The more she thinks about it, the more exciting she finds the strange notion that descends upon her unexpectedly but with a blaze of inspiration — and it’s so unlike me, she laughs, it’s much more like one of Avram’s ideas, or even Ilan’s, not at all mine — until she has no doubt that what she is about to do is right, that it is the right protest, and it delights her to roll that word over her tongue and bite into it: protest, my protest. She likes the way her mouth grips the fresh, squirming little prey, her protest, and the new muscularity spreading through her tired body feels good. It is a meager and pathetic sort of protest, she knows, and in an hour or two it will dissipate and leave an insipid taste, but what else can she do? Sit and wait for them to come and dig their notification into her? “I’m not staying here,” she declaims, trying to embolden herself. “I’m not going to receive it from them.” She lets out a dry, surprised laugh: That’s it, it’s decided, she’ll refuse. She will be the first notification-refusenik. She stretches her arms over her head and fills her lungs with sharp, refreshing evening air. A deferment — she’ll get a deferment, for her and, more important, for Ofer. More than that she cannot hope for right now. Just a short protest deferment. Her mind is flooded with waves of warmth and she marches quickly around the backpacks. Undoubtedly there is a fundamental flaw in her plan, some obvious illogic that will soon be discovered and undo the whole thing and mock her and send her home with her two packs. But until then, she is free of herself, of the cowardice that has stuck to her for the past year, and she repeats softly to herself what she is about to do, and once again reaches the strange conclusion that if she runs away from home, then the deal — this is how she thinks of it now — will be postponed a little, at least for a short while. The deal that the army and the war and the state may try to impose upon her very soon, maybe even tonight. The arbitrary deal that dictates that she, Ora, agrees to receive notification of her son’s death, thereby helping them bring the complicated and burdensome process of his death to its orderly, normative conclusion, and in some way also giving them the pronounced and definitive confirmation of his death, which would make her, just slightly, an accessory to the crime.
With these thoughts her strength suddenly runs out and she collapses onto the sidewalk and sits between the two backpacks, which now seem to crowd in on her, protecting her like parents. She hugs the stubby, overflowing packs, pulls them to her, and silently explains that she might be a little insane at the moment, but in this wrestling match between her and the notifiers she must go all the way, head to head, for Ofer, so that she won’t feel afterward that she gave in without even a flicker. And therefore, when they come to inform her, she will not be here. The parcel will be returned to sender, the wheel will stop for an instant, and it may even have to reverse a little, a centimeter or two, no more. Of course the notice will be dispatched again immediately — she has no illusions. They won’t give up, they cannot lose this battle, because their surrender, even just to one woman, would mean the collapse of the entire system. Because where would we be if other families adopted the idea and also refused to receive notice of their loved ones’ deaths? She has no chance against them, she knows. No chance at all. But at least for a few days she will fight. Not for long, just twenty-eight days, less than a month. This is possible, it is within her power, and in fact it is the only thing possible for her, the only thing within her power.
She sits down in the back of Sami’s taxi again. Next to her sits a six- or seven-year-old boy — even Sami doesn’t know his exact age — a thin Arab boy, burning with fever. “It’s the kid of one of our guys,” Sami says cryptically. “Just someone’s,” he replies when she presses. Sami was asked to take the boy to Tel Aviv, to a place on the south side of the city, to his family. Sami’s family or the boy’s? That, too, remains unclear, and Ora decides not to bother him with questions for now. Sami looks haggard and frightened, and one of his cheeks is swollen as if he has a toothache. He doesn’t even ask why she’s lugging two backpacks at this time of night. Without the spark of curiosity in his eyes he looks lifeless, almost like a different person, and she realizes there’s no point bringing up the Gilboa trip again. Although the taxi is dark, she can see that the boy is wearing some familiar clothes: a pair of jeans that used to belong to her Adam, with a Bugs Bunny knee patch, and an ancient T-shirt of Ofer’s bearing a Shimon Peres election slogan. The clothes are too big for him, and Ora suspects this is the first time he’s worn them. She leans forward and asks what’s wrong with him. Sami says the boy is sick. She asks his name, and Sami says quickly, “Rami. Call his name Rami.” She asks, “Raami or Rami?” “Rami, Rami,” he replies.
If he didn’t need me for this trip, Ora thinks, he wouldn’t have come. He’s taking out on me whatever he has against those guys who were making a scene at his house. She consoles herself with the thought that as soon as she has the chance, she will tell Ilan about the way Sami has been treating her — let’s see him act so tough with Ilan — and she knows Ilan will chew him out, for her sake, or maybe even fire him, to prove to her how committed he still is and how protective of her. Ora sits up a little straighter and pulls her shoulders back — why on earth is she enlisting Ilan to help her? This is between her and Sami, and as for that kind of protection from Ilan, that knightly patronage, she can do without it, thank you very much.
Her body sinks down again, and her face trembles uncontrollably, because she is pierced by his desertion. Not the loneliness or the insult, but the amputation itself, the phantom pain of the empty space Ilan left at her side. In the dark she sees her reflection in the window and feels the unfamiliar yet sharp sorrow of her skin, which has not been truly loved for a long time, and her face, which no one has looked at with the kind of love that has intensified over years. The Character, Eran, who got her the job with the museum in Nevada, is seventeen years younger than she, a meteoric computer genius full of entrepreneurial projects, and she doesn’t even know how to define him: Friend? Lover? Fuck? And what is she to him? “Love” is undoubtedly a generous term for what they have, she thinks, laughing silently, but at least he is proof that even after Ilan her body still emits the particles that attract another person, another man. She sinks deeper and deeper into her thoughts, and all the while they drive in a long snarl of traffic that moves with unnatural silence through the valley of Sha’ar HaGay and becomes even thicker around the airport. “Checkpoints everywhere today,” Sami suddenly throws out. Something in his voice seems to signal her. She waits for him to say something else, but he keeps quiet.
The boy has fallen asleep. His forehead glistens with sweat, and his head rocks with strange ease on his delicate neck. She notices that Sami has spread out a thin old blanket under him, probably so he won’t soil the new upholstery with his sweat. His wafer-thin right hand suddenly rises and flutters in front of his face, then above his head, and Ora reaches out and hugs the boy to her. He freezes and opens his eyes, which look dark and almost blind, and stares at her uncomprehendingly. Ora does not move, hoping he will not reject her. He breathes quickly and his gaunt chest moves up and down, and then, as though having lost the power to understand or resist, he shuts his eyes and falls limply against her body, and his warmth spreads to her through their clothing. After a few moments she dares to readjust her arm around him and feels his birdlike shoulders tense up at her touch. She waits again, presses his head gently against her shoulder, and only then resumes breathing.