The worst day in Yigal's life. In many ways, the last day of his life, at least the last day of hope and laughter and love. As often happened, he met Ariela on the way up the hill toward the trampiada, the spot beside the main road into Gush Etzion where they all stood hoping to hitch hike into the city until one of the infrequent buses came. Ariela was as beautiful as always, her eye shone as she smiled, her set of perfect white teeth gleamed in the morning light. She often wore her hair in long braids, but today it was upbraided, tied into a loose ponytail with some sort of colored elastic cloth. Yigal came up behind her stealthily as possible as they both walked up the relatively steep in line.
"Boker tov!" he greeted her, sensing she wasn't as surprised as he had hoped she'd be from his boyish prank.
"You shouldn't surprise people like that Yigal!" was her only greeting.
He decided it better to apologize and move on than try to discuss the relative merits of boyish pranks. "Sorry. I guess I'm used to walking quietly." he prevaricated, alluding to his days in the elite Israeli paratrooper unit.
"That's no excuse." Ariella answered, and again ignored him as she struggled up the hill with a large knapsack on her back.
"I can help with that, if you'd like?" he offered, gently indicating that his back was free to accept cargo.
"That's okay, I prefer to carry it myself." But after a moment, apparently realizing that her words might be perceived as somehow petty or spiteful she added, "I need to get used to travelling with my 'home' on my back. I'm leaving in the fall for a trip out East."
Surprised, Yigal did not remember her even thinking about the possibility of such an adventure, he blurted out,"Since when? I mean ... " he struggled to find words that wouldn't make him sound possessive or commandeering, "I don't remember you talking about travelling!"
The surprise was apparently evident in his voice. Ariela stopped at the point on the road where it turned East to climb the last bit of hill before it reached the plateau of the Judean Hills where most of the communities of Gush Etzion could be found. Behind her, as Yigal looked toward the West, was the magestic panorama of the drop of the Judean Hills down to the foot hills below, and beyond them the long narrow and relatively flat coastal plain. If he wanted to, he could probably make out the silhouettes of Tel Aviv to the North and Ashdod and Ashkelon to the South, and the dozens of smaller towns and cities between them, nestled as they were close to the shore of the Mediterranean. A Mediterranean that looked dark blue from Yigal's vantage point. A blue that melted seamlessly into the blue of the sky on some ill defined horizon far out to sea.
Suddenly that is exactly how he felt, 'far out at sea'. Ariella had always been his closest friend, his confidant, and he had always thought he had been hers. Now he discovered that she was leaving without having even discussed it with him. Leaving for months. He quailed at the thought.
"How long are you going to be away?"
"I really don't know. It all depends."
"Depends on what?" he could hear his voice grow sharper and more demanding but he couldn't help but let the words come out as they would.
"Yigal ..." Ariela started but stopped. She stopped speaking, she also stopped looking at him. He could see her eyes looking up the hill toward the trampiada. He waited for an answer. Neither of them moved.
Returning her gaze to him, in a quiet but resolute voice she answered him. "It depends upon what David and I decide."
"David? You're travelling with David?"
"Yes. David and I have been seeing each other for quite a while and we planned this trip together." As if she felt it somehow urgently necessary, she hurriedly added, "We're not getting married or anything, at least not yet."
"But ..." was all that Yigal could manage to respond.
"But what?" she challenged.
Yigal simply could not understand how everything could have gone wrong so quickly, but then, 'quite a while', he guessed it wasn't so quick after all.
"I'm sorry. I thought we were friends?"
"We were. I mean, we are!" Ariela drew closer to help dispel the sense she feared him or was angry. "Yigal, I love you like a brother, but a brother is not a boy friend."
"But I thought ..."
"Yes I know what you thought, or at least I started understanding in the last few months, but I didn't know how to say it. I didn't want to hurt you. The truth is, maybe I was afraid of losing you ... losing you as a friend."
"You won't!" Yigal blurted out. "I wouldn't!"
"It's not so simple Yigal." With that she took his hand in hers. They had never intentionally touched. Religiously observant Jews avoided touching others of the opposite gender till marriage.
"Please understand. I'm still your friend." With that she left him standing there and continued the last twenty meters up the hill and beyond his sight. Yigal didn't move. He couldn't remember why he had left the house that morning or where he was supposed to be going. All he knew was that the most important person in his life, the person he secretly hoped would be there all his life, was no longer there for him. She's be 'there' for someone else, but not for him.
A car stopped and the driver asked him if he wanted a lift? 'A lift to where?' he thought, and with that he declined and started walking back down the hill. Back home to the emptiness of his life that had been shattered by what seemed a chance conversation.
'When did she think she was going to tell him?' The thoughts churned as he later laid on his bed. It seemed like all morning his cellphone chirped, but he ignored it. Buried as it was in the recesses of his side bag. 'Should he answer it?" 'Was it Ariela?"
When his mother burst in sometime after one o'clock he knew something tragic had happened. When his normally reserved and very proper mother threw herself on him, clutching him in her arms, tears streaming down her face, fear gripped his heart like never before in his life.
"What is it?" Yigal whispered in his mothers ear as she gripped him even tighter.
"The number 32 bus ..." she started, but her voice broke down.
Yigal intuitively knew there had been another suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus. His mother's fears that he had been on the bus many residents of Gush Etzion take upon arriving in the city were clear and understandable. It was her next remark that stopped his heart - ended the world he thought he knew until that moment.
"Abba and I were convinced you were on it with Ariela!"
"Ariela was on the bus?"
"You didn't know?" His mothers tears started afresh, only this time her anguish was not just for herself but for him as well.
Ariela's funeral was the next day. It took that long to identify the body parts and ensure that the correct pieces were buried with the right name. He didn't weep. In fact, from the moment his mother told him they had announced the names of the first identified victims on the radio, he didn't feel a thing. It was as if his heart had turned to stone. He forgot his anger and his sense of betrayal.
Days later he discovered that Ariela' number was listed on his cellphone as one of the many unanswered calls. Her call had come in at 11:47, exactly seconds before the bomb went off that had brutally ended her life. She didn't even get the chance to leave him a voice mail. From time to time as the months passed he would wonder, if the bomber had given her another two or three minutes to live, what might she have said in her message. He'd never know.
Yigal never told anyone what transpired between Ariela and him that morning. Out of respect for what they perceived to be his loss, no one pried. Only he knew, Ariela had 'died' for him before she lost her life. His world had ended before she got on that bus for her fateful last journey.
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