She spoke in rapid whispers. Avram pressed her hand hard between his palms, hurting her, and she didn’t pull back.
And then he said she’d been killed in an accident, last night in Ramat Gan. She had a cousin there, she was walking down the street and a bus came, and that was that.
Fast and hot were her breaths on the back of his hand.
And what did you do?
Nothing.
Nothing?
I sat there. I don’t remember.
Avram breathed heavily.
There were two books of hers in my backpack. Two Youth Encyclopedia volumes I brought to return to her after the vacation, and I kept thinking, What am I going to do with them now?
And that’s how you first heard about it? In class?
Yes.
That can’t be.
It can.
And what happened afterward?
Don’t remember.
And her parents?
What?
What about them?
I don’t know what about them.
I’m just thinking, if something like that happened to me, an accident, my mom would probably go crazy, it would kill her.
Ora sat up straight, pulled her hand away and leaned back against the wall.
I don’t know … they didn’t say anything.
But how?
I didn’t …
I can’t hear, come closer.
I didn’t talk to them.
At all?
Ever since.
Wait, you mean they were killed, too?
Them? Of course not … They live in the same house to this day.
But you said … you said you and her, like sisters—
I didn’t go there …
Her body started to harden. No, no—she let out a cold, foreign shard of laughter. My mother said it would be better not to go, not to make them even sadder. Her eyes began to glaze over. And it’s okay that way, believe me, it’s for the best, you don’t have to talk about everything.
Avram sat quietly. He sniffed.
But we wrote an essay about her in class, every kid wrote something, I did too, and the composition teacher collected them and made a booklet and said she’d send it to her parents. Ora suddenly pressed her fist against her mouth. Why am I even telling you this?
Did she at least have any brothers or sisters? he asked.
No.
Just her?
Yes.
Just her and you.
You don’t understand, it’s not true what you’re … They were right!
Who? Who are you talking about?
My parents. Not my dad, my mom, she knows better than anyone about these things. She’s from the Holocaust. And I’m sure Ada’s parents didn’t want me to come either, that’s why they never asked me to come. They could have asked me to come, couldn’t they?
But you can go to them now.
No, no. And I haven’t talked about her with anyone since, and she—Her head was rocking and her whole body shook. No one in class talks about her anymore, ever, two years … She started banging her head back against the wall: bang-syllable-bang-syllable. As-if-she-ne-ver-e-ven-was.
Stop, said Avram, and she immediately stopped. She stared straight ahead in the dark. Now they both heard it: somewhere out there, in one of the distant rooms, the nurse was crying. A quiet, prolonged wail.
After a while he asked, What did they do with her chair in class?
Her chair?
Yes.
What do you mean? It stayed there.
Empty?
Yes, of course empty, who would sit in it?
She sat quietly, cautious. She had already begun to suspect earlier that she’d been wrong about him and his cute teddy bear look, which was slightly ridiculous. This wasn’t the first time he’d suddenly asked her a seemingly innocent question, which cut into her in a way she only felt later.
Did you keep sitting next to her chair?
Yes … No … They moved me back. They moved me, I can’t remember, three rows behind her seat, but on the side.
Where?
Where what?
Show me, he demanded eagerly, impatiently. Where exactly?
A new, unfamiliar exhaustion began to spread through her, the weakness of total submission. Let’s say our desk was here, she mumbled and quickly drew on his hand with her finger, Then around here.
So basically you could see it right in front of you the whole time.
Yes.
But why didn’t they put you somewhere else? Maybe closer to the front, so you wouldn’t have to keep—
Stop, that’s enough, shut up! Can’t you ever shut up?!
• • •
Ora—
What now, what do you want?
I was thinking, maybe one day, I don’t know …
What?
I was just thinking, maybe we’ll go and see her parents one day?
Me and you? But how could we?
If I’m ever in Haifa, I don’t know, I can come with you, if you’d like.
A desperate little chick began to beat its wings furiously, deep inside Ora’s throat.
And her parents have … they have a corner store on our street, and we stopped …
What, tell me—
Shopping there.
What do you mean you stopped?
My parents, my mom, she said it was better not to.
And you agreed?
So we go around the block …
But how do you—
Avram, hold me!
Repelled by her, drawn to her fear, he felt his way with his hands and bumped into knees, then a thin, sharp elbow, a slight curve, hot dry skin, the moisture of a mouth. When he held on to her shoulder she clung to him with her entire body, trembling, and he held her to him and was instantly filled to the brim with her sorrow.
