Don't Ask Me If I Love

by Amos Kollek

  He seemed to be moving extremely slowly, raising his rifle and aiming it at me, and I jammed the magazine in, starting to fire almost at the same instant and still knowing remotely that it wouldn’t do.

  His finger crawled slowly to the trigger and pulled and then his face became a mask of blood and the eyes disappeared, but he was still kneeling there like before, with the rifle squeezed in his hands. I felt a sharp, cutting pain at my side and I staggered slowly down with my limbs going numb. I was still shooting aimlessly when I hit the ground.

  Part Three

  JOY

  Chapter Sixteen

  EVERYONE was wearing white. The color was ubiquitous. Only the people’s faces that floated in it, vague and far away, were different. Pretty girls came in and out, carrying different objects, and they never said a word. Sometimes I tried to move because I wanted to get up and take a look at the place but my muscles wouldn’t obey me. And after a while, everything would fade away and then I didn’t feel anything at all.

  Something was coming back to me slowly making its way into the back of my head as if it was in no hurry to put in an appearance. I opened my eyes with an effort and stared straight ahead of me.

  “Assaf?”

  It took me a few seconds to focus my eyes on the figure towering about me. Then she became clear.

  “Asaaf,” my mother said again, leaning forward anxiously in her chair and staring at my face with her quiet, sad eyes.

  “What?”

  The word didn’t come out because there seemed to be nothing but dryness in my mouth. I wet my lips with my tongue and swallowed hard and then I said the word again. This time even I could hear it.

  “What?”

  “How do you feel? she asked anxiously.

  “O.K.”

  “You’re fine. The doctor said you’re fine.”

  I raised my eyebrows, wetting my lips again.

  “You were operated on this morning,” she said distinctly, leaning a bit closer. “There were no complications at all.”

  She smiled at me reassuringly.

  “What?” I said, feeling very dizzy, closing my eyes for a moment. “What?”

  “You were hit in your left side,” she said, “near the stomach, but it didn’t hurt anything vital. That was lucky.”

  I closed my eyes again, feeling helplessly tired. The world was coming to me in small red points out of a black space.

  “You rest now,” a voice said somewhere in the dark. “Take it easy, there is nothing to worry about.”

  The next time I woke up it was evening, and it was different. I didn’t feel so utterly weak and I knew where I was. My mother was still sitting in the same place in her chair, looking at me with her sad quiet eyes.

  “Hey,” she said looking away at someone who wasn’t me, “he’s awake.”

  I made an effort to move my head in the direction of her gaze but it was not necessary. My father, in a black evening suit and wearing a light blue silken tie that matched the color of his eyes, got up and moved urgently to the foot of my bed. The hand holding the newspaper dropped to his side.

  I was surprised to see him stare at me with the same anxious look I had seen on my mother’s face. It was the first time that I found any similarity between the two of them. It bewildered me.

  “Well,” my father said. He cleared his throat. “How do you feel?”

  “Fine,” I said, my voice coming more smoothly, “thanks.”

  He licked his lips.

  “Well,” he said again and smiled, a bit nervously, “I am glad to hear that.”

  I wanted to say I was sorry if I had kept him from something important but I didn’t. Instead, I felt my mouth twisting in the beginnings of a smile.

  “Thanks,” I said again.

  “You were pretty lucky, it seems,” he said. “I hear it was a pretty close thing.”

  He loosened his tie and opened the top button of his white shirt.

  “Bloody hot in here, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Sure,” my mother said, smiling pleasantly, “it is summer.”

  They looked at me with their plastered, uncertain, expressions. I drew my hand carefully from underneath the sheet and touched my forehead. It wasn’t difficult at all.

  Then a young nurse came in. She had short blond hair and painted green eyes. She was very pretty. She carried a small tray with a glass of water and three colorful pills.

  “So, he is finally up,” she said deeply, as if addressing an audience from a stage. “You sure can sleep.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Well,” she said, looking from me to my parents and back, “this will help you sleep some more. Here.” She hooked her body over me, nearly touching my face with her heavy bosom, and offered the pills and water to my mouth. “Take these like a good boy.”

  I took them like a good boy, and leaned back on my pillows. All three of them grinned happily at me.

  “How long is it going to take.” I asked the pretty nurse.

  “What?”

  “How long do I have to stay here?”

  “Oh”—she waved her hand, dismissing my question—”probably three weeks or so, you’ll be out before you know it.”

  “And I’ll be perfectly all right?” I asked.

  “Sure,” she said, “you’ll be perfectly all right, probably even better than before.” She laughed lightly and went on, “Of course you’ll have a souvenir, a scar, but I guess you won’t mind that.”

  I felt the sweat running in a cold thin stream on my warm back, and on the palms of my hands.

  “How big?” I asked her.”

  “What? The scar?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. Then she held up her hand. “Something like this, maybe.”

  I looked at her hand. It was thin, pale, and delicately shaped. It seemed monstrous to me.

