I whispered to her: I don’t want to wake him.
And she whispered: So stay for Shabbat.
After a very brief silence, during which she might have been waiting for my response to her invitation—she smiled her melancholy smile, and explained what to do in whispers and gestures, careful not to touch me: Yes. First remove your arms from around his waist. Then slide your body away. Exactly like that. And be careful when you move your leg over him.
—
Nimrod—not Yanai—was the name we had planned to give to a boy if we had one. And since writing is also, perhaps mainly, compensation for what didn’t happen, or still hadn’t happened, I named the children in various books Nimrod.
And now a real Nimrod had slept in my arms. For a whole night.
Reluctantly, I withdrew my arm from around his body. Very slowly. To prolong the moment. His long lashes quivered slightly, as if his eyes were about to open, but a few seconds later, the quivering stopped, and he continued to sleep.
—
The sun rose over the Shomron hills. Iris slowed down a bit and put her sunglasses on as she drove.
It’s amazing, she said. On the surface, Nimrod handled Boaz’s death better than the other kids. His siblings cried constantly. Clung to me. He was the only one who went to his room to play on his PlayStation with his friends. From the sidelines, it seemed like he cared less. At first I thought that maybe it was because he was the youngest and had had very few years with Boaz, but later, he began to act out in different ways.
For example?
Fighting in school, Iris said. I mean, he hit other kids. And at the same time, he suddenly became very devout. Scolded me for all the small liberties I allow myself to take on Shabbat. He rebuked me for naming him Nimrod, which is a slightly…unusual name for religious people. For a while, he went back to wetting his bed at night. Then he started sleepwalking all over the house.
Actual sleepwalking, with his hands held out in front of him?
No, that’s only in movies. In reality, they walk with their hands at their sides and their eyes closed.
No kidding!
Apparently…that’s how he got to you on the couch.
I retained the memory of his touch the way I would the memory of a night of lovemaking. During the drive to the checkpoint, I felt the warmth pulsing in my body. In my stomach as it pressed up against his back. In my arms as they held him.
I wonder if he’ll remember anything when he wakes up, I thought out loud.
Usually he completely forgets what happened at night, Iris said. Once he ate half a pot of soup that was in the fridge. Just like that. From the pot straight to his mouth. As if it were a water canteen. And he didn’t remember a thing in the morning. But if he says anything, I’ll let you know. I have your e-mail address, right?
No one would dare to admit it publicly. Even I find my fingers blushing as I type this now. But when the victims of a terrorist attack live beyond the Green Line, it matters less to those who live on this side of the Green Line. Our minds hear the news, and from the names of the victims, we know whether they are members of the tribe or not, and often, we decide to push aside the pain and anxiety: “They chose to live there and endanger themselves and their children? So let them pay the price.”
—
I didn’t receive an e-mail from Iris. Nor did I send one.
But after the night I spent in Ma’ale Meir, the Green Line was no longer the line where compassion stopped.
On the contrary, for years after that, I still tensed up when I heard a report about a Molotov cocktail, a car that overturned after being stoned, infiltration into a settlement. I moved my radio dial from a music station to the IDF station, I listened to news bulletins. And when the names were announced in the papers the next day, I scanned the article with a pounding heart: Just not Nimrod just not Nimrod just not Nimrod just not Nimrod.
Maybe it was also the way she described him that made him seem like a kid who was asking for trouble.
“Four teenagers entered a Palestinian village, apparently to spray hate slogans on the wall of the local mosque. From the information we have received, it appears that a group of masked men were waiting for them, and now the boys are trapped in the mosque. The army is operating in the village. The situation is not completely clear at this time, but we can already say that there have been some injuries.”
I sat in front of the TV and listened to the reports.
Dikla said, Look at how they drive the whole army crazy, those settlers.
And she also said, I hope they learn their lesson.
I didn’t reply. I didn’t argue. I didn’t say that love conquers everything that stands in its way, including ideology. Or that love is the ideology. I kept watching TV all night. Waiting for the names.
I had a gut feeling. Like mothers have before the army representatives knock on the door.
It came right before dawn: “Our military correspondent reports that the boys were rescued alive. One of them, Nimrod Sali, is moderately to seriously injured, and has been taken to Tel Hashomer hospital.”
I waited for the right moment. I didn’t want anyone in the hospital to stop me and say that visiting hours were over. I didn’t want Iris or anyone from Nimrod’s family to see me. I sat beside Ari’s bed in oncology and we played the game we’d regularly played since he had started drifting in and out of consciousness: He closes his eyes and dozes off for a while,
