To The End Of The Land Part 40

"'The initiated will understand what I mean when I use this expression to describe the person from whom I draw all my strength-for I truly have no other source of strength-and to whom I have repeatedly owed my survival.'"

"Thank you," said Neta, still swaying on the ladder as if in a dream.

Avram said nothing. He seemed loathsome and despicable in his own eyes.

"Do you understand what the problem is?"

He moved his head to indicate something between yes and no.

"It's very simple. You are my life support life support, but I'm not your life support life support."

"Neta, you're-"

"Your life support is her, that woman who had a child with you, whose name you won't even tell me."

He buried his head between his shoulders and did not answer.

"But look." She smiled and brushed the hair away from her eyes. "It's not such an original tragedy, what we have here. And not such a big problem, either. The world is just a very unfocused picture. I can live with that-how about you?"

He did not answer. She asked for so little, but he could not give her even that. "Come on, Neta." He held out his hand.

"But think about it?" Her soft eyes lingered on him, full of hope.

"Okay. Now come on."

A flock of starlings soared by with a flutter of wings. Avram and Neta stood there, both immersed in themselves.

"Not yet?" she murmured to herself after a while, as though responding to an unheard voice. "It's not time yet?"

With two swift strokes she landed the ladder on the rooftop floor. "Look at you," she said, sounding surprised. "You're shaking all over. Are you cold inside? In your no-heart?"

Ora tells him more about Adam the next day. She would prefer to talk again about the old Adam, baby Adam, about the three years when he was hers alone. But he asks about today's Adam, and without holding anything back, she describes her older son, whose eyes are always red and bloodshot, whose body is slender and a little stooped, hunched forward with troubling languor, his hands and fingers drooping to the ground, his lip pulled up with a slightly contemptuous expression of subtle, nihilistic scorn.

She is struck by the things she says about him and by the fact that she is capable of looking at Adam this way. Ilan's objective view of the boys is now hers, too. She is learning to speak a foreign language.

Note by note, she depicts a young man of twenty-four who looks both weak and tough at the same time, conveying a quiet strength beyond his age. "I don't quite understand it," she says hesitantly, "this strength he has. It's something elusive, even a bit"-she swallows-"dark." There, I've said it.

"His face isn't anything special, at least not at first sight-he's pale, with cheeks darkened by stubble, sunken black eyes, and a very prominent Adam's apple-still, to me he looks exceptional. I find him really beautiful from certain angles. And he has this combination of features that looks as though several of his ages are all there at the same time. I find it so interesting sometimes just to look at him."

"But what is that strength? What do you mean?"

"How can I explain it?" She knows she must be precise now. "It's like you can't surprise him with anything. Yes, that's it. Not with anything happy or anything sad, and not with something really painful or really terrible, either. You'll never surprise him." Having said it, she realizes for the first time how accurate her perception of him is. She also understands how different he is from her-the opposite. "He has such power," she says in a fading voice. "The power of contempt."

She's seen two of his shows. One he invited her to, and the other she snuck into after he'd dropped her. There were dozens of young boys and girls there, and their faces leaned toward him in the blinding lashes of light whipped from every direction, all drawn, with their eyes closed, to his indifferent, slightly sick frailty, which sucked them out of themselves. "You should have seen them. They looked like...I don't know what. I don't have the words to describe it."

Avram sees a field of albino sunflowers. Albino sunflowers in a solar eclipse.

They rest at the peak of Mount Arbel, above the thirst-quenching Kinneret Valley. The area is full of hikers. A school group of screeching girls and boys arrives. They take one another's pictures and scurry around. Buses spit out groups of tourists, and their guides compete against one another in a shouting match. But Ora and Avram are immersed in their own affairs. A soft breeze refreshes them after the exhausting ascent. On the way up they hardly spoke-it was an especially steep climb. Carved steps and iron posts in the rock helped them, but every few steps they had to stop for a breather. From the Bedouin village at the foot of the hill came roosters' crowing, a school bell, and the commotion of children. Above them, in the cliff side, a chain of gaping mouths: the caves where the Galilean rebels hid from Herod ("I read about it somewhere," Avram murmured). Herod's soldiers had cleverly propelled themselves down the mountain in cages and used rods fitted with iron hooks to hunt down the cave dwellers and hurl them into the valley.

