and sometimes cursed. How much effort she put into ingratiating herself at the most important moments in her life, Ora thinks sadly. Her legs are starting to lose their feeling. She tries sitting on a different rock, then another, and eventually goes back to the ground. These are no conditions for writing an autobiography, she thinks.

And after a few minutes they laid Ofer on me. It bothered me that he was wrapped in a hospital blanket. I wanted to be naked with him. Everyone else in that room except the two of us was completely unnecessary for me. And Avram wasn’t there .

She gives him a cautious glance. Maybe she should erase the last few words. Maybe she’ll want Ofer to read this one day? Maybe she and Ilan will—

In her gut she begins to feel disquiet. Who is she writing this for? And why? There are almost two pages now. How has she produced two pages? Avram lies on his back on the other side of the fire, which by now is only a heap of glowing embers. He faces the sky. His beard looks disheveled. Someone should tidy up his beard. She studies his face: at twenty he started going bald, from the forehead back, the first in his age group, but by that time he’d grown an impressive head of strong, wild hair, and he had thick sideburns down to the middle of his cheek, which made him look even older than he already did, and gave him — as he once wrote to her in a letter— the face of a moist-lipped, avaricious, Dickensian landlord . As usual, his description was right, and there was no point arguing with him. He always had picturesque depictions, so cruel and captivating — particularly the way he described his own appearance and personality. It was thanks to these descriptions — she only now realizes — that he was able to seduce everyone else into seeing him through his own eyes, and perhaps that was how he protected himself from any overly autonomous gazes that might have caused real pain. Ora smiles at him furtively, with amused appreciation, as though discovering after the fact that someone had played a clever and incredibly successful trick on her.

And perhaps also from gazes that are too loving , she adds in the notebook without thinking, and looks at the words with some surprise. She quickly crosses them out with one sharp line.

Later, when all the doctors and midwives and nurses and the guy who stitched me up had left, I unwrapped Ofer and held him to my bosom .

That last word sends a warm tremor through her body. What does that tremor remind her of? What is it bringing back to her now? To my bosom , she whispers inside, and her body replies sweetly: Avram. He used to lick the tiny hairs on her cheeks, beneath her temples, and murmur, “the segment of thy temples,” or “feathery down.” As he held her and dreamily whispered, “the curvature of your hips,” or “the silk behind your knees,” she would smile to herself and think: Look at him working up his heart with words. She quickly learned that when she overcame her shyness and repeated into his ear, “feathery down,” “you against my bosom,” and other such phrases, he hardened inside her.

The way Ofer touched me, right from the first moments, from the minute he was born, was the most comforting, simple, smooth touch anyone had ever given me. Ilan once said that Ofer seemed, from the beginning, like a person who was at peace with his position. A person perfectly adapted to his life. And it was so true, at least when he was a child, not so much later. We went through all sorts of periods with him. Difficult things, too. In fact recently, in the army, we had a complicated situation with him. For me, mainly. Because they, the three of them, got over it very nicely .

Maybe I shouldn’t write this, but because of that tranquillity Ofer had at first, I always had the illusion, or some sort of faith, that with him I could guess the future with some certainty (and by the way, Ilan admitted it too, so it’s not just my notorious naïveté). I mean, I thought that with him we could guess, more or less, what kind of person he would grow up to be, and how he would act in all sorts of situations and that we could know there would be no surprises along the way. (Talking about surprises, I forgot to mention that I’m in the Galilee now, in some valley, and his father Avram (!) is lying not far from me (!!), dozing, or watching the stars.)

She takes a deep breath, only now truly grasping that she is here, far away from her life. Her heart surges with gratitude for the darkness full of whistling and chirping crickets, for the night itself, which for the first time since she left is taking her in with a tender generosity, agreeing to hide her away from everything at the bottom of this remote ravine, and even giving her the trees and the bushes, whose scents waft sweetly but sharply toward the nocturnal butterflies.

I’m going back a little, to just after the birth: Ilan stood next to us and watched. He had a strange look on his face. There were tears in his eyes. I remember that, because when Adam was born Ilan was completely cool and functional (and I didn’t realize that those were actually the signs of what was starting to bubble up inside him). But with Ofer he cried. And I thought that was a good sign, because throughout the pregnancy I was afraid he was going to leave me again after the birth, and those tears reassured me a little .

Her lips are slightly open and her nostrils widen. She stays with the momentum: With Ilan, it’s when he laughs that he looks sad, even a little cruel sometimes (because his eyes somehow stay distant), and when he cries he always looks as if he’s laughing .

And I suddenly realized that Ilan and I were completely alone with the baby. I remember that it got very quiet suddenly, and I was afraid he would try to crack a joke. Because Ilan, when he’s tense, he has to force a joke out, and that was so wrong for me. I didn’t want anything to grate on our first moments together .

But Ilan was clever this time, and he didn’t say anything .

He sat down next to us and didn’t know what to do with his hands, and I saw that he wasn’t touching Ofer. Then he said, “He has an observant look.” I was glad that those were the first words he said about him — or that anyone in the world said about him. I never forget those words .

I took Ilan’s hand and placed it on Ofer’s. I could tell it was hard for him, and I felt Ofer respond immediately. His whole body tensed up. I interlaced my fingers with Ilan’s, and together I stroked Ofer with him, back and forth along his body. I had already decided to call him Ofer. I’d considered other names while I was pregnant, but as soon as I saw him, I knew they weren’t right. Not Gil or Amir or Aviv. They had too many I’s, and he looked more like an O, calm and even a little grave (but with a drop of thoughtful distance, sort of observing, like an E). I said to Ilan: “Ofer.” And he agreed. I realized I could have named him Melchizedek or Chedorlaomer and Ilan would agree, and I didn’t like that, because I know Ilan, and obedience is not his strong suit, and besides, I was suspicious .