Falling Out of Time Read online

  ALSO BY DAVID GROSSMAN

  Fiction

  To the End of the Land

  Her Body Knows

  Someone to Run With

  Be My Knife

  The Zigzag Kid

  The Book of Intimate Grammar

  The Smile of the Lamb

  See Under: Love

  Nonfiction

  Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics

  Death as a Way of Life: Israel Ten Years After Oslo

  Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel

  The Yellow Wind

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Translation copyright © 2014 by Jessica Cohen

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by McClelland & Stewart, a division of Random House of Canada, Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House Companies.

  www.aaknopf.com

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Originally published in Israel as Nofel mi’hutz la’zman by HaKibbutz

  HaMeuchad Publishing House, Ltd., Tel Aviv, in 2011. Copyright © 2011 by David Grossman and HaKibbutz HaMeuchad Publishing House, Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Grossman, David.

  [Nofel mi-huts la-zeman. English]

  Falling out of time / by David Grossman; translated by Jessica Cohen.—

  First edition.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-385-35013-6 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-385-35014-3 (eBook)

  1. Bereavement—Fiction. I. Cohen, Jessica. II. Title.

  pj5054.g728N6413 2014

  892.4′36—dc23 2013017532

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Jacket design by Kelly Blair

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part I

  Part II

  Notes

  A Note About the Author

  A Note About the Translator

  Reading Group Guide

  TOWN CHRONICLER: As they sit eating dinner, the man’s face suddenly turns. He thrusts his plate away. Knives and forks clang. He stands up and seems not to know where he is. The woman recoils in her chair. His gaze hovers around her without taking hold, and she—wounded already by disaster—senses immediately: it’s here again, touching me, its cold fingers on my lips. But what happened? she whispers with her eyes. Bewildered, the man looks at her and speaks:

  —I have to go.

  —Where?

  —To him.

  —Where?

  —To him, there.

  —To the place where it happened?

  —No, no. There.

  —What do you mean, there?

  —I don’t know.

  —You’re scaring me.

  —Just to see him once more.

  —But what could you see now? What is left to see?

  —I might be able to see him there. Maybe even talk to him?

  —Talk?!

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Now they both unfold, awaken. The man speaks again.

  —Your voice.

  —It’s back. Yours too.

  —How I missed your voice.

  —I thought we … that we’d never …

  —I missed your voice more than I missed my own.

  —But what is there? There’s no such place. There doesn’t exist!

  —If you go there, it does.

  —But you don’t come back. No one ever has.

  —Because only the dead have gone.

  —And you—how will you go?

  —I will go there alive.

  —But you won’t come back.

  —Maybe he’s waiting for us.

  —He’s not. It’s been five years and he’s still not. He’s not.

  —Maybe he’s wondering why we gave up on him so quickly, the minute they notified us …

  —Look at me. Look into my eyes. What are you doing to us? It’s me, can’t you see? This is us, the two of us. This is our home. Our kitchen.

  Come, sit down. I’ll give you some soup.

  MAN:

  Lovely—

  So lovely—

  The kitchen

  is lovely

  right now,

  with you ladling soup.

  Here it’s warm and soft,

  and steam

  covers the cold

  windowpane—

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Perhaps because of the long years of silence, his hoarse voice fades to a whisper. He does not take his eyes off her. He watches so intently that her hand trembles.

  MAN:

  And loveliest of all are your tender,

  curved arms.

  Life is here,

  dear one.

  I had forgotten:

  life is in the place where you

  ladle soup

  under the glowing light.

  You did well to remind me:

  we are here

  and he is there,

  and a timeless border

  stands between us.

  I had forgotten:

  we are here

  and he—

  but it’s impossible!

  Impossible.

  WOMAN:

  Look at me. No,

  not with that empty gaze.

  Stop.

  Come back to me,

  to us. It’s so easy

  to forsake us, and this

  light, and tender

  arms, and the thought

  that we have come back

  to life,

  and that time

  nonetheless

  places thin compresses—

  MAN:

  No, this is impossible.