Above the mountain, above the human tumult, a large eagle glides against the blue sky, floating on a warm, transparent air column that rises up from the valley. In broad circles, with spectacular ease, the eagle hovers above the air column until its towering warmth evaporates, then glides away in search of a new breeze. Avram and Ora take pleasure in its flight, and in the mountains of the Galilee and the Golan, glowing purple in the warm vapors, and the blue eye of Lake Kinneret, until Ora notices a plaque in memory of Sergeant Roi Dror, of blessed memory, who was killed below this cliff on June 18, 2002, during a training operation of the Duvdevan special forces unit. "He fell as gently as a tree falls. There was not even the slightest sound, because of the sand" (The Little Prince) "He fell as gently as a tree falls. There was not even the slightest sound, because of the sand" (The Little Prince). Without a word, they get up and flee to the opposite end of the mountaintop, but there is another monument in their new place of refuge, in memory of Staff Sergeant Zohar Mintz, killed in '96 in Southern Lebanon. Ora reads with tears in her eyes: He loved the country and died for it, he loved us and we loved him He loved the country and died for it, he loved us and we loved him. Avram pulls her hand but she does not move, so he forcefully tugs her away. "You started telling me about Adam," he reminds her.

"Oh, Avram, where will this end? Tell me, where will this end? There's no more room for all the dead."

"Now tell me about Adam."

"But listen, I remembered that I wanted to tell you something about Ofer." She could feel it again. The slight push she gives Ofer to the front of the stage every time she thinks Avram is too drawn to Adam.

"What about Ofer?" he asks, but she can feel that his heart is still caught in the riddle of Adam.

They walk down the mountain heading south, toward Karnei Hittin. On either side of the path are fields of wheat ears turning golden in the sun. They find an isolated patch, like a little nest on the ground, surrounded by a meadow of purple lupines. Avram sprawls out, Ora lies down opposite him, and the dog nuzzles under Ora's head. Ora feels the warm, breathing body, which needs her, and thinks she might break the vow she'd made after Nicotine died and adopt this dog.

"When Talia left Ofer-I guess my boys always get deserted; so they did inherit something from me after all. But wait, I have to explain that Adam never had a serious girlfriend, I mean a true love, before Ofer had Talia. And think about that. Two boys like them, they're not that bad, are they? They're definitely a catch, but neither of them had a girlfriend until a pretty late age. Think about us at their age. Think about you."

Of course he already has. She sees in his face that he is instantly there, at seventeen and nineteen and twenty-two. Buzzing around her like mad, but at the same time pursuing every other girl he laid eyes on. She could never understand his taste in girls, and he found every one of them worthy of his undying love. Each grew greater and more beautiful in his eyes, even the stupidest and ugliest ones, and especially the ones who scorned and tormented him. "Remember how ...," she starts, and he shrugs his shoulders in embarra.s.sment. Of course he remembers. She thinks about his efforts to enchant, to seduce, and how he would hollow out his soul for them, humiliate himself, stammer, blush, and then poke fun at himself: "What am I? Nothing more than a hormonal fermentation bacterium." And now, thirty years later, he still has the nerve to argue with her: "It was all because you didn't want me. If you'd said yes right away, if you hadn't tortured me for five years before giving in, I wouldn't have needed that whole march of folly."

She hoists herself up on her elbows. "I didn't want you?"

"Not the way I wanted you. You wanted Ilan more; I was just the zest."

"That's not true. That's really inaccurate, it's a lot more complicated than that."

"You didn't want me, you were afraid."

"What did I have to be afraid of?"

"You were afraid, Ora, because the fact is you gave up on me in the end. You gave up. Admit it."

