Don't Ask Me If I Love

by Amos Kollek

  I worked the paper into a small, shrunken ball and tossed it at the wastebasket at the other side of the room. I missed. I walked over there, picked it up, opened it and smoothed it carefully, and then put it in a drawer in my desk.

  Till July 2, I thought. That’s actually well timed.

  The academic year ended on the twenty-eighth of June, my first exam was on the fifth of July. But still, who the hell needs the bloody army?

  A few days later I signed a contract with the publishing house. I was going to get an advance of a thousand dollars, and fifty cents for each copy sold. I thought it was a good deal.

  But it was going to take months before it would be out on the market and, meanwhile, life had to go on.

  I started going to party meetings, young group and old group. Anything.

  Another thing I started doing was speaking at those meetings. I thought, if I bother at all I might as well bother all the way, and being any duller than the rest of the speakers would have been hard. The problem was that everything had already been said thousands of times about the peace talks and the occupied territories and the Palestinian problem, and it never helped any. I didn’t care for repeating those old chewed and predigested ideas. I didn’t care to say anything at all.

  I did pick myself a line, because if you want to make an impression you need some line, although it does not matter very much which one. I spoke for returning everything except Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in exchange for a peace treaty.

  I spoke twice before small meetings of the younger group. I did it in an aggressive, mocking manner, suggesting rather clearly, that anyone who didn’t agree with me just had to be awfully innocent or terribly stupid. It got to the stage where I almost enjoyed my performances. I was surprised to see that my speeches caused quite a lot of debate, and after the second one, there was even a review in the daily paper run by the party that referred to a “promising, new personality.”

  I didn’t think I would go far because I limited my activity to evening meetings. I couldn’t take it in larger doses. In broad daylight it just looked too stupid.

  My father, on the other hand, meeting me for lunch on a Friday, expressed his satisfaction with my conduct and suggested that I increase my participation. I told him there was no use in pushing. Young people were not taken seriously in politics. Maybe student riots would get some attention, but in this country, students couldn’t afford them. Once people started revolting, the country couldn’t hold on the way it had to. That was one thing I was sure of, and that was one reason why politics didn’t appeal to me. What we actually needed, what I would have actually liked, was to change the system and rid it of the monopoly of the older generation. But we just couldn’t afford it in this country. It would amount to supporting the enemy, so I didn’t want to be bothered.

  I was becoming fed up.

  Then, one day, I got a letter from Joy.

  Dear Assaf,

  I have moved to the biggest town in Israel. I needed the cnange. The address is 7 Horkanos Street. Drop by if you ever feel like it.

  Sincerely,

  Joy

  I drove around Tel Aviv for nearly an hour trying to find the damned street, when finally a motorized policeman hunted me down for speeding.

  “Are you mad, sir?” he asked me, breathing with effort. “Do you know that there are human beings living in this town and even walking in its streets?”

  I turned the radio off.

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “I am looking for one of them, she lives in Horkanos Street. Would you know where that is?”

  But his face was blank.

  “Give me your identity card, driving license, and registration. I shall have to give you a ticket.”

  That brought me back to reality.

  “I did tell her we were through,” I said grimly, putting my hand in my pocket. “Still, sleeping pills are no solution. But I guess in a few minutes it will be over anyway.”

  “What did you say?”

  “She’ll be better off that way, won’t she?” I asked him anxiously. “I mean she never got much of a kick out of life, poor thing.”

  “Man do you realize …”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “Follow me,” he said, breathing hard again.

  He mounted his motorcycle, and roared away.

  After ten minutes of speed violation, we were there. I told him I would rather keep it inside the family if nothing had happened yet, and finally convinced him to wait outside. He told me he had enough troubles with his girl friend himself, but they were going to be married next month, thank heavens. I nodded my approval.

  “If I’m not down within ten minutes forget about it,” I said, “and thanks.”

  It was a large seven-story building of gray concrete, like the ones all over Tel Aviv. These buildings do not add to the beauty of the city, in my opinion.

  I started climbing up the stairs, looking at the names on the doors and seeing nothing familiar. I reached the seventh floor and stopped for breath, wondering vaguely when they were ever going to put elevators in these funny buildings. I looked around. There were not many alternatives left. There was really only one, the emergency exit to the roof, so I climbed up there.

  Outside, on the roof, there was a small cabin with a gray, peeling door. There was a white sheet of paper on it, bearing the name Joy in large, careless ink letters.

  I knocked on the door. It was late afternoon and the sun was setting on the sea behind the huge cluster of gray buildings. I looked at the city with dismay. I thought it had no beauty at all.

  Nothing happened. No one came to open the door and there was no sound except the noise of the traffic below, I knocked again, louder, saying to myself, “Don’t push me, God. I’ve warned you once, I won’t warn you twice.”

  Again nothing happened. I leaned on the handle and shoved the door and it opened creaking like an old window.

