Freefall (2 page)

Shira groans. “Don't be such a pessimist. You never know, your commanding officer might be a gorgeous hunk who will fall madly in love with you.”

I shove her aside and make my way into the den. It's total chaos in there. The TV is on at full volume. The hollers and groans of the Maccabi game compete with the Shark girls singing from the stereo. Ben sits on the sofa cracking sunflower seeds and dropping the shells into a bowl balanced on his thigh while he shouts above it all, telling Ron about the field exercise.

“Then he said, ‘Fill it up, all the way up!' In the end the sandbags weighed, oh man, at least twenty-five kilo.”

Shira grabs my arm. Her sigh drowns out the coach's call of foul as even Ben stops to look up. The blood rushes to my face. Ben notices. Winks. I see him nudge Ron in the ribs and whisper something.

“I'm so wired, Aggie. Getting into the army's entertainment corps is like—is like making the charts before you've made your first single.”

“‘Forty seconds,' our commander shouts. ‘Run! Up the hill and back.'”

“With the sacks?” Ron puts his beer on the edge of the table and leans in closer to Ben.

“Rebound!”

Ben stands to turn up the volume on the TV and catches my eye before he sits back down. He looks thinner. His jeans hang lower on his waist, but from the sound of his voice and the look on his face, he's made it through the first round. Half listening to Shira, I strain to catch Ben's conversation. “He kept shouting, ‘Quit now if you can't hack it.'”

“My voice never wavered,” says Shira.

“‘Again!' he shouts. ‘That wasn't forty seconds. Now do it in thirty-five.'”

“
I have no other country
,” Shira belts out.

“No way. Thirty-five seconds?” Ron's beer teeters on the edge of the table.

“Yeah,” says Ben. “And we had to shout out each second as it passed. Thirty more times. The hill. Back. Hill. Back. Then, my luck, the strap on my back broke! I had to carry the sack in my arms like a fat calf.” He rolls up his sleeves to show the cuts and bruises—and his solid muscles. “My arms were killing me. Some of the guys tried spilling out sand while the commander wasn't looking. As if a cupful would make a difference.”

And then—”

“Then when I got on stage”—Shira pauses to smooth back her hair—“all the nervousness disappeared. You know that feeling? Aggie, you know what I mean?”

“What a move! Stellar defense by Israel's Maccabi team.”

“Hey, Shira, can you put on some normal music?” asks Ron. “Their voices are driving me nuts. We can't hear the game.”

“It's
West Side Story
—and get used to it. I'm practicing for an audition.”

I nod as if I'm with her on stage, but I am with Ben in the desert, a bag of sand heavy in my arms as I run back and forth thirty times. I feel sweaty. My shoulders ache. My legs, as if cased in concrete, are too heavy to lift. I lean against the table.

“‘No slacking. Get moving!' He kept shouting for us to hurry up. Taunting us that we didn't have what it takes. It was the dead of night. We were walking with canteens, ammo round our waists, an M16 and all our stuff on our backs. And he's striding along expecting us to keep up. There wasn't even a ray of moonlight. At first we walked with him, but then the gap kept getting wider. ‘Keep up!' he shouted.”

“And?” Ron prompts him.

“There was no way—”

“I'll die if I don't get in.” Shira's voice quivers. “If I don't get in, then I'm not going. No one can make me do what I don't want to do. Are you listening, Aggie?”

She shakes my arm. I focus on the colored stud in her right nostril. This one's a garnet. It catches the light and reflects it back at me. I think of the stars. Ben in the desert, the darkness, the sounds of boots crushing the earth and the burdened breaths of the group as, exhausted, they push on.

“You can't tell them you aren't going,” I say to Shira. “That's kind of the definition of compulsory service: you don't have a choice.”

“You girls have it easy,” says Ron. “Two years of service is nothing next to our three.”

“Did you hear about Micha?” says Ben. “Made the pilot's course. Had to sign on for seven years.”

“No way! I sweated through those exams but got bounced out faster than a whirling propeller. Man, they were tough.” Ron balances the beer bottle on his knee. “I've got my field test for paratroopers next week. It'll be a breeze in comparison.” He puts his hands over his ears. “And shut off the music, will you, Shira?”

