to the End Of the Land (2010) by Grossman David

Author:Grossman, David [David, Grossman,]
Format: epub
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 2011-01-14T19:15:54.671000+00:00

And without even noticing it, they’re having a conversation. Two people conversing as they walk on one path.

“On the army base in Sinai, there was an Ofer,” Avram muses. “Ofer Havkin. He was a special guy. Used to wander around the desert on his own, playing the violin for the birds, sleeping in caves. He wasn’t afraid of anything. A free spirit. And so all these years I thought Ilan had that Ofer in mind when you chose the name.”

Ora delights in the words that came out of his lips—“free spirit”—then says, “No, I was the one who chose it, because of the verse in Song of Songs: ‘My love is like a young hart’—Domeh dodi le’Ofer ayalim. And I liked the way it sounds, too: o-fer. It’s soft.”

Avram silently repeats the name in Ora’s music, and then says quietly, reverently, “I could never give someone a name.”

“When it’s your own child, you’ll be able to,” she says—it just slips out, and they both fall silent.

The path is wide and comfortable. So many colors, she thinks, when all I saw at first was black and white and gray.

“I’m just curious, did you think of any names other than Ofer?”

“We thought of girls’ names too, because we didn’t know what we were having. I was convinced halfway through the pregnancy that it was a girl.”

A flock of birds alights inside Avram, noisily beating their wings: He had never thought of that possibility—a daughter!

“And what … Which names did you think of for a girl?”

“We thought of Dafna, and Ya’ara, or Ruti.”

“Just imagine …” He turns to face her. The bags under his eyes glow, and now he is entirely here, shining with life, and the pillar of fire he used to be is visible through his skin. Ofer is protected now, she senses, protected in the palms of two hands.

“A girl,” she says softly. “That would have made everything simpler, wouldn’t it?”

Avram expands his chest and takes a deep breath. “A girl” rocks him even more than “a daughter.”

They walk, each lost in thought, the path crunching beneath their feet. She thinks: Even the path suddenly has voices. How did I not hear anything all those days? Where was I?

“Didn’t you want to try again?” he asks bravely.

Ora replies simply that Ilan didn’t want to, because as it was, he said, with all the complications, we already had an excess of kids.

And parents, Avram thinks. “And you? Did you want to?”

Ora lets out a little bray of pain. “Me? Are you asking seriously? My whole life I’ve felt that I missed out terribly by not having a daughter.” After a moment’s hesitation she adds, “Because I always think a girl would have made us into a family.”

“But you … I mean, you already are …”

“Yes,” she says, “we were, absolutely, but still, that’s how I felt all these years. That if I had a daughter, if Adam and Ofer had a sister, it would give them so much, it would change

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.