They sat that way, clutching each other frantically. Ora cried with her mouth wide open, with snot, the way a lost little girl cries. Avram smelled her breath, the smell of illness. It’s all right, it’s all right, he said, caressing her damp head over and over, her sweaty hair, her wet face. They sat crowded together on her bed, and Avram thought it was fine with him if they had been forgotten by everyone. He wouldn’t care if it went on like this for another few days. Sometimes his hand stole down of its own accord and touched her warm neck or accidentally slid over her long thin arms with their walnut-like boy-biceps. With all his strength he struggled to remain merely good and kind, but as he did so, against his will, he also labored to gather supplies for his tortuous masturbation travels. Ora’s head leaned back a little as if nestling into his hand. A moment like this, Avram calculated through his fog, would last him a good few weeks. But no, leave her alone, he scolded himself. Not her.
Afterward, long afterward, she wiped her nose on her pajama sleeve. You’re very kind, you know? You’re not like a regular boy.
We starting with insults?
It’s good this way. Don’t stop.
And this way?
Also.
THE NEXT NIGHT—by now she had lost count of the days and nights—Avram pushed a wheelchair into her room. She woke up covered with cold sweat. She’d had the same strange nightmare again, with a metallic voice that crept around her describing horrible scenes. At times she was convinced it was coming from a transistor radio somewhere in the ward, down the corridor or in one of the empty rooms. She had even identified it as “The Voice of Thunder from Cairo,” which broadcast in Hebrew—the kids in class could already mimic the flowery Egyptian announcer, with his ridiculous Hebrew mistakes—and at other times she was certain the voice was coming from inside her, telling only her that the Zionist entity had been almost entirely occupied by the glorious Arab armies, who had “taken the enemy underwears.” Waves upon waves of courageous Arab warriors are at this moment flooding Beersheba and Ashkelon and Tel Aviv, the voice declared, and Ora continued to lie there with her heart pounding, bathed in sweat. And to think that Ada
knew nothing of this, of what was happening to Ora here. And that it was not in Ada’s time anymore. What did that mean, not in her time? How could one make sense of the fact that they once shared the same time, and now Ada’s time was over, she was no longer in time at all. How could that be?
Then Ora heard the sound of wheels and sharp, wheezing breath. Avram? she murmured. I’m so glad you came, listen to what happened to me … Then she realized there were two people breathing, and she sat up in bed, wrapped in her sticky sheets, and stared into the dark.
Look what I brought you, he whispered.
All day she had waited for him to come back and be with her, talk to her, listen to her as if every single word she said was important to him. She missed him stroking her head and the back of her neck with his soft, hypnotic fingers. Soft like a girl’s fingers, she thought, or a baby’s. During the few lucid moments between the chills and the nightmares, she had tried to reconstruct the nights she had spent here with him and found that she had forgotten almost everything except the boy himself. Even he was difficult to remember. She could not picture him as someone she had seen and known. But she lay for long hours, asleep and awake, imagining his hand caressing her face over and over, strumming her neck. She had never been touched that way, and so few had touched her at all, and how did he know exactly how to do that if he’d never been with a girl that way? And now, amid the surge of kindness she felt toward him, after waiting for him all day so they could lie down together and have one of their talks, he had to make such a crude mistake, such a boy’s mistake, like those guys who make rude noises at the movies when there’s a kiss on-screen, like coming to her room with this other guy—
Who was asleep in his wheelchair, snoring lightly, and apparently didn’t know where he was. Avram maneuvered him into the room, bumped into a cabinet and a bed, and poured forth apologies and explanations: I feel bad leaving him alone in the room all night. Ilan has nightmares, his temperature is forty, maybe higher, he hallucinates all the time, he’s scared of dying, and when I leave the room to come to you, Ilan keeps hearing noises of the Arabs winning, horrible things.
He turned Ilan in his wheelchair to face the wall and felt his way over to her. From afar he could already sense her bristling, and with a delicate wisdom that surprised her, he did not get on the bed but sat down meekly on the chair next to her and waited.
She folded her legs in, crossed her arms over her chest, and sat in angry silence. She vowed not to say anything for all eternity, and she soon burst out: I want to go home, I’ve had it with this place!
But you can’t, you’re still sick.
I don’t care!
You know, Avram said sweetly, he was born in Tel Aviv.
Who?
Him, Ilan.
Good for him.
He just moved to Jerusalem a year ago.
Whoop-di-doo.
His dad was made some kind of commander on an army base here. Colonel, or something like that. And d’you want to hear something funny—
No.
Avram threw a cautious glance to the edge of the room, leaned forward, and whispered, He talks without knowing it.
What d’ya mean?
In his sleep, ’cause of his fever, he babbles on and on.
She leaned forward too and whispered, But, doesn’t that … that’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it?
Wanna hear something else?
Go on.
Normally, we don’t speak.
Why not?
Not just me, the whole class, we don’t talk to him.
You blackballed him?
No, it’s the other way around. He’s the one blackballing us.
Wait a minute, one boy is blackballing the whole class?
It’s been like that for a year.
And?
I told you, with the fever, he doesn’t shut up … What?
I don’t know. Isn’t that a little …
I’m bored, so sometimes I … I pull him along, you know, and he answers.
In his sleep?
Well, he kind of half understands, not really.
But that’s—
What?