Shira shudders. “If they think I'll sit in an office for two years, they can forget it! This is my future career we're talking about!”

“What are you going to do?” I ask her.

“—go
to live in America,
” she sings together with the Shark girls.

I shake my head and roll my eyes. “You'd be lost there without us.”

She smothers me in a cloud of jasmine. “Teasing. I would never leave you guys. I would never leave—”

“Pure agony.” Ben groans. “Then he told us to put the sacks on the stretchers. My shoulder, see the cuts?”

He rolls down the collar of his shirt and shows off the deep gash along his shoulder.

“Hey, getting into an entertainment troop is just as tough as getting into one of your elite units,” says Shira. She leans over to reach for some sunflower seeds.

Ben stops midsentence. He's distracted. It's not Maccabi's main player scoring, the Shark girls singing, the commander's shouts, or even me. It's Shira's silver Star of David, which swivels seductively above the sunflower seed dish. Like a spelunker caught in a narrow cavern, Ben is lost inside a maze of cleavage.

Shira straightens up. She catches Ben ogling, and giggles.

“We're in the lead by seventeen!” shouts Ron.

“Triple double! Triple double. Come on, Tal.”

Shira dives for the spot on the floor in front of the TV. Behind her, on the worn, black leather couch, Ben and Ron sit side-by-side. Shira's head is close enough to rest on Ben's knee should he scoot up behind her. It should be my spot. I try and catch Ben's attention, but he is leaning forward, his body rigid as our offense gets the ball and heads down the court.

I hesitate. I'm sure Shira doesn't mean anything by it. But I feel benched, watching from the sidelines. Surprised and winded.

Maybe what happened in the taxi was just my imagination—or maybe now I was only imagining the way he looked at Shira.

It's the beginning of the second quarter. I listen to the squeal of running shoes, watch the flash of yellow jerseys as our players spin and dash around the court determined to hold on to their advantage.

“Win or die! Win or die!” Ben hollers.

“Hey, Aggie,” says Shira. “Can you bring in some more beers?”

“Sure,” I say, deciding to make light of it.

As I head for the kitchen, I hear strums of an old Dylan refrain drift in off the porch. Noah is still playing. Peeking outside, I see it's stopped snowing. I feel cheated that I've missed it. Maybe the only snowfall Jerusalem will have all year. Easing open the screen door made for flies in the summertime and not this winter's cold, I step out onto the porch. A scooter screeches down the narrow alley and stops below the house.

“Hey, Noah. How's it going?” yells the driver.

“Okay and you?”

He revs the motor in reply. “You're going back?”

He revs the motor in reply. “You're “Yeah. I'm closing this weekend.”

“Too bad. There's a party by the port in Tel Aviv tomorrow. Next time,” he calls over his shoulder as he speeds off .

Noah continues strumming on his guitar as he looks up at me. He's got his dad's light hazel-colored eyes and his mom's tanned complexion. He is a perfect meld of east and west. “
For the times they are a-changin'
,” he sings in a voice that's deeper and rougher than Shira's but just as strong.

I hover by the doorway. He hasn't asked me to join him but hasn't turned his back on me either.

“Not a basketball fan after all?” he asks me.

“Win or die! Win or die!” The rousing chorus from inside spills onto the porch.

“Shame to miss the snowfall,” I say. “Maybe the only one we'll have for the next couple of years.”

Leaning back, his guitar resting on his thigh and his head cocked to the side, he'd look like a hippie if it weren't for the army uniform and military haircut. He's wearing his boots, and sometime between when I said hi and now, he's polished them and packed up. The duffel bag lies by his foot like a faithful pet. His M16 is propped on the banister. I'm still leaning against the door, catching Shira's giggle followed by Ben's muffled reply.

“I wish I knew what I wanted.” I sigh. “Shira's lucky she's so talented. She's perfect for the entertainment troop. I'm sure she'll get in.”

He picks a few bars of a new song then pauses. “You can't know what you want until you can't have it.”

“Are those Dylan lyrics?”