They both sit quietly. Her face is flushed. What can she tell him? She couldn't even explain it to herself back then. When she was with him for that one year, she sometimes had the feeling that he was flus.h.i.+ng through her en ma.s.se, like a whole army. What can she tell him? After all, she wasn't even always convinced it was her her he loved so much, that he loved so much, that she she was the one creating that love storm. Perhaps it was someone he had once fantasized about, and he just kept on daydreaming her with all his creative powers. She also suspected that simply because he had fallen in love with her once, in a hasty, crazy moment, in the isolation ward, he would never admit, not even to himself, that she wasn't right for him. With his peculiar, Quixotic chivalry, he would never go back on his resolution. (But how could she have told him that at the time? She hadn't even had the courage to say it to herself, as she was doing now.) Sometimes she felt like a mannequin on which he constantly piled more and more colorful outfits that only underscored her dryness, her diminution, her narrowness. But every time she told him, full of sorrow and a broken heart, a little of what she felt, he was deeply insulted, amazed at how little she knew herself and him, at how she could hurt the most beautiful thing he had ever had in his life. was the one creating that love storm. Perhaps it was someone he had once fantasized about, and he just kept on daydreaming her with all his creative powers. She also suspected that simply because he had fallen in love with her once, in a hasty, crazy moment, in the isolation ward, he would never admit, not even to himself, that she wasn't right for him. With his peculiar, Quixotic chivalry, he would never go back on his resolution. (But how could she have told him that at the time? She hadn't even had the courage to say it to herself, as she was doing now.) Sometimes she felt like a mannequin on which he constantly piled more and more colorful outfits that only underscored her dryness, her diminution, her narrowness. But every time she told him, full of sorrow and a broken heart, a little of what she felt, he was deeply insulted, amazed at how little she knew herself and him, at how she could hurt the most beautiful thing he had ever had in his life.

Why does everything have to be so exaggerated with him? Why does everything have to have such force? she used to wonder. And then she'd feel ashamed, and she'd think of the girl who jumped out of his bed because he was too intimate too intimate for her. She also often felt that he had so much love and pa.s.sion that he was invading her, raging inside her body and soul like an oversized carnivorous puppy, without even imagining how much it pained her and ripped her apart. At times he would look into her eyes so intently. There were no words to describe what was in his eyes at those moments. And it didn't necessarily occur in times of pa.s.sion. Usually it came for her. She also often felt that he had so much love and pa.s.sion that he was invading her, raging inside her body and soul like an oversized carnivorous puppy, without even imagining how much it pained her and ripped her apart. At times he would look into her eyes so intently. There were no words to describe what was in his eyes at those moments. And it didn't necessarily occur in times of pa.s.sion. Usually it came after after the pa.s.sion. He would look at her with such exposed, piercing, almost mad love, and she would teasingly touch his nose, or giggle, or make a funny face, but it was as if he did not sense her embarra.s.sment. His face would take on a strange expression, imploring her for something she did not understand, and for one long moment he would sink into her eyes without taking his look off hers, and he was like a ma.s.sive, shadowy body drowning in dark liquid, and he would gradually disappear as he looked at her, and her eyes would slowly close and cover him inside them, sheltering from herself, too. She could no longer look, and yet she did, and she saw his gaze emptying to reveal something else, something skeletal and terrible, with no end. He would dive deep inside her, hold her tight against his body, clutch her until she almost choked in his grip, and every so often he shuddered powerfully as though he had absorbed something from her that he could not tolerate. She did not know what was there, what she'd given him, what she'd received. the pa.s.sion. He would look at her with such exposed, piercing, almost mad love, and she would teasingly touch his nose, or giggle, or make a funny face, but it was as if he did not sense her embarra.s.sment. His face would take on a strange expression, imploring her for something she did not understand, and for one long moment he would sink into her eyes without taking his look off hers, and he was like a ma.s.sive, shadowy body drowning in dark liquid, and he would gradually disappear as he looked at her, and her eyes would slowly close and cover him inside them, sheltering from herself, too. She could no longer look, and yet she did, and she saw his gaze emptying to reveal something else, something skeletal and terrible, with no end. He would dive deep inside her, hold her tight against his body, clutch her until she almost choked in his grip, and every so often he shuddered powerfully as though he had absorbed something from her that he could not tolerate. She did not know what was there, what she'd given him, what she'd received.

"I couldn't be with you," she says simply.

