To The End Of The Land Part 34

"Before, when we were standing at that lookout point," Ora says softly under her hat, "when we looked down on the Hula Valley and it was so beautiful, with the fields in all those colors, I realized that it's always like this for me with this land."

"Like what?"

"Every encounter I have with it is also a bit of a farewell."

Hidden under his hat, Avram fleetingly sees the shred of an Arabic newspaper he had found in a bucket in the latrine at Abbasiya Prison. Through the smeared excrement he had managed to decipher a brief report about the executions of deputy ministers and fifteen mayors from Haifa and the surrounding suburbs, held the previous night in the central square in Tel Aviv. For a few days and nights he was convinced that Israel no longer existed. Then he realized the fraud, but something had been damaged in him.

His eyes are wide open now. He remembers the interminable drives around the streets of Tel Aviv with Ora and with Ilan, after he got out of the hospital. Everything had seemed real and alive, but also like a big act. During one of those drives he'd said to Ora: "Okay, it's all very well to say, If you will it, it is no dream If you will it, it is no dream, as Herzl said, but what if you stop willing it? What if you can't be bothered to have the will anymore?"

"The will for what?"

"To stop being a dream."

A flock of partridges alights with beating wings from within the nearby thicket, and the b.i.t.c.h emerges, disappointed.

"And in those moments," Ora says through her hat, "I always think: This is my country, and I really don't have anywhere else to go. Where would I go? Tell me, where else could I get so annoyed about everything, and who would want me anyway? But at the same time I also know that it doesn't really have a chance, this country. It just doesn't. Do you understand?" She plucks the hat off her face and sits up, surprised to find him sitting there watching her. "If you think about it logically, if you just think numbers and facts and history, with no illusions, it doesn't have a chance."

All of a sudden, as if in a clumsy theater performance, a few dozen soldiers burst onto the green meadow, running in two lines, and split off on either side of Ora and Avram. Ordinance Corps Officers' Course Ordinance Corps Officers' Course, their sweaty s.h.i.+rts read. Thirty or forty young men, strong but exhausted, with a delicate-looking blond soldier jogging in front of them. She sings an irritating tune: "Tem-em-em-em-em!"

And they answer with a hoa.r.s.e roar: "All for lovely Rotem!"

"Tem-em-em-em-em!"

"All to war for Rotem!"

What do you tell a six-year-old boy, a pip-squeak Ofer, who one morning, while you're taking him to school, holds you close on the bike and asks in a cautious voice, "Mommy, who's against us?" And you try to find out exactly what he means, and he answers impatiently, "Who hates us in the world? Which countries are against us?" And of course you want to keep his world innocent and free of hatred, and you tell him that those who are against us don't always hate us, and that we just have a long argument with some of the countries around us about all sorts of things, just like children in school sometimes have arguments and even fights. But his little hands tighten around your stomach, and he demands the names of the countries that are against us, and there is an urgency in his voice and in his sharp chin that digs into your back, and so you start to name them: "Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon. But not Egypt-we have peace with them!" you say cheerfully. "We had lots of wars with them, but now we've made up." And you think to yourself: if only he knew that it was because of Egypt that he himself had come into being. But he demands precision, a very practical, detail-oriented child: "Is Egypt really our friend?" "Not really," you admit, "they still don't completely want to be our friends." "So they're against us," he solemnly decrees, and immediately asks if there are other "countries of Arabs," and he doesn't let up until you name them all: "Saudi Arabia, Libya, Sudan, Kuwait, and Yemen." You can feel his mouth learning the names behind your back, and you add Iran-not exactly Arabs, but not exactly our friends, either. After a pause he asks softly if there are any more, and you mumble, "Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria," and then you remember Indonesia and Malaysia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and probably Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan too-none of those stans stans sounds so great to you-and here we are at school, sweetie! When you help him get off the bike seat, he feels heavier than usual. sounds so great to you-and here we are at school, sweetie! When you help him get off the bike seat, he feels heavier than usual.

