Don't Ask Me If I Love (29 page)

“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 her 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?

He left after the night nurse had brought my supper tray. He said he didn't go for hospital food.

I didn't stop him; I was getting nervous about my plans for the evening.

When the night nurse came to take the tray I told her that I was tired and was going to go to sleep right away. She said she was sure it would only do me good and turned off the light as she walked out. She was a motherly type.

Half an hour later the lieutenant opened the door and stepped in. He shut it silently behind him and turned on the light. He had had to lie to the guards to get in but we didn't have any trouble getting to his car. As I climbed in I felt a penetrating pain that made me gasp, but it went away.

“You show the way,” he said.

“You've got to start the motor in any case.”

“That's true.”

“O.K., then,” I said, pressing my hand firmly on the bandage, “let's go.”

It took us twenty minutes to get to Joy's house and by that time I was sweating.

“What floor is it on?” he asked looking up at the building, as he turned the engine off.

“Roof.”

He whistled.

“Then I guess I'll be going with you, otherwise you might die on the way.”

“Now let's not exagg—”

“No arguments.”

We climbed slowly up the stairs, stopping a few times on the way. I felt increasingly tired. The lieutenant looked closely at my wet face from time to time, but he didn't say anything.

When we reached the roof he stopped and yawned. “I guess I'll leave you on your own from here on. Scream if she hits you.”

“O.K.” I smiled. “I won't be long.”

“Don't worry about that,” he said. “I've got no one prettier than my mother waiting for me. I'm not holding my breath.”

“All right.”

When I got to the familiar grey door the piece of paper with her name on it was not there. I knocked and waited.

There was no answer and no sound. I knocked again and then tried the knob but the door wouldn't open. I stood there leaning heavily on the door and breathing the fresh air into my lungs slowly and deeply. I wondered why the hell I hadn't expected this, why should any girl be home at this hour on a Friday night. No, I thought, if she were out on a date her name would still be on the door. I closed my eyes.

I walked back inside. The lieutenant was sitting on the top stair, in the dark. I could see the end of his cigarette burning.

“That was quick,” his voice was low. It barely reached me.

“Well,” I said, “let's go.”

“Wasn't in?”

“Uh uh.”

“Don't want to maybe hang around for a while and wait?” he asked.

“No. What the hell for? Looks like she doesn't live here any more anyway.”

“Ah,” he said, as if that was what he had expected all along. He showed no signs of moving.

“O.K.,” I said angrily, “let's go back.”

“Paratroopers never go back,” he said solemnly. “Didn't I ever tell you that? I thought you might want to ask the landlord if he knows where she's gone.”

I was surprised that the idea hadn't occurred to me. It seemed so obvious.

“I don't know where the landlord lives,” I said weakly. It's a big house.”

“Oh, don't be stupid,” he said with disgust.

He started going down the stairs; I walked after him.

He knocked on the first door we reached. An old man wearing a white shirt and a neatly pressed suit opened the door. He peered at us suspiciously.

“Good evening,” my companion said politely. “We're from the army and we're looking for the landlord.”

The old man seemed visibly relieved that we were not looking for him and immediately offered his cooperation.

“Next floor down,” he said anxiously. “Steiner. But she is a woman.”

“Thanks,” the lieutenant said.

“You're welcome,” the old man said doubtfully, and closed the door. We heard the key turn in the lock.

“Are you feeling O.K.?” the lieutenant asked as we descended to the next floor. “You are quite pale.”

“Lets see the landlady,” I said.

Mrs. Steiner turned out to be a very nice woman, indeed, and she adored soldiers. What would we all do, she said, if there were no army? We didn't answer that question. We didn't think she was expecting us to answer.

She was probably a widow, in her late sixties. She very sweetly asked us in, saying that there were always candies in her apartment for young boys like ourselves. I was getting impatient, especially since the lieutenant looked like he might not decline.

“We have no time for this,” I told him flatly, not looking at the small woman.

“We have to be back.” he explained to her. “Special mission. We are looking for the girl who used to live on the roof.”

Mrs. Steiner smiled with delight. It made her face look like a moon.

“A very sweet girl,” she said.

“That's the one,” I put in. “Where has she gone?”

She looked at me sadly.

“She is not here any more.”

“Any idea where she is?” I asked, from over the lieutenant's shoulder.

“No.” She shook her head mournfully. I suddenly had the terrifying feeling she might produce some large wet tears any moment.

“Thanks,” I said, and turned to go.

“But,” said the high-pitched voice from behind us, “I believe she said she was leaving the country.”

We turned back to her.

“I don't know where she went.” She looked at us apologetically.

WHEN I left the hospital a week later, I went back to my parents' house. There didn't seem to be much choice. The doctor said I still needed supervision and a lot of rest, and my mother wouldn't hear of my going anywhere else. I didn't really mind it.

I stayed there three days, being completely passive and not going out.

I didn't take any exams. I thought I could take them on the second date they were given, two months later, in September, if I wanted to.

My parents never mentioned Joy. They were cautious when they talked to me. They didn't try to push me in any way and they also didn't ask questions. They were patient. They seemed to believe that time was on their side. They just waited.

I didn't think that time was doing me any good but I just waited, too. I still believed Joy would show up or call. The phone made me nervous whenever it rang, but it was never for me.

On my third morning home, having nothing better to do, I sat down and read the first chapter of my book. The similarity between the hero's way of speaking and mine amused me. I hadn't noticed it before. One chapter ended with the remark: “What good is all that crap if you don't do what you want to?”

I stared at it for a few moments.

I went to my desk and started taking out the drawers. In the bottom one I found the small piece of paper:

Lynda Strawson
2, Arkheight Street
(Near Haverstock Hill)
London N.W. 3

Under those four lines there was an addition in a more careless hand writing:

My sister
.