About the Night by Anat Talshir

find a woman whose skin was so like his own and gave off the same scent.
    Lila opened her eyes at the very moment he wished to see them. She needed strength to absorb into herself this new man who had turned her life upside down. Until only a few weeks earlier, he had been a stranger, and now she and he were one. Their return journey on the train of darkness was teaching her that her life would change immeasurably even though it would be the very same life with the very same patterns. She realized she would find it hard to endure without him. Reality would not allow them to continue the dream that had taken shape in the Kaçkar Mountains. It would demand its share, levy taxes on all those hours of happiness, and make them pay for the freedoms they had stolen by pushing aside his pedigreed Arab clan and her traditional, conservative, utterly Jewish way of life.
    Now both of them were drowsy but awake. The train pressed on into the dark expanses, on occasion giving the illusion that the engineer did not know where he was leading them. They slept with open eyes and were awake with eyes closed. He wished the dawn would not come, since the first ray of light would signal the end of the journey.
    And what was there, at the end? he asked himself. What if all those traditions so zealously kept were shattered? What if they were to come up with a new formula for maintaining their mutual existence without her leaving her faith or him giving up his identity? He would have to fight not only his clan but also the entire street, the neighborhood, the eastern part of Jerusalem, the Arabs—all those who, in their hatred, would prevent him from being with her.
    His mother had once told him there was no sorrow that an enlightened mind could not solve, no limit to what strength of will could accomplish. But what if he was unable to break the chains binding each of them? He imagined them as two prisoners on the lam, their ankles hampered by a ball and chain. How far could they actually run like that?
    He rose from his seat, his body stiff, his legs asleep, to bring her a cup of coffee.
    “Sugar?” asked the attendant in the dining car.
    “Please,” said Elias, already missing her.
    Lila looked up at him when he returned to the compartment with two steaming, pleasant-smelling mugs.
    “I can tell you missed me,” he said.
    “Very much,” she said.
    He waited for her to drink before sipping from his own mug.
    “Elias,” she said with hesitation, “maybe it’s possible.” She gazed into his face, prepared to catch his first reaction.
    He placed his mug on the table, and it jiggled to the rhythm of the train. “Perhaps,” he said, pensive.

    On November 29, 1947, she was at home, alone; he was at home with his parents and Munir. Once in a lifetime, Elias thought, do people have the chance to watch the birth of a nation. And once in a lifetime do they have the chance to watch the birth of a nation that is not their own even though they, like their forefathers, were born in it and would be buried in its earth.
    Even dogs did not roam outside, and strong winds made their way from the northern neighborhoods to hers in the west. The windows of the buildings cast weak light on the wintry pavement outside. Every single person who lived behind the thousands of windows that separated him from her was listening to the radio, as tense as they had ever been in their lives.
    The decision had been made: the General Assembly of the United Nations divided the Land of Israel into two nations, one for Jews and one for Arabs. Lila let out a shout that resounded between the walls of her apartment; then she burst into tears. She thought about her father, who had waited his entire life for this moment but was no longer alive to experience it. She recalled the names of the nations that had opposed the founding of the state—all the Arab nations, of course, but also Turkey, India, and Greece. She threw on a sweater and a pair of trousers and descended one