Over the following days Ofer started to listen closely to the news. Even if he was in the middle of a game, he would perk up just before the hour and again at the half-hour bulletin. Secretly, with spy-like movements, he would move toward the kitchen and stand, as if by chance, near the door, listening to the radio that was always on. She watched his little face twist into a mixture of anger and fear every time there was a report of an Israeli killed in an act of hostility. "Are you sad?" she asked him when he sobbed after another bomb went off in the market in Jerusalem, and he stomped his feet: "I'm not sad, I'm angry! They're killing all our people! Soon we'll run out of people!" She tried to rea.s.sure him: "We have a strong army, and there are some very big and strong countries that will protect us." Ofer treated this information with skepticism. He wanted to know where exactly these friendly countries were. Ora opened an atlas: "Here's the United States of America, for example, and here's England, and here are another few good friends of ours." She quickly waved an overgeneralizing hand near a few European countries that she herself did not particularly trust. He looked at her in astonishment. "But they're all the way over there!" he shouted, in disbelief at her stupidity. "Look how many pages there are between here and there!"

A few days later he asked her to show him the countries that were "against us." She opened up the atlas again and pointed to each country, one after the other. "Wait, but where are we?" A glimmer of hope shone in his eyes: Maybe they weren't on that page. She pointed with her pinky finger at Israel. A strange whimper escaped his lips, and he suddenly clung to her as hard as he could, fought and plowed his way to her with his whole body, as though trying to be swallowed up in it again. She hugged him and stroked him and murmured words of comfort. Sharp sweat, almost an old man's sweat, broke out all over his skin. When she managed to hold up his face, she saw in his eyes something that knotted her gut in one pull.

Over the next days he grew uncharacteristically quiet. Even Adam could not cheer him up. Ilan and Ora tried. They plied him with promises of a trip to Holland over summer vacation, or even a Kenyan safari, all in vain. He was depressed and lifeless, lost in himself. Ora realized then how much her own happiness depended on the light of this child's face.

"His gaze," said Ilan. "I don't like the look in his eyes. It's not a child's look."

"At us?"

"At everything. Haven't you noticed?"

She may have noticed, of course she'd noticed, but as usual-"You know me," she sighs as she and Avram walk down the Meron. "You know how I am with these things"-she simply preferred not to think about what she saw, to turn a blind eye to all the signs, and certainly not to say anything about them out loud, hoping they would fade away. But now Ilan would say it, he would define it, he would soberly and crudely put words to it, and then it would become real, and it would grow and multiply.

"It's like he knows something we don't yet have the courage to-"

"Don't worry about it, it's just a phase. These are normal fears at that age."

"I'm telling you Ora, they're not."

She giggled joylessly. "You remember how when Adam was three, he was really preoccupied with the question of whether there were Arabs at night, too?"

"But this is something different, Ora. My feeling is that-"

"Listen, let's take him to spend a day on the horse ranch he once-"

"Sometimes I have the feeling he's looking at us like-"

"A parrot!" Ora fluttered desperately. "Remember he asked us to buy him a-"

"Like we've been given death sentences."

And then Ofer demanded numbers. When he heard there were four and a half million people in Israel, he was impressed, even rea.s.sured. The number seemed enormous to him. But after two days a new thought came-"He was always a terribly logical child," she tells Avram, "and that's not from you or from me either, that a.n.a.lytical, purposeful mind"-and he wanted to know "how many are against us." He wouldn't stop until Ilan found out for him exactly the number of citizens in each Muslim country in the world. Ofer enlisted Adam, who helped him with the calculations, and they shut themselves up in their room. "What do you do with a child like that, who suddenly learns the facts of life and death?" Ora asks Avram as they pa.s.s a rocky monument for a Druze soldier. Sergeant Salah Ka.s.sem Tafesh, May G.o.d Avenge His Blood Sergeant Salah Ka.s.sem Tafesh, May G.o.d Avenge His Blood, Avram reads out of the corner of his eye-Ora hurries ahead-Fell in Southern Lebanon in an Encounter with Terrorists, on the 16th of Nissan 5752, at Age 21. Your Memory Is Engraved in Our Hearts.