  It’s no longer possible

  that we,

  that the sun,

  that the watches, the shops,

  that the moon,

  the couples,

  that tree-lined boulevards

  turn green, that blood

  in our veins,

  that spring and autumn,

  that people

  innocently,

  that things just are.

  That the children

  of others,

  that their brightness

  and warmness—

  WOMAN:

  Be careful,

  you are saying

  things.

  The threads

  are so fine.

  MAN:

  At night people came

  bearing news.

  They walked a long way,

  quietly grave,

  and perhaps, as they did so,

  they stole a taste, a lick.

  With a child’s wonder

  they learned they could hold

  death in their mouths

  like candy made of poison

  to which they are miraculously

  immune.

  We opened the door,

  this one. We stood here,

  you and I,

  shoulder to shoulder,

  they

  on the threshold

  and we

  facing them,

  and they,

  mercifully,

  quietly,

  stood there and

  gave us

  the breath

 
of death.

  WOMAN:

  It was awfully quiet.

  Cold flames lapped around us.

  I said: I knew, tonight

  you would come. I thought:

  Come, noiseful void.

  MAN:

  From far away,

  I heard you:

  Don’t be afraid, you said,

  I did not shout

  when he was born, and

  I won’t shout now either.

  WOMAN:

  Our prior life

  kept growing

  inside us

  for a few moments longer.

  Speech,

  movements,

  expressions.

  MAN AND WOMAN:

  Now,

  for a moment,

  we sink.

  Both not saying

  the same words.

  Not bewailing him,

  for now,

  but bewailing the music

  of our previous life, the

  wondrously simple, the

  ease, the

  face

  free of wrinkles.

  WOMAN:

  But we promised each other,

  we swore to be,

  to ache,

  to miss

  him,

  to live.

  So what is it now

  that makes you

  suddenly tear away?

  MAN:

  After that night

  a stranger came and grasped

  my shoulders and said: Save

  what is left.

  Fight, try to heal.

  Look into her eyes, cling

  to her eyes, always

  her eyes—

  do not let go.

  WOMAN:

  Don’t go back there,

  to those days. Do not

  turn back your gaze.

  MAN:

  In that darkness I saw

  one eye

  weeping

  and one eye

  crazed.

  A human eye,

  extinguished,

  and the eye

  of a beast.

  A beast half

  devoured in the predator’s mouth,

  soaked with blood,

  insane,

  peered out at me from your eye.

  WOMAN:

  The earth

  gaped open,

  gulped us

  and disgorged.

  Don’t go back

  there, do not go,

  not even one step

  out of the light.

  MAN:

  I could not, I dared not

  look into your eye,

  that eye of

  madness,

  into your noneness.

  WOMAN:

  I did not see you,

  I did not see

  a thing,

  from the human eye

  or the eye

  of the beast.

  My soul was uprooted.

  It was very cold then

  and it is cold

  now, too.

  Come to sleep,

  it’s late.

  MAN:

  For five years

  we unspoke

  that night.

  You fell mute,

  then I.

  For you the quiet

  was good,

  and I felt it clutch

  at my throat. One after

  the other, the words

  died, and we were

  like a house

  where the lights

  go slowly out,

  until a somber silence

  fell—

  WOMAN:

  And in it

  I rediscovered you,

  and him. A dark mantle

  cloaked the three of us,

  enfolded us

  with him, and we were mute

  like him. Three embryos

  conceived

  by the bane—

  MAN:

  And together

  we were born

  on the other side,

  without words,

  without colors,

  and we learned

  to live

  the inverse

  of life.

  (silence)

  WOMAN:

  See how

  word by word

  our confiding

  is attenuated, macerated,

  like a dream

  illuminated

  by a torch. There was

  a certain miracle

  within the quietude,

  a secrecy

  within the silence

  that swallowed us up

  with him. We were silent there

  like him, there we spoke

  his tongue.

