Don't Ask Me If I Love

by Amos Kollek

  “No!” she said simply.

  To Assaf the Great.

  I pulled back and leaned on the door on my side of the car.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked politely.

  “I don’t want it like that,” she said seriously.

  “Like what? I love you. I’m crazy about you.”

  “Don’t be funny,” she said in a small voice. She began quietly buttoning her dress.

  “What’s wrong with sex?” I tried. “That’s what it’s all about. This is the twentieth century, remember? You don’t need those formalities any more. Time’s awasting.”

  “No. I don’t want it like that.”

  I stared at her coldly, trying to figure out if there was anything to lose. Then, making up my mind, I leaned forward and pushed her down on the seat, going after her with all my strength. I lay on her pushing her dress up, but she was too powerful and too strong-minded. She drummed on my face with her fists like a lightweight pro. I had hardly reached for her panties when I gave up.

  “O.K.,” I said, rising to a sitting position. “The war is over.”

  She breathed hard, but didn’t say anything. I looked at the mirror to see if my ears were swelling up. They weren’t yet, but they had a funny pink color. I started the engine.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m taking you home.”

  I kept my thin, mocking smile as we rode along, but I wasn’t impressing myself with it.

  “I’m not a prostitute,” she said hollowly.

  “I didn’t think you were.”

  “It’s even worse, then.”

  She’s really taking it seriously, I thought. She isn’t joking.

  “Don’t get excited,” I said.

  “Just because you have this car, that doesn’t make you the king of the world.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I thought you were a nice guy.”

  I was beginning to get tired of the conversation.

  “I’m not a nice guy. Don’t worry.”

  We finally reached the big apartment building where she lived and I stopped the car gratefully. She seemed in no hurry to get out.

  “Well, that’s that, doll.”

  I wanted to go home.

  “Wasn’t a success, was it?” she asked me.

  “Not particularly.”

  “That should teach you a lesson.”

  “I have to go home now,” I said, “or my mother will start hollering for the police. She gets nervous when I’m not around.”

  “Funny.”

  She got out unhurriedly.

  “Could you close the door?”

  She did.

  “Thanks.”

  “Good night.”

  She walked away, swaying and bouncing. She had a good figure. I pulled away.

  Chapter Seven

  THE next morning I went to the university and attended an hour of a lecture on the basic principles of economics. There was a large number of students in the vast lecture hall, all eagerly writing down wisdom which seemed to pour from the lecturer’s mouth. It made me nervous. I felt out of place. I concluded that this was no way of handling the school. The way to handle it was to find someone who would keep me informed about exams and papers. I looked around the room and saw no familiar faces, but it was hard to get a decent look. When the bell finally rang, I went to the door and stood there watching the exiting students. A few minutes passed before I spotted our former company clerk, Ruthi. I was close to missing her despite the fact that she almost brushed against me on her way out. She wore a chic black dress and had her hair up. Her ears were armed with large, green earrings, and in her hand she carried an important-looking bag. Every inch of her implied serious-mindedness and elegance. I hardly recognized her. She didn’t see me, so I tapped her on her nose as she passed by.

  “You too, Brutus?”

  She turned and winced in surprise.

  “Well,” she said at length, “look who’s here.”

  It occurred to me for the first time how good-looking she was. The khaki uniform had done her an injustice.

  “Say, since when are you such a looker?”

  She raised a thin, painted eyebrow.

  “I never thought you could flatter.”

  I grimaced sadly.

  “Let’s have tea at the cafeteria,” I said, “and I’ll tell you what I want you to do.”

  “O.K.”

  We waited in line at the cafeteria for a few million years. Then we carried our cups to one of the corner tables, and sat down triumphantly.

  “This is awfully crowded,” she commented. “Why do you come here?”

  “My first time,” I said lightly. “Listen, what’s new in the company?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I left soon after you disappeared. Got an earlier discharge in order to study.”

  I nodded.

  “How was jail?”

  “All right, thank you.”

  “I was glad to be discharged,” she said, drinking slowly from her paper cup, careful not to spill any of the tea on her dress. “I know I liked it quite a lot once, but I would have hated to stay longer, now.”

  “Personally,” I said, “I don’t see what people see in economics. It’s such a bore.”

  “Might come in handy.”

  “Yes, that’s what he says.”

  “Who?”

  “Some guy. You don’t know him.”

  I emptied my cup in four hearty gulps.

  “I thought you were from Tel Aviv,” I said.

  “I am, but I like it here. I have a nice, cozy room.”

  “With a big double bed.”

  She wrinkled her nose.

  “No. Actually I share it with another girl, and we both have tiny little beds that can hardly contain us.”

  I shook my head disapprovingly.

  “O.K.,” I said. “So listen to this.”

  And I went into a long explanation of what I wanted her to do. I asked her to keep good summaries of the lectures and also to keep me up to date on what was expected of me as a student, but only the essential details.

  “That doesn’t seem too hard,” she said.