"What do you do with a child like that?" she repeats with pursed lips. A child who goes out and uses his pocket money to buy a little orange spiral notebook and every day writes in it, in pencil, how many Israelis are left after the last terrorist attack. Or who at Pa.s.sover Seder, with Ilan's family, suddenly starts crying that he doesn't want to be Jewish anymore, because they always kill us and always hate us, and he knows this because all the holidays are about it. And the adults look at one another, and a brother-in-law mumbles that it is kind of difficult to argue with that, and his wife says, "Don't be paranoid," and he quotes, "That in every generation, they rise up against us to destroy us," "That in every generation, they rise up against us to destroy us," and she replies that it's not exactly scientific fact, and that maybe we should examine our own role in the whole and she replies that it's not exactly scientific fact, and that maybe we should examine our own role in the whole rising up against us rising up against us business, and the familiar argument ensues, and Ora, as usual, flees to the kitchen to help with the dishes, but she suddenly stops: she sees Ofer looking at the adults as they argue, horrified at their doubts, at their naivete, and his eyes fill with fervent, prophetic tears. business, and the familiar argument ensues, and Ora, as usual, flees to the kitchen to help with the dishes, but she suddenly stops: she sees Ofer looking at the adults as they argue, horrified at their doubts, at their naivete, and his eyes fill with fervent, prophetic tears.

"Look at them," Avram had said to her once, in one of their drives around the streets of Tel Aviv after he got back. "Look at them. They walk down the street, they talk, they shout, read newspapers, go to the grocery store, sit in cafes"-he went on for several minutes describing everything they saw through the car window-"but why do I keep thinking it's all one big act? That it's all to convince themselves that this place is truly real?"

"You're exaggerating," Ora had said.

"I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think the Americans or the French have to believe so hard all the time just to make America exist. Or France, or England."

"I don't understand what you mean."

"Those are countries that exist even without having to always want want them to exist. And here-" them to exist. And here-"

"I'm looking around," she said, her voice slightly hoa.r.s.e and high-pitched, "and everything looks completely natural and normal to me. A little crazy, that's true, but in a normal way."

Because I've looked at it from a different place, Avram thought, and sank silently into himself.

The next day, Ora told him now, Ofer woke up with a conclusion and a solution: from now on he would be English, and everyone had to call him John, and he would not answer to the name Ofer. "'Cause no one kills them," them," he explained simply, "and they don't have any enemies. I asked in cla.s.s, and Adam says so too, everyone's friends with the English." He started speaking English, or rather, what he thought was English, a gibberish version of Hebrew with an English accent. And just to be on the safe side, he b.u.t.tressed his bed with protective layers of books and toys, trenches of furry stuffed animals. And every night he insisted on sleeping with a heavy monkey wrench next to his head. he explained simply, "and they don't have any enemies. I asked in cla.s.s, and Adam says so too, everyone's friends with the English." He started speaking English, or rather, what he thought was English, a gibberish version of Hebrew with an English accent. And just to be on the safe side, he b.u.t.tressed his bed with protective layers of books and toys, trenches of furry stuffed animals. And every night he insisted on sleeping with a heavy monkey wrench next to his head.

"I happened to look in his notebook one day, and I saw that he kept writing 'Arobs.' When I told him it was spelled with an 'a' he was amazed: 'I thought it was A-robs, 'cause they keep robbing us.'

"Then one day he found out that some Israelis were Arabs. Well, by that time I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, you know? He discovered that all his calculations were wrong, and he had to deduct the Israeli Arabs from the number of Israelis."

She remembers how furious he was when he found out. He stomped his feet and shouted and turned red and hurled himself on the floor and screamed: "Make them go away! Back to their own homes! Why did they even come here? Don't they have their own places?"

"And then he had an attack, a bit like the one he had at age four, with the vegetarianism. He ran a high fever, and for almost a week I was in total despair. And there was one night when he was convinced there was an Arab with him."

