David Grossman - To the End of the Land

“Tell me,” she heard him say suddenly and was horrified: that voice of his, the shattered breaths. “Ora …” He looked at the ceiling. “I have to know.”

“What, ask me.”

“Something … I can’t remember.”

“Ask me.”

He was silent. He kept trying to move his suspended leg and scratch an itch under the cast.

“Things aren’t right in my head.”

“What things?”

“You and me.”

“Yes?”

“It’s like I have a hole in the middle of—”

“Ask.”

“What … What are we?”

She was not expecting that. “Do you mean …?” She must have leaned toward him too sharply. His head pulled back and his face shrank in terror. Perhaps in the dark he thought something — a hand or an implement — was about to hit him. She murmured, “What are we now?”

“Don’t be angry, I’m not quite …”

“We’re good friends, and we’ll always be good friends.” She suddenly felt compelled to add with a grating sort of cheer: “And you’ll see, we’ll make a new life for you!”

Afterward, for months, she tormented herself over that stupid line. And then there were times when she thought perhaps it had been prescient. We’ll make a new life . But at that moment she could almost hear his bitter ridicule. His heavy head moved slowly on the pillow as he tried to examine her face. She was glad the room was dark.

“Ora.”

“What?”

“Isn’t there anyone else in this room?”

“Just us.”

“The cast is driving me crazy,” he said thickly. Everything he did was so slow. She realized how much the old Avram was, for her, perhaps more than anything else, his rhythm, the sharpness of the way he moved through the world. “I’m cold.”

She covered him with a third blanket. He dripped with sweat and shivered with cold.

“Scratch it for me.”

She reached out and scratched his leg where the cast met the skin. She felt as if her finger was dipping in an open wound. He moaned and grunted with a mixture of pain and pleasure.

“Stop. It hurts.”

She sat back. “What, what do you want to know?”

“What were we?”

“What were we? We were all sorts of things. We were lots of things to each other, and we still will be, you’ll see, we still will be!”

With one hand, in an infinite motion, he pulled the blankets up over his chest, as if to protect himself from the deceit in her voice. He lay silently for a few minutes. Then she heard his dry lips part, and she knew what was coming.

“And Ilan?”

“Ilan … I don’t know where to start, I don’t know what you remember and what you don’t. Ask me.”

“I can’t remember. There are parts. In the middle it’s all erased.”

“Do you remember that you were on the base in Sinai with Ilan?”

“In Bavel, yes.”

“You were at the end of your army stint. I was already in Jerusalem, studying.” As she spoke, she thought: Stick to the facts. Only answer what he asks. Let him decide what he can hear.

There was silence again. The space heater sparked.

And wait for him, she warned herself. Go at his pace. Maybe he doesn’t even want to talk about it, maybe it’s too soon for him.

Avram lay still. His eyes were open. He had only one eyebrow, half of which was missing.

“You used to come home every other week in rotation from Sinai. You and Ilan.”

He gave her a questioning look.

“One week you, the next week him. One of you always had to stay on the base.”

He thought it over. “And the other?”

“The other would go on leave, to Jerusalem.”

“And you were in Jerusalem?”

“Yes”—stick to the facts—“do you remember where I lived?”

“There was a geranium,” Avram said after some thought.

“That’s right! You see, you do remember! I had a little room in Nachlaot.”

“You did?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“It comes and goes.”

“With an outhouse? And a tiny kitchen in the courtyard? We used to cook late at night. Once you made me chicken soup on a cooker.”

“And where was my mom?”

“Your mom?”

“Yes.”

“You … You don’t remember?”

“Isn’t she—”

“When you were in basic training, she—”

“Yes, you walked with me at the funeral, that’s right. Ilan was there, too. He walked next to me, on the other side. Yes.”

She stood up, unable to tolerate any more. “Are you hungry? Should I get you something?”

“Ora.”

She sat down obediently, as if ordered by a stern teacher.

“I don’t understand.”

“Ask me.”

“My mouth.”

She soaked a washcloth in water and dabbed his lips.

“But in the war—”

“Yes.”

“Why was I—”

He stopped himself, and Ora thought: Now he’s going to ask about the lots.

“I went down to the Canal, and Ilan didn’t.”

He remembered, she knew. He was remembering and did not have the courage to ask. She looked miserably at the window, searching for a hint of dawn, a sliver of light.

“You and me, what did we have?”

“I told you, we were friends. We were — listen, we were lovers,” she said finally, simply, and the words tore her heart.

“And I came back in an airplane?”

“What?” She was confused. “Yes, in an airplane. With the others.”

“There were others?”

“Many.”

“For a long time?”

“You were there for about—”

“No, me and you.”

“A year.”

She heard him repeat the words to himself. She resisted asking whether he thought it had been longer, so as not to hear him say shorter. Then he fell asleep again and snored. He seemed capable of digesting only one crumb of his previous life at a time.

“But we really did love,” she said, even though he was asleep. “You and me, we were really …” It’s horrible, she thought, the way I’m already talking about it in the past tense.

He moved, entangled in the covers, and swore at the cast that pressed on his leg. She heard the large plate screw in his arm clicking against the bedrail.

“Ora—”

“What?”

“I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“You need to know.”

“What?”

“I can’t …” He moaned, searching for the words. “I don’t love anything. Nothing.”

She sat silently.

“Ora?”

“Yes.”

“That’s it.”

“Yes.”

“And no one.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have it … Love.”

“Yes.”

“For anything.” He groaned. A remnant of his old compassionate, chivalrous self made him wish to protect her, she could sense it, but he did not have the strength. “I wanted to tell you earlier.”

“Yes.”

“Everything died in me.”

She bowed her head. How could there be an Avram without love? What was Avram without love? And who, she thought, am I without his love?

But since the war, since he was taken hostage, she’d had no love for anyone, either. Just like after Ada — her blood had dried up in her again. It was comfortable. She lived precisely within her means. But why did it seem so much more terrible in Avram?

“Tell me.”

“Yes.”

“How long were we?”

“Almost a year.”

“And you and Ilan?”

“Five years. From age seventeen or so. She laughed joylessly. “You hooked us up, remember?” We were in a hospital then too, she thought. There was a war then, too.

“That, I remember,” he murmured. “And I remember that you were a couple. I didn’t remember us.”

She swallowed the insult heavily.

Then he mumbled in surprise, “Of course we were, how could I forget.”

“You’ll remember everything, there’s no rush.”