“Not exactly.” He reaches for his guitar case. “When something slips out of your grasp and you realize it's gone, that's when it hits you. If it's something you didn't want anyway, you'll let it go. If it's what you want, you'll do whatever it takes to get it back.”

I glance over my shoulder wondering about Ben. Would I do whatever it takes to get him if Shira decides she wants him—or he decides he wants her?

Noah pushes the cuff s of his army pants into his boots. I watch as he threads the laces all the way up and ties the ends in a knot. He takes care to smooth down his pants and wipe off a smudge of dirt from his heel.

“So what is it you want?” I ask him.

Standing up, he swings his rifle over his shoulder. “Peace and quiet. Space. Time to play my guitar. Read. Think.”

I glance at the army bag by his feet. “Exactly what you don't have now?”

He smirks. “Not when you're sharing your tent with a bunch of other guys.” He swings his guitar over his other shoulder and grabs his duff el bag. “I've got to walk over to the bus stop. You should go back inside. See who's winning.”

He means the basketball game. I'm thinking of Shira, Ben, and me. I realize I'm not interested in the games going on inside the den. I'd rather talk to Noah.

“Actually,” I say, “the bus stop is on my way home. I'll walk with you. I was planning on leaving anyway.”

“Without your shoes?” He glances at my feet.

I'm still in my socks. “Right.” I run back in and lace up my shoes in less time than it took him. I dash out only to find that somehow Noah's mom has made it out before me. She stands on her tiptoes, her arms wrapped around his neck, reaching up to kiss him as he bends to hug her.

I stop—feeling a lump in my throat as if the air I'm breathing has become infused with a tenderness so potent it's contagious.

“Call me as soon as you can,” she says.

“Yes, Mom.”

“Tell your commander I want you home next weekend. We're having a birthday party for Grandma.”

He laughs. “Oh sure, he'll go for that. Anything else?”

“You need to have more time to rest.” She hands him a bag of cookies. “They just came out of the oven.”

He takes a deep breath and sighs. “Delicious. The guys are going to love them.” He catches me watching, smiles, shrugs, and blushes.

“And I packed you some extra boxers and—”

“Mom.”

“Oh, all right.” She sighs and turns around, her shoulders drooping inward. “And this is for you, Aggie.” She gives me a paper bag spotted with oil stains. It's the
malawah
.

“Thank you,” I say, pretending not to notice her tears.

“How did she know I was leaving?” I ask Noah as she walks back up the stairs into the house. walks back up the stairs into “Nothing gets by her.”

We wave good-bye and start walking down the alley. The familiar refrains of the news broadcasts chime the hour from almost every house. Later the streets will fill with restaurant-goers, bar hoppers, and kids crowding the sidewalks mingling with friends.

For now the alleyways are empty except for me and Noah and patches of snow. We walk side-by-side, listening to the sound of our footsteps on the cobblestones. As we turn the corner, he waits for me to walk in front of him down a narrow passage where we must squeeze past a row of cars crowding up the sidewalk.

“This is probably the only place in the world where cars get the sidewalk and people use the road.”

I giggle, listening to myself and feeling so young and stupid.

As he draws up again beside me, an awkward silence takes over. I never used to feel tongue-tied around him.

But there's something different in the way he's acting with me. And the way he looks at me. His hint of a dimple in each cheek makes me want to try harder, sound smarter, act older.

We leave behind the narrow streets and reach the main intersection, where cars, buses, and taxis jostle for space. Noah stops at the corner. He doesn't seem hurried so we wait for the light to change. I force myself to get up the nerve to say something.

“I've got my three-hundred test coming up at the recruitment center,” I blurt out.

“That's nothing to worry about,” he says.

“Three hundred questions! I'll probably run out of answers after the first page.” My voice rises. “I'll be the only recruit who has ever failed a personality test. They won't know what to do with me.”

Noah laughs. The light turns green. He steps off the sidewalk with such grace. He seems unaware of the weights on him: the rifle knocking against his leg with every step, his guitar slung over his back, and his bulky duff el bag that makes it feel like he's leaving home forever.