  “I’d be extremely grateful.”

  “How are Ram’s parents taking it?”

  “There’s only a mother. She’ll survive, but that’s about all. She’ll never be happy.”

  She stared at her cup, without seeing it.

  “That’s horrible.”

  “He was a fool to sign up for an extra year. He was asking for it.”

  She looked up, bewildered.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said lightly. I smiled at her. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty.”

  She crumpled her empty cup and carefully stuffed it into the brassy ashtray.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Just wanted to know.”

  “Well, I’ve got to go. I have another lecture.”

  “Drop in, anytime, or give me a call. We’re in the phone book.”

  “I might,” she said, getting up.

  I watched Ruthi walking gracefully between the tables and couldn’t see the girl in uniform any more. She didn’t even look familiar, but I felt relatively close to her. As close as I felt to anyone.

  I drove home and went up to my room and locked the door behind me.

  I sat down at my desk and decided that this was it. It was time to start doing something, if I was ever going to.

  I listed for myself the reasons for wanting to write a novel: (a) I wanted to be famous, (b) To be famous for work that necessitated brains, (c) To prove to myself and others that I could do it, (d) To make money, (e) It would be useful for other later occupations like making movies, (f) To get the girls, (g) To influence people, (h) To express ideas I had in my head, (i) I liked writing, and (j) I thought maybe I could manage to do it. These arguments impressed me as rather sound.

  What else?

 
; Number one rule: write in English, even if you can’t spell butter. A best-selling author in Hebrew hardly makes a living and is forever unknown outside his country, unless he gets hijacked or wins a beauty contest, which doesn’t often happen. In fact, it never happens. The book, I thought, should be the story of a young man. He could be a lot like me, only with a few tragic love affairs. In the weakest parts of the plot, in the gaps, you could put a bit of philosophy. It never hurts to have a little bit of philosophy whenever you want to impress people.

  And massacre religion. The old bitch.

  My leading character would believe that one should have as much money as one can get. One should have as much sex as one can get. It is most unnatural to think that we are born with such desires just to ignore or overcome them. I typed down this wisdom as part of a monologue the hero of the book delivers to a girl he has picked up in a nightclub. Long, seemingly clever monologues are a specialty of the hero’s seduction technique. He knows them by heart and can give them offhandedly. He knows when not to use them: when the girl in question is either too clever or too dumb. One night he picks up a girl who is too clever and she is not impressed; she is just bored. He didn’t expect her to be clever when he picked her up. That is why he is hooked.

  I left the story there, feeling satisfied with the six, double-spaced, neatly typed pages of notes I had written. I even felt good about the headache it had given me. I thought perhaps my new brilliance was pressing on my brain. After mixing two aspirins with a Coca-Cola, I put on a clean shirt, and went to visit Ram’s mother.

  I was relieved to find an elderly lady there who was also paying a visit. I didn’t like to go there by myself. It always seemed to me that there were things I was expected to say. When there was no one else there except me I didn’t know what to say.

  As I entered, Ram’s mother nodded and asked me to come into the small living room and sit down. The elderly visitor was chatting about contemporary events and political opinions. She made zestful gestures with her hands to emphasize her points. Ram’s mother was very calm and attentive, but I suspected she didn’t have much interest in the conversation.

  I looked around the room. There was a small picture of Ram leaning on a flower vase on a cupboard. He was in uniform and smiling broadly at the camera. I didn’t like the picture.

  The old lady was explaining why Israel should never give one inch of the occupied territories back. I had heard the arguments many times, and mostly from people of similar age. The older generation was tough. They still have vivid memories of the persecutions and the pogroms in the foreign countries they had come from. They had known darker and more bitter days and they were distrustful and disillusioned. But they were not the ones who had to back hard politics on the borders.

  I tried not to be drawn into the discussion. I didn’t like that type of conversation. I thought it was useless.

  The old lady gave me a hopeful look from time to time, because she was running out of arguments. I avoided her eyes remorselessly and waited for the time to pass by.

  Udi came into the room, carrying a dish of chocolate candies. He had a strained expression on his face, and seemed to look older. He was quiet and reserved, but he smiled at me as he put the dish down on the table, right in front of me.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “How are you?”

  “All right. You can start eating,” he said, his smile widening and then gradually fading away as he sat by his mother. He knew chocolate was my favorite food.

  “Thank you. Yeah, sure, I will.”

  I put three pieces in my mouth and nearly choked. He looked at me curiously. His brown eyes were familiar; they rested on my face permanently. I moved in my seat, uneasily.

  “How is school?” I asked him.

  “Boring.”

  “It will pass.”

  “Yes, everything passes.”

  “How’s it in the university?” his mother asked me.

  “O.K.”

  I looked away from her, and took another candy.

  “When are you going to be famous?” Udi asked me.

  “What?”

  “When are you going to be famous?”

  “Who said I am going to be famous?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, then you should know,” I said, wondering what the hell we were talking about.

