Read The Extra for Free Online Page A

didn’t connect my decision to any death.”
    â€œOf course you didn’t. I don’t think you connected it to anything at all. You didn’t want to, and that was it. That’s also how I put it to Abba. But he stuck stubbornly to his explanation. So I said to myself, if Noga’s imaginary escape from death calms him down, who am I to deny it?”
    The back door leading to the porch and garden was open, and Noga noticed that the room faced the western sky, bathed now in a reddish glow.
    â€œIt’s nice here, so pleasant. Honi found you a good place. By the way, I was amazed to see how many things you threw away. All of Abba’s clothes . . .”
    â€œNot just Abba’s, mine too. Honi was impressed how easily I emptied out the closets. If the experiment here doesn’t succeed, I’ll at least return to an apartment that’s light and airy. If you had been with us, we would have convinced you to throw out things of yours that were still there.”
    â€œNot much is still there.”
    â€œTrue, not much, and you can throw the rest out yourself.”
    â€œIn any case, you left Abba’s black suit.”
    â€œIt was so beautiful and new, a shame to give it to charity.”
    â€œMaybe you’re saving it for a new husband,” teased Noga, and her mother laughed.
    â€œYou know me, Nogaleh—do you see me with a new husband?”
    â€œOr at least a lover,” the daughter insisted.
    â€œA lover, fine, but he’d have to be Japanese or Chinese, as Abba used to joke with me at night, but they’re so small and thin the suit wouldn’t fit them. I thought of offering it to Abadi, but I worried he would be embarrassed to wear a dead man’s suit. So let’s keep thinking. If you want, we can give it to our neighbor Mr. Pomerantz. He’s still a handsome man and dresses well.”
    â€œBut without the shoes and socks, because that would be insulting.”
    â€œShoes and socks? What are you talking about?”
    â€œThe shoes and socks you left below the suit. It almost looked like you were waiting for Abba to come back.”
    â€œThat’s right, Noga, I am waiting for him to come back, but if the shoes and socks bother you, then you should throw them out right away.”
    â€œWe’ll see. It really is lovely here, and the residents seem quite cultured.”
    â€œThe ones you saw. There are others in frightful condition who barely get out of their rooms. But if the experiment succeeds, it will be a relief for Honi, who won’t need to travel to Jerusalem, which he hates more by the day. That’s why he’s so pleased I’m here.”
    â€œHe’s really attached to you.”
    â€œToo much. Drops in several times a day to see how I am, even joined me twice for meals in the dining room. Yesterday he brought the children for me to look after. Good thing there’s grass here where they can run around, because my room’s too small for their energy. I thought they’d be picked up in two hours, but Sarai showed up after four hours. I said nothing, she’s an artist after all, and her sense of time is rather vague. If I can be useful once in a while, why not? Now it’s dinnertime, come join me.”
    But Noga didn’t get up.
    â€œTake it slowly, Ima. We’ll do it next time. Today I have no strength for interrogation by your old ladies.”
    The mother went off to the dining hall, and Noga sank into the small armchair, fixated on the remains of sunlight. After a while she stood up and went out past the porch to the darkening lawn. How did this grow here? she wondered. This old folks’ home is a building among other buildings on an ordinary street, and suddenly it’s like Oxford or Cambridge, where you open a plain door to find an ancient cathedral with great expanses of grass.
    She strolls across the lawn to figure out where it goes and how it ends, and in the