by Amos Kollek
The first thing that happened, after I got off the truck in the military prison near Acre, was that I got a haircut. It was the shortest one I ever had, but there were not many mirrors in the jail. That made it less effective.
I didn’t have a bad time there. It gave me a peculiar pleasure that I wouldn’t have normally expected to get from such a place. I like the rough treatment of the military policemen who served as jailers. I acted rough toward them, too. They were for the most part poorly educated men of low intelligence. I liked listening to their conversations with the prisoners and among themselves. It gave me an undisturbed sense of superiority.
Life in a military prison is not very hard for soldiers who are there for the first time. The jailers wait for your next term in before they really start giving you a bad time. I had no intention of being there for a second term. I would have found it hard to get locked up again even if I wanted to. I hadn’t any more soldiering to do. My service was over. Except for those thirty-five days.
The days passed while I peeled potatoes and washed the huge pots, or did various odd jobs. We fixed the long wire fence, and removed the stones and dirt that the MPs would manage to find. It was fun because I had no obligation to like anyone or pretend to like anyone. They didn’t expect you to be friendly to the other prisoners or to the jailers. You didn’t have to justify any feelings of dissatisfaction to yourself. You were not supposed to be satisfied.
Sometimes we went on marches. That was the part I liked best of all. The MPs would come along with us, because we were not free men. Marching was supposed to be a form of punishment. It was supposed to be hard on us. But the jailers had to come along too. And it was no fun for them. Recruits in the Military Police Corps don’t get a lot of physical training, and they have almost none at all once they finish their three months of initial training. The marches were no holiday for our jailers. When we really got going they would be left behind breathless.
I had little time to think, and I avoided it whenever I could. I made no plans, and I didn’t count the days that passed. There didn’t seem to be a lot to look forward to. I couldn’t figure out anything I would like doing, once I got home.
It was that way for the first three weeks.
My attitude changed during my last days in prison.
One of my tent mates was a big, dark Yemenite, from the tank corps. I had never talked to him, but I watched him often, because he smiled constantly, showing pearly white teeth in his darkly tanned face.
His smile irritated me.
“What makes you so happy, brother?”
I was surprised when I started talking to him one evening after we had our meal. I hadn’t intended to talk to anyone. I liked being closed up within myself. I didn’t care about making friends or enemies.
“I’m thinking,” he said, smiling, “and my thoughts make me smile.”
I sat down on the bunk opposite him.
O.K. boy, you did your piece of talking for the day, now go to sleep.
“Maybe you could treat me to some of your thoughts. I’d like smiling.”
He shook his head, grinning slackly at me.
“No you wouldn’t. Your kick is frowning.”
That took me completely by surprise, and I burst out laughing.
“How did you work that out?”
He shrugged.
“That’s as obvious as the Russians in Egypt. That’s probably why you are here.”
A wise guy, I thought bitterly to myself. What do you know?
“Why are you here? Because you like smiling?”
“No.” He had a calm, deep, caressing voice. “Because I was stupid. That is why I’m smiling, probably.”
I stared at him.
“Why are you here?” I repeated, irritated by my interest. “I mean what did you do?”
“I struck my squad commander,” he said still smiling, “twice on both cheeks. It made them red,” he added.
I believed that. With those thick, brown arms, he couldn’t have been weak.
“A new soldier, huh?”
“Four months. Fresh meat.”
“Not a good way to start.”
“No.”
There was a silence.
I waited for him to ask what I was in for, but he just sat there, motionless.
Behind us, a cigarette passed from hand to hand. One of the soldiers, a driver, was telling about his different romantic adventures. He probably added a few. Drivers in the army usually have remarkable imaginations. There were many of them in our tent.
“I was relatively impolite to a major,” I said. “I wasn’t treating him so good.”
The big Yemenite nodded.
“That probably wasn’t a clever thing to do, either.”
Now I smiled.
“But I don’t have two years and eight months ahead of me.”
“That doesn’t make any difference. Civilian life is not basically different from the army. Wherever you are, you never gain anything by becoming a loser. When you punish yourself, you don’t punish the world.” He smiled softly. “You just punish yourself.”
Simple, I thought reluctantly, isn’t it?
“You worked it out, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said earnestly. “I had time to work it out. It wasn’t hard. When you have to do something that implies either winning or losing, you’d better win.” He raised his hand to his mouth and yawned. “You should try it once.”
A small, vicious dwarf was hammering painfully way up in the back of my head. I couldn’t stop him. I had no power over him.
“Why did you slap him?”
“Who, the squad commander? He gave me an extra four hours of guard duty. That was after I had already done four hours. He said I was a good color for being on duty at night. That was probably the only thing my color was good for, he added.”
I whistled softly.
“That’s very strange,” I said, “I never heard of any other such incident. They are usually pretty decent in the army.”