  I stepped in, closing it behind me and looked around suspiciously. The room was rather dark and for the first few seconds I couldn’t see anything at all. Then my eyes got used to the gloom and I saw that there was a dim light coming from a small window that threw a soft glow on the bed at the corner of the room. Upon it, fast asleep, crumbled in a woolen blanket, lay Joy.

  I walked slowly around the room. It took me three steps to get from one end to the other, and they were rather small steps. She did not stir.

  Her breathing came quietly and regularly. I was wondering how long I could contain myself when I stumbled into a small stool that had been hiding in the corner. It turned over and hit the floor like a cannon shell. Joy sat up with a jerk.

  “What is it?” she asked with a weak voice that was out of tune. She was trying to see through the dark.

  “It’s O.K.,” I said, pulling the stool up and sitting on it. “It’s O.K.”

  She focused her eyes on me with an effort. They were large and searching and, along with her disorderly long hair, made her look helpless and young like a small, frightened child.

  She turned on a small lamp that stood on the floor by her side. She smiled and leaned her head back on the pillow.

  “Hello.”

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  The corners of her mouth curled up a little bit.

  “Fine.”

  I got up and paced the room some more. There wasn’t much space left around the bed. By it stood a wooden chair and on that was a white dress. There was a small cupboard with a heavy suitcase on it in the corner. That was about it.

  “I was glad to hear from you,” I said cautiously, “after you had disappeared.”

  She stood up and let the blanket drop to the floor shaking her hair from her face. Except for her panties and bra, she had nothing on but smooth, sun-tanned skin. I moved to the other side of the room and bumped into the peeling gray door.

  “I’ll make some coffee,” she said, “O.K.?”

  “Yeah. Anything you say.”

  She du
g a finger into a blue eye and rubbed some sleepiness out. Then she smiled.

  “Won’t be a minute.”

  She retreated into a narrow gap in the wall that was so small I had missed it before. I assumed it led to an ultra-modern vast electric kitchen. I sat on the stool and waited. She came back after a moment, placed herself on the bed, crossed her legs and looked at me innocently. I picked up the white dress that was draped over the chair, and tossed it to her.

  “You are tempting me, plus you might catch a cold.”

  She put it obediently over her head and slipped it on.

  “One or the other,” she said with a muffled voice, through the thin cloth. “The other is more likely.”

  Her face appeared from under the white curtain. “I am happy to see you,” she said.

  “Why did you disappear?”

  “I’m sometimes impulsive.”

  “No, I really want to know.”

  “I was angry with you, then I lost my job. That made me a lot angrier. Why do you have to be Jewish to have any rights in this country?”

  She gestured emptily with her hand.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “I just felt like getting away from everything. I was practically on my way to London, then I thought better of it. I moved here.”

  “At least it’s nearer to the airport,” I commented.

  I moved on my stool; it creaked in agony.

  “Not so fancy here, is it?” she said and got up. “I’ll get the coffee.”

  She brought the two cups and placed them carefully between us, on the floor.

  “The sugar is already in.”

  “So now you’re hunting for a job?” I asked carefully.

  “I’ve got one already. Can you guess what it is?”

  “I don’t know. What is it, TWA?”

  “Egyptian Airlines …”

  “Oh.”

  “No hijacking or anything.”

  I tried the coffee.

  “No,” she said. “It’s a small bookshop. They needed an English-speaking girl. It’s not fantastic, but for the time being …” She made a meaningless gesture with her hand. “It will have to do.”

  I put my empty cup on the floor.

  “Come back to Jerusalem,” I said. “I’ll get you another job, a better one, any job.”

  She looked at me.

  “No problem?” she asked, smiling into my unhappy face.

  “No …”

  The smile broadened a bit, then disappeared.

  She shook her head.

  “No. If I stay, I have to be able to make it on my own. I have been sorry about that Good Friday,” she said. “I was rude.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “What did you think of that tall girl, remember her?” she asked me. “I thought she was very sexy.”

  I nodded.

  “Yes, so did I. She was quite dumb though, but then they usually are.”

  She seemed surprised.

  “You spoke to her?”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes watched me closely. The amusement was still there but, behind it, I thought there were signs of tension.

  “And what happened then?”

  “I put her up for the night. She had to leave the following morning, for Paris.”

  “Was she another hard case?” she asked thoughtfully, wrinkling her brow. “No, I guess not,” she added after a pause. “I don’t think she was.”

  “She was easy,” I said, thinking, so the hell with all of it. “She was the easiest one I have ever come across, but, then, I haven’t had a lot of experience.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said.

  Raising her cup to her lips, she took a few sips.

  “Was she good?”

  “I don’t know. All right.”

  “Well. At least there is that.”

  I licked my teeth with my tongue.

  “It’s you I want though,” I said. “I told you that already. I wish you would come back.”

  “I have to stay here.”

  I climbed slowly to my feet and walked to the other side of the room.

  “Assaf?”

  I looked down at the floor where some small, black ants were emerging from underneath the door.