The sun sets slowly, and the earth gives off a fresh, steaming scent of insides. Ora and Avram lie motionless in their nest on the field. Above them the sky mingles with the various evening blues. Take a hat and put two slips of paper in it. No, you don't have to know what you're drawing lots for. You're allowed to guess, but do it silently. And quickly. Ora, they're waiting for us, there's a command car outside. Now pick one out. Did you do it? Which one? Are you sure? Take a hat and put two slips of paper in it. No, you don't have to know what you're drawing lots for. You're allowed to guess, but do it silently. And quickly. Ora, they're waiting for us, there's a command car outside. Now pick one out. Did you do it? Which one? Are you sure?

Her face grows long in the shadows. She shuts her eyes. Which one did you pick? And which one did you want to pick? And which one did you really pick? Are you sure? Are you really sure? Which one did you pick? And which one did you want to pick? And which one did you really pick? Are you sure? Are you really sure?

"Listen, I just couldn't breathe. You were too much for me."

"How could it be too much?" Avram asks quietly. "What is too much when you love someone?"

"Adam and Ofer were so lazy, it took them forever to find girlfriends," she tells Avram the next day, walking through Switzerland Forest. "They spent almost all their time with each other, always shared a room. They refused to be separated until finally, when Adam was about sixteen, we gave them separate rooms. We thought it was time."

"Where did you put the rooms?"

Ora hears the flicker in his voice and tenses. "In...you know, downstairs, where the storage room was. That bas.e.m.e.nt? Where your mother's Singer sewing machine was?"

"So you part.i.tioned the bas.e.m.e.nt?"

"With drywall, yes. Nothing major."

"Wasn't it too crowded?"

"No, it came out nicely. Two rooms, kind of nooks. It was great for teenagers."

"And a bathroom?"

"A small one, you know, with a tiny sink."

"What about air?"

"We put two windows in. More like peepholes. Symbolic."

"Yes," he says thoughtfully. "Sure."

When he'd finished all his treatments and surgeries and hospitalizations, Avram had decided he didn't want to go back to his mother's house in Tzur Hada.s.sah. Not even to visit. Ilan and Ora, with help from Ora's parents, and loans and a mortgage, bought the house from Avram. They made a point of buying it at a higher price than its real value-much higher, Ilan liked to stress whenever the topic came up-and they followed all the rules and carried out the transaction through a lawyer who had been a friend of Avram's from before. But Ora-and perhaps Ilan too, although he always denied it-never forgave herself for that heartless act, for their prolonged torment of him prolonged torment of him (there, she's finally said it to herself), which ended only when she and Ilan moved to Ein Karem. Now, faced with his pained look, as though blinded by the attempt to follow the innovations and changes in the home that was once his, she can hardly resist giving him the list of rationales that are always on the tip of her tongue, ready for use: everything was done with the best of intentions, thinking only of his needs; they wanted to save him from having to deal with buyers and agents; they really thought he'd feel better if he knew that in some way the house was staying in the family. But they purchased his house from him (at full price, yes, at an excellent price), and they lived their lives in it, she and Ilan and Adam and Ofer. (there, she's finally said it to herself), which ended only when she and Ilan moved to Ein Karem. Now, faced with his pained look, as though blinded by the attempt to follow the innovations and changes in the home that was once his, she can hardly resist giving him the list of rationales that are always on the tip of her tongue, ready for use: everything was done with the best of intentions, thinking only of his needs; they wanted to save him from having to deal with buyers and agents; they really thought he'd feel better if he knew that in some way the house was staying in the family. But they purchased his house from him (at full price, yes, at an excellent price), and they lived their lives in it, she and Ilan and Adam and Ofer.

Sometimes, when no one was looking, she would touch a wall as she walked by, in the rooms or in the hallway, slowly sliding her fingers over it. Sometimes she would sit and read, as he had, at the top of the steps to the yard, or on the windowsill facing the wadi. There were the window handles, which she would linger on every time she opened them, as if in a secret handshake. There were the bath and the toilet, the cracked ceilings, the cabinets with their dense smell. There were the sunken tiles and the ones that stuck out. There were the rays of sun that came from the east in the morning, and she would stand and bathe in them for long moments, sometimes with little Ofer in her arms, quietly watching her. There was the evening breeze, which came from the wadi, which she would sway in, letting it float over her skin and breathing it deep inside.