“I know,” he said. “That was why I hit him. That was also why it was wrong.”
“I see,” I said, wondering
“I’ll be out tomorrow,” he said.
I looked up at him. I didn’t say a word.
“A waste of time, this place,” he said.
The hammering in the back of my head stopped gradually. There were only single, occasional dim knocks.
“I’ll get myself some sleep,” he said.
“Yes.”
Lying on my bunk that night, I saw it all clearly in my head. There was no vagueness or uncertainty about it, at all. It had been there all along, I thought. There wasn’t any other way. You could make the best out of your world, or the worst. But have it the way you want it, as far as you can.
The people around me here, I thought, those who laughed, those who cursed and those who were silent, they didn’t rebel against anything, they had no cause. They were just too stupid to keep out of trouble. There is nothing in the world, I thought, deeper than what you can taste or feel, smell or see. You can only take what you can grasp in your hand.
The cards are against you, you can see that. You are only what you are. That’s why you can’t accept it.
Only way is, win as much as you can, as long as you can.
Make the best out of it.
The book, I thought, that was the first thing to do. That, and Joy. But first the book.
It will be a quick way to ascend. Just write it the right way. It shouldn’t be difficult. There will be no need to search for a story. It’s right there, inside you. I could see all of it in the crystal clearness of my mind. It was simple.
From then on I started counting the days to my release. It made the time go slower.
I left the prison after thirty-two days. They had taken off the days I had been in the guardroom in the camp. One day was for traveling.
Three days afterward, I was discharged from the army.
Part Two
ASS
AF
Chapter Six
I was lifting weights in my room, when my mother knocked carefully on the door.
“Yeah?”
“Dinner is ready,” she said softly, not opening the door.
“O.K.”
“Will you come down?” she asked softly.
“In a minute.”
“All right.”
I heard her retreating footsteps.
Everybody around was talking to me softly, ever since my homecoming three weeks before. Even my father was patient and rather pleasant. I occasionally caught him exchanging meaningful looks with my mother who was quieter and more tolerant than ever. There was a tense expression on their faces whenever they spoke to me. I thought that maybe they were worried.
I spent almost all of my time in my room, behind an ever closed door. I had a portable typewriter and a pile of white, smooth sheets of paper lying on my desk. They had remained white and smooth throughout the three weeks, except those that had been crumpled and tossed into the wastebasket. I found it hard to get started. I couldn’t concentrate. I did a lot of physical exercise. I specialized in weights. I worked with them for a few hours every day. It was an effective way of releasing energy.
I was supposed to be in the university for those three weeks. The year had started officially on the twenty-fourth of October, four days before I got out of prison. My mother had signed me up for economics, after she and my father had had a long talk. I didn’t want to go to the university. I didn’t care about economics. I wanted to write my novel. But I didn’t do that either.
I put on a red, flowery shirt and looked at the mirror. My hair had almost reached its normal length again. I intended to let it grow a lot longer.
I kicked my tennis shoes off and went downstairs.
My parents were already sitting at the table. My father was really coming home more than usual lately. I couldn’t remember when in the past I had had dinner with my whole family as often as in the last few weeks.
I was seeing him almost every other day.
I sat down and stared at my plate which was loaded with a large, juicy steak.
“Please, everybody start,” my mother said in her low caressing voice.
She looked at me with her sad brown eyes.
Everybody started and thought to himself that the meat was pretty good. Having meat for every meal, in the fighting State of Israel, was not bad living.
“How’s it going?” my father asked. He was chewing his piece of calf with visible pleasure.
“How’s what going?”
“How are you doing, generally?”
“Beautifully,” I said. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.
My mother lowered her eyes to her empty plate. My father straightened up in his chair and looked directly at me.
“You’d feel a lot better if you were doing something,” he said.
“I’m playing with weights,” I said, “probably too much.”
I rolled up my right sleeve, and contracted a muscle.
“See?”
He switched back to eating after giving my mother a brisk look that meant “I did my best, didn’t I?”
About an hour later, when I was doing my exercises to the beat of some hip music that blared from the radio, he knocked on the door and walked into my room without waiting for an invitation. He turned off the radio and sat down on the chair near my desk.
“O.K.” he said. “Sit down, relax and let’s talk.”
I shrugged; “Well, why not?”
I went and sat on the floor at the other end of the room.
I looked at him. He was staring back at me, lighting himself a big Havana cigar, self-assured and at ease. As always, I felt respect, despite myself.
“Look,” he said finally, puffing a big cloud of smoke, “tell me what you have in mind, and I’ll tell you what I have in mind, and then let’s see if we can find a way to make the two work together.”
“I don’t have much in mind, right now.”
He took the cigar out of his mouth and stared at me.
“Let’s not waste time,” he said curtly.
It was then that he really got to me. Hadn’t I made up my mind to win? Why waste time? One, two, three, go.
