There Will Be Time

The colonel’s head was smooth and shiny. Not a baldness that one let happen, but which instead was shaved into being. Nor was there a hint of a paunch under his olive-green bungee cord belt, revealed as he rose like a Doric column from behind his desk when Ezra walked in. It was two weeks into the war, and Ezra had been summoned this morning from his home in Jerusalem.

“Thank you for coming,” the colonel said, reaching for Ezra’s hand. “I returned to work just a few days ago, hence the last-minute notice. David”—here he gestured to Ezra’s old student, who’d come out to greet him at the front desk; he’d pumped Ezra’s hand heartily before breaking into a sheepish grin—“says you’re an excellent writer. Also, that you’re very good at helping young men write.”

Ezra tipped his head noncommittally. Well, wasn’t it true? He had thirty or so boys in each of four classes, plus a fifth class after lunch with the handful who spoke English as their native tongue. That made more than one thousand students over Ezra’s teaching career, all of whose souls he’d labored to touch by means of other people’s words. Sometimes he even succeeded, usually to his own surprise. There was Yossi, a junior who’d lost—so Ezra learned from the school secretary, leaning her ample bosom onto the desk to explain in sotto voce—an older brother in a terror attack. He’d barely uttered a word all year, then suddenly spoke at length about The House on Mango Street. “I felt so bad for her,” Yossi said of the young Esperanza. “People were always laughing at her, and she was too clueless to know why.” Ezra wondered if Yossi, too, was laughing, if only a little bit. Weren’t her stories admittedly funny, even if they were also sad? Yossi thought for a moment, then said no, he didn’t think so. “I felt too sorry for her,” he’d said. “She had such a rough childhood.”

It was enough to make you weep.

Clearing his throat, the colonel leaned forward and threaded his fingers on the desk. “I’ll get to the point,” he said. “What I need is sensitive. It’s a template for a goodbye letter. A letter soldiers will write to their families in case they die in combat.”

“A template?” Ezra reached for words like a slipping man for a shower grab bar.

“Yes. An example for soldiers to follow. Something to help make sure they hit all the important points.”

The colonel had called yesterday before Ezra’s fourth period class. Ezra was scanning the headlines on his phone, scrolling fast past the photographs. Whatever you do, don’t look at the faces. The faces will suck you right in. He debated whether to answer, worried it might be news of another old student who’d been killed. Already there’d been the sweet redhead with the irredeemable English who wrote, Ezra learned at the funeral, beautiful poetry in Hebrew.

Instead, a deep voice announced that it belonged to Col. Yaniv Fuchs. Certain it was about a donation—probably Friends of the IDF—Ezra cut in that, as a rule, he never gave credit card details on the phone. In four minutes, his tenth graders were due for their lesson on Lord of the Flies. If he was quick, he could grab a coffee in the downstairs kitchenette first.

“This isn’t about a donation,” the voice said. “This is Col. Fuchs from the Education Corps.

The Education Corps of the IDF.” He paused to let this sink in. “I’m calling to ask you to come for a meeting about something I’d like you to write.”

The squeak of boys’ sneakers on stone mixed with the muffled shouts in the hall. Ezra sat up straighter, rolled his chair up to his desk. “Yes, Colonel, sorry. I was confused. Can I ask how you got my name?”

“A graduate recommended you. David Berger. He works with me here in the corps.”

Ezra’s mind swam like a tadpole through a sea of visages, coming to rest on one. Its owner had written, if memory served, entire pages of idioms that managed to say essentially nothing. Still, Ezra was flattered that a student remembered him.

“Of course. And what did you say this was about?”

“I need something written,” the colonel had answered. “David said that you could help.”

“I’d be happy to,” Ezra said. “You need. . . a lesson plan?” Near his elbow was a pile of essays about the tragic figure of Piggy. The top one was helpfully titled in large bold letters, Essay.

