The Lover

by A. B. Yehoshua

  And she stands up quickly, wrapping up the croissants in the basket. The doors open automatically, she steps out onto the platform, trying to slip away from me. But there are only a few people around us, and I walk close behind her, doggedly, patiently waiting for my memory of French to return. Opening the glass doors in front of her, climbing the stairs, pushing aside for her the low iron turnstiles. She’s smiling to herself, a smile of tolerant old age, constantly mumbling, “Merci, merci.” She doesn’t understand what this young stranger wants of her. We come out into the street. Already it’s first light. Paris at dawn, moist, misty. It’s as if we’ve been travelling on the Métro all night.

  And there, parked at the roadside, is the blue Morris, just as it is, the headlights dimmed, only the Israeli licence plate has changed to French. Grandma fumbles in her bag for the keys. And I stand beside her, still waiting for my French to return, searching for some first words of communication. I’m desperately hungry, real spittle at the corners of my mouth. She opens the car door, puts the basket of croissants down beside her, sits at the wheel. It’s obvious she’s impatient to break off contact. She’s smiling now like a young girl, enjoying the attention. She says “Merci” again and starts the engine. I catch hold of the car as it moves away, putting my head inside, leaning on the window-pane, saying, “But just a moment … wait a moment …” As if detached, my head starts to move with the car.

  My head against the windowpane, leaning out. In the sky the first light of day. No longer were there fields around us but sand dunes, palm trees and white Arab houses. We were standing still, the engine switched off, bogged down in a giant multiple convoy. Trucks, armoured troop carriers, staff cars and civilian vehicles. The noise was deafening. The officer stood outside, wiping the dew from the front windscreen. He didn’t seem tired from the long drive. There was only a hint of red in his eyes. I wanted to get up and out of the car but something held me back. I found that in my sleep he’d tied me to my seat with the seat belt. He came and released me.

  “You really go wild in your sleep … falling against the wheel all the time.”

  I stepped outside, my clothes crumpled. I stood beside him, shivering in the cold. My stomach was turning over, I was so hungry. The third day of the war and I had no idea what was going on. More than ten hours since I’d last heard a news bulletin. I looked at the earplug still in his ear.

  How mean of him, keeping the news from me as well.

  “What are they saying now?”

  “Nothing. Now it’s music.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Near Rafah.”

  “What’s going on? What’s new?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “We’re going to smash them.”

  Short, self-assured answers. That arrogant look in his eyes, glancing over the convoy that stretched from horizon to horizon as if it was he who was leading it. Now that I was already his prisoner, I wanted to know at least a little about him, to try breaking through this blown-up shell.

  “Excuse me,” I said with a smile, “I still have no idea what your name is …”

  He looked at me angrily.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Just curious …”

  “Call me Shahar.”

  “Shahar … what’s your job, Shahar? … I mean in civilian life …”

  He was annoyed.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Just … Just curious …”

  “I work in education.”

  I was so surprised I nearly fell over.

  “Education? What kind of education?”

  “Special education. In a home for juvenile delinquents.”

  “Really? An interesting profession.”

  But he showed no inclination to prolong the conversation. And standing there beside me, as I was still fumbling for words, with one hand he unfastened his trouser buttons, took out his big erect dick and pissed straight ahead of him on the dry ground, standing there stiffly, legs wide apart. Drops fell on my boots.

  On the truck in front of us, the soldiers were watching him. He’d attracted their attention too. They laughed and shouted jokes. He, quite unabashed, his dick still hanging out, rose to the challenge, and raised his hand like a priest blessing the congregation.

  In the big canteen at Rafah I fainted, quite unexpectedly, without warning. It just happened, as I stood there in the line of soldiers by the counter, waiting my turn to get at the trays of sandwiches and the little containers of chocolate milk, surrounded by the smell of food and the racket of transistors. First I dropped the bazooka, then myself. It seems he was afraid they’d take me from him, he slipped away from the group of officers that he’d been talking to, dragged me outside to a water tap, laid my head in a pool of mud and poured a stream of water over my face. I heard him talking to the soldiers gathered around us. “It’s fear,” he said, and tried to move them aside.

