Don't Ask Me If I Love (4 page)

“Anything you say, chief.”

I was wondering about the few things he still had to do, but I didn't ask. I didn't believe in asking Ram questions.

We both were on leave the next weekend, but I didn't see him or hear from him till Saturday evening. This was quite unusual, so I finally got in my car and drove to his place.

It was past eight when I walked into his room and he was sitting there with Gila, engaged in conversation.

I was immediately sorry I had come.

“Sit down,” Ram said.

I remained on my feet.

“Thanks, I think I'll be going.”

“You just came.”

“Just wanted to make sure you're still alive. You are. So I'm going.”

Gila was looking at me apprehensively. She had on heavier make-up than she had that night in the car. She was even wearing earrings.

She didn't look bad at all.

“We were about to go to a movie,” Ram said.

“Go right ahead.”

“Why don't you come along?” Gila asked me coquettishly.

“I don't feel like it,” I said.

She burst out laughing. It was a pleasant sound. Quite deep and not vulgar.

“What do you feel like doing?”

“Being on my own would be fine. Have a good time, children,” I said, smiling at Ram. “Drop a line every now and again.”

I went back home.

There was no one in the house. I fixed myself a sandwich and a soft drink and started wandering through the rooms and corridors. I looked at the paintings hanging all over, anywhere there was a wall. I enjoyed it. They were good pictures. My father had excellent taste, and he didn't mind spending his money on art. There were lots of portraits in the collection, and I liked them best. I loved doing portraits myself, and I was quite good at it. Faces. They could be complete on canvas as they would never be in real life.

I paced through the house for a long time, stopping now and then to refill my glass with Coca-Cola and ice. I wondered if Ram was getting to be a bit romantic in his old age. I wasn't sure I minded it. I wasn't sure I liked it, either.

My next leave was three weeks later. Ram, of course, came home a lot more often. As a re-enlisted officer he had a lot more privileges. But I didn't see him. On Saturday afternoon I started working on a painting. I drew a girl, standing in the sea, with water coming to her hips, and her long, pale hair blowing in the wind. It was a good drawing and I gave it more time than usual. Then I started painting. At eight o'clock I was still working on it when Ram and Gila came into my room.

I was a bit surprised to see them, and not at all pleased. I hated being disturbed whenever I was occupied in any way. That is occupied of my own free will.

I asked them to sit down. There wasn't anything else I could do. Ram was quiet but Gila was in high spirits and she asked me to go on painting.

She placed herself comfortably on my bed. I kept painting for half an hour or so and they both sat and just watched. After I was through I changed my clothes and brought a few bottles of Coke, cubes of ice, and three glasses from the kitchen.

I sat down on the floor and sipped the cold liquid into my throat. I leaned my head on the wall and closed my eyes. I was very tired.

“This is beautiful,” Gila's voice said, referring to the picture.

I shrugged and drank some more. The world was going in circles around my head. It had flamboyant colors.

“It doesn't look like a real person, though.”

“Real people are no fun,” I said.

“At least they are real,” she said logically.

I opened my eyes wearily, trying to express my disinterest with every muscle in my face. I probably didn't have enough muscles there. Gila looked at me pertly, and her eyes glowed joyfully. She was probably, I concluded, simply a happy type. Ram's face was blank, and he didn't say a word.

“How's life?” I asked him.

“All right.”

There was a pause.

I looked quickly around the room. My eyes landed on the stereophonic record player at the other side. It seemed to be far away.

“Want me to put on a record?”

“No,” said Gila.

I was relieved at that.

“Two soldiers were killed on the Canal today,” I said to Ram just to keep the conversation going.

“I know.”

“What are you going to do when you are released?”

The girl was really developing into a problem, I thought, opening the second bottle and adding some more ice to my glass. Why weren't they going? Couldn't two people have fun just by themselves?

“I'm going to write a book.”

I had the feeling that she was going to say she knew it from the start, but she didn't.

“What about?”

“I'll find something.”

“A novel?”

“Yeah.”

I closed my eyes again.

“You don't seem very happy,” she said suddenly.

I laughed.

“What is there to be happy about?” I asked indifferently.

“Everything.”

“Hooh.”

“This guy is a disgrace to the Israeli spirit,” Ram said.

“Hooh, hooh,” I said again.

It wasn't an interesting evening. After a while Gila started talking about art. She said she would have liked to study drama, but there weren't any good schools for that, unfortunately, not in Israel.

“What the hell keeps you here, then?” I asked hoping she would take the hint, but she just opened two big, black eyes.

“Oh, I love this country.”

“You see,” Ram said to me.

“Surprise, surprise,” I said dolefully.

It was past midnight when they finally left.

Afterward I took the car and drove around town for a while, hoping maybe to bump into a movie star. There were none of them around. The streets were absolutely empty. Life in Jerusalem stopped after the second shows at the cinemas.

I went back home.

The next day we were training to fight in trenches. It was hot and windy and the thin desert sand that streamed through the air made it hard to see or breathe.

When we had our break I caught up with Ram who was climbing up the hill to take a look at the Dead Sea.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” he said when I approached. He wiped the sweat and sand off his face with the back of his hand. I stood by his side, breathing heavily.

“Lousy weather,” I said.

“Complaining again.” He smiled.

“How do you like that broad?”

“Who?”

“Gila.”

“Seems O.K.”

I looked at him curiously. His face was impassive.

“Give me a drink out of your water flask,” I said, giving up. “Mine's empty.”

He took it out of his kit and handed it to me without shifting his eyes from the wilderness below.

I gulped the warm, tasteless water, and gave him back his bottle. I went back down the hill.

We started training again.

