“Because being vegetarian is … what?” Avram asks curiously. “It’s special? It’s character?”
“Yeah, I guess so. And it’s also a kind of cleanness. I won’t say purity, because Ofer, even when he was vegetarian he was always”—a moment’s hesitation: Should she tell him? Can she? May she? — “kind of earthy” (at least she managed not to say “corporeal”), “and I had the feeling that part of his maturation was to turn around all at once, with all his strength, in that direction, to the opposite of vegetarianism, a kind of anti.” She laughs awkwardly. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“Anti what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s more of a who.”
“Anti who?”
“I have no idea”—but she has a guess—“maybe delicacy? Fragility?”
Avram suggests: “Adam?”
“I don’t know, maybe. It’s like he decided to be as … I don’t know … as rigid as possible? And masculine. With two feet planted firmly on the ground, and even a little, intentionally, corporeal?”
The day grows hotter and they walk silently, comfortable that way. What has not been recounted now will be told in the evening, or tomorrow, or maybe years from now. Either way, it will be told. They climb to the top of Devorah Mountain and lie down for a snooze on a shady patch of grass. They sleep for almost two hours, exhausted from the mountains, and when they awake they are surrounded by families who’ve come to spend a leisurely day at this spot looking out onto Mount Tabor and the Gilboa, Nazareth and the Jezreel Valley. Loud Arabic music blares from car radios in all directions, smoky aromas rise up from grills, nimble-fingered women chop meat and vegetables and roll kibbeh on long wooden tables, babies laugh and coo, men smoke bubbling hookahs, and a group of young boys nearby aim stones at glass bottles, shattering them one after the other. Ora and Avram leap to their feet into this vision, amazed at the abyss into which their sleep has rolled them. They have the strange sensation of having let their guard down, and they quickly gather up their backpacks and walking sticks and pass through the revelers without saying a word. They slip away with inexplicable secrecy, the dog with her tail between her legs as well, and they walk down the path toward a nearby Arab village. The muezzin is calling, and the echoes of his voice engulf them, and Avram remembers the muezzin at Abbasiya, with whom he used to sing along in his cell, composing Hebrew lyrics to the tune.
Low and ruddy, the sun hovers over the land, inflaming the colors with one final touch. “It’ll be dark soon, we should find a place to sleep,” Avram says. The trail markers have been erased, or else someone has intentionally knocked them down or even turned the wooden posts in the wrong direction. “But it’s so beautiful here,” Ora whispers, and there is shame in her voice, as though she is peeking into someone else’s scene. The path, which may no longer be their path — perhaps they have been exiled onto a different route — winds through olive groves and fruit-tree orchards, and a stream runs alongside. Ora feels the bristle of Sami and their drive with Ofer to the army that day, and Yazdi who had slumped on her, and the woman who had breast-fed him, and the people who sat on the floor in the underground hospital, warming up food on little gas burners. And the man who knelt down and bandaged the foot of a guy sitting on a chair in front of him.
How had she not realized what Sami was going through when he saw those injured, beaten people? She swears that the first thing she’ll do when she gets home is call him and apologize. She will describe to him exactly what state she was in that day and will force him, just like that, to make up with her. And if he refuses, she’ll explain in the simplest way that they have to make up, because if she and he cannot make up after one bad day, then maybe there really is no chance that the greater conflict will be resolved. As she delves into these thoughts, moving her lips while she enthusiastically plans her conversation with Sami, Avram raises his eyebrows at the hilltop above them, where, behind a rock, a young shepherd is watching them. When he sees they’ve noticed him, he cups his hands over his mouth and calls out, in Arabic, to another shepherd perched on another hilltop, riding a horse or a mule. That one calls to a third shepherd who emerges on yet another hilltop, and Ora and Avram hurry down the path as the shepherds above them call back and forth. Avram translates for her out of the corner of his mouth: “Who are they?” one shepherd asks. “I don’t know,” another answers, “maybe tourists?” “Jews,” the third determines. “Look at his shoes, they must be Jews.” “Then what are they doing here?” “I don’t know, maybe just walking.” “Jews, just walking, here?” asks the horse-mounted shepherd, and his question remains unanswered. The sheepdogs bark while their owners shout, and the golden bitch gurgles and barks back. Ora pulls her close to her leg and tries to calm her.
One of the shepherds starts to sing, trilling his voice repeatedly, and the others join in from the hilltops. Avram hisses that they should hurry. To Ora the melody sounds like a courting or flirting song, or just crude innuendo aimed at her. They both walk quietly, practically running along the narrow path between the hills that close in on each other until they finally meet at a heap of boulders that blocks their way. At the foot of the massive boulders, on a large straw mat, three heavyset men are sprawled serenely, watching them without any expression.
“Shalom,” Ora says and stands still, breathing heavily.
“Shalom,” the three answer. On the mat between them are wedges of watermelon and a copper tray with three coffee cups. A finjan is heating on a kerosene burner.
“We’re hiking,” Ora says.
“Sahtein—good for you,” says the oldest of the men. His face is strong and heavy, with a thick, yellowing white moustache.
“It’s nice here,” she murmurs, oddly apologetic.
“Tfadalu—please,” says the man, waving for them to sit down and offering a dish of pistachios.
“What is this here?” Ora asks as she takes a larger handful than she’d meant to.
“We’re Ein Mahel,” says the man. “There, up top, is Nazareth, the stadium. Where did you come from?”
Ora tells him. Surprised, the men pull themselves up into seated positions. “So far? Are you, ya’ani, athletic?”
Ora laughs. “No, not at all. It worked out this way almost by accident.”
“Coffee?”
Ora looks at Avram, who nods. They take their backpacks off. Ora finds a bag of cookies she bought that morning at Shibli, and a package of wafer biscuits from Kinneret. The man hands them slices of watermelon.
“But please, just don’t talk to us about the news,” Ora blurts out.
“Is there some special reason?” the man asks, slowly stirring the coffee in the finjan.
“No, no reason, we just want a rest from all that.”
He pours coffee into little cups. The man next to him, thick-armed and taciturn, with a kaffiyeh and agal on his head, offers Avram a puff from his hookah. Avram takes it. Then a young man, undoubtedly one of the three shepherds who had watched them from the hilltops, comes galloping over on his horse and joins them. He is the grandson of the older man. His grandfather kisses his head and introduces him to the guests. “Ali Habib-Allah is his name. He’s a singer, and he passed the first round for a competition they’re going to show on your television,” the grandfather says, laughing, and pounds his grandson’s back affectionately.
“Tell me,” Ora asks with a sudden boldness that surprises her, “would you be willing to answer two questions for me?”