  I closed my eyes and had an exaggerated nightmare vision of a permanently gaping wound. I felt sick. I felt like vomiting! I wanted to wake up from a dream and find myself somewhere else. Me with a scar. A defect, like a cripple. I hated cripples.

  “There is nothing wrong with a scar,” the pretty nurse was saying. I opened my eyes. “There is nothing wrong with it.”

  I thought she had winked at me, but I was not sure.

  “Actually, they say it’s very sexy.”

  My mother cleared her throat. We all looked at her. She seemed slightly embarrassed.

  “Lots of people have asked me to give you their regards,” she said cheerfully. “I don’t think you want me to mention all of them.”

  “No. Tell them thanks.”

  “There’s a radio here,” she said. “You can listen to it any time you want since there is no one else in the room, and here are a few books we have collected.”

  She pointed to the night table.

  “I brought you the new Alistair MacLean,” my father said. “It just came out. It’s very good.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Our eyes met and locked. He still had that anxious searching look and for a moment I forgot the scar and I just felt good.

  “It will be the first thriller I’ve read in hard cover,” I said.

  “I’ll be seeing you,” the pretty nurse said and walked out of the room.

  “Thank you,” my mother said quietly to the retreating figure.

  “This is Tel Hashomer Hospital, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Yes,” my mother said.

  “So I’m in Tel Aviv,” I said.

  “It seemed to be less crowded here right now,” my mother said. “That’s why.”

  “I guess we could get you transferred to Jerusalem,” my father said. “I guess it could be arranged.”

  “No, no, what for?”

  “Well,” my mother said, “I think we should let you rest a bit, so unless there is something you want …”

  They both looked at me expectantly.

  “I am fine, thanks.”

&nbs
p; “I’ll come back tomorrow morning,” my mother said.

  “There is really no need to …” I started, knowing it was pointless.

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Well,” my father said, “take it easy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Take care,” my mother said.

  “Sure.”

  They walked to the door.

  “Well, so long.”

  “Yeah.”

  When they were out, I pulled the sheet off and took a look. There wasn’t much to see. I was covered with thick, white bandages from my hip to my chest. I didn’t feel anything.

  I put the sheet down and pulled it up to my chin.

  Three weeks, I thought, in this hospital in Tel Aviv.

  Then I thought of Joy.

  I read a lot of books. There wasn’t much else to do. I was not allowed to get out of bed. My mother came to visit a lot. In the beginning she came every day, until I managed to persuade her that it wasn’t necessary. Finally she agreed to come only every two or three days, but she seemed hurt. I was sorry about it, I didn’t want to hurt her. Almost nobody else came to visit me and it occurred to me suddenly that I had hardly any friends. Gad came twice, but that was all.

  On Friday, seven days after my operation, I had a new visitor. Quite late in the morning a tall, lean, dirty figure in uniform walked into my room carrying a big candy box. The straw-haired lieutenant with his boyish face and freckles tossed the box carefully over to my bed and sat comfortably on the chair beside me, stretching out his legs with childish delight.

  “That’s from the platoon,” he said, referring to the chocolates.

  “The money was especially collected. I had to look high and low for a candy store. They all seem to have disappeared.”

  “I am sorry about that, Lieutenant,” I said.

  “At ease,” he said with some amusement. “You don’t have to be formal with me, Sergeant, now that we are on leave.”

  I opened the box and picked out a piece of chocolate.

  “Help yourself,” I said, placing it in my mouth.

  “Sure.”

  He leaned forward and took one, and then stretched comfortably again. He looked around the room.

  “Looks like you’re not doing so bad here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You have regards from everybody. They all had to stay. On duty, that is,” he grinned, “except me. That’s why nobody else came.”

  I couldn’t think of anyone whom I would have expected to come, but it sounded nice just the same.

  “Was there any mail for me?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” he said after a thought, “I would have known if there would have been anything. Definitely.”

  “All right.”

  The pretty nurse came into the room. She held a thermometer in her hand.

  “Good morning,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  She passed by the lieutenant and walked over to me. She leaned over and put the thermometer into my mouth and took my wrist in her pale, delicate hand. As she passed him, the lieutenant pulled back his feet and stiffened in his chair. The pretty nurse looked at her watch.

  “Maybe you want to take my pulse rate too,” the lieutenant said.

  “I am sure there is no need to,” she told him.

  “How has it been since I left?” I asked the lieutenant.

  “Nothing,” he said. “There’s been nothing going on since you’ve left. Not a thing. Been real quiet.”

  “So you’re through in a week?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What do you do then? Go back to your wife and kids?”

  He threw his head back and laughed.

  “No,” he said, “only to my mother.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes,” he said, “my mother likes me.”

  “But where are you from?”

  “Tel Aviv.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I said. “Just don’t say you’re studying political science in the University of Tel Aviv.”

  He looked a bit surprised.

