Part 27 (2/2)

The dogs crowd into a sort of triangle, with a large, black, broad-chested hound at its vertex, and slightly behind him, a strapping golden mutt. The black one barks wildly, almost without stopping for breath, and the golden one makes a deep, prolonged, ominous rumble.

Avram spins around and breathes asthmatically. ”You here, me there!” he says quickly. ”Kick, and yell!”

She tries to shout but finds she cannot. Some kind of shame in front of Avram, idiotic embarra.s.sment, and perhaps in front of the dogs, too. And herself? When has she really shouted? When has she yelled throat-rending howls? And when will she?

The dogs bark madly, their bodies rocking, their snarls and wailing charged with stubborn, raw fury. She stares at them. She is fascinated by the gaping mouths, the strands of saliva between the teeth. The dogs slowly approach, closing in on them. Avram hisses at her to find a stick, a branch, something, and Ora tries to remember things she's picked up here and there from Adam, or in chance conversations with his friends. There was one sweet boy, Idan, a gifted musician, who had joined the army's K-9 special forces unit. Once, when she drove him and Adam to a concert in Caesarea, he told them how they train dogs to attack the ”dominant part” of a wanted suspect, a hand or a foot, which the suspect might use to try to protect himself from the dog. He explained to Ora that a regular dog will ”click” its teeth when it bites someone's arm, but a dog in their unit-Idan himself had a Belgian shepherd, which he said had the strongest instincts: you could condition them any way you wanted-could lock in on an arm or a leg or a face. Amazing how she can pull out this useful information. But Idan was the one who sicced dogs on people, and now she was on the receiving end.

”The black one,” Avram exhorts, ”keep looking for him.” The large male, undoubtedly the leader, stands nearby, watching her with bloodshot eyes. A huge, dense lump that seems to be shedding its canine sh.e.l.l and reincarnating itself as a primeval beast. And right then another dog, a smaller, bolder one, cuts through the bushes in Avram's direction, and Ora jumps up and grabs hold of Avram, almost pulling him down with her. He turns to her furiously and his own face is like an animal's for a second-a peace-loving, vegetarian, and generally fearful animal. A gnu or a llama or a camel that has suddenly found itself in the midst of a ma.s.sacre. Then he hurls one sharp kick at the dog, who sails through the air with terrifying silence, spread out like a rag, with its head bent backward unnaturally, and he is closely followed by one of Avram's sneakers.

”I killed him,” Avram whispers in astonishment.

Silence hangs in the air. The dogs sniff nervously. It occurs to Ora that if she and Avram don't attack, the dogs will settle down. She thinks about her own dog, Nicotine, and tries to draw his softness to this place, coaxing his domestic scent to waft out of her toward them. She looks around. The whole field is dotted with dogs. Almost all of them look like pets gone feral. Here and there a colorful collar peeks out, submerged in thick, filthy fur. A few glorious tails still wag, hinting at pampering and devotion. All their eyes are infected, covered with layers of yellow crud, and flies hover around them. Nicotine, who was her gift to Ilan when he stopped smoking, was as plain to her as a sister soul, but what is happening here is almost outside the realm of nature. It is rebellion. Betrayal. The big black one stands quietly, examining the situation, and the others-including Ora and Avram-tensely await his expressions. Slightly behind him stands the golden dog. When Ora looks at it closely, it turns away in embarra.s.sment and runs its tongue over its upper lip, and Ora knows it's a b.i.t.c.h.

”Stones, pick up stones,” Avram whispers out of the corner of his mouth. ”We'll throw them.”

”No, wait.” She touches his arm.

”Just don't show them we're afraid-”

”Wait, don't do anything, they'll leave.”

The dogs c.o.c.k their heads as though following the conversation.

”And don't look them in the eye, not in the eye.”

Avram looks down.

He and Ora face each other silently. A pair of falcons hovers above in a mating dance, cackling with laughter.

A shudder runs through the big black dog's chest. He takes a few steps and circles them broadly. The other dogs stand tense, their fur on end.

”f.u.c.kit,” Avram whispers, ”we've lost our chance.”

The black one keeps pacing slowly, drawing an invisible line around them, without taking his eyes off them. The dogs follow along, completing a circle. Ora seeks out the golden b.i.t.c.h, who looks wild and bold as she stands beside the black dog. A handsome couple, Ora thinks with a strange twinge of jealousy-the forgotten longing, to be a handsome couple.