  “I thought maybe you’d give me a part, when you make a movie.”

  “I don’t know,” I said dubiously, incredulous, “I don’t know if I am going to make any.”

  “You will.”

  His mother looked at me peculiarly.

  “Udi has always been enthusiastic about your future,” she said. “I think he believes strongly in your abilities.” I was getting embarrassed.

  “I am sure his judgment never fails him,” I said.

  “Seldom,” she said seriously.

  “Ram used to say you might be a writer.”

  “Ram also used to say I was a spoiled child,” I told her, and he was probably more accurate about that.”

  “They are not mutually exclusive,” Udi grinned at me.

  How did we ever get to this topic, I thought. What is it to them, anyway?

  I fixed my stare sullenly on the table, picking the chocolates from the dish one after the other, and chewing them dully.

  “We shouldn’t give anything back,” the other guest said suddenly, as if it just occurred to her again, “not one yard.”

  How would you work it out, I thought wearily, when small children can get blown up on their way to school without the world’s giving a damn. We have to find a way to put an end to that.

  “We have no other alternative except being strong,” the elderly lady said. “These people we are dealing with don’t understand any language other than killing. Only yesterday they blew up that supermarket in Tel Aviv. Three women were killed.” She laughed soundlessly. “Freedom Fighters for the Liberation of Palestine. I wouldn’t call them fighters.”

  “There will be peace, one day,” Ram’s mother said indifferently, “But it’s going to take a lot of time till that day comes.”

  “Yes,” the old lady said.

  “Don’t you think so?” Ram’s mother asked me, without much interest.

  I shrugged.

  “It’s probably not going to be in my time,” I said searching my mind for a reasonable answer and finding it strangely difficult, “so I try not to bother myself about it.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You are still young.”

  “Peace needs a generation that doesn’t have the bitterness of war in its heart on both sides of the border,” I said uncertainly, feeling I should say something more, feeling I should try to explain something, but not knowing what it was. “Otherwise, it won’t work. You can’t just impose peace on people,” I said, “who hate, and know why they hate. That’s what I think,” I added lamely.

  “Maybe,” she said, looking aimlessly out the window. “I don’t know.”

  I put another candy into my mouth. There weren’t any more.

  “I see I have to go and get more chocolate,” Udi said, and smiled.

  I rose to my feet apologetically.

  Ram’s mother shifted her aimless gaze from the window to my face.

  “I am glad you came,” she said.

  “Yeah, well good-bye,” I said, “and thanks for the chocolate.”

  The elderly lady smiled at me in a grandmotherly way from behind her rimless glasses.

  Udi walked with me to the door.

  “I am looking forward to the army so much,” he said fervently, looking for a brief moment like a young boy again. “I wish I could go already.”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly, “the army is not so bad.”

  “But, it won’t run away,” I added, opening the door.

  “I know,” he said disconsolately, “but school drags on so slowly.”

  I stepped out.

  “Come visit sometime, if you feel like it. I can be
at you in chess, or something.”

  “I will,” he said.

  I came home and found the living room filled with American businessmen who had come over for a cocktail. There was a lot of loud talk, strong perfume, cigar smoke, and liquor. I joined in and grabbed a bottle of gin for myself. I walked around the place, not introducing myself and not talking to anyone. I began drinking, welcoming the warmth and brightness that poured into my head with the alcohol. Around me, people were having a good time. Why not me?

  I sat down heavily on one of the couches, and took a healthy bite from the remains of a piece of cake on a plate near my feet. I poured another drink from my quickly emptying bottle. A very bleached blonde of forty-odd years placed herself by my side. She looked at me in a way that reminded me of an old-fashioned movie.

  “And who are you, young man?”

  “Assaf,” I said. “Why?”

  “And why not?” she said in a husky, lingering drawl, that must have been Texas. “Are you the son of the owner?”

  “I guess. I don’t know.”

  I looked at her flamboyantly made-up face, waiting for my mind to click and empty itself of everything but the alcohol. She extended a soft, fleshy hand.

  “Well, I’m glad to meet you.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  I squeezed her fingers briefly.

  “Have a drink,” I said.

  I found a neglected glass and poured her a generous shot. I placed it carefully in her hand. She sat there, plunked in her place, eying me constantly. Maybe she is getting hooked, I thought drunkenly, the old bag.

  “Thanks,” she said, raising the glass to her lips. “Cheers.”

  “To Texas,” I said.

  She laughed. I gave her one of my smiles which aren’t so bad when the lights are not too bright. At the other side of the room I saw my mother’s anxious eyes staring at me out of a worried face, but she had a few million dollars’ worth of a man planted beside her. I gave her a cheerful wink, and switched back to my companion.

  “Your father is most charming,” she said coquettishly.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “That guy over there,” she said, pointing with a red-painted fingernail, “is my husband.”

  She grinned ruefully.

  “That must be tough,” I said sympathetically.

  She looked at me with surprise, so I smiled at her again, though my face muscles were getting tired.