"Surprisingly, Ofer had a girlfriend before Adam did." Ora hopes this information will make Avram happy. But he darkens a little and asks what she means by "surprisingly." She explains: "After all, he's younger. But I guess Adam needed Ofer to pave the way in that realm, too. Even when they were grown up, they were both at home with us all the time until Adam's military service, until the army separated them, and then everything changed. Suddenly Adam had friends, lots of friends, and so did Ofer, and then Ofer found Talia. All at once they both opened up and went out into the world-so the army did them some good after all. But until Adam turned eighteen, until his enlistment, most of the time it was just him and Ofer. I mean, him and Ofer and us, the four of us together"-she mimes stuffing something tightly into a suitcase or backpack. "Even though they always had lots of things going on, school, and Adam's band, we still felt, Ilan and I, that they were mostly directed inward, to the house, and even more, to their own relations.h.i.+p. I told you, they had this secret." Her hands grip the backpack straps and her head tilts slightly. She hardly sees what is in front of her: cliffs, raspberry hedges, blinding sunlight. It suddenly occurs to her that within the longer, c.u.mbersome secret, Ofer and Adam had made their own little secret, a kind of igloo in the ice.

"It was fun, that togetherness. They were always with us, they went everywhere with us-'like bodyguards,' Ilan used to joke, or maybe complain-and we went on trips together, and sometimes to movies, and they even came with us to our friends' sometimes, which is really hard to believe." She gives a meager laugh. "They would come with us and sit on the side and talk as if they hadn't seen each other in a year. It was wonderful, I'm telling you, it was such a rare thing. But still, Ilan and I always have-always had had-the feeling that it was a bit, how can I put it-"

For an instant, in the wandering beam of her gaze, Avram sees the four of them moving through the rooms of the familiar house. Four bright, elongated human spots, with a dim light around their edges, like figures seen through night goggles, foggy shadows surrounded by a greenish, downy halo, stuck to one another, moving clumsily together. And when they briefly come apart, they each leave in the other strands of sticky, glowing fibers. To his surprise, he senses a constant effort emanating from them. There is tension and caution. He is even more astounded to discover that there is no ease or pleasure in the four of them. They do not evince the joy of living together, which he had always pictured when he thought of them, when he had given in to thoughts of them, when he had drizzled into his veins, drop by drop, the poison of thinking about them.

"And when Ofer had a girlfriend," he asks hesitantly, "wasn't Adam jealous?"

"At first it wasn't easy. Yes, Adam had a hard time with Ofer finding a new soul mate, and with the fact that he had no part in this very close connection they shared. Just think-it was the first time that had happened since Ofer was born. But they were a nice couple, Ofer and Talia. There was a tenderness between them." She finds it hard to talk. "Later, later."

She picks up after a while. "When Talia left Ofer, he crawled into his bed and barely left for a week. He stopped eating, completely lost his appet.i.te. He just drank, mostly beer, and friends came to see him. All of a sudden we saw how many friends he had, and even though it wasn't planned, they basically began to sit s.h.i.+va in our house."

"s.h.i.+va?!"

"Because they sat around his bed and consoled him, and when they left others came, and the door was open all week long, morning, noon, and night, and he kept asking his friends to tell him about Talia, to tell him everything they remembered about her, in great detail. And by the way, he wouldn't let them say anything bad about her, only good things. He's such a kind soul." She giggles. "I haven't even told you anything about him, you haven't begun to know him ..." Suddenly she is flooded with nostalgia. Simple, hungry, incautious longing. She hasn't seen him for a long time, or talked to him. This may be the longest she has gone without speaking to him since he was born. "And the guys played him songs Talia liked, and watched one of her favorite movies, My Dinner with Andre My Dinner with Andre, in an endless loop. And they gobbled down bags and bags of Bamba and Tuv Taam, which she was addicted to. And this went on for a whole week. And of course I had to feed and water the whole tribe. You wouldn't believe the quant.i.ties of beer those guys could down in one evening. Well, you probably could, because of the pub."

Maybe, she thinks, Ofer or Adam, or even both of them together, on one of their pub crawls in Tel Aviv one evening, when they were on leave from the army, had turned up at his pub. Could he have somehow recognized them? Known without knowing?