“No. We’ll discuss it in person, tomorrow at ten. We’re at the Negev Junction. Camp Ariel Sharon.”

“Ten? I teach classes straight until two.”

On the line there was only silence.

“Never mind,” said Ezra. The principal would be apoplectic; half the school’s teachers were in the reserves. Then a voice he realized was his own added, “Ten will be just fine.”

Now here he was in the colonel’s office, a space as bland and featureless as the landscape outside. A film of sweat had formed under the collar of Ezra’s shirt. An old Tadiran air conditioner whirred pointlessly on the wall. Underneath it, a rust-colored stain testified to a persistent leak in the machine.

“But don’t you think,” Ezra said carefully, “that a letter like this, so. . . personal—”

“Ezra,” the colonel interrupted, holding up his hand. The gesture was almost rabbinic, as though he’d divined Ezra’s half-formed thoughts. “If I may? There are tens of thousands of combat soldiers in the army. They come from every background and level of intellectual ability. For some, writing comes naturally, and if they think to write a letter like this, it can be incredibly moving. But for most of them, writing is hard. The only things they’re used to writing are emoji-filled WhatsApps.”

On his right, David shifted position. His arms made Velcro-like sounds as his skin came unstuck from the vinyl chair.

“They don’t know where to begin, so they don’t begin at all,” the colonel continued. “And then, if something should happen, their parents are left without a goodbye. We won’t tell them what to say, just help them say what they feel. Do you understand?”

The colonel looked squarely at Ezra. The hand that had risen to quiet him now rested on the desk. It shook with the softest of tremors, emphasized by the stillness in the room. “David assured me that you could do this, and I’d be grateful if you tried. Also, I know this is rushed, but I’d like to have it by the time we go into Gaza. I suspect we’ll lose many men.”

Ezra did the math. Two weeks for the first draft, another one for back-and-forth. A fourth week for final revisions—he could probably make it work.

“If you could send me the template on Sunday,” said the colonel, “that would be excellent.”

Today was Thursday. Since Ezra didn’t work on the Sabbath, that gave him only two days.

“Monday morning is also all right,” said the colonel in a show of magnanimity. Ezra glanced at David, who lifted his shoulders and pulled his lips down. He looked, it occurred to Ezra, like a shrugging-guy emoji.

“With all due respect,” Ezra started carefully, “you can’t write a letter like this that fast. It’s a recipe for something robotic. If you can’t give it the time it needs, it might be better for the parents if their children left nothing at all.”

The air conditioner’s fan blades clicked. A muscle tensed in the colonel’s cheek.

“If you have any questions,” the colonel said finally, “you should contact me directly. David will give you my cell number. He’ll also handle your payment.”

Dismissed, Ezra walked with David out of the office and down the hall. Both men were quiet, Ezra stewing in the colonel’s discourtesy. At the door, David leaned forward so he wouldn’t be overheard.

“His son was working at the Nova,” he said. “The colonel wanted him to stay home, but his son—his name was Nadav—was saving up for his post-army trip. Chile,” he added pointlessly. He looked down at his shoes.

Ezra sighed and nodded, then cupped David’s shoulder gently. “It’ll be okay,” he said, not sure if he meant the letter or the war. Anyway, it didn’t matter. At that moment, Ezra knew it was what his old student needed to hear.

*

Back at his apartment—thankfully empty, his sons still at school and his wife at work—Ezra went straight to his study and sank into the chair at his desk. Doubling as a guest room for his in-laws’ too-frequent visits, the study had a wardrobe against one wall and opposite, a trundle bed. At first, his desk had been next to the bookcase, the top shelves of which now sagged under the weight of his writing guides. William Zinsser, Annie Dillard, Anne Lamott, John Gardner, Sol Stein, Stephen Pinker, Stephen King. All of them urging him on, saying that so much was sheer persistence. Yet over the years, as rejections piled up and family life made increasing demands, his desk had turned from a creative oasis into a place to grade papers instead. Then space for their unused treadmill and later an extra fridge required that his desk be moved into the corner and next to the door. The bottom shelves of his bookcase were cleared out for his sons’ board games.

