To the End of the Land

by David Grossman

  After a while they reached a small moshav hidden behind a hill and a few groves. Two rows of houses, most with tacked-on balconies and flimsy storehouses, were abutted by chicken coops and feed silos and separated by yards piled with crates, iron pipes, old fridges, and all sorts of junk. Avram’s eyes lit up as he scanned the options. Concrete bomb shelters jutted out of the ground like snouts, covered with lettering in chalk and paint, and here and there a rusty tractor or a pickup truck with no wheels was propped up on blocks. Among the patchworked houses, the occasional sparkling new building stood out, towering castles of stone with turrets and gables and signs announcing luxurious guest rooms in a charming Galilee atmosphere, including Jacuzzis and shiatsu massage. Adults and children started to pour out of the houses as they arrived, shouting, “Akiva’s here! Akiva’s here!” Akiva’s face lit up, and he stopped at various houses to deliver a member of the gang to a woman or a child. At every house they asked him to come in just for a moment, for something to drink or nibble, and lunch would be ready soon, but he refused: “The day is short and there is much work to be done.” He walked the length of the main street—it was the only street—in this fashion, until he had dispersed his flock and was left only with Avram and Ora, whom no one came to claim. Children and young boys walked beside them and asked who they were and where they came from, and whether they were tourists or Jews. They agreed among themselves that they were Jews, albeit Ashkenazim, and wondered about their backpacks and sleeping bags and about Ora’s scratched, dirty face. Mangy, malcontented dogs ran after them and barked. They both longed to get back to their path and their solitude, and Ora could barely hold back the talk about Ofer, but Akiva was somehow unwilling to let them go. As he talked and jumped around he seemed to be searching for a place where he could help them, and between waving to an old man and giving a quick blessing to a baby, he told them that for him this was both a mitzvah and a living. The local council had arranged a special job for him as “gladdener of the dejected”—that was what his pay stub actually stated—and he did this every day, six days a week. Even when they cut his salary in half this year, he did not cut down on his work; on the contrary, he added two hours a day, “For one must multiply acts of holiness, not diminish them.” Besides, he said, he remembered Avram from the pub on HaYarkon Street. Back then, neither of them had a beard, and Akiva’s name was Aviv, and Avram sometimes used to belt out “Otchi Tchorniya” and Paul Robeson songs from behind the bar. If he remembered correctly, Avram had developed a fairly interesting theory about the memories that old objects had, whereby if you put together all sorts of junk, you could make them play out their memories. “Did I remember correctly?” “You did,” Avram grunted, and glanced at Ora evasively. Ora pricked up her ears, and Akiva walked quickly and told them that he had found religion five years ago. Before that, he was getting his doctorate in philosophy in Jerusalem. Schopenhauer was half God for him, the love of his life—or actually, the hatred of his life. He let out a green-eyed laugh. “Do you know Schopenhauer? Such a masking of the divine face! Such total blackness! And you, what about you guys? What’s with the gloom and doom?”

  “Forget it,” Ora laughed. “You won’t cheer us up with a blessing or a dance, we’re a really complicated case.”

  Akiva stopped in the middle of the street and turned to face her with his vivacious eyes and his strong high cheekbones, and Ora thought, What a waste.

  “Don’t be condescending,” he said. “Everything here is really complicated too, what did you think? These are things that can break the strongest faith. In this place you’ll hear stories that only the most misanthropic author could write, maybe Bukowski on a really bad day, or Burroughs jonesing for a fix. And if you’re a believer, where does that leave you, hey?” There was no jocularity on his face. His lips trembled for a brief moment, in anger, or from heartbreak. Then he said quietly, “Once, when I was like you, maybe even a lot more cynical than you—a Schopenhauer freak, you know?—once I would say about these kinds of things: God is cracking up with laughter.”

  Ora pursed her lips and did not reply. She thought to herself, Shut up and listen, what harm could it do to gain a little strength, even with his help? Do you have such reserves of strength that you can pass up even a drop of reinforcement? For a moment she considered offhandedly pulling out her shiviti from her blouse, so he’d see that she too had an elated Jewish soul. Oh, you miserable woman, she rebuked herself. You beggar. Or maybe it was just that this Akiva was arousing something in her, despite his tzitzit and all his jumping around and his religious nonsense.