  But it was hunger. “I’m so hungry,” I croaked as I woke up, sitting on the ground, pale, with mud in my hair. “Since last night I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  Again he took two hard-boiled eggs out of his map case and gave them to me.

  And so at midday he brought me to the heart of the Sinai. I didn’t believe we’d make it. The little Morris ran beautifully. You did a fine job, Adam, she was starting up at the first touch. The battered old lady obeyed him, he hypnotized her too, and she made a hundred kilometres per hour.

  There were military police roadblocks on the way, trying to stop all kinds of adventurers from entering the war zone. But he outwitted them all, pretending to ignore them, pressing on and passing them by. He wasn’t stopped once. And if they came after us, he’d stop the car some distance farther on, leap out of the little Morris like a long thin flame and stand waiting, wearing his red paratrooper’s beret, on his chest medals of previous wars. When the military police caught up with us, panting and cursing, he’d say calmly:

  “Yes? What’s your problem?”

  And they’d retreat.

  But at Refidim we had to stop. Nobody was allowed to pass beyond that point. From far away came the echoes of explosions. The sounds were muffled as if they came from deep down inside the earth. Shrieking aircraft wheeled in the sky. We were directed to a wide-open space full of civilian cars, like the parking lot of a concert hall or a football stadium. Men were flocking to the war as if to some great spectacle. He told me to unload the equipment and I put on my harness, donned my helmet, picked up the bazooka and started to follow him, searching for a unit that would accept me.

  We marched through a cloud of dust, all around us half-tracks and lumbering tanks. And the people in the sand, a nation sinking in the desert. Here it was born, here it shall perish.

  And yet in spite of all the noise and confusion we were attracting attention. The one-handed major, tanned crimson by the sun, sweat gleaming on his bald scalp, leading me, his own personal soldier, as if I were a whole squad, marching behind laden with equipment, bound to him with an invisible rope. Men would pause for a moment to look at us.

  Eventually he stopped beside a column of half-tracks parked at the roadside, stretching away to the horizon. He asked for the commander and they pointed to a short, lean youth making coffee on a camp stove.

  “When are you moving?”

  “Soon.”

  “Are you short of a bazooka gunner?”

  He was astonished. “A bazooka gunner? I don’t think so.”

  But the officer was insistent.

  “You mean your outfit is complete?”

  “What do you mean?” The youth was utterly confused.

  “Well then, take him into your unit.” He pointed at me.

  “But … who is he?”

  “No buts. This is an order,” he snapped, and signalled to me to climb aboard the nearest half-track.

  And I began to strip off my equipment and pass it to the young soldiers, who tossed it up inside th
e vehicle, they were amused by the vast load that I’d dragged along with me. Then they held out their hands and pulled me up onto the steel car, which was all blistering hot from standing in the sun. Meanwhile the major was making a note of the unit commander’s name and the number of the unit. He even took the number of the half-track, making sure that I’d be taken into battle, that all avenues of escape had been blocked. Finally he made the commander sign for me as if he was taking delivery of a load of supplies.

  “Make sure he fights properly,” he shouted. “He’s been out of the country ten years … he tried to run away.”

  They looked at me.

  “You must be crazy,” somebody whispered. “What a time to come back!”

  But I didn’t answer, just whispered, “Have you got a piece of bread or something like that?” and somebody passed me a big slice of yeast cake, it was sweet and delicious and I bit into it at once, gobbling it up with great relish. Tears rose to my eyes. Suddenly I felt at ease. Perhaps it was because of that sweet home-baked cake. Perhaps it was because at last I’d got away from him. And so, perched on the half-track, surrounded by soldiers, leaning against the hot fuselage and swallowing cake, I looked down at the bald officer, who was still, standing there cockily, grilling the young commander about the plans for the offensive. The latter was quite baffled, didn’t know how to answer. In the end the major sent him off, disappointed. For a while he hesitated, as if he found it hard to be parted from me, he stood there alone, looking about him with his empty, arrogant glance. Suddenly I was struck by the pathetic nature of his madness and I smiled down at him from my perch on the high vehicle, out of his clutches now.