"Ora?"

"Yes." She smiles to herself. "Look, I guess it turned into this thing around town"-like everything Ofer touched, she intimates-"and people started turning up who didn't really know Ofer but had heard that something was going on, this kind of love s.h.i.+va. They came and sat there telling stories about their own soured loves, and about affairs that had ended, and all sorts of heartbreaks they'd experienced."

An afternoon ray of sun smooths her forehead, and Ora distractedly turns her cheek to pamper herself in the warmth. Her face is young and lovely now, as though nothing bad has ever happened to her. She can get up now and go out into life, whole and innocent and pure.

"And by the way, that's how Adam met Libby, who became his his girlfriend. She's like an overgrown puppy, a homeless puppy, a bear cub, although she's a head taller than he is. During the first days of the s.h.i.+va she just sat in a corner and cried nonstop, and then she pulled herself together and started to help me with the food and the drinks and the dishes, emptying ashtrays and taking out empty bottles. But she was so exhausted from something that she would fall asleep in any available bed around the house. Just collapse into a slumber. And somehow, without us noticing, in our sleep, she came into our lives, and now they're together, she and Adam. I think they're happy, because even though Libby is a puppy, she's also very maternal toward him." A tinge of sorrow trails behind Ora's voice. "I think he's really happy with her. At least I hope so." girlfriend. She's like an overgrown puppy, a homeless puppy, a bear cub, although she's a head taller than he is. During the first days of the s.h.i.+va she just sat in a corner and cried nonstop, and then she pulled herself together and started to help me with the food and the drinks and the dishes, emptying ashtrays and taking out empty bottles. But she was so exhausted from something that she would fall asleep in any available bed around the house. Just collapse into a slumber. And somehow, without us noticing, in our sleep, she came into our lives, and now they're together, she and Adam. I think they're happy, because even though Libby is a puppy, she's also very maternal toward him." A tinge of sorrow trails behind Ora's voice. "I think he's really happy with her. At least I hope so."

She surrenders to a deep, pent-up sigh, a sigh of total bankruptcy. "Look, I wasn't exaggerating when I told you a few days ago that I know nothing about his life now."

The dog stops and comes up to Ora when she hears her sigh. Ora leans down to the damp, sharp snout nuzzling between her thighs. She speaks to Avram over the dog's head. "Sometimes, when I say a certain word, or if I say something in a slightly different tune-"

"Or when you laugh suddenly-"

"Or cry-"

"She responds immediately."

"Yesterday, when you were chasing the flies around with a towel and shouting, did you see how upset she was? What did that remind you of, sweetie?" Ora tenderly rubs the dog's head as she leans into her. "Where did you come to us from?" She kneels on one knee, holds the dog's face between her hands, and rubs noses with her. "What happened to you? What did they do to you?"

Avram watches them. The light turns Ora's hair even more silver and glows in the dog's fur.

"So you don't have any contact with him, with Adam?" he asks when they start walking again.

"He totally cut me off."

Avram does not reply.

"There was this thing," she mutters. "Not with him. It was with Ofer, actually, in the army. We had this whole story with him, some screwup that happened in his unit in Hebron. No one died, and Ofer wasn't to blame-he certainly wasn't the only one. There were twenty soldiers there, so why would it be his fault? Never mind, not now. I made a mistake, I know that, and Adam was very angry at me for not supporting Ofer"-she takes a deep breath and portions out, one by one, the words that have been tormenting her ever since-"for not being able to support Ofer wholeheartedly. Do you understand? Do you understand the absurdity? Because with Ofer I've already made up long ago. Everything's fine between us"-but her eyes s.h.i.+ft a little, this way and that-"but Adam, because of his lousy principles, won't forgive me to this day."

Avram doesn't ask anything. Her heart pounds in her throat. Did she do the right thing by telling him? She should have told him long ago. She's afraid of his judgment. Maybe he'll also think, like Adam, that she's an unnatural mother.

"Do they hug?" Avram asks.

"What did you say?" Ora jolts out of a fleeting daydream.

"No, nothing." He sounds startled.

"No, you asked if they-"

"Hug. Sometimes, yes. Ofer and Adam."