  Akiva wiped the anger off his face with both hands, smiled at her, and said, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, we shall go to Ya’ish and Yakut’s house to cheer them up, and maybe we’ll cheer ourselves up as well.”

  Even before they arrived, a small, round, laughing woman came out to them, wiping her hands on her apron and calling, “Oh my, we’ve been waiting so long, we could’ve died! Hello, Akiva! Hello mister and missus, such an honor, really. What happened to you, lady, did you fall, God forbid?” She kissed Akiva’s hand, and he put his palm on her head and blessed her with his eyes closed. The house was dark, despite the midday hour, and two young boys were dragging a table with a chair on it across the room to replace a burned-out lightbulb, and there was great rejoicing when they walked in. “Akiva brought the light! Akiva brought the light!” When the family members saw Ora and Avram, they fell silent and looked at Akiva for guidance. He waved both arms and sang, “Hineh ma tov! Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” Avram was quickly seated in an armchair with much fanfare, and Ora was taken by a big-boned woman to the bathroom, where she washed her face and hair for a long time, flushing out streams of mud. The woman stood watching her with kind eyes, then handed her a towel and some cotton wool and gently applied yellow iodine to her cuts and scrapes. She said it was good that it stung, that meant all the germs were burning off, and then she took Ora back to the living room, washed and placated.

  Meanwhile, from the bustling kitchen, there had emerged a silver platter adorned with little silver fish around the edges, bearing sunflower seeds, almonds, peanuts, pistachios, and dates. Then came a round copper platter with glasses of tea in delicate silver holders, and the lady of the house urged Ora and Avram to snack, saying lunch would be served soon. With some horror, Ora noticed a muscular young man with both legs amputated, darting around on his arms with amazing speed. Akiva explained that the three boys in the family were born deaf-mute, and it was from God: “The girls came out all right, praise God, but not the boys. Something hereditary. And that one you see there, Rachamim, the youngest, he decided in childhood that the handicap wouldn’t get in his way. He went to high school in Kiryat Shmonah, got all Bs on his finals, and had a profession as a bookkeeper in a metal factory. Then one day he got sick of it and decided he wanted to see the world.” Akiva turned to the young man and announced: “Isn’t that true, Rachamim? You were a real jet-setter, hey? Monaco?” Rachamim smiled and gestured with one hand at his no-legs and made a warmhearted yet terrifying cutting motion, and Akiva explained that two years ago, in Buenos Aires, Rachamim was working in a quarry when a heavy machine flipped over and crushed him. “But even that didn’t stop him,” Akiva said as he leaned over and put his arm around Rachamim’s shoulders. “Last week he was back at work in the moshav, doing night shifts as a guard in the egg storeroom, and God willing”—he gave Ora a look that denied his grin—“next year we’ll marry him off to a kosher Jewish girl.”

  They were urged to have lunch at this house too, and this time Akiva did not immediately reject the offer. He hesitated, closed his eyes, and consulted with himself, using broad hand gestures, and murmured, “Let thy foot be seldom in thy neighbor’s house; lest he be sated with thee, and hate thee.” The others crowded around him and yelled out, “No! They won’t be sated with thee and they won’t hate thee!” Akiva’s eyes lit up, and he raised his right hand and called out
musically to the housewife: “Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes.” The swarm of women dispersed and hurried to the kitchen, and Ora guessed from his look that he had accepted the invitation because this house was slightly less poor than the others and could withstand the burden.

