Don't Ask Me If I Love (2 page)

I shrugged. “We've been hanging around the camp. You know how it is.”

“Anyone killed?” my father asked. He looked at me briskly and then returned to the bones on his plate.

“Nobody you know.”

He placed his fork slowly on his plate and then he looked up at me again. “Got any plans?” he asked, searching his mouth with his thumb.

“Plans?”

“You are being released in six weeks, aren't you?”

That had been my hope and belief. “I'll probably take it easy for a while,” I said casually.

“That's not much of a plan.”

I could see what he was up to. I could see it coming. Cool hand me. “I've had things planned for me the last three years,” I told him flatly. “I am going to see for myself once I'm out.”

His cold blue eyes were still investigating my face, making observations and writing them down. “Shouldn't waste time when you are young,” he said placidly. “Those are the best years.”

“They keep telling me that,” I said. I looked at my watch. It was ten to nine. “Well, I've got to go.”

“You haven't finished eating yet,” Mom protested. “What about your dessert?”

“I'm not that hungry.” I got to my feet. “I told Ram I'd pick him up at nine, so—see you.”

As I was walking toward the door my mother said, “Oh that boy! I could die.”

“I'll go and have a look at my papers,” my father said.

Evenings in Jerusalem are cool, even in the summer. In the whole of Israel it is probably the place with the best climate. I welcomed the cold breeze that brushed my face as I stepped out of the house. I walked to the small garage where my white Triumph was parked and got into it. My father had given it to me as a present for my eighteenth birthday. It was only his time he wasn't generous with.

I pulled out slowly and then stepped on the gas and sped away. I loved driving fast. I drove crazily. I loved to hear the engine roaring and the tires screaming, and to feel the wind slap fiercely on my face. My father used to say that I was going to end up killing someone before too long, but he was a nut driver himself. Anyway, I told him, I hoped his money would be good enough to bribe the judge if and when needed. He didn't react to that.

Ram had been my best friend for fifteen years. I didn't have many others. I wasn't friendly and I could do without the company of people. When I was younger I believed that people couldn't be after anything else except my father's money.

Gradually I developed the belief that most people just weren't worth my while. I wasn't going to be an ordinary human being and so I wouldn't be interested in anyone who just happened to be around.

With Ram it was different, at least for me. There was nothing usual about him. I idolized him consciously and deliberately.

He was my age, six feet three inches tall, and very strong. He was also the best-looking guy I'd ever seen, in or outside of the movies. Someitmes it almost hurt, I thought. He was so handsome.

He had the strong, masculine beauty of a Greek statue. His hair was slightly curly and brown, the same color as his eyes. When he smiled, his teeth sparkled and glinted together with his eyes in the smooth bronze of his face. It was the most disarming smile I had seen on anyone's face, but Ram rarely used it.

He had a peculiar quality I often wondered about. He was always serious minded and solemn. A born leader, the center of any group he belonged to and yet never completely there.

Ram took everything seriously, he never played. He was a good pupil and an outstanding soldier. He had an obsession about the army. I thought I knew the reason for that. His father had been killed in 1952, in a clash with terrorists on the southern border. Ram had been five years old at that time. He told me that the last time his father had been home before his death, he stood and looked at his small son who lay quietly in his bed and said to his wife, “It's worth our while to fight so his generation can have this country free when they are old enough to understand what it means.”

After that, he kissed her and went away.

Ram could not remember any of this, but years later when his mother told him about it he could picture it all in his imagination as if it had always been there, somewhere in the depths of his memory. In a strange way, it filled his mind. He admired the father he hadn't known and wished to live up to the glorious image he had of him. For Ram the homeland was a sacred cause, the fighting wasn't over yet—and he had his obligations.

Ram was a lieutenant in the paratroopers. In the summer of 1965, after we had finished high school together, he was drafted. I went to the United States with my parents. My father had to be there for his work and he persuaded me to come. He fixed it with the Defense Ministry, so that I wouldn't have to go into the army for a year. He believed that being in America was a necessary part of one's education.

“You have to see projects on a scale found only in America in order to really understand how this world is run,” he said to me. “It will broaden your horizons.”

I let him talk me into it. I let him talk me into it because I wasn't at all anxious to go into the army. I never enjoyed discipline and the idea of being a small, unimportant part in a huge machine didn't appeal to me. I went to the States and I regretted it. Stalling for time only meant losing time in the long run.

I went into the army a year later. After five months of training I broke both legs falling from a rock during a divisional exercise. I was sent to a hospital in Tel Aviv. It was April 1967. A month and a half later all my classmates and friends were either living or dead heroes. The Six Day War had passed me by without my hearing one single shot.

It was a very bitter pill to swallow but there was nothing I could do about it. Life went on. By the end of 1968 I was a sergeant in a paratroopers' company that was stationed in the Jordan Valley, not far from the river. Ram, who had signed for an extra year as an officer, was in the same company. He was the company commander's second-in-command.

Being a platoon sergeant made life a lot easier for me. It wasn't that Ram gave me any special treatment or rights, he just did all the work he could do, even if it wasn't strictly his job. He had an uneasy feeling about not signing up for still another term. It made him feel disloyal. But even he wanted something other than a soldier's life. Ram didn't really like the army. He wanted to study, but with other young men getting killed every day on the Suez Canal or in the Jordan Valley, it just didn't seem right to him to be on the outside. I spent many hours, during weekends in the camp, trying to prevent him from changing his mind. I pointed out to him that he could always re-enlist if the situation got really tough. It wasn't an easy job persuading Ram; he liked making his own decisions.