She looks at him gratefully. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know, I'm just trying to imagine them together, that's all."

That's all? She rejoices inside: That's all? That's all?

They've walked far. At the village of Kinneret they had stocked up on food and visited the nearby cemetery, where they leafed through the book of Rahel's poems chained to the ground next to her grave. They crossed the Tiberias-Tzemach highway, strolled through orchards of date trees, and paid their respects to a mule named b.o.o.ba, buried near the Jordan River, who had Loyally Plowed, Tilled, and Furrowed the Kinneret Soil in the 1920s and 1930s Loyally Plowed, Tilled, and Furrowed the Kinneret Soil in the 1920s and 1930s. They saw pilgrims from Peru and j.a.pan sing and dance as they dipped in the river. They walked a ways between the clear river and a foul-smelling sewage channel, until the path led them away from the Jordan and toward the Yavne'el. At Ein Petel they enjoyed a feast fit for kings in the shade of eucalyptus and oleander trees. They could see Mount Tabor and knew without a doubt that they would reach it.

The day is extremely hot and, feeling toasted, they dip in the occasional spring or run through giant sprinklers on the fields. They get scratched by raspberry bushes, and every so often they doze in a spot of shade, then get up and walk for a while longer. They slather themselves repeatedly with sunscreen; he spreads it on the back of her neck and she does his nose, and they sigh at how unsuitable their skin is for this climate. As he walks, Avram carves "the stick of the day" for Ora with Ofer's penknife, and today it's a thin oak branch, slightly crooked and partially gnawed, perhaps by a goat. "Not the most convenient thing," she announces after trying it, "but it's full of personality, so it can stay."

"When they were boys they almost never hugged," she tells him when they sit down on a heap of stones in the shade of a large Atlantic terebinth on the heights of the Yavne'el mountains. The spot has a rare view of the Kinneret, the Golan, the Gilead, Mount Meron, the Gilboa mountains, Mount Tabor, the Shomron, and the Carmel. She even sensed that the boys were a little embarra.s.sed by each other's bodies. She found this awkwardness strange: they shared a room, and when they were little they always showered together, but to touch each other, body to body...They wouldn't even hit each other, she thinks now. They only fought when they were little, but not much. And when they grew older, almost never.

What she wouldn't give to know whether they talked about p.u.b.erty, about the changes in their bodies, or about girls, and about masturbation and making out. She guesses they didn't. p.u.b.erty seemed to embarra.s.s them both, as though it were some alien force that had invaded their intimate twosome and expropriated parts they preferred to keep silent about. She often wondered, and asked Ilan repeatedly, where they'd gone wrong in bringing up the boys. Maybe we didn't hug enough in front of them? We didn't show them what it's like when a man and a woman love each other?

"I find it very strange," she says, trying to sound amused, "how modest and shy my boys are about that kind of stuff. I used to try to get them to be crude, to curse here and there, what's the big deal? When Ofer was little he gleefully joined in. He'd say rude words and giggle and blush terribly. But when they grew up, especially when they were with the two of us, it almost never happened."

It's Ilan with his lousy puritanism, she thinks. Always on guard, making sure not a hint of lining sticks out, G.o.d forbid. "Sometimes I had the feeling-you'll laugh-that they thought they had to preserve our innocence, as if we we didn't know which end was up. Come on, let's walk, this is getting on my nerves." didn't know which end was up. Come on, let's walk, this is getting on my nerves."

The trail is now a path of cracked, dry clods of earth. Bare stones and narrow cracks, spindly weeds trampled yet resprouting. Here and there some humble white and yellow chamomile earn the pity of their feet, which avoid them. Dry leaves from last spring, crumbled and perforated, translucent, only their spines remaining. A rocky path, yellowing brown, dusty and warty, no form nor comeliness no form nor comeliness, exactly like a thousand others, scattered with withered twigs and orange-brown pine needles. A line of black ants carries crumbs and sh.e.l.led sunflower seeds. Here a deep ant-lion pit, there a pattern of gray-green lichen on fractured rocks, a shriveled pinecone, and the occasional glistening black mound of deer droppings or crumbly brown mound of a queen ant returned from her nuptial flight.