Don't Ask Me If I Love (21 page)

I walked in and sat on the vacant bench beside her.

“Hello,” I said.

“Good morning.”

She looked at me and smiled briefly; then she went on Writing.

“Let's go and sit on the lawn,” I said to her when the bell rang again forty minutes later.

“All right.”

We settled ourselves on the stone bench by the strange, gray statue by Henry Moore. Ruthi didn't want to mess up her dress sitting on the grass. It was the best one she had with her in Jerusalem.

“It's getting hot again,” she said, looking up at the sky.

“Yes, it'll soon be March.”

“I love the spring.”

“How are you getting along?” I asked.

“I'm O.K.”

After a while her mouth twisted with slight bitterness and she said, “With so many young men I know dying, somehow my father's death doesn't affect me as much.”

She took a pair of dark glasses out of her bag and put them on.

“I know it sounds horrid, but it's true.”

“What will you be living on?”

Through the dark glasses I couldn't see her eyes.

“That is not a problem.”

“Please, tell me.”

“My father was a civil servant,” she said. “I have his pension, and I have a job now, here at the university.”

“Your mother is dead?”

She shook her head.

“No. They were divorced, years ago, and she married again.”

“You see her?”

She shrugged.

“Sometimes. I visit, sometimes, not too often. I don't like her husband.”

“Look,” I said, cutting a few grass leaves with my nails and dropping them through my fingers, “if there is anything I can do, I'd like to do it.”

A smile crept over her lips.

“Thank you,” she said, “but there is really nothing. Anyway, I will probably be getting married soon, so in any case, that should settle me.”

She looked up to the sky again.

“That captain?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“O.K.,” I said. “It's O.K. then.”

“I guess I've gotten used to professional patriots,” she said. “I do like you quite a lot,” she added, “but we don't have much in common. It's a lucky thing, probably, that we didn't get closer.”

“O.K.,” I repeated, “but send me an invitation.”

She took her glasses off.

“I will.”

Farther away, a bell started ringing.

“Well, I have to go.”

She got up and arranged her dress properly on her hips.

“Good luck,” I said, remaining seated. “See you around.”

“So long.”

I looked after her as she walked away and then got up and went to the car, relieved. I drove home, planning to start writing the full version of the book.

When I entered the house, closing the door quietly behind me, my mother appeared in the hall, coming from the kitchen.

“Assaf,” she said, “who was that girl who came here last night?”

“A friend.”

“American?”

“Yes.”

“She seemed nice,” she said cautiously. “Very pretty.”

“That's right.”

I started for the stairs.

“O.K., Mom.”

“Why don't you ask her over for dinner on Friday?”

“Don't want to,” I said over my shoulder.

“Assaf!”

She didn't raise her voice, but it was edgy and tense. I turned and looked back. Her face was sad and upset. An uneasy feeling came over me. I hesitated, then started climbing the stairs again.

“Yes?”

“You live in this house,” she said, her large brown eyes peering at me from a pale face. “You can't just ignore us any time you want to.”

“For heaven's sake, what's that got to do with the girl? I don't know what you want.”

“I'd like to know the people you associate with,” she said. “You are so closed, so far away, I never know what you do or think.”

I shut my eyes and opened them again.

“I'm just hanging around. It's not that interesting.”

“That's all you ever say,” she said softly, and then to my astonishment, she added, “like father, like son, they think they don't owe anyone except themselves anything.”

I leaned on the railing and gazed at her. She looked down at the floor and raised her hand automatically to smooth her graying hair. I saw the small blue number on her arm and sudden nausea came over me. I leaned more heavily forward and took a deep breath. Suddenly I couldn't stand the sadness in the dark eyes. I knew I didn't understand it, but I wished it would go away. It had always been there and I didn't know what I could do about it and I looked past her into the wide, empty hall.

“All right,” I heard myself saying, “Friday night, then. I hope she will come.”

I didn't want to bring Joy there. I wanted to have her for myself. I didn't want to share her.

My mother looked at me and smiled.

“I'll have something good cooked,” she said almost vivaciously. “It will be nice having a young girl over.”

“Yes,” I said uncertainly.

I turned and continued up the stairs.

I brought Joy home around eight o'clock on Friday night.

I extended the invitation with a remarkable lack of enthusiasm, but she was rather pleased.

“I am eager to meet your parents,” she said happily. “I think it's charming of your mother to invite me.”

“She is just curious to see what evil I'm up to,” I said irritably. “There is nothing charming about it. In fact, charm has nothing to do with it.”

“Don't be like that,” she said airily. “It's a pleasant thing for a young, lonely girl like me to have somebody take an interest in her. You wouldn't understand.”

“I do. I'm just not sure that I approve.”

“So who cares? And I am anxious to meet your father. I've heard a lot about him. He must be interesting.”

“Yes. He's great.”

“You're dumb,” she said joyfully, tying a blue ribbon in her blond hair and looking at herself critically in the mirror, “but I don't care.”

When we arrived, I led her to the living room and introduced her to my parents. My mother smiled at her warmheartedly and said how pleased she was to have her there and Joy said something similar, though in a more reserved manner.

My father said, “Hello,” and went on reading his paper and it was one of the rare times I stopped to notice how indifferent he was to people. I was so used to it I hardly ever noticed any more, but I went cold with fury, seeing Joy's face growing red with insult as she took a chair opposite him and directed her gaze toward her long, polished fingernails. She was wearing one of her white dresses again and looked very beautiful, especially when she blushed. I cursed myself for bringing her home.