Suddenly it all sparks up again, as though the circular motion has fanned a primordial urge in the dogs. At once their faces and bodies sharpen. Wolves and hyenas and jackals now encircle Ora and Avram, and they too turn around in a circle. Avram's back touches hers. He is wet. They move together, forward, backward, to either side. They are one body. She can dimly hear a deep, hoa.r.s.e growl. But perhaps it's hers.

The dogs break into a slow trot around them. Ora feverishly searches for the golden one. She must find her. She scans dog after dog like beads on a necklace. There she is, running with them. Ora's spirits fall: the b.i.t.c.h's face is also sharp and gaping now, and her cheeks are drawn up in a grimace that exposes her canines.

Gray lightning flashes, something seizes Ora's pants from behind, at her calf, and she jumps in horror and kicks out without seeing. She hits something, her foot almost dismantled by the powerful pain, and a dirty, bedraggled mutt screeches, runs away, and sits licking its wound at some distance. Avram emits twisted, high-pitched sounds, not words but crushed syllables. She can almost feel the shaky scaffolding of his soul, which he has worked so hard to erect, collapsing because of this foolishness. Right at that moment he thrashes a stick, very close to her thigh, and a gaping hole opens up in the circle. Then comes another whistling blow, followed by a nauseating sound: something broken escapes with a whimper, pulling its rear body with its two front legs, and again she sees Nicotine, old and sick, dragging himself to his basket with a befuddled look in his eyes.

She starts to whistle. Not a tune. Something meaningless and monotonous and mechanical that sounds like the hum of a broken appliance. Her lips are pursed and she whistles. The dogs p.r.i.c.k up their ears. Avram throws her a suspicious glance. His beard is wild, his face alarmingly sharp.

She keeps on. Sensitive ears vibrate as they decipher a signal broadcast from another world. Her eyes dart in every direction. She tries to produce a low, soft whistle, as full and rich as her lungs can muster, then sticks with the loose whistle, guarding it like an ancient fire.

An emaciated brown mutt stops moving, sits on its hind legs, and scratches behind its ears. In so doing, it breaks the circle. The other dogs spread out a little. The golden b.i.t.c.h walks hesitantly to one side, panting heavily. A large Canaan with an ugly open wound on its thigh limps away, then stops in the middle of the field and looks up at the sky as though he's forgotten what he meant to do. Ora thinks she sees him yawn.

The black dog shakes his head a few times and tediously scans the other dogs. Now Ora whistles her Nicotine whistle, the first few notes of ”My Beloved with Her Pure White Neck,” a song she and Ilan used to whistle to each other, too. The black dog barks vacantly at the sky and walks away. The others straggle behind him. He p.r.i.c.ks up his tail and starts to run, and they follow. The golden b.i.t.c.h trails behind them. The pack looks smaller to Ora now. She gives Avram a sideways glance. His stick-now she sees it's a branch, from a eucalyptus or a pine tree-is still held high in his hand. His chest rises and falls like a bellows.

She whistles. Ilan always distractedly whistled their song in the shower, and she, lying in bed, would put down her book to listen. Once he whistled it in a low key, standing at one end of the bustling lobby of the Jerusalem Theater. She, at the other end, picked it up and started walking toward him, whistling softly until they met and embraced.

Avram looks at her questioningly. She whistles after the pack of dogs as they recede into the distance. She rounds her lips and whistles to the golden b.i.t.c.h, who grudgingly turns her head and slows down. Ora leans forward with her hands on her knees. ”Come,” she whispers.

The other dogs sprint away, barking, chasing one another, engaging in momentary fights, galloping across the field with floppy or perked-up ears, re-forming themselves into a pack. The golden one looks at them and back at Ora. Then, hesitantly, with a trembling paw, she starts to walk in Ora's direction. Without moving, Ora whistles softly, almost imperceptibly, guiding the b.i.t.c.h. Avram lets the branch drop. The b.i.t.c.h walks through a patch of stubbly growth that clings to her broad chest.

Ora slowly crouches down on one knee. The b.i.t.c.h stops abruptly, one paw suspended, her black nostrils open wide. Ora finds a slice of bread on their cloth, and carefully tosses it near the dog. She pulls back and growls.

”Eat it, it's good.”

The b.i.t.c.h c.o.c.ks her head. Her eyes are large and dirty. Ora talks to her: ”You lived in a house once, you had a home, people took care of you and loved you. You had a bowl for food and a bowl for water.”

With cautious, hunched steps, the b.i.t.c.h walks over to the bread. Growling, her brows arched, she does not take her eyes off Avram and Ora.

”Don't look at her,” Ora whispers.