  Akiva himself went into the kitchen to make sure they didn’t go overboard, and Ora and Avram were left in the room with a few of the family members, mostly girls and young children. There was utter silence until one boy plucked up the courage to ask where they were from. Ora told him she was from Jerusalem and Avram was from Tel Aviv, but originally he was also from Jerusalem, and when he was a little boy he lived in a neighborhood near the shuk. But they were not impressed with her folkloric image of Jerusalem, and a thin young girl who was very pale and bundled up asked with some alarm, “You’re not married?” The others giggled and shushed the impudent girl, but Ora said softly, “We’ve been friends for over thirty years.” Another boy, with thin side locks tucked behind his ears and long black eyes like a young goat’s, jumped up and protested: “Then why didn’t you get married?” Ora said it just hadn’t worked out that way and resisted saying, It seems we weren’t meant to be together. Another girl giggled and held her hand over her mouth as she asked, “So did you marry someone else?” Ora nodded, and an excited whisper frothed up the room. All eyes were drawn to the kitchen to seek help from Akiva, who would certainly know how to behave in such a situation. Ora said, “But I don’t live with him anymore,” and the girl asked, “Why? Did he divorce you?” Ora ignored the painful blow, although it was like a punch in her stomach, and said, “Yes,” and without being asked, she added, “I’m alone now, and Avram, this guy, is my friend, and we’re hiking around the country together.” Something a little unctious, the same thing that had tempted her to specify “Jerusalem” and “a neighborhood near the shuk,” now compelled her to add, “Our beautiful country.”

  The thin pale girl persisted with a stern expression. “And this man, does he have a wife?”

  Ora looked at Avram, waiting for an answer, and he hunched over and stared at his fingers. Ora thought about the earring that looked like a horseman’s spur, and the purple hairs in the brush in his bathroom, and when his silence persisted, she answered for him, “No, he’s alone now.” Avram gave an imperceptible nod, and a shadow of worry passed over his face.

  Other men and women came into the house, placed dishes on the table, and brought chairs. The thin boy with the goat eyes jumped up and asked, “But what’s the matter with him? Why is he like that? Is he sick?” Ora said, “No, he’s sad,” and everyone looked at Avram and nodded understandingly, as if all at once he had been deciphered and was now clear and simple. Ora said boldly, “His son is in the army, in that campaign that’s going on now.” A coo of understanding and sympathy spread through the room, and blessings rolled off tongues, for this particular soldier and for our Defense Forces in general, and there were declarations, and God curse the Arabs, with everything we gave them they still want more, all they think about is killing us, for Esau hated Yaakov, and Ora, with a very broad smile, suggested that today they not talk about politics. The difficult girl furrowed her brow in surprise: “That’s politics? That’s the truth! It’s from the Torah!” Ora said, “Yes. But we don’t want to talk about the news today!” An unpleasant silence congealed in the room, and at that moment, fortunately, Akiva came back from the kitchen and announced that the food would be ready soon, and meanwhile they should rejoice, “For he who eats without rejoicing in Hashem, it is as if he eats sacrifices of the dead.”

  His arms and legs were already flying, and he started to sing and dance around the whole room, clapping his giant hands over his head and sweeping up one boy after the other. He snatched an eight- or nine-month-old baby out of a girl’s lap and proceeded to wave him in the air. The brave baby was brown and chubby: he was not scared at all, and he laughed out loud, and his laughter infected everyone. Even Avram smiled, and Akiva’s eye picked it up, and in a graceful wave he danced over to Avram and placed the baby in his lap.

  Within the joyful commotion Ora felt a thin frosty line stretch instantly around Avram as his body hardened and fossilized. His hands enveloped the outline of the baby’s body without touching him. From her side of the room she could feel Avram’s limbs retreat into the shell of their skin, far from the baby’s touch.

  The baby was completely absorbed in the revelry around him and in Akiva’s wild dancing, and did not pay the slightest attention to the distress of the person in whose lap he had been dropped. His curvy brown body rocked cheerfully to the rhythm of the song and the clapping, his arms moved around as though he were conducting the tumult, and his fleshy mouth, a perfect little red heart, opened wide in a bright smile, and immeasurable sweetness poured forth.

  Ora did not move. Avram stared straight ahead and seemed not to see anything. His heavy head with its stubbly beard was suddenly dark and foreign behind the baby’s illuminating face. There was something almost intolerable in the scene. Ora imagined that this was the first time since his captivity that Avram had held a baby, and then it occurred to her that it might be the first time in his life. If only I had brought Ofer to him when he was a baby, she thought. If only I had come to him, unannounced, and placed Ofer in his arms, just like that, naturally, with utter confidence, as Akiva did. But it was now, with the actual picture before her, that Ora could not imagine Avram holding Ofer in his arms, and she wondered how he had caused her to erect a total barrier within herself between him and Ofer.