My mother stood hesitantly at the door, staring at the three of us, and then she said the food would be ready in a few minutes and she excused herself. We remained sitting there, each in his big chair, no one saying a word.

After a few moments of silence, my mother came in with trays and dishes and asked us to come eat.

Joy got up and walked to the table, and stood looking at the candles with a blank expression. I went over and stood close to her, rubbing the skin of my lips against my teeth. We waited for a few minutes till my father finished reading his article and joined us at the head of the table. Then my mother lit the candles and we all sat down. We started eating. When she had said she was going to give us a good meal my mother was telling no lie. Joy sat quietly and ate with elegant table manners while my father and I stuffed in the food like two starved wolves.

My mother ate slowly, looking at Joy for a long time, and smiling at her over her plate.

“Have you been here long?” she asked her.

“Almost six months.”

“Like it?”

“Yes, this is a good country,” Joy said.

“Your family did not come?”

“No.”

“Prefer the States?” my mother offered, smiling with understanding.

“Yes. They are Americans.”

My father swallowed a mouthful of wine, paying no visible attention.

“Yes, of course,” my mother said uncertainly.

“They like their country,” Joy said.

“Yes,” my mother said slowly. “But it's really a question of where one feels one belongs.”

Then my mother caught herself and paused.

“I'm sorry,” she said, “I did not mean to offend you.”

“You didn't. It's perfectly all right.”

There was a short silence and they both ate. My father had finished long before.

My mother put her fork and knife neatly on the side of her empty plate and looked up again.

“So you are a new immigrant?” my mother continued.

“Don't let it upset you,” I said to Joy. “This is part of the show, but the food is reasonable.”

My father smiled at his glass.

“It's O.K.,” Joy told me, and turning back to my mother, she said: “No, I'm a tourist.”

Mother touched her cheek absent-mindedly with the tip of her finger.

“But you will settle, I guess.”

“I don't know,” Joy said patiently. “You see, I am not Jewish.”

I put my hand on the neck of the bottle and poured some wine into my glass. My mother was silent for a moment. Looking at her, I thought, What the hell is going on here? She can't be that stupid. My father was watching the two women with interest, his pale blue eyes moving slowly from one to the other.

“This is what they call a tense moment in the cinema,” I commented drily.

My mother blushed.

“Excuse me,” she said to Joy sincerely. “I was just a little bit surprised, that's all.”

“I am sorry if I upset you,” Joy said calmly, never moving her eyes from the older woman's face.

“Nonsense,” my father said, and drank some more.

“I'll bring the dessert,” my mother said, smiling hollowly. She got up and walked out of the room. My father looked at Joy curiously. Their eyes met and held, and a light charming smile appeared on his face. Joy did not smile back, she just looked at him, thoughtfully.

“I wonder what brought you here?” he said finally.

“Probably you could call it curiosity, or hope,” she said.

My mother came in and put the small plates with the neatly sliced pieces of melon in front of each of us, then she sat down.

“And,” my father said, slowly raising the small fork to his mouth, “was this hope fulfilled?”

Joy was still looking at him, remote and far away.

“I don't know.”

“Probably life here seems hard for someone who comes from a rich country like America,” my mother said. “It is pretty tough sometimes, even to us, but when you have no alternative, you cling to what you have. For people who went through hell not having a country of their own, even suffering in a place where they belong, where they are home is true salvation.”

She paused and I saw Joy looking at the number tattooed on my mother's arm.

“I don't know if it's easy for everyone to understand all that.”

Joy didn't say anything more.

“Everything is relative,” I told my mother drily. “Your generation still sees this country as a miracle. To those of us who were born when it was already here and made, it doesn't look so fantastic. We can even see things that could have been better.”

“Yes,” my father said. “You cannot appreciate anything, you just think you deserve everything.”

“Well,” said my mother, rising, “shall we sit on the terrace? It's very hot tonight.”

“I think I have to go,” Joy said, “if you'll excuse me.”

“Already?” my father asked.

“Yes. You have been most kind. I am grateful.”

“Can't you stay a bit longer?” my mother asked.

“I really have to go.”

Both my parents looked at me. I said nothing.

“Well, good night,” Joy said, offering her hand to my mother who took it uncertainly. She nodded politely at my father. “Thank you, good-bye.”

I walked with her through the long corridor to the front door. We went out into the garden and to the street.

I had reached the car and put the key in the door, when I noticed she wasn't by my side, and I looked around. She was walking slowly away, on the pavement.

“Hey.”

She turned and stood motionless.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

I left the car and reached her with a few quick steps. I looked at her face, and thought I could detect a thin, bitter smile.

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I'm just quitting, lollipop.”

“Didn't like the food?”

She smiled. It was quite a broad smile this time, almost a grin, but it still didn't reach her eyes, and it still was bitter.

“The food was O.K.,” she said. “I just don't like pushing myself on people. I just didn't get the feeling I belong. I don't think your parents think I belong. They are probably right. I don't think I'd have fun in their company, so I'm quitting.”

“Lollipop,” I repeated.

“That's that, I guess,” she said.

“O.K., so what are you going to do?”

“I want to be on my own until I can make up my mind, that's all.”

“All right.”

Her blue eyes gleamed in the dark, steady, and unblinking. Something heavy took a seat in my chest and stayed there.

“I'll drive you home.”

“No. I'll be on my way,” she said. “Good night.”

“I wish you wouldn't go,” I said softly.

I thought she hesitated for a moment, then she shook her head.

“I'd better,” she said and started walking away.

I looked after her. She suddenly stopped and turned back.

“Oh,” she said. “I'll send you your novel outline with my remarks. I think it's pretty good.”