Now he looked across the pilled carpet as if sizing up a chessboard. Words arranged and rearranged themselves like glass in a kaleidoscope. He closed his eyes, the better to see the logical structure unfold, every point leading seamlessly into the next like a gymnastics floor routine. Sections leaped into sections, transitions rolled like somersaults. A theme cartwheeled through each paragraph, driving the motion forward. Ezra sat this way for an hour, perfectly still, profoundly alive.

Of course, he’d never get credit for writing the letter’s template. Then again, it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you’d want credit for. But this didn’t bother him. Instead, as he sat at his desk, he thrummed like a guitar string. After years sitting in the dugout—bam. This was his chance to hit a homerun.

“You’re kidding.” It was the principal, Ehud. Ezra had called to tell him he’d be taking Sunday off.

“I don’t have a choice,” said Ezra. “It’s something for the army.”

“They’ve got half my teachers already,” Ehud protested. “What about the home front? Don’t our kids need some normalcy?”

“Ehud, he lost his son,” said Ezra abruptly. “The colonel who gave me this job.”

“What?” Ehud asked. “You mean, in the attack?”

“Yes.”

“Shit. A soldier?”

“Just finished,” Ezra said. Earlier he’d googled a picture of the colonel’s son, despite his self-imposed photograph ban. He’d been tall and square like his father, a strong jaw, a handsome cleft chin. There was a picture of him with his girlfriend, too, and a caption saying they’d met in high school, were planning a trip to Chile.

A pause, then a telltale sigh. “All right,” said Ehud finally. “Let’s count it as a sick day. Get your doctor to write a note.”

*

Although he’d spent the previous night dreaming in sentences and paragraphs, Ezra had yet to put words to paper when he sat at his desk that Friday at nine. You couldn’t rush these things, he’d learned; each stage took its time. Even with the absurd deadline, he would do a few hours of research. He’d decided to read goodbye letters from famous writers in history, noting what phrases moved him, what felt stilted, and what was excess. Virginia Woolf’s concern for her husband, for instance, after her planned suicide. Stated so matter-of-factly, it felt truer for its simplicity. Captain Scott’s last words from Antarctica were surprisingly touching as well, such as his insistence to his wife that he “cherished no sentimental rubbish” about the prospect of her remarriage. His directive wouldn’t lessen the sorrow, of course, but there was value in making it clear. A letter from the Rosenberg spies to their sons struck Ezra as arrogant; he made a note to signal to soldiers to steer clear of politics. By lunchtime, when Naomi returned from her shopping, Ezra had started an outline. He saved it as a Word document: Goodbye from the Other Side.

That afternoon, Ezra texted the colonel questions jostling in his mind. Will soldiers have dedicated time for writing?They’d need a block of several hours at least. Who was he kidding? They’d be lucky for one—and quiet, for remembering. Probably they’d have to snatch a few moments between their operations: a paragraph here, a sentence there, a goddamn shame for something like this. Maybe if they got the assignment one day, and then time for writing the next? What about soldiers whose parents are no longer together? Should they be addressed separately? Two letters were clearly too much to ask, but had anyone thought of these things?

The colonel’s answers, when they came, were no less maddening. Short lines without punctuation which revealed essentially nothing.

Right before the Sabbath came in, Ezra sent off a final text. Should we be worried, he wrote, that writing these letters will be bad for the soldiers’ morale? A few moments later, three dots appeared. No, the colonel responded. But thank you for your concern.

His wife had set up the candles, two to fulfill the commandment and three more for each of their boys. What would the colonel’s wife do, if she were the type to light? Did you still light for a child who’d died? Ezra picked up his phone and texted again.

I heard about your son. I’m very sorry for your loss.

Nothing. Had he overstepped his bounds? The army had its own etiquette. But as he went to turn his phone off, the colonel’s response came in.