A few weeks later, quite late on a Friday night, I was sitting in my room trying to get drunk on a bottle of gin. I had an ice tray beside me and was lying on the floor, dropping pieces of ice into my glass and swallowing the drink as fast as I could. I could take gin very well. I was not so good with whiskey or vodka, but gin was my favorite hard drink. My father had dozens of bottles in his cellar. From time to time, I used to go there and take one or two and bring them to my room. He didn't mind anything, so long as it didn't mean wasting time.

The problem was, I could never manage to get really drunk, I just would become more clear headed at first, and later on, more tired, but that was all.

That night I wanted to get drunk, I couldn't think of anything better to do.

Genius, I thought, really impressive. Like the leading actor in a B film, with the bottle and the one-day-old beard. Only the girl was missing, and the good looks. But what the hell? You can't have everything.

Or maybe you can?

Maybe. But only after you're through with the goddam army. You can't have your own way when that whole organization is riding on your back. It is hard enough to have the family to deal with.

Everybody talks about the injustice of the social order, but from the point of view of the underprivileged. Maybe being privileged is a form of injustice too.

The idea is, I thought drunkenly, the safest idea is to be yourself. Do what you want and the hell with the rest. I am me. I am the only one who is me. The whole world, as far as I am concerned, is perceived through me and by me, and by no one else. Therefore, I am the whole world. Simple. Must have my own way then.

Maybe the other people are just an illusion. The only proof of their existence is through my brain. Once I'm dead they're gone too. Poor bastards, to depend on such a brain as mine.

Why can't this brain produce better people? The son of a bitch.

Maybe he's making fun of me.

At around this point, there was a knock on the door.

“I'm not here.”

Gila stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

She took a long look at me and at the bottle and probably also at the floor.

She was wearing a tight, short black dress which was rather daring by local standards. She was quite small, but her figure was not bad.

I took another gulp and hiccuped.

“I see what you mean,” she said.

“Have a drink,” I said politely, “since you're here. Where's Ram?”

She seated herself on the floor beside me.

“Probably home.”

She considered the bottle.

I sat up with a jerk.

“You mean he's not here?”

Her eyes were amused.

“Yes. That's what I mean.”

She put the muzzle of the bottle to her mouth and swallowed. Then she started coughing. Israeli girls seldom drank alcohol.

I wanted to be sure I had it right.

“Why did you come?”

“I felt like seeing you.”

I didn't even feel flattered.

“Told Ram?”

She shrugged.

“I don't belong to him,” she said.

She wasn't even my type. She didn't look bad, with her long black hair, her almond-shaped eyes, and her thin make-up. Very Israeli. I wasn't interested in her, but that was beside the point, anyway.

“Just came to see your old friend Assaf?”

“That's right, a social call.”

I took the bottle from her.

“How's the gin?”

“Terrible,” she said.

I poured some more into my glass.

“Have anything particular on your mind?” I asked her.

She shrugged again.

“No. I just wanted to see you. You seem to be quite an interesting guy.”

I leaned back against the wall for mental support.

“Listen,” I told her, “I like Ram a hell of a lot more than I like you.”

She just stared at me. Her chest was heaving up and down so that I could get a fair idea of its form, which was not bad at all and rather large.

“What has that got to do with anything?” she said.

“That's got everything to do with it.”

She didn't move at all except to scratch her left ankle with her right toe, in a slow manner which I considered provocative. She had a nice pair of thin, delicate-looking legs.

I took another mouthful from my glass and stretched on the floor.

I closed my eyes.

“So long,” I said. “Be on your way.”

I was listening carefully for the banging of the door when something warm and soft and perfumed was pushing on my mouth. By the time I opened my eyes, her tongue was pressing on my teeth, and her arms were around my neck, and she was giving me a rather professional treatment, indeed.

It is all well and good for religion to teach that temptations should be resisted, but it's still perverse. It's like refusing to eat because the food is good. I had my arm around Gila and was unzipping her dress, and then I thought better of it. Girls are a dime a dozen, I thought logically, but Rams are not. She was warm and soft against me. I pushed her away and got up. I walked to the other side of the room and sat at my desk.

She sat up, looking at me, sulkily.

I picked up a paperback that lay in front of me. I hadn't noticed it before. My mother had a habit of buying me detective stories for my vacations at home.

“I would like doing that,” I said, “I really would. But I am not going to, so you'd better go. Otherwise, I'll have to kick you out, and I haven't got the energy.”

She stood up and smoothed her dress. Her face was furious, but she forced a tight, thin smile.

“Bastard,” she said, swaggering out of the room, leaving the door open.

I next saw Ram in camp. We were preparing for the 120-kilometer march, which was the army's funny way of celebrating the end of the NCO course. I had gone through this procedure once before, fourteen months back, when I was a trainee myself, and I hadn't liked it then.

Ram didn't mention Gila, so I didn't either. I didn't see much of him because he was out of camp most of the time, inspecting the route we were about to take together with the C.C.

Ram loved to walk. He was considered the best navigator in the regiment.

I had a fever the day before we started the march. I was sick and in a bad mood and I didn't feel like doing anything at all. On the morning we set out my temperature was down again, but I felt weak and apathetic. I was too apathetic even to decide to stay in camp.

It was a long cruel walk on a long hot day. Three soldiers collapsed from exhaustion and had to quit before the end. When we started again the next morning, it crossed my mind for the first time that I was not going to make it. I felt hot and cold, and my limbs were aching.

Tough-luck Charley, I thought to myself, forcing my legs to keep their painful motion, and trying to calculate in the blur of my mind, how many kilometers we still had ahead of us.

A platoon sergeant can't afford to drop out. Not while his soldiers keep walking. Bad for the morale. Bad for discipline.