  Suddenly, decisively, he turned to go. I called out, “Hey, Shahar, goodbye.” He turned around. Even as he looked at me for the last time, there was hatred in his eyes, he raised his hand with a weary gesture, a sort of half salute, murmuring, “Yes, goodbye … goodbye …” and he set off towards the headquarters along the crumbling path, the path ground to dust by the endless stream of tanks. For a while I watched him, striding along with slow, measured, provocative gait, the tanks avoiding him carefully, right and left.

  And now I was surrounded by young, boyish faces, a close-knit band of regular soldiers. They looked excited, eager to go into battle. Laughing at their private jokes, talking about people that I didn’t know. The young commander called me over to his jeep, he asked me to explain quietly who I was and how I’d come to be in the hands of the major. So in the middle of the desert, amid the crackling of radio sets and the roar of engines, once again I told the whole story, adding some superfluous details, getting entangled in a strange confession, about my grandmother, about the legacy. A man standing before a silent youth, telling the story of his life. I thought perhaps he’d want to get rid of me, send me away. I even told him that I had no idea how to use a bazooka and that war in general wasn’t exactly for me. But I could see he had no intention of getting rid of me. They’d foisted me on him, so he’d find a use for me. He heard me out, not saying a word, just smiling faintly from time to time. Then he called to one of the men from the platoon, a soldier with glasses who looked like an intellectual, and told him to give me a quick lesson on the use of the bazooka.

  The soldier made me lie on the ground, put the bazooka in my hands and started lecturing me on sights, trajectories, varieties of bombs, closed electrical circuits. And I was nodding my head but only half listening. Only one thing stuck in my head, the backlash that recoils on the gunner. The bespectacled soldier warned me repeatedly about the dangers of the backlash, apparently he himself had once been burned by it. And in the middle of this strange private lesson they called us to eat. They brought out a stack of tinned foods. I was the only one with an appetite. They were a bit astonished at my ravenous hunger. They opened tin after tin, tasting it and passing it over to me, watching in amusement as, spoon in hand, I polished off one after another, in any order, tins of beans, grapefruit salad, meat, halva, sardines, and pickled cucumber for dessert. I gobbled up everything. And among the empty tin cans the radio crackled constantly, and at last I heard the news that had been kept from me the previous day. Hard news, dark news, dressed up in new words – defensive strategy, battle of attrition, holding operation, regrouping of forces. Jargon designed to soften the truth, the burning reality into which I was now so deeply sunk.

  And suddenly alone, very much alone. An empty space in my heart. Imagine me in the middle of all this confusion. Sitting among the soldiers, beside the chain of the half-track, hiding in a scrap of sweltering shade, in the sickening stench of burnt gasoline. My clothes so filthy you’d think I’d gone through two wars already, seeing all the preparations being made for my death. Troops milling around us endlessly, encircling us. Tanks, half-tracks, jeeps and artillery, the crackle of radio sets, the shouts of soldiers hailing their friends. I begin to understand, I won’t leave this place alive. Shut in from every side. A nation ensnaring itself. Suddenly I wanted to write you a postcard, but already urgent orders were arriving, we must prepare to move immediately.

  We moved on a kilometre or two, advancing in a broad formation, then they halted us. We waited there, trussed in our belts, helmets on our heads, drivers at the wheel, for four long hours, watching the dim, threatening horizon where the battle was noiselessly in progress. Watching the plumes of dust rising in the distance, the smoke of distant fires, signs that my companions interpreted eagerly. Slowly the desert turned red about us and suddenly, on the dusty skyline, the ball of the sun caught fire, like a flare thrown up from the burning canal, a weapon of war, a part of the battle. And as evening came the sun began to disintegrate, as if it too had been caught in the cross fire, and our faces, our vehicles, the weapons in our hands were painted purple.