  The baby must have been incredibly even-tempered; he reached out and grabbed hold of Avram’s hand, which was lying lifelessly next to his hip, and he tried to hold it up to his head. When he found it too heavy, he twisted his face angrily and reached his other hand out. With great effort he pulled Avram’s hand up and moved it this way and that like a conductor’s baton, and it seemed to Ora that the baby had not grasped that he was holding a person’s hand, and moreover, that he was sitting on a living human being. His distress grew when he noticed the hand’s fingers and began to study then, and then play with them, but he still did not look back to see who the hand belonged to and in whose lap he was sitting so intimately. He simply folded and bent the unfamiliar fingers at their joints, wagged them in his hands as though they were a soft hand-shaped toy or a glove, and every so often he smiled at Akiva dancing before him and at the women and the girls who came and went from the kitchen. After he had carefully examined the gentle fingers and wondered about their fingernails and a fresh scratch he found—Ora remembered the way Avram used to torture himself with endless hand flexes, struggling to tone his muscles—the baby turned over Avram’s hand and explored its soft palm with his finger.

  Everyone was now busy setting the table and distributing bowls of food, and no one apart from Ora was watching. The baby put his lips to Avram’s palm and made a soft, truncated bleating sound: “Ba-ba-ba.” He utterly delighted in the sound and the tickling sensation on his lips. Ora herself felt a teasing hum in her throat and mouth. Inside her, a voiceless murmur also bleated, Ba-ba.

  With both hands the baby held the limb and played with it on his rosy mouth, wrapped his cheeks and chin in it, gave himself over to the apparently pleasurable touch of the hand—Ora remembered, she remembered Avram’s amazingly thin skin, astoundingly soft, all over his body—and the baby’s dark eyes focused somewhere in the space of the room, and he was consumed with pure wonder at his own voice echoing through the shell he had made. Within the hubbub around him he listened only to his voice coming from outside and inside at the same time, as if hearing the first story he had ever told himself. He seemed to sense that with Avram it was good to tell stories, Ora thought. Avram did not move, and hardly breathed, so as not to disturb the baby, but after a while he shifted and straightened up a little in the chair, releasing his body, and Ora saw his shoulders soften and open and his lower lip tremble slightly in a movement that only she noticed because s
he knew to anticipate it—how she had once loved these reflections of his subcutaneous turmoils, and the way every emotion left its mark on him, and the way he used to blush like a girl. She wondered if she should get up and rescue him by taking the baby, but she could not move. From the corner of her eye she could see that Akiva had also noticed what was going on, and that as he danced to and from the kitchen he constantly monitored the situation. He did not look worried or fearful for the baby, and her heart told her to trust his calmness.

  She leaned back and allowed herself to sink into Avram, who finally turned to her and gave her a complete, lingering look, the look of a living person, and Ora felt then, right in the palm of her hand, the baby’s breath, and how without even touching her the baby was imprinting her with the stamp of his warm, damp vivacity. Her hand closed over the burning secret, the kiss of another human’s inner being, a tiny human in a diaper. Avram gave her a very slight nod of recognition, of acknowledgment. She replied with a similar nod, and for the first time since leaving home, and in contradiction to the despair that had consumed her only a few hours ago, when she had buried her face in the earth, she now had the thought that things might be good, and that perhaps she and Avram, together, were doing the right thing after all. But it was then that the baby started crying. He spread his chubby arms and cried at the top of his lungs, his face lit up in bright purple insult, and Ora dashed over and took him. As she did so, Avram let a few quick words escape, but she did not hear them properly because of the crying baby, or because of a slight shock that hit her when she touched the place where the baby’s body had sprung from Avram’s—and what she thought he said was, “But start from a distance.”

  She smiled awkwardly, confused by his words. Start what? And why from a distance? The baby’s mother hurried in from the kitchen, her face red from the stove, and apologized for leaving the baby with Avram. “We turned you into a baggage claim! Any minute now he’d be calling you daddy.” She laughed at how the little one had already been passed around, keeping everyone busy. “Not one minute of quiet from this one,” she complained affectionately. “Hungry, Daddy?” she asked, and Ora noticed that Avram was nodding distractedly, but he quickly pulled himself together and looked away from the mother, who sat down nearby and deftly pushed the baby under her blouse, where his head disappeared.