”I was looking at you,” you,” Avram says awkwardly, and turns away. Avram says awkwardly, and turns away.

The b.i.t.c.h grabs the bread and devours it. Ora throws her a piece of cheese. She sniffs it and eats. Then a few pieces of salami. Some biscuits. ”Come here, you're a good dog, good, good dog.” The dog sits down and licks her chops. Ora pours water from a bottle into a plastic dish and sets it down on the ground between her and the dog, then goes back to her place. The dog sniffs at it from a distance. Reluctant to approach, attracted yet repelled. A slight whimper escapes her lips. ”Drink, you're thirsty.” The b.i.t.c.h approaches the dish without taking her eyes off Ora and Avram. Her leg muscles shake and she looks as though she might collapse. She laps up the water quickly and retreats. Ora moves closer and the b.i.t.c.h bares her teeth and her fur stands on end. Ora talks to her and pours some more water. She does this two more times, until the bottle is empty. The b.i.t.c.h sits next to the dish. Then she sprawls out and starts gnawing at a ball of fur and thistles stuck to her paw.

And now they can no longer avoid looking at each other.

Ora and Avram stand there, spent, their sweat heavy with the stench of fear, ashamed. A flicker of embarra.s.sment crosses their faces. They have not yet had time to robe themselves in their former skins. Avram stares at her and shakes his head slowly, wonderingly, gratefully, and his blue eyes fill with an undulating stir, and her body suddenly remembers his embrace, and for a moment she wonders stupidly if she should whistle for him him to come. But he comes anyway, a mere three steps, and hugs her, grasps her tightly, as he used to, and whispers, ”Ora, Ora'leh.” The b.i.t.c.h looks up at them. to come. But he comes anyway, a mere three steps, and hugs her, grasps her tightly, as he used to, and whispers, ”Ora, Ora'leh.” The b.i.t.c.h looks up at them.

A moment later Ora pulls away and stands staring at him as though she has not seen him for years. Then she falls on him again and starts to pound him with both hands and hit his face and scratch it, without saying anything, panting drily. Taken aback, he s.h.i.+elds his face, then tries to hold her, to encircle her in his arms so that she cannot hurt him or harm herself, because she has started to scratch herself too and hit her own face with her hands. ”Ora, stop, stop,” he shouts, he begs, until he is able to trap her in his arms and hold her tightly to his body to stop her wildness. She struggles and grunts and kicks him, and every time she feels a s.p.a.ce of nothing between them she tries to fill it with a punch or a kick or an angry breath, and the wilder she gets, the closer he has to hold her, until they are practically molded into one, intertwined, and she grits her teeth and yells, ”You piece of s.h.i.+t, all these years...punis.h.i.+ng us...who is to blame here ...” Her voice grows weaker and weaker until she flops against his chest, her head in the round of his shoulder, amazed at herself, at what came out of her-why now, why, this was not at all what she wanted to say to him. He does not move, only holds her to him and runs his hand up and down her back, over her sweat-soaked s.h.i.+rt, and she breathes deeply and whispers into his body just as she spoke a few days earlier into the pit she dug in the earth. Avram somehow senses that she is praying, but not to him, rather to someone inside him, asking him to open up and let her in. His hands and body constantly knead her body, and she kneads his, fingers tightening over limbs, wondering, remembering. For one moment-no more-there is a sudden abandonment, like a fleeting moment of disorderly conduct, and Ora's legs almost fail her, but she remains standing with the last of her strength. What is this? she wonders. What's happening here? She holds her head back, wanting to look in his eyes and ask, but he pulls her to him with new-old fervor, imprinting himself on her again. That's exactly how he used to be, and she suddenly remembers how the whole time they were s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g-nut-and-bolting, he called it-it was as though he were hallucinating inside her, growing intermittently harder and softer, moving in a slow somnambulism, a sort of continuous sleepwalking in which his mind and body were unshackled, so different from his usual rhythm when he was outside of her, different from his huntsman-like alertness. He once told her that from the moment he entered her, it was though a circle closed inside him and he immediately sank into a dream. ”It's like an underwater maze,” he said, when she asked him to try to describe it. ”No, no, forget that. It's like a dream that you can't tell anyone or re-create when you wake up. That's what's fun about it: that I can't find the words. That I I can't find the words.” can't find the words.”