"In his body?" Avram asks in horror, and his eyes dart to the sides. She has the feeling that he has lied to her about something.

"In his room," she corrects him softly. "It was just feverish nonsense, hallucinations."

The hair on her skin stands on end, telling her she has to be careful, but she's not sure of what. Avram seems to have ossified right in front of her. His eyes harden with the look of a captive.

"Are you okay?"

There is shame and terror and guilt in his eyes. For a moment Ora thinks she knows exactly what she is seeing, and the next moment she flings herself away. An Arab in his body, she thinks. What did they do to him there? Why doesn't he ever talk?

"I'll never forget that night," she says, trying to abate the horror on Avram's face. "Ilan was on reserve duty in Lebanon, in the eastern sector. He was gone for four weeks. I put Adam to sleep in our bed so Ofer wouldn't disturb him. Adam didn't have a lot of patience for Ofer through that whole episode. It was like he couldn't see that Ofer was afraid of something. And just imagine: Ofer was-I don't know, six? And Adam was already nine and a half, and it was like he couldn't forgive Ofer for breaking down like that.

"I sat with Ofer all night, and he was burning up and confused, and he kept seeing the Arab in the room, sitting on Adam's bed, on the closet, under the bed, peering at him from the window. Madness.

"I tried to calm him, and I turned on the light, and I brought a flashlight to prove to him there was no one there. I also tried to explain some of the facts to him, to put things in perspective-me, the big expert, right? There I was in the middle of the night, giving him a seminar on the history of the conflict."

"And then what?" Avram asks very quietly, his face fallen.

"Nothing. You couldn't even talk to him. He was so miserable-you'll laugh-that I almost thought of calling Sami, our driver, you know, the one who-"

"Yes."

"To explain to him, or something like that. To show him that he was an Arab too, and that he wasn't Ofer's enemy and didn't hate him and didn't want his room." She falls quiet and swallows a bitter lump: the memory of her last drive with Sami.

"At nine the next morning, Ofer had an appointment with our family doctor. At eight, after I sent Adam to school, I bundled up Ofer in a coat, sat him in the car, and drove to Latrun."

"Latrun?"

"I'm a practical girl."

With a stern and determined look, she had climbed up the steps, walked down the gravel path, put Ofer down in the center of the huge courtyard at the Armored Corps site, and told him to look.

He had blinked hazily, blinded by the winter sun. Around him were dozens of tanks, both ancient and new. Tank barrels and machine guns were aimed at him. She held his hand and walked him to one of the larger ones, a Soviet T-55. Ofer stood facing the tank, excited. She asked if he was strong enough to climb on it. He replied in amazement: "Am I allowed?" She helped him climb up the turret, then clambered up after him. He stood there, swaying, looked fearfully around, and asked, "Is this ours?"

"Yes."

"You mean, all this?"

"Yes, and there's lots more, we have loads of these."

Ofer waved his arm in the air over the semicircle of tanks in front of him. Some of them had been discontinued as long ago as the Second World War, metal toads and iron tortoises, antiquated booty tanks from at least three wars. He asked to climb on another tank, and another, and another. He ran his fingers in awe over tracks, firing platforms, equipment chambers, and transmissions and rode like a cavalier on the barrels. At ten-thirty they both sat down in the restaurant at the Latrun gas station, where Ofer devoured a huge Greek salad and a three-egg omelet.

"Maybe it was a little primitive, my instant treatment, but it was definitely effective." Then she adds drily, "Besides, at the time I thought that what was good enough for a whole country was good enough for my child."

In the heart of a pasture, at the foot of a giant lone oak tree, a man is lying on the ground. His head rests on a large rock, a backpack sits beside him, and Ora's blue notebook peeks out of one of its pockets.

They stand awkwardly by his side, afraid to wake him, yet drawn to the notebook. Ora s.n.a.t.c.hes her gla.s.ses off her face and hides them in her f.a.n.n.y pack. She quickly runs her fingers through her disheveled hair to tidy it. She and Avram try to understand-exchanging looks and furrowed brows-how the man has managed to get here ahead of them. Ora, slightly envious, admires the tranquillity and confidence with which he has abandoned himself in this open, invadable s.p.a.ce. His dark, masculine face is so exposed. Those gla.s.ses lie on his chest like a large b.u.t.terfly, tied to a string around his neck.

