Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer(164)
“Sorry?”
“Lo medaber ivrit,” she said, checking a box.
“Sorry?”
“Jewish?”
“Of course.”
“Recite the Sh’ma.”
“Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonai—”
“Do you belong to a Jewish community?”
“Adas Israel.”
“How often do you attend services?”
“Maybe twice a year, every other year?”
“What are the two occasions?”
“Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.”
“Any languages besides English?”
“A little Spanish.”
“I’m sure that will be very useful. Health conditions?”
“No.”
“No asthma? High blood pressure? Epilepsy?”
“No. I do have some eczema. At the back of my hairline.”
“Have you tried coconut oil?” she asked, still not looking up.
“No.”
“So try it. Military training or experience?”
“No.”
“Have you ever fired a gun?”
“I’ve never held a gun.”
She checked a number of boxes, apparently feeling no need to ask the next sequence of questions.
“Can you function without your glasses?”
“Function highly?”
She checked a box.
“Can you swim?”
“Without my glasses?”
“Do you know how to swim?”
“Of course.”
“Have you ever been a competitive swimmer?”
“No.”
“Do you have any experience with knot tying?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
She checked two boxes.
“Can you read a topographical map?”
“I suppose I know what I’m looking at, but I don’t know if that qualifies as reading.”
She checked a box.
“Do you have any experience with electrical engineering?”
“I once took a—”
“You cannot disarm a simple bomb.”
“I mean, how simple?”
“You cannot disarm a simple bomb.”
“I cannot.”
“What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without eating?”
“Yom Kippur, a while ago.”
“What is your tolerance for pain?”
“I don’t even know how one would answer that question.”
“You answered the question,” she said. “Have you ever been in shock?”
“Probably. In fact, yes. Often.”
“Are you claustrophobic?”
“Hugely.”
“What is the greatest load you can carry?”
“Physically?”
“Are you sensitive to extremes of heat or cold?”
“Is anyone not?”
“Allergic to medications?”
“I’m lactose intolerant, but I guess that’s not really what you were asking.”
“Morphine?”
“Morphine?”
“Do you know first aid?”
“I didn’t answer about morphine.”
“Are you allergic to morphine?”
“I have no idea.”
She wrote something down, which I tried, without success, to decipher.
“I don’t want not to get morphine if I need morphine.”
“There are other forms of pain relief.”
“Are they as good?”
“Do you know first aid?”
“Sort of.”
“That will sort of be a comfort to someone sort of in need of first aid.”
While perusing the paperwork I’d filled out in line, she said, “Emergency contact information…”
“It’s there.”
“Julia Bloch.”
“Yes.”
“She’s who?”
“What?”
“You didn’t fill in your relationship.”
“Sure I did.”
“So you used invisible ink on that one.”
“She’s my wife.”
“Most wives prefer permanent marker.”
“I must have—”
“You are an organ donor in America.”
“I am.”
“If you are killed in Israel, would you allow your organs to be used in Israel?”
“Yes,” I said, allowing the s to skid for a hundred feet.
“Yes?”
“Yes, if I’m killed—”
“What is your blood type?”
“Blood type?”
“You have blood?”
“I do.”
“What type? A? B? AB? O?”
“You’re asking for giving, or receiving?”
Finally, for the first time since we started speaking, she looked me in the eye. “It’s the same blood.”
HOW TO PLAY SUICIDE GROWTH RINGS
For left-handedness, or twins, or red hair, to run in one’s family—as all of those do in mine—there need to be multiple occurrences. For suicide to run in one’s family, there needs to be only one.