I don’t know, it’s like reading someone’s letters, isn’t it?
What can I do, put my hands over my ears? And the truth is, also—
What?
When he’s awake I really hate him, like at school, but when he’s asleep …
What then?
It’s like a different person. Let’s say he talks about his parents, right? About his dad and the army and all that?
Yeah.
So I tell him about my dad and my mom, and how he left us and what I remember about him, that kind of stuff.
Oh.
I tell him the straight truth, everything. So we’ll be even.
Ora adjusted her position and covered herself with a blanket. For the last few moments his voice had contained a shadowed hint, and a slight tension grabbed at her calves.
Like yesterday, Avram said, after I got back from you in the early morning, he was talking feverishly, and he told stories about a girl he saw on the street, he was too embarrassed to talk to her, afraid she wouldn’t be interested … Avram giggled. So I did, too.
Did what?
Don’t worry, he doesn’t take in anything anyway.
Wait a minute, what did you tell him?
What you and me, you know, and what you told me, about Ada—
What?
But he was asleep …
But those are things I told you! Those are private things, my secrets!
Yes, but he didn’t even—
Have you lost your mind? Can’t you keep anything to yourself? Not even for two seconds?
No.
No?!
She jumped out of bed, forgetting her weakness, and dashed around the room. She moved away from him in disgust, and from the other one, who was asleep with his head drooping on his chest, exhaling fervent breaths.
Ora, don’t … Wait, listen to me, when I got back from you I was so …
So what? she yelled, feeling her temples exploding.
I, I didn’t have any … space in my body, ’cause I was so—
But a secret! A secret! It’s the most basic thing, isn’t it?
Ora came close and lunged over him as she wagged her finger, and he shrank back a little. This is exactly what I thought of you the whole time, it’s all connected!
What, what’s connected?
The fact that you’re not in any youth movement and you don’t play any sport, and all that philosophizing, and that you don’t have a group of friends—you don’t, do you?
But what does that have to do with it?
I knew it! And the fact that you, you’re such a … such a Jerusalemite!
She leaped back on her bed and pulled the blankets up over her face, and kept on simmering there, in the depths. There’s no way she’s ever telling him another word about herself. She thought she could trust him, that’s what she thought. How did she even let herself be tempted by a pathetic loser like him? Come on, get out of here! Get out of here, d’you hear me? Split, I want to sleep.
Wait, that’s it?
And don’t come back! Ever!
Okay, he mumbled. Well … good night.
What do you mean good night?! Are you leaving him here for me?
What? Oh, sorry, I forgot.
He got up and felt his way over, slow and hunched.
Wait a minute!
What now?
First tell me what you told him. I want to know exactly what you told him!
You want me to tell you now?
D’you have a better time in mind? Should we wait for the Messiah?
But it doesn’t come out just like that … Listen, I have to sit down.
Why?
Because I don’t have the strength.
She considered. Sit down, but just for a minute.
She heard him walk back heavily, bumping into the corner of her bed, curs
ing and feeling with his hand until he found his chair and collapsed into it. She heard Ilan breathe fleetingly and sigh in his sleep. She tried to guess his voice from his sighs and the way he looked in the dark. She wondered what he already knew about her.
Somewhere out there an ambulance siren wailed. Echoes of distant explosions erupted. Ora exhaled with her lips pursed. A commotion was brewing in her head. She had already recognized that her anger at him was exaggerated, and maybe it was even a show of anger, and she tried to protect herself from the treacherous affection rising within her. She was alarmed to realize how distant she had grown from all the people she loved and cared for. She had hardly thought of Asher Feinblatt all these days in the hospital. She had boycotted him, and her parents and her friends from school. As if her entire world were now the illness and the fever and the stomach and the itching. And Avram, whom she hadn’t known until three or four days ago. How did that happen? How had she forgotten everyone? Where had she been this whole time and what had she dreamed?
A new chill iced over her burning skin. Avram slept across the way and sighed shortly, and Ilan at the other end of the room was sleeping in total silence now. She felt as though they were both slightly letting go of her so she could finally comprehend something hugely important that was happening to her. She sat upright in bed and wrapped her arms around her knees and felt as if she were being slowly cut out from the picture of her life, and a faded hole would remain in the place where Ora used to be.
Into her thoughts, into the sleepy rustle that took hold of her, stole a dim, hoarse voice, and at first she did not recognize it as Avram’s, and she thought maybe the other one, his psycho friend, had started talking to himself, and she tensed up. From the minute I saw you with the match in your hand I thought I could tell you anything on my mind. But you’ll get annoyed at me, I know it, you’re a firebrand redhead, with a quick temper, a short fuse, I can tell. You know what, if you get annoyed then kick me. She’s not kicking me, maybe she’s on a kicking fast today, maybe she joined some order that forbids kicking helpless runts? There, she smiled just now. I can see her mouth even in the dark. What a great mouth she has—