“I haven’t got it so clear in my head yet, but I want to be a writer, and I want to make movies. Those two can probably interact well. It’s possible I will want to go into politics one day but that day hasn’t arrived yet. I don’t like the business, and I don’t feel that sociable, either.”
“O.K.,” he said. “ I have nothing against your writing or making movies. Meanwhile you might as well start studying. It never hurts to learn. When you have a clear plan with which studying interferes, or with which you might need help, come to me and we’ll talk.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you kindly, sir.”
His eyes fell on the typewriter in front of him.
“Have you started anything?”
“No.”
He returned the cigar to his mouth.
“Does what I say make sense to you?”
“You always make sense.”
“Yes, I make my living that way,” he said. “So we have an agreement?”
“Why not?”
He got to his feet and walked to the door.
“O.K., then, I’ll be seeing you.”
Don’t make it sound so much like a threat, I thought.
He walked out, leaving a gray cloud of smoke behind him.
Actually what he had suggested did sound reasonable. Studying wouldn’t have to take more than a couple of hours a week. Except for exams. It was worth spending those few hours to keep everyone warm and happy. What’s wrong with having a B.A. or an M.A. or a Ph.D. anyway? Might even come in handy.
I picked up the car and took a ride around town. There were a lot of girls in the streets and some of them looked pretty good. At least from a distance. The image of Joy popped to my mind but I tried not to think about her.
“You might even fall for her,” I warned myself.
You can’t afford to let yourself fall for anyone.
The only way is to play it cool, just like in the movies.
Then you’ve got a chance.
Maybe.
I was going through Katamon at fifty miles an hour when a girl waved at me. Katamon is one of the poorer sections of the city. It is inhabited mainly by people who came from North Africa or the Arab countries. It is considered lower class and undesirable by the Europeans. But then girls don’t have to be high society for what I wanted. I stopped the car, slamming hard on the brakes and nearly running her over.
“Yes, doll.”
I put on my mechanical, meaningless smile.
She was full and pretty and vulgar-looking, but I liked her. I thought she would make a good screw.
“Going to town?” she asked.
I stuck my head out of the window so that it almost touched the full breasts that were stuffed into her cheap, red dress.
“Anywhere you say, doll.”
She laughed.
“You’re funny.”
She walked around and stepped into the car.
I stepped on the gas.
“What’s your name?”
“Zehava.”
“Beautiful.”
Zehava, in Hebrew, is similar to Goldilocks, but only dark girls carry this name, for some strange reason.
“I am Assaf.”
“You’re from Jerusalem?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Never seen you around.”
“Yeah, that’s too bad, isn’t it? Any special reason you want to go to town, doll?”
She giggled.
The perfume she wore hadn’t been imported from Paris but it was very strong, so it made its point just the same.
“Going to visit a girl friend. Why do you ask?”
“Well, how about you and me going for a beautiful ride, and the hell with your girl friend?”
“Like where?”
she asked.
“Oh? Out of town, doll. Doesn’t matter. This being a warm, dreamlike night, and with the moon full and all that.”
“You’re funny,” she said again.
“No, I am poetic. But not funny, doll.”
“All right,” she said, leaning back in her seat, “let’s go. I like driving.”
I know, sister.
I drove the car through the outskirts of town and then out. She worked as a hairdresser eight hours a day. She adored Raquel Welch. (What an actress!) She loved dancing.
She had to share a room with her eight brothers and sisters. That was a drag.
There were many other things she told me while we were driving into the night, but I wasn’t listening. I could have guessed them all, probably, had I wanted to. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to hear her talk.
The legs that were crossed and resting neatly on the seat beside me were brown and very nice. I glanced at them from time to time, thinking that I really didn’t dislike her at all.
Actually, what did the people in my neighborhood have against Oriental Jews? They are a bit less educated on the whole. So what? That isn’t their fault, after all. Give them better schools and fewer children per family and they’ll catch up in no time. They are also a bit poorer, on the whole. Maybe more than a bit. But didn’t I hear you say that it’s not the money that makes the man, it’s not the money that really counts?
Just the soul.
Probably one of the major reasons for there being no deeper division between the European and Oriental Jews was Israel’s constant need for self-defense. You cannot divide the soldiers who fight into classes. In Israel everyone gets a fair chance to die a brave man, and that unites the people. I stopped the car on a side road and turned off the engine.
“O.K.,” I said to the girl beside me, “no need to use all the petrol.”
She stretched and didn’t say a word.
“Don’t you think it’s a terrific night?”
“It’s nice,” she allowed.
I leaned over and kissed her fashionably on the mouth. She had warm, full lips, which were quite willing and rather pleasant. After a while, her tongue started brushing my teeth and that really got me worked up. I pulled her to me and undid the buttons of her dress. I was having trouble with the hook of her bra, when she pushed me forcefully away.