I look forward to seeing your draft, it said. Then, Shabbat Shalom.

*

At dinner, Ezra’s wife reminded him that this Sunday was her niece’s wedding.

“Wait, what? Dammit, I forgot,” Ezra said. “Who holds a wedding at a time like this?”

“You don’t postpone weddings,” Naomi answered. She meant according to Jewish law. Ezra knew that, of course. But still. “They had to make it much smaller, though. Instructions from Home Front Command,” she said, waving her fork vaguely in the air.

It would be six hours at the least, including the drive to Raanana and back.

“I can’t go,” he announced, firm. His family looked up in surprise.

“What do you mean?” Naomi spoke to her sisters and mother each day, about what, God only knew. Skip a family simcha—she’d rather let her right arm wither.

“The army asked me to write something for them. For the Education Corps. An old student of mine recommended me,” he explained. Then he tacked on as a concession, “I found out only yesterday.”

A spoon crashed onto the stone floor. The questions flew from his sons like tennis balls: What did they need him to write? Did it have to do with the war? Would it be classified? (This from his third, the twelve-year-old. Ezra was pleased he knew the word.) Ezra answered abstractly, hinted at a lesson plan.

“That’s awesome, Dad,” said Ben. Ben was seventeen. A year away from enlistment, his heart set on a combat unit.

“Okay,” said Naomi slowly. “But why can’t you go to the wedding?”

“Because they need a draft by Monday morning.” Brusque. “I’ll need every minute of Sunday to write. I’m sorry,” he said, this time more gently. Yet still unwavering.

Naomi looked at him strangely, as if seeing him for the first time. Had he ever taken a stand before? Maybe. Probably not.

The next morning, Ezra went to the service at his neighborhood synagogue. He’d gone there every Sabbath for years, and most weekday mornings and nights. His mouth formed the words of the Amidah as his body bent and swayed. He closed his eyes, the better to see the words on the siddur page. Sovereign, helper, savior, shield: He pleaded with God for help. But not for me, he insisted. Help me, for all of them.

He’d prayed thousands of times since he’d become religious. With pain and bitterness after the death of his father at just fifty-eight; with gratitude after each son was born healthy; with trepidation when bills piled up. But never before had he prayed with such pure intention. Never before had Ezra beseeched.

*

When he faced a blank screen that Sunday morning, Ezra found it rough going at first. This was normal. Often the first lines could take an hour, possibly even two. Try a word on for size, consider it, toss it out. It was a long reach up toward the surface—then a gasp, and back down again. The air outside his open window settled into a warming hum. A neighbor’s laughter trailed her like cigarette smoke as she walked to the building’s car park. Slowly, Ezra made progress. A text began to take shape.

Dear Mom and Dad, if you’re reading this letter, something happened to me.

With his father, there had been no sudden knock on the door. He’d died from cancer, a painful, dragged-out battle that lasted almost a year. In between Ezra’s trips to L.A.—he’d flown in from New York once a month—Ezra’s father wasted away, growing as thin as a marionette. Tiny bones of which Ezra was once unaware stuck out from the skin: where his jaw met the base of his skull, in his clavicle, on his shoulder blades. Had Ezra ever said goodbye? He couldn’t be sure he had. He’d been so intent on keeping him alive, while death would have been the greater mercy. Could the absence of drawn-out suffering make death a bit easier to bear? Ezra closed his eyes and sighed. Maybe. Probably not.

I know that you’ll be sad at first, but for my sake, try not to be. I want you to think of me with happiness while eating [insert favorite foods]. Share stories and memories of me with my friends. Ask them to tell you about [mention a funny thing]. Laugh at all the great times we had.