I had a few other friends, but they meant less to me. Sometimes I wouldn't see them for months. There was Eitan, who was cynical, and smart, and always mocking, and there was Gad who was cynical, and smart, and always mocking, too. Despite those shared traits, they were not alike. Eitan was a nice guy and Gad was a son of a bitch. At least neither one was boring.

I zoomed toward Ram's house through the almost empty streets. The tires screeched at every corner.

What could one do on vacations except drive like crazy?

Girls.

But neither Ram nor I knew anything about that subject. It was quite surprising, actually.

A good-looker like him and a rich smarty like me. That was really strange, when you came to think of it.

I drove into a small, narrow alley, and brought the car to a halt. I blew the horn.

After a few minutes I saw him coming out of the house. He jumped lightly over the gate and then over the car door into the seat beside me. I pulled away.

We drove around for a while through the main streets of the city and watched the young men walking with their arms around their girl friends and generally having a good time.

For a while we didn't talk, we just sat silently in the car.

“We're not doing so well,” I commented finally. “I don't think we're doing so well.”

“You don't, huh?”

“No.”

He wasn't the type to reveal his moods, but I suspected he wasn't feeling too happy himself.

“Let's go to the Old City. Maybe we can start a fight or something.”

Ram sighed.

“Oh, be your age,” he said wearily.

I was driving to the Old City anyway. I went through Meah Shearim, the old quarters where the extreme orthodox Jewish group, the Neturey Karta, live.

As we were approaching I could see the bearded men in their heavy black suits and their big black hats, moving off the sidewalk to block the road.

“You can't go through there,” Ram said. “It's Friday night.”

“Watch me.”

I stepped on the gas and the car shot forward in a beautiful sprint. We went through fast, almost hitting a couple of older people who weren't as quick as the rest in rushing to the sidewalks. When they were all far behind us, I slowed down a bit.

“You shouldn't have done that,” Ram said, unamused.

I was still wondering vaguely why neither of us had a girl friend. I came to the conclusion that we were both scared of being turned down. It would be a blow to our self-image and reputation. It was all very stupid. I felt irritated.

“They've got the whole sidewalk,” I said.

“You don't have to hurt their feelings.”

“I can drive where I want. I don't stop them from driving in my neighborhood, do I?”

Ram leaned back in his seat, his face was hard.

“You're a spoiled child.”

I was that.

“They don't go into the army,” I said, trying to put some weight between the words. “They don't fight. They don't do a thing. This is their Holy City, but they won't do a thing for it, except keep other people from living the way they want.”

“They pray.”

Was he kidding me?

“That's beautiful.”

“At least they believe in what they are doing. That's a hell of a lot more than I can say for you.”

“Oh! Enough of that!” I said irritably.

We were driving on the wide road that goes around the walls, which was renamed after the paratroopers who conquered the city in the Six Day War. It was very beautiful. It never meant a thing to me, emotionally, but it was very beautiful. The walls were lit by dim yellow floodlights which made them look even more mysterious and old. The road was quite empty, and very quiet, and the air was fresh and clean. I suddenly felt sad and lonely and I took my foot off the accelerator and slowed down. Misplaced, displaced, and wasted, I thought to myself, secretly admiring my choice of words. What the hell am I doing in this world, anyway.

Compromising.

Not even between others' wills and my own. Just between others' wills and the general state of affairs. Never really having the power and the guts and the determination to have my own way.

Fighting the Arabs, for example. I had no interest in that. I never cared about the Arabs one way or another. I didn't think much of them. They were usually stupid and ignorant and extremely inefficient. So what? I didn't want to solve the nation's problems. I wanted to solve my own. Need they be the same?

They tell you you have to be proud of being a Jew. I didn't care if I was a Jew or a Moslem or a Christian. I didn't believe in religion. It was the oldest and most primitive invention of them all.

Don't worry, boys, someone is watching you from above. You can't go wrong. Jesus loves you.

If there was any God he must have been joking, anyway.

Then there was my father, who was harder to dismiss. He had plans for me. He wanted me to join the party, become a politician, fill the part he didn't have the time or the will to play himself. There's a lot of force behind any wish of my father's.

Compromise.

I hated the word.

Be great or small but don't be average. Win or lose but don't compromise.

What the hell is one worth if he can't have his own stupid way?

You can't ignore people, my mother would say, you cannot live in a void. A void.

“Hey,” said Ram, “there's one for you.”

I took a look. Quite far away there was a girl making her way toward us. I couldn't see her too clearly except for her white dress and her long yellow hair.

I scratched my cheek nervously with my forefinger.

“You are the guy who is always looking for beautiful blond girls,” he said, almost smiling.

I sensed he knew I wasn't going to do anything. I wondered what was going on in his mind. I could never understand his attitude toward girls.

He was the big dream hero of the girls in school. He had the status of an almost sacred institution, as far as the girls were concerned. He never made anything out of it, though. Maybe, I thought, maybe he just didn't know how they felt.

Once, when we were in our last year of high school, I came to his flat after supper, to work on a history paper. It had been raining hard and I arrived at his place soaking wet.

As I entered the building I saw a nice wet, blond girl in a raincoat standing by the staircase, leaning patiently on the wall. I stopped for a moment to look at her because she was very pretty. She looked familiar. Then I realized she went to our high school. Her name was Sharon Or and she was considered a promising beauty. Members of my class mentioned her name quite often.

I hesitated for a minute. She looked at me and blushed slightly.

“Waiting for Ram?” I asked her finally with a sudden insight.

She blushed a bit more, but didn't say a word.

“Like to come up? I'm going up there now.”

She shook her head.

I shrugged and started up the stairs.

“Give him my regards,” she said abruptly, and walked out of the building.

“What is this Sharon Or business?” I asked him as I entered the room.