Of course she felt, in those distant years, the other women and girls he saw through the canopy of his closed eyelids. She felt the rhythmic, salacious alternating of his pa.s.sions and fantasies as he made love to her. And every time she felt a twinge of jealousy, she told herself that you could not love Avram without loving his imagination, his parallel dimensions, his thousands of hallucinatory women. But she would quickly search for his mouth so that she could give it her her kiss-deep, demanding, vigorous-or even just touch the tip of his tongue with hers, to bring him back to the source that gave rise to all that in him, and he would instantly realize what she was doing and smile with his swollen eyelids and make a movement with his body that said: Here, I'm back. kiss-deep, demanding, vigorous-or even just touch the tip of his tongue with hers, to bring him back to the source that gave rise to all that in him, and he would instantly realize what she was doing and smile with his swollen eyelids and make a movement with his body that said: Here, I'm back.

All that time, in all those years, with all the talk and the chatter, intrigues lodged between his foot and her ankle, between his eyelashes and her navel. And she was so young, she didn't even know you were allowed to laugh like that in the midst of lovemaking. She hadn't realized that her body was so lighthearted and mischievous and cheerful. And it all somehow comes back to her now, barely able to stand, almost falling into his body. It's been years since she's allowed herself to remember how interwoven they used to be, and how all of his limbs climbed over all of her limbs-”Is that why they call it clim climaxing?” he joked once. ”We mustn't waste even one-thousandth of a touch,” he would murmur, ”not a finger or a hip or an eyelid, certainly not two thighs or an earlobe.” And when she was with him she was inexhaustible, climaxing and laughing, laughing and climaxing in short, quick spurts, while he held back like a Tibetan yogi, gathering it in from all the corners of himself, as he explained with a conspiratorial smile. From the farthest regions, from the tips of his toes, his elbows, eyelashes, neck, starting from a distance starting from a distance, until she felt his signals, and she would smile in her heart, here it is, here, the sharpening of all his flesh, the filling up, the high tide, and the quick departure of humor from his body-suddenly serious, determined, fateful, with his muscles weaving around her, and the grasping, like a giant clamp, and then his essence, the beat of his imprint deep inside her. She remembers.

Then, with his head heavy on her chest, she would feel him resurface to his senses. Slow, suspended, with fetal movements, he would moan, ”Ora'leh, did I hurt you?”

Here too, in the open field, he hugs her, steadies her, then gently holds her away. A pity. She was ready, if he'd only wanted to. They may have struggled that way for a minute, no longer, yet she crossed an ocean of time. And where is he? What does he want? What does she know? Only that he is grasping her, holding her in his arms, softly caressing her hair, asking, ”Did I hurt you?”

Then he lets go, pushes himself away from her as though he has realized what almost happened, the ghost that was almost conjured up. Ora rocks dizzily and takes hold of his arm again. ”Wait, don't run away, why are you running away from me?” She looks at him weakly, touches a long b.l.o.o.d.y scratch on his nose, which she has given him, and says quietly, ”Avram, do you remember us?”

”ILAN CAME HOME. After he ran away from me and Adam and tried out houses all over Jerusalem, he came back to us, to the house in Tzur Hada.s.sah. As soon as he did, he was shocked at Adam, I mean at me, at the way I'd neglected Adam and his education and his speech, and any order and discipline, and he started improving him.” Ora laughs. ”Do you understand? For almost three years, Adam and I were more or less on our own, two wild beasts in the jungle, no laws, no commandments, and then the missionary landed. And we suddenly discovered that nothing we did was right, that we didn't have an agenda or a routine, we ate when we were hungry and slept when we were tired, and the house was pretty much a dump.

”Wait,” she says, holding up a finger, ”there's more. That Adam walked around the neighborhood naked and scarfed down ma.s.sive amounts of chocolate and watched TV indiscriminately and got to day care at eleven a.m. And at his advanced age he still didn't know how to go potty properly. And he called me Ora, not Mom!

”Ilan, being Ilan, took matters into his own hands right then and there. He did everything very nicely of course, with lots of smiles-he knew he was on probation with me-but all of a sudden, for example, clocks turned up around the house. One in the kitchen, a little one in the living room, and a Mickey Mouse clock in Adam's room. And there were cleaning days, and we had to clear out the mess and get rid of the junk. The fun was over! 'This Sat.u.r.day we're sorting through Adam's toys, next Sat.u.r.day your paperwork, and what about that pharmacy spilling out of the bathroom cabinet?'”

She laughs joylessly.

”I liked it, don't get me wrong. It was nice to have a man in the house and to feel that someone was starting to eliminate the chaos. A sort of purification. The rescue forces had arrived. And don't forget that I was pregnant with Ofer, so I didn't have a lot of strength to resist, and all his enthusiasm signaled that he was pretty serious about his nesting and that maybe this time he would stay.”

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