Of course it was somewhat trite, but the letter required specificity. Last year, Ezra’s family had gone on a vacation to the Galilee. Near Rosh Pina, their car had stalled out at a red light on a two-lane road. Ezra and Ben had to get out and push it into the lot of a hummus joint, Naomi steering and the younger boys sitting, playing games on their phones in the back. At the time it wasn’t funny—was extremely unpleasant, in fact—but for weeks they recalled the incident at their Friday night meal, each remembering some new angle, some hilarious new aspect. The steering was the worst part! I looked like a total fool! The steering? Try pushing a car off the road. Everyone honking at you to speed up! They’d laughed a hundred times over. Why hadn’t they gone on vacations more? Ezra was seized with a sense of wanting: more time, for more everyday life. And now Ben was about to leave. To serve in the army.

Most of all, though, please remember that I wanted to be right here, right now. You know that the greatest honor of my life was to protect my people.

Ezra palmed the back of his neck and stared at his bookcase. He’d been fourteen when his dad gave him a dog-eared copy of Leon Uris’ Exodus. He’d inhaled it in three weeks on his living room couch in suburban L.A. Like most American Jews of a different time and place, he was in awe of Ari Ben Canaan, the blue-eyed kibbutznik who’d smuggled Holocaust survivors into British-Mandate Palestine. In Ari’s Israel, Ezra found a passion and purpose more compelling than the Israel he knew, mostly from conjugating verbs in Hebrew class and fumbling the turn, step, sway of Israeli dance at his Jewish day school. Later, as a bookish college student struggling with Nietzsche and Kant, he’d indulged in cheap espionage thrillers in his dorm room late at night, his favorites about the broken yet brilliant Mossad spy Gabriel Allon.

He himself had come too late to Israel to serve in the army. Three years, to be exact. To be drafted, he’d have to have been younger than twenty-six. Assuming, that is, he’d earned a good profile, despite his mild asthma and somewhat flat feet. But by the time he immigrated with Naomi and then four-year-old Ben, Ezra was pushing thirty and the army wasn’t interested. He’d gone to the enlistment office for older volunteers anyway, where a teenaged girl with fire engine-red nails had asked about his special skills. “I’m a writer,” he told her. “I can write things for the army.” What a total fool. He’d been clueless, just like Esperanza: everyone laughing at him.

If I have to go, I can think of no better way than by defending my country. I wouldn’t have changed anything.

Once, Ezra had loved a different woman, someone with delicate features at odds with her loud, unselfconscious laugh. Her hair—which his own wife covered, in keeping with the Jewish custom—was a striking strawberry blonde that she chalked up to her Irish roots. She wasn’t Jewish, a fact that had niggled, but which he nonetheless brushed off. Then, the summer before their last year of university, he went to her beach house on Nantucket to meet her family. One morning, he woke up early and sat on their enclosed porch. Watching the sun rise over the ocean as the housekeeper prepared their breakfast, it hit him that this wasn’t his, this beautiful existence. It was a world he could live in, sure, but not one to which he belonged. Did he really think he could be an interloper in this other life?

At summer’s end he backed out clumsily, as baffled and brokenhearted as she, yet compelled by a firm inner drive that would not be placated. Six months later, he met Naomi at an event at his campus Hillel. When he asked about her long-term plans, she declared with a confidence he envied that she wanted to move to Israel. He was afloat and she was an anchor, her faith contagious, steadying. Had he been too quick to grab onto her, like a drowning man to driftwood? Or maybe less passion was simply the tradeoff for life’s security. Then again, that life was full of love. Even if he could go back, would he want to change anything?

That afternoon, when his family came home, they whispered to each other so as not to disturb his work. They closed bedroom doors tightly to keep them from rattling in the wind, and yanked the microwave open in the middle of its first beep. At five, Naomi knocked softly and entered his study without a word. She placed a plate with a roasted chicken leg, some salad, and a mound of rice on the edge of his desk along with a fork and knife. Touched, Ezra reached for her hand, his heart full of gratitude. Had he ever loved her as much as he did at this moment?

