Don't Ask Me If I Love (11 page)

“Maybe it's still better than taking drugs and smoking grass,” he said, “Maybe it's more meaningful.”

“Yeah, O.K.,” I said, “but those are not the only things you can do for a good time. The main thing is to be free to choose how to spend your time, so you don't have the feeling someone else is to be blamed for messing it up for you.”

“You'd rather have yourself to blame, huh?”

“Sure, I'd rather.”

“Maybe it's because you don't have the feeling that you belong.”

“Yeah. Maybe it's because I don't have the feeling that I belong. What do I belong to? I am me, that's all.”

“Well, don't worry. You have a lifetime ahead of you, and knowing you, you will probably screw it up.

“Just because I am not crazy about sacrificing myself for the benefit of my country?”

He smiled thinly.

“Not at all. Just because you're a spoiled crazy bastard.”

“Thanks.”

“Don't mention it.”

I took my helmet off and shook my hair.

“I'm going to start growing my hair now. I hate it short.”

“Put the helmet on,” he said, “you are supposed to set an example, goddammit.”

So I put it back on.

“Yeah,” I said, “that's freedom for you.”

There was a sudden burst of fire. It came from behind a line of tall, thick bushes, on the left side of the path. I threw myself automatically on the ground, feeling my heart beating faster, and at the same time hearing a remote, calm part of my brain remarking that this was a surprise, for a change. I glanced quickly back. All the soldiers were stretched on the ground, preparing to shoot. It didn't look as if anyone had been hurt.

“Spread!” I yelled. “Get under cover and shoot!”

I opened fire and rolled on the sand until I got behind a big hillock on the side of the path. I kept shooting, telling myself to be careful not to hit Ram. I had a notion he might try a private assault on the invisible enemy. I didn't see him.

At my side, the heavy machine gun started roaring, and then a bazooka shell exploded neatly on the bushes where the ambushers were hiding. It was a beautiful hit, and I heard a loud scream of agony, coming from that direction. Rotman did a good job there. Two small figures emerged from behind the bushes and started running away. The machine gun nailed them almost at once, and they fell lifeless to the sand. I studied the area intensely but didn't see anything moving. The shooting stopped and silence again prevailed. I got slowly up, half-expecting to be shot at, but nothing happened. I walked toward the bushes. There were four men lying there, dressed in khaki clothes. They were all dead, except one whose face was covered with blood but who still moved. I put a bullet in his chest and he froze in a lifeless knot on the ground. I started walking back. The rest of the soldiers were gathered on the path, and one or two of them were kneeling down. For the first time since the shooting had started, my brain was beginning to function normally. Then my thoughts froze again. I walked slowly to where the soldiers were silently standing and I looked down.

Ram's face had not changed in his death. It was calm and restful like a mask and his eyes were closed. He lay on his back, with the submachine gun still in his hand. On his shirt, near the center of his chest, a red stain was slowly growing larger.

The soldiers stood motionless around me and no one spoke. I stuck my hands in my pockets and breathed slowly and looked.

ON the morning of the last day before I was going to be released, I was lying on my bed in my room, not doing anything. I had nothing to do. For all practical purposes, I was through with the company and with the army. After our farewell party, which had been planned for the coming evening, was canceled, the C.C. told me I was free to go home. There was nothing more for me to do in the camp. I was not anxious to go home. I was in no hurry. My room seemed quite comfortable now that there were no more duties forced upon me. It was pleasant to lie down on the bed without rushing or worrying about being bothered. It was as good as a holiday. There were the long days and long nights to think and make plans and drink up the cold Coke bottles. I was having a good time.

I lay down and looked at the ceiling. I was enjoying the clarity with which my mind was operating. It was like looking into the brain of someone else and seeing all his thoughts. It was like being in space and looking down at the people on the earth, observing all their movements without being seen by them. It was an uplifting feeling. Then three fat, small officers from the engineering corps walked into the void talking loudly, gesturing widely with their hands. The smallest and fattest of them was a major, and he had already seen his best days. The other two were lieutenants. Our camp was due to undergo some reconstruction. But still, I thought, they could have come a day later. I shifted my eyes back to the ceiling, and tried to catch up with my previous train of thought, but it was running away, leaving nothing behind it.

I was still uselessly racking my mind, feeling cold and hostile, when the three men stopped by my bed and looked down at me. The fluent bubbling of their voices fell off and died completely. I welcomed the silence.

“Sergeant.”

I moved my eyes unwillingly from the ceiling to him. The major was balding and ugly, his face was distorted. He was looking at me with animosity.

“What?”

His face turned velvet red. He swallowed his Adam's apple, it disappeared behind the fat plaits under his chin.

“What?” he repeated after me.

I thought it was a stupid question and I lost interest. On the ceiling above me, a small green lizard was crawling toward the corner. I watched it curiously.

“Sergeant.”

The lizard slipped down and fell on the floor by my bed. He missed the major by inches. But then, he probably hadn't expected such a high-pitched scream.

I looked back at the elderly, plump man.

“Stand up when I talk to you,” he ordered hoarsely.

“Oh that,” I said, with a sudden towering need to laugh. “Oh that,” I repeated, smiling at him. I was beginning to enjoy myself again. “Go to hell, why don't you?”

The upshot of this was thirty-five days in military prison. It was a light penalty, considering the offense, but I had a few factors in my favor. After all, it was supposed to be my last day in the army and I had a clear record of three years of service behind me.

That hadn't been the important thing, though. What had counted, I thought, walking to the guardroom with the embarrassed sentry, feeling almost sorry for his embarrassment, was that the officer who had acted as judge in my case had been the regiment commander. The regiment commander didn't like the small fat major from the Engineering Corps. He didn't like the Engineering Corps altogether. He also didn't like fat, small officers. He was six feet three himself, and very slim. He could outrun most of his soldiers on the “white circle.” I stayed in the guardroom two days before they transferred me to the military prison. The sentry didn't lock my cell after he put me in and he didn't check to see if I really stayed there. He had been a soldier in my platoon for two months. He didn't like having me as a prisoner.

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.