  “Yes.”

  Then, I heard her light footsteps behind me and her arms tied themselves around my neck. I felt her quick, hot breathing on my cheek. She kissed me with a low moaning sigh, and I kissed her back and I heard her sigh again and I put my arms around her and pulled her fiercely to me and we were stumbling backward until we sat on the bed and her eyes were closed and her mouth was hot and dry on mine and her arms were pulling me down on top of her. And my hands wandered over the smoothness of her skin until they came to the hook in the back of her dress and I stopped hesitating and I undid her white virgin-like dress and then she kicked the dress away and it fell on the floor and her long thin fingers unbuttoned my shirt and touched my chest and she sighed again, and I pulled off her remaining clothes and I was never sure until the last minute if she was really going to, but she drew me to her and her eyes were like clouds so close and her body was soft and I felt her legs around me and I never stopped wondering and I thought to myself maybe it isn’t what it always seems and then at that moment I didn’t feel sad any more.

  Afterward, when we were lying on our backs in the narrow bed, she looked at me, like a small girl trying to find something lost. I was trying to figure out what she was thinking, and after we lay there for quite a while in silence, she leaned over and kissed me, and her lips were dry and caressing, and then she smiled at me and there was no melancholy in it.

  “Well?”

  “You are beautiful.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No. That’s a lot, but that’s not all.”

  Her face flushed.

  “Kiss me once again,” she said, “and I’ll go and make some more coffee.”

  I pulled her to me and kissed her. She clung for a long moment. Then she sat up, suddenly energetic.

  “O.K.,” she said, “coffee.”

  She slipped into her white dress.

  “Mustn’t catch a cold,” she said coyly and went to the kitchen.

  “Listen,” I said to her, when we were drinking the coffee, “won’t you come back?”

  “I shouldn’t,” she said, clutching my arm with her hand. “I have to be sure, I need some time, can’t you see?”

  “O.K., then let’s not talk about it any more.”

  “Don’t be cross,” she said softly. “I don’t want to quarrel any more.”

  “I am not cross.”

  “Then, it’s all right.”

  “I sold the bloody book,” I said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “WHERE did you spend last night?” my father asked me the following evening when we ran into each other in the hall.

  “I visited Joy in Tel Aviv. Why?”

  He looked at me thoughtfully.

  “Drop in to my study some time later, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  I went to the kitchen and snatched a bottle of Coke. My mother looked at me silently.

  When I entered my father’s study holding the bottle loosely in my hand he wasn’t looking at his papers. He was sitting at his desk staring straight ahead of him. I sat down on the sofa and took a drink.

  “I hear you are speaking on Monday night,” he said after a while, “in the party delegates’ meeting.” He raised an eyebrow. “That is quite something. What are you going to say?”

  I shrugged.

  “Nothing much. Mostly my view about the government’s ‘so-called policy’ on the Arab question. Mostly that.”

  “Yes,” he said darkly. “And what are you going to say about your view of the government’s ‘so-called policy’ on the Arab question?”

  “Well,” I said, “I’m going to say, first of all, that there is no policy to speak of and, secondly, whatever policy there is is not one which initiates peaceful solution.
If we want peace, we’ve got to tell them exactly what we are willing to give back for it, and it will have to be most of what we have taken. That is the only practical solution, and no one ever articulates it.”

  His pale eyes narrowed just a bit.

  “That’s no good,” he said.

  “That is what I am going to say.”

  “Better not.”

  I licked the mouth of the bottle.

  “Don’t be a fool,” he said suddenly. “We’ll give it all back and they’ll try to wipe us all out, three months later. There is no other safe way, except being strong.”

  “Lately I don’t feel so safe,” I said flatly.

  “That is no good,” he repeated. “You shouldn’t go against the official line of the party, not when you are just a beginner, not when you’ve just started establishing yourself. You speak well. Argue for the majority opinion and you’ll rise quickly. Maybe afterward you can afford to change your opinions.”

  “That isn’t the way I want to do it.”

  “What good does it do you?” he said, not raising his voice. “You can’t influence anything, one way or another, before you are important, and if you say what you want to, you won’t ever be powerful.”

  I licked my lips, my mouth felt dry. I wished I had another bottle.

  “I never did want to go into politics,” I told him.

  “It would be worth your while,” he said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think it over,” he said. “I hope you take it easy with that American girl.”

  “Her name is Joy.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I hope you are not going to behave stupidly over her. At your age it’s easy to make mistakes and hard to pay for them.”

  I got up.

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “You think over what I’ve said.”

  It sounded a bit like a threat.

  “Sure,” I said, walking out. “Sure.”

  He still looked at me like he was working out all the possibilities in his head in order to decide on the best one.

  It was going to be harder from now on, I thought. The atmosphere in the house was becoming more tense. I wasn’t sure how to handle my attitude toward politics. The most reasonable thing seemed to be to follow my father’s line. He was certainly no fool.