He wrote all through the night until, at ten, the draft was complete. Only the ending gave him trouble; he kept reworking the last sentence. He added, then deleted a word. If given the chance, he would always revise. What was it that David had told him about the colonel’s son? That the colonel didn’t want him to work at the Nova, but the son had gone anyway. Clearly, they weren’t religious—the colonel hadn’t worn a kippah—so his objection wouldn’t have been about observing the holiday. More likely, he simply had wanted everyone home at once. With older kids, it would be rare to have everyone together at the same time. But the son would have wanted the easy cash with his trip to Chile coming up. Maybe he’d promised he’d come home after to crash, then have dinner with them the next night. The colonel would have relented, proud of his son’s work ethic. He’d have told his wife, too, not to make him feel bad—why should their son feel guilty for wanting to go out to work? Then after what had happened, he’d want to go back and make that crucial change. If only, he’d think, if only. If only, maybe then. . .

Giving up, Ezra saved a copy to his files. It was good, of that he was sure. It hit all the important points. He’d guided the novice writer as though he were crossing a riverbed: Step on this stone, here, now that one, you’ve got it, one more and you’re done. Still, something bothered Ezra, something he knew he’d left out. If only he could put it away for a day, then come back with a fresh set of eyes.

I finished the template, he texted the colonel. I know you’d like it tomorrow, but I’d prefer to wait a day. Editing makes a huge difference. Surely one day won’t change anything?

Despite the late hour, the colonel responded within just a few moments.

I appreciate your position, he wrote. But this war won’t wait.

Ezra slammed his phone onto the desk and stormed into the kitchen. He knocked the switch on the kettle and rifled roughly through their tea stash. He stared out the kitchen window, tense, waiting for the water to boil. A dog barked on a nearby balcony. A car engine idled and then shut off. In the distance, barely audible, was the broadband noise of fighter jets.

He sat down at the kitchen table, on which rested the copy of the T.S. Eliot book he used for his lesson plan. And then, at the sound of the whistle, Ezra at last heard the words, their meaning as sharp and piercing as an ear-splitting scream.

I know there are things you wish you had said or else that you didn’t say. Please trust me that none of that matters. I know that this was my fate. And most of all, I have no regrets.

He went back to his study, added the final lines, and sank back in his desk chair. There was the sound of a key in the lock, and moments later Ben walked in. He was holding what looked like a packet made out of paper napkins.

“I brought you dessert,” he said, putting it on Ezra’s desk. “They had your favorite, lemon meringue squares.”

It was enough to make you weep. His beautiful seventeen-year-old son, one year away from enlistment. Surely it would be okay—surely the war would be over by then?

“Exactly what I needed,” said Ezra. He enveloped Ben in a hug. He held on for a long time. When Ben began to pull back, he reluctantly let go. Then he reached out toward the sweetness that the moment held.

*

The call came three days later, during lunch in the teacher’s lounge. The smells of a half dozen of last night’s dinners mingled in a pungent waltz. Tupperware lids buckled closed. Glass mugs clanked in the sink.

“Ezra? I’m calling from the office of Col. Fuchs.” This time a high, girlish voice. Obvious disinterest. “He asked me to thank you for the letter you wrote.”

“Great, thank you. Will he want any changes made?” Ezra asked. A pure formality.

“He didn’t say anything about changes,” she said. Ezra hadn’t expected he would.

“That’s fine,” he said, glancing at the clock. “I’m glad I could be of help.”

“David told me to handle payment. How do you—”

“No need,” Ezra cut in. “And I’m afraid I can’t talk now. David can call me later, but either way I won’t agree to be paid.”

Ezra ended the call. He didn’t meant to be rude, but it was two minutes until one o’clock. Eight boys were due in his classroom to learn “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” They always found the poem a challenge, its endless pining for what could have been. They were too young for regrets, these boys. They had their whole lives ahead of them.

Ezra gathered up his notes and sped purposefully down the hall. There was so much he had to teach them. There wasn’t a moment to waste.