permission. We have enough to think about.”
“Sorry,” I said. I took a photograph of the sign from where I was sit ing. Then I discovered that I couldn’t get up, and I had to be carried piggyback to the bus. “Who lives in that cabin?” I asked the soldier who was carrying me. “Lived,” he said. “Some guy, he was kil ed a couple of months ago. Are you single?” “I’m in too much pain to remember right now,” I said.
Vronsky was on duty at the hospital when Odelia, who had also been at the outpost-tracking activity, brought me to the emergency ward. I used her shoulder as a crutch; the pain was excruciating, but I was stoic and didn’t let on. As a result, the nurses didn’t think I had more than a sprain, and I had to wait several hours for a doctor to see me.
The doctor was Vronsky. While he was examining me he noticed the yer in my hand. It was a glossy fund- raising yer from Be’er Shalom asking Americans to help them ful l God’s promise by sending tax-deductible donations. I’d found it on the rented bus. “What’s that?”
Vronsky asked. I told him about the il egal outposts and the deserted house of the dead prophet. He seemed interested, though he didn’t say much. At midnight he sent me home with a cast and a bot le of painkil ers. They were stronger than was usual because Vronsky felt bad that I’d waited so long, and also because by the time he saw me I was no longer stoic, and I told him I’d pass out if I didn’t get something strong soon.
I became madly addicted to the pil s and when they were nished I begged Vronsky for more. At rst he yielded, but after my cast came o he refused to renew the prescription. I was sorry then that my anklebone, which had apparently broken in an unusual manner, healed inexplicably within two weeks. Vronsky discovered by chance that the fracture had healed: the cast was causing me al sorts of problems and had to be removed and replaced. As it turned out, though, the cast wasn’t replaced, because Vronsky took another X-ray and found, to his astonishment, that I was cured. “Remarkable,” he said. “Most unusual. Two weeks—I’ve never come across such a case before.”
“I stil need those pil s for pain,” I said hopeful y, but Vronsky assured me I wouldn’t be experiencing any further discomfort. My body never forgot the pleasure of the drug, which had spread inside me like a gentle breeze on a lazy summer day, a day l ed with cyclamens sweetly trembling under blue skies. Every now and then a deep craving for the remembered sensation would take hold of me, and one night I was so desperate I tried to find the drug on the street, but no one had heard of it.
Now the familiar desire came back. I needed to narrow the pain of my longing for Daniel, send it back to its corner, but it was stubborn and didn’t want to budge. I decided to go out for dinner with Volvo and then walk with him by the sea. The sea at dusk was my best bet.
We ate at a falafel stand down the street and then we strol ed along the boardwalk. Some people smiled at Volvo and others averted their eyes. No one was indi erent. When I grew tired of pushing the wheelchair, I parked Volvo at one of the semicircular shelters scat ered along the walk and sat beside him on the curved bench. The sun was set ing behind us and the sea turned gray with streaks of orange and white.
Then it was dark green and the orange changed to scarlet. And then slowly blue came back, blue with specks of gold.
“You’re very distracted,” he said. “Are you premenstrual?”
“What’s the connection? Or were you just looking for an opportunity to say that word?”
“What form of contraception do you use, if I may ask?”
“You may not ask. Volvo, look how nice the sea is. Look how nice it is here, and everyone’s relaxed—why don’t you try to relax too? How can you be cranky near the sea?”
“I’m not a happy man, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Wel , I’m not happy either, but it’s stil possible to appreciate some things. I was incredibly sad this afternoon, but I feel bet er now, thanks to this walk, and the sea, and having a falafel with you.”
“The di erence between us, Dana,” he said, “is that you have hope. I, on the other hand, wil never wake up one morning to nd that this was al just a bad dream.”
“Why don’t you try to meet someone? If you weren’t so grumpy and negative, you could fal in love, you know.”
“Bril iant idea,” Volvo said. “The best idea I’ve heard al week. A plan for my rehabilitation. My spiritual rehabilitation.”
“Why don’t you give your family another chance? I’m sure they miss you.”
“I already told you. We’ve been through this.”
“Yes, you said they were religious, but—”
“Not religious, fanatic. We no longer have anything in common,” he said with self-satisfaction. “I have liberated myself from the chains of superstition and zealotry. I am a free man.”
“That’s no reason not to see them.”
“Their interpretation of my personal disaster l s me with dismay and revulsion,” Volvo said. “I wil never forgive them for giving God the credit.”
“Yes, I know that’s frustrating.”
“Frustrating! Try twisted, pathological, and betraying a degree of imbecility that staggers the mind.”
“You know, Volvo, you’re intel igent, you have a lot of talent, why not use it? Why not see a therapist? Or go back to school?”
“I’m too depressed to see a therapist and too smart to go to school,” he said, bursting into his wild hyena laugh.
“What exactly did your parents say?”
“I’d rather not dwel on it.”