  “Actually, that’s almost accurate,” he said apologetically, “but I don’t take it so seriously, just drive there for a couple of hours a day or so. I’m quite lazy.”

  “You have a car?”

  He nodded.

  “Listen,” I said, looking at him carefully, “Do you think you could come here with your car next Friday, after you’re through, sometime in the evening, and bring me my uniform? I’d like to pay a call on someone.”

  The lieutenant scratched his chin.

  “Yes,” he said, “I guess so.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. “When are you supposed to check out?”

  “More than two weeks.”

  “I see,” he said.

  I took another candy from the box. He got to his feet.

  “So, I’ll be going. See you around eight in a week.”

  “Thanks. Don’t you dare get shot before then. Don’t even think about it.”

  “I wouldn’t let a friend down,” he said. He picked a few candies from the box and walked to the door.

  “Hey, did I kill the sonofabitch?”

  “Yes,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “He was pretty dead, I’d say.”

  “See you.”

  He disappeared behind the door.

  During the following week I began to feel a lot better. They removed the huge bandages from my body and left me with a relatively small one just covering the wound.

  When they took the bandages off for the first time I saw my scar. I had been afraid to look, and seeing it for the first time nauseated me.

  It seemed huge, and disgustingly red.

  The doctor saw the expression on my face. He was a short powerful man in his late forties and rather quick and gentle for someone of his physique.

  “It won’t always look like that.” he said to me. “The color will go and it will show much less, but it will take time.”

  I managed to stop staring at the long red stain for a moment.

  “Yes,” I said.

  The nurse placed the fresh, white bandage over the wound and carefully attached it to the skin of my stomach with new brown bands of tape.

  “There you are,” she said happily.

  Welcome Quasimodo, I thought to myself when the whole lot of them finally left the room. But then I told myself. “Don’t be such a big fat sissy. So what’s wrong with a scar, anyway. It doesn’t look so nice, that’s all.

  I was looking forward to Friday evening, wondering if the lieutenant would show up yet never really doubting it.

  My father came to visit two more times. The first time he seemed a bit embarrassed and said he was anxious to hear my opinion about the book he had brought me. I said it was smashing, which it was. That broke the ice.

  On Friday afternoon after my mother had gone back to Jerusalem, leaving me with a heap of magazines and a small electric fan, I got carefully out of bed and paced slowly around the room. I felt quite good. I had some pains when I walked or even just stood, but they were bearable. I felt a lot stronger than I had a week before.

  After a while I got tired and sat down on the bed. I unbuttoned my shirt and removed the bandage. I looked at the scar. It was still red and ugly. In a way it fascinated me; it had a hypnotic power.

  Suddenly I was aware that someone else was in the room and I looked up quickly, letting my shirt fall back over the healing wound.

  The pretty nurse stood not far away. She had a peculiar expression on her face. I blushed deeply. I replaced the bandage nervously and buttoned the shirt. She still had the same peculiar expression on her face; I couldn’t figure out what it meant, but I didn’t like it. I was aware that I still could not control my blushing.

  She shook her head slowly. I suddenly realized that the expression on h
er face might signify pity.

  “You are a fool,” she said quietly. “If that upsets you so much.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Look at all the soldiers around here who’ve lost hands and feet and God knows what. What’s so terrible about a scar? Especially, when it’s not on your face?”

  I still didn’t answer. My brain wasn’t functioning at all.

  She came a step closer, never moving her angel-like blue eyes from my face.

  “It shouldn’t matter, anyway,” she said quietly, but her face flushed a bit, “unless you force it to matter.”

  I tried to think of something to say to show that I wasn’t really that type of a guy, but I couldn’t even manage to smile. I just sat like a statue.

  Then Udi, Ram’s brother, knocked on the half-open door and walked into the room.

  “Hullo,” he said, looking from one to the other of us. “I hope I am not interrupting you.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I am glad to see you.”

  I moved my eyes away from the pretty nurse and gave him a weak smile.

  “Take it easy, that’s all,” she said. She went over to my bed and placed three pills on the night table.

  “I am going off duty now,” she said. “I hope I can trust you with these.”

  “Well,” I said to Udi, “long time no see.”

  “I see you are O.K.,” he said, in a very grown-up voice. “My mother urged me to visit you. She sends her regards.”

  “Thanks, sit down.”

  He did.

  “We only heard about it three days ago,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “Done any writing lately?”

  I realized that I hadn’t thought about my writing for a long time.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You’ll probably get a chance to see something by this author—there should be a book out pretty soon. Fact is, I clean forgot about it.”

  “I trust you’ll get me an autographed copy?” he asked, lighting a cigarette. That struck me as strange, Ram never smoked.

  He stayed an hour and asked a lot of questions and made me talk a lot too, though I didn’t have much to tell him. He had a girl friend, he said, and was doing badly at school, but otherwise no news. I said, well, girl friends are always news, is she pretty? So-so he said and laughed, but she’s cute. So who cares?