  For words—

  how does the drumming

  of words voice

  his death?!

  TOWN CHRONICLER: In the hush that follows her shout, the man retreats until his back touches the wall. Slowly, as if in his sleep, he spreads both arms out and steps along the wall. He circles the small kitchen, around and around her.

  MAN:

  Tell me,

  tell me

  about us

  that night.

  WOMAN:

  I sense something

  secret: you are tearing off

  the bandages

  so you may drink

  your blood, provisions

  for your journey to there.

  MAN:

  That night,

  tell me

  about us

  that night.

  WOMAN:

  You

  circle

  around me

  like a beast

  of prey. You close

  in on me

  like a nightmare.

  That night, that

  night.

  You want to hear about

  that night.

  We sat on these chairs,

  you there, me here.

  You smoked. I remember

  your face came

  and went in the smoke,

  less and less

  each time. Less

  you, less

  man.

  MAN:

  We waited

  in silence

  for morning.

  No

  morning

  came.

  No

  blood

  flowed.

  I stood up, I wrapped you

  in a blanket,

  you gripped my hand, looked

  straight into my eyes: the man

  and woman

  we had been

  nodded farewell.

  WOMAN:

  No

  wafted dark

  and cold

  from the walls,

  bound my body,

  closed and barred

  my womb. I thought:

  They are sealing

  the home that once

  was me.

  MAN:

  Speak. Tell me

  more. What did we say?

  Who spoke first? It was very quiet,

  wasn’t it? I remember breaths.

  And your hands twisting

  together. Everything else

  is erased.

  WOMAN:

  Cold, quiet fire burned

  around us.

  The world outside shriveled,

  sighed, dwindled

  into a single dot,

  scant,

  black,

  malignant.

  I thought: We must

  leave.

  I knew: There’s nowhere

  left.

  MAN:

  The minute

  it happened,

  the minute

  it became—

  WOMAN:

  In an instant we were cast out

  to a land of exile.

  They came at night, knocked on our d
oor,

  and said: At such and such time,

  in this or that place, your son

  thus and thus.

  They quickly wove

  a dense web, hour

  and minute and location,

  but the web had a hole in it, you

  see? The dense web

  must have had a hole,

  and our son

  fell

  through.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: As she speaks these words, he stops circling her. She looks at him with dulled eyes. Lost, arms limp, he faces her, as if struck at that moment by an arrow shot long ago.

  WOMAN:

  Will I ever again

  see you

  as you are,

  rather than as

  he is not?

  MAN:

  I can remember

  you without

  his noneness—your innocent,

  hopeful smile—and I can remember

  myself without his noneness. But not

  him. Strange: him

  without his noneness, I can no longer

  remember. And as time goes by

  it starts to seem as though

  even when he was,

  there were signs

  of his noneness.

  WOMAN:

  Sometimes, you know,

  I miss

  that ravaged,

  bloody

  she.

  Sometimes I believe her

  more than I believe

  myself.

  MAN:

  She is the reason I take

  my life

  in your hands and ask

  you a question

  I myself

  do not understand:

  Will you go with me?

  There—

  to him?

  WOMAN:

  That night I thought:

  Now we will separate. We cannot live

  together any longer. When I tell you

  yes,

  you will embrace

  the no, embrace

  the empty space

  of him.

  MAN:

  How will we cleave together?

  I wondered that night.

  How will we crave each other?

  When I kiss you,

  my tongue will be slashed

  by the shards of his name

  in your mouth—

  WOMAN:

  How will you look into my eyes

  with him there,

  an embryo

  in the black

  of my pupils?

  Every look, every touch,

  will pierce. How will we love,

  I thought that night.

  How will we love, when

  in deep love

  he was

  conceived.

  MAN:

  The

  moment

  it happened—

  WOMAN:

  It happened? Look