Avram signals to her that if she has no objection, he will take the notebook. She hesitates. The notebook is nestled comfortably in his backpack pocket.

But Avram is already approaching, and with a pickpocket's expertise he fishes the notebook out of the bag and signals to Ora that they should move away quickly if they don't want to get embroiled in explanations, especially with someone who, at their first encounter, had made the mistake of mentioning the news.

She hugs the notebook to her heart, soaking up its warmth. The man goes on sleeping. With his mouth half open, he snores, making soft, woolly sounds. His arms and legs are clumsily splayed out. A rug of silver hair rises out of his s.h.i.+rt collar and awakens in Ora a vague longing to put her head there, to give herself over to a deep, infectious slumber, like his own. In a moment's impulse, she tears out the last page of the notebook and writes, "I took back my notebook. Bye, Ora." She hesitates, and quickly adds her phone number, in case he wants a more detailed explanation. When she leans over to put the note in his backpack, she notices them again: two identical wedding rings, one on his ring finger, the other on his pinky.

They slip away quickly, bubbling sweetly with the success of their plot, their eyes glimmering with childlike mischief. As they walk, she leafs through the notebook, amazed to see how much she had written that night by the river. She scans her lines with his eyes.

The path appears again, bending and twisting cheerfully, and the dog circles around them, sometimes runs alongside them and at other times sprints ahead quickly, then suddenly stops for no reason. She sits on her behind, turns her head back to Ora, the black arches above her eyes slightly raised, and Ora makes a similar gesture.

"She's a happy dog, see? She's smiling at us."

But as they walk down the mountain, over heaps of shattered fallen rocks, a bothersome thought nags at her. She could not have written so many pages in one night. A few steps later, next to a huge rock with a mysterious oblong shape, she has to stop. She pulls the notebook out of her backpack, puts her gla.s.ses back on, and quickly leafs through the pages. She lets out a little shriek: "Look!" She shows Avram. "Look, it's his handwriting!"

Avram studies the pages and his face wrinkles. "Are you sure? Because it looks like-"

She holds the page close to her face. It looks like her handwriting, or a masculine version of it: straight, neat characters, all at the same angle. "It really does look like mine," she mumbles awkwardly, feeling naked. "Even I was confused."

She turns the pages back, looking for the place where the writers switched. Twice, then three times, she flips past the right point before recognizing her final lines: Aren't we like a little underground cell in the heart of the 'situation'? And that really is what we were. For twenty years. Twenty good years. Until we got trapped Aren't we like a little underground cell in the heart of the 'situation'? And that really is what we were. For twenty years. Twenty good years. Until we got trapped. Immediately after those words-even without turning the page: such chutzpah! Even without a separating line!-she reads: Next to Dishon River I meet Gilead, 34, an electrician and djembe drummer, who used to be from a moshav in the north. Now lives in Haifa. What does he miss: "Dad was a farmer (pecans), and in slow years he Next to Dishon River I meet Gilead, 34, an electrician and djembe drummer, who used to be from a moshav in the north. Now lives in Haifa. What does he miss: "Dad was a farmer (pecans), and in slow years he did all kinds of jobs. There was a time when he gathered construction planks from dumps and sold them to an Arab in the village nearby." did all kinds of jobs. There was a time when he gathered construction planks from dumps and sold them to an Arab in the village nearby."

"What is this?" She thrusts the notebook at Avram's chest. "What is this supposed to be?" She pulls it back and reads with a choked-up voice: "Wood, you see-you have to know how to treat it. You can't just throw it in the bas.e.m.e.nt. You have to carefully stack big ones on big ones, and small ones on small ones, and put bricks on top of it all, otherwise it warps. But first of all you have to take out the nails. So I would stand with Dad at night in the sheltered area where he kept the wood- "What on earth is this? What is all this stuff?" She raises her eyebrows at Avram, but his eyes are closed, and he signals: Keep reading.