  And in that same place, still deployed in advance formation, we waited two days, as if frozen where we stood. And personal, linear time, the time that we knew, was blown to bits. And a different, collective time was smeared over us like sticky dough. Eating and sleeping, listening to the radio and pissing, cleaning our weapons and hearing a lecture from an eccentric instructor who came to us with a little tape recorder and played us rock music. Playing backgammon, huddling together in tight circles, leaping onto the half-track at false alarms, watching the aircraft going out and returning. And somewhere else, beyond us, there were sunrises and sunsets, twilight and darkness, burning noons and cool mornings. They cut us off from the world so they could kill us more easily, and I, a stranger twice over, or, as they called me, the runaway who returned, I wandered about among the young men, hearing their foolish jokes, their childish, adolescent fantasies. And they, not knowing how to deal with me, still impressed by my ravenous hunger of the first day, would offer me slices of cake, biscuits and chocolate, which I took absent-mindedly, munching moodily among the armoured half-tracks. Once, in the middle of the night, I thought of trying to escape. I took some toilet paper and started walking towards a distant hill that I thought was deserted. To my surprise I found troops dug in there as well. The whole desert was alive with men.

  At last we began to move, slowly, like struggling out of quicksand. Already exhausted, advancing a few hundred metres and stopping, stopping and advancing. Moving south, then north, then east, then turning back to the line of advance. As if some moon-struck general were controlling us from far away. Suddenly, without warning, the first shells fell among us and somebody was killed. And so the battle began for us. Lying flat on the ground, scratching trenches in the sand, then up again onto the transports and moving on. Sometimes opening fire with all weapons at sand-coloured targets. They too were wandering like sleepwalkers on the dusty horizon. I didn’t shoot. The bazooka was slung over my shoulder all the time but the bombs were tucked away under one of the seats. I sat there huddled, the helmet over my face, turning myself into something inert, an object without will, a lifeless creature, only at intervals looking out at the nearby scene, the endless, never-changing desert. Our unit was changing all the time, d
isbanding and regrouping. The boy-commander had been killed, another, an older officer, had taken over. The half-track broke down, they put us aboard another. Changes all the time, handing us over to somebody new, taking us away from him. Sometimes under bombardment, short or prolonged, hiding our heads in the sand. But advancing, that much was clear. Men trying to whip up enthusiasm. Victory, the breakthrough, at last. But a hard, bitter victory. One evening we arrived at an important field headquarters. We were set to guard a staff officer who was sitting among a dozen radio sets, surrounded by wires and receivers. A tired man, his eyes narrowed by long days without sleep, sitting on the ground, taking up receiver after receiver with endless patience and fearful slowness, in a sleepy voice, sending out orders to faraway units. All night we sat around him. I tried to follow his conversations, to understand the course of the battle, but it seemed that matters were growing always more complicated. In the morning twilight, in a brief lull, I plucked up my courage and approached him, asking when he thought the war would be over. He looked at me with a fatherly smile and in that same sleepy voice, very slowly, he began to speak of a long war, a matter of months, perhaps even of years. Then he picked up a receiver and in a weary voice gave the order for an assault.

  Now the young men around me were beginning to look like me. Ageing prematurely. Hair white with dust, beards unkempt, faces wrinkled, eyes sunken through lack of sleep. Here and there, bandages around filthy heads. Already we could see in the distance the sparkling waters of the canal. They ordered us down from the transports and set us digging deep into the ground, each man his own grave.

  And then I heard the singing. Chanting, prayer, live voices, not from the transistor. It wasn’t yet light, just the first flutterings of dawn. Shivering with cold, wrapped in our blankets, wet with dew, we woke up to find three men dressed in black with side curls and beards, leaping and dancing, singing and clapping hands, like some well-trained dance troupe. They came closer, touching us with warm, thin hands, rousing us from our sleep. They came to cheer us up, to restore our faith, sent by their yeshiva to circulate among the troops, to give out prayer books, to bind tefillin on the young men.