"Dad had a blue unders.h.i.+rt, with holes here. And we had a crowbar that we connected to an extension handle, and we would take an iron chisel and separate, say, two planks nailed together. Dad on this end, me on that end, bracing, and after we separated them, we'd work together on the plank, pulling out nails with the other end of the hammer. It went on for hours, with a little bulb hanging above from a string, and that's something I still miss to this day, the way I worked with him like that, together.

"There's more. Listen, that's not all. There's more.

"Now about the regret. Well, that's a harder one. I regret lots of things (laughs). I mean, do people just come out and tell you? Look, at some point I had a ticket to Australia, to work on a cotton farm. I had a visa and everything, and then I met a girl here and I canceled my trip. But she was worth it, so it's just a partial regret."

Ora frantically turns the page and her eyes run over the lines. She reads silently: Tamar, my darling, someone lost a notebook with her life story. I'm almost positive I met her earlier, when I walked down to the river. She looked like she was in a bad state. In danger even (she wasn't alone). Ever since I saw her, I've been asking you what to do but you haven't answered. I'm not used to not getting answers from you, Tammi. It's all a little confusing. But I am asking the questions you posed at the end: What do we miss most? What do we regret? Tamar, my darling, someone lost a notebook with her life story. I'm almost positive I met her earlier, when I walked down to the river. She looked like she was in a bad state. In danger even (she wasn't alone). Ever since I saw her, I've been asking you what to do but you haven't answered. I'm not used to not getting answers from you, Tammi. It's all a little confusing. But I am asking the questions you posed at the end: What do we miss most? What do we regret?

Ora slaps the notebook shut. "What is he? Who is this?"

Avram's face is gloomy and distant.

"Maybe a journalist, interviewing people along his way? But he doesn't look like one at all." A doctor, she remembers. He said he was a pediatrician.

She glances at the pages again: Near Moshav Alma I meet Edna, 39 Near Moshav Alma I meet Edna, 39, divorced, a kindergarten teacher, Haifa: "What I miss most is my childhood days in Zichron Yaakov. Originally I'm a Zamarin, that was my maiden name, and I miss the days of innocence, the simplicity we had then. Everything was less complicated. Less, kind of, 'psychological.' You wouldn't believe it to look at me, but I have three grown sons (laughs). It doesn't show, does it? I married early and divorced even earlier..." divorced, a kindergarten teacher, Haifa: "What I miss most is my childhood days in Zichron Yaakov. Originally I'm a Zamarin, that was my maiden name, and I miss the days of innocence, the simplicity we had then. Everything was less complicated. Less, kind of, 'psychological.' You wouldn't believe it to look at me, but I have three grown sons (laughs). It doesn't show, does it? I married early and divorced even earlier..."

Ora is sucked in. She turns the pages rapidly and sees, on every page, longings and regrets. "I don't understand," she murmurs, feeling deceived. "He looked like such a"-she searches for the right word-"solid man? Simple? Private? Not a man who...who would just walk around asking people these kinds of questions."

Avram says nothing. He digs the tip of his shoe into the gravel.

"And why in my my notebook?" Ora asks loudly. "Aren't there any other notebooks?" notebook?" Ora asks loudly. "Aren't there any other notebooks?"

She spins around and starts to walk away, head held high, pressing the notebook close to her. Avram shrugs his shoulders, looks back for a moment-there's no one there, the guy must still be asleep-and follows her. He does not see the thin smile of surprise on her lips.

"Ora-"

"What?"

"Didn't Ofer want to go on a big trip somewhere, after the army?"

"Let him finish the army first," she says curtly.

"Actually, he did talk about that," she picks up later. "Maybe to India."

"India?" Avram bites back a smile and buries an unruly thought: He should come see me at the restaurant. I can tell him all about India.

"He hasn't decided yet. They were thinking of traveling together, he and Adam."

"The two of them? Are they really that-"