Don't Ask Me If I Love (24 page)

He was fully awake now and his eyes shifted to his wrist watch, but only for a fraction of a second.

“What for?”

“There's a contract I need to discuss,” I said mildly. “I was hoping he could help with it.”

“What contract?”

“I can sell a book I wrote, a short novel. I'll need a lawyer.”

He looked down at the table.

All right, I thought, come on, ask already, you bastard. You must want to know something about it.

He raised his eyes to my face.

“O.K.,” he said. “I'll talk with him. Let me know when you need him.”

Sure, what did you expect? I thought, trying to conceal my disappointment. People are what they are, so who cares?

“Thanks, that would be fine.”

He was looking back at his papers. I got up.

“Oh, by the way.”

I stopped at the door.

“Yes?”

“I heard you ran into some policeman, a few weeks ago, on the other side of town.”

“You must be confusing me with someone else,” I said.

“No, no. It was you. Had something to do with a young man who spoke to you, in the parking lot. You hit him.”

“Oh yes, I remember. What about it?”

“It is undesirable.”

“Oh, well.”

I stepped out and closed the door softly behind me.

The next evening I went to Joy's apartment again but she was not there. It was around nine. After waiting for a few minutes, hoping for some miracle to happen, I drove to the center of town, and walked into the first cinema I found which was showing an Italian Western. Seeing everyone get shot except the hero and the girl made me feel good again, so after the movie was over I went home and sat in my room for two hours drinking Coke and listening to a dozen Sinatra records.

After one, I went to look for Joy again, but the place was dark and my constant knocking on the door brought no one out but the cats. My good mood faded away again in no time at all.

I went to sleep angry.

The next morning I went there again and after finding that she still wasn't there, I dug the landlady out of her bed. She was a fat, old religious woman, who, I could see immediately, did not approve of my existence. Her eyes went over my long hair and red shirt with naked disgust.

“Good morning,” I told her.

“What do you want?”

“The American girl downstairs, do you know where she is?”

“What do you want from her?”

It was obvious that whatever she thought I might have wanted wouldn't be something she would approve of, but I ignored that.

“I am an old friend of hers. I've got a message for her, from relatives in the States.”

She stared at me for a moment.

“She is not here any more,” she said finally.

I shifted my weight from one leg to the other.

“You mean she checked out?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

She sighed and looked up to heaven, significantly. When she came back I was still there.

“Two days ago.”

“Left any messages?”

She shook her head.

“Where did she go?”

She shook her head again.

“O.K., thanks.”

The goddam bitch, I thought.

I went to the TWA office and asked the new girl who was sitting at the desk what happened to her predecessor. She said Joy had had to quit because of troubles with her work permit. She had no idea where she had gone. She had hardly known Joy at all.

The goddam bitch, I thought.

When I came home I went to the kitchen and joined my mother who was having a late breakfast.

I buttered my toast silently, eating the dry skin off my lips.

“Whatever happened to that American girl?” she asked. “Joy, was it? I haven't seen her since.”

“She vanished.”

She looked thoughtfully at the splinters of the plate I had dropped on the floor with the butter.

“Yes, well I could have told you. Girls like that don't stay in one place long.”

“Oh, you could have told me, could you?”

“They have no roots.”

“No, they don't, do they?”

I swept the splinters and butter into my hand and dumped them into the garbage can.

“So who cares?” I asked, walking out. “I've still got you, Mother.”

At noon I found a letter addressed to me in the mailbox, but the sender was not a blond female. It was the army. I looked through it briefly: thirty-four days, bring all your military equipment, your boots, warm clothes, etc. Report at camp on May 30. At least someone wanted me.

I worked the paper into a small, shrunken ball and tossed it at the wastebasket at the other side of the room. I missed. I walked over there, picked it up, opened it and smoothed it carefully, and then put it in a drawer in my desk.

Till July 2, I thought. That's actually well timed.

The academic year ended on the twenty-eighth of June, my first exam was on the fifth of July. But still, who the hell needs the bloody army?

A few days later I signed a contract with the publishing house. I was going to get an advance of a thousand dollars, and fifty cents for each copy sold. I thought it was a good deal.

But it was going to take months before it would be out on the market and, meanwhile, life had to go on.

I started going to party meetings, young group and old group. Anything.

Another thing I started doing was speaking at those meetings. I thought, if I bother at all I might as well bother all the way, and being any duller than the rest of the speakers would have been hard. The problem was that everything had already been said thousands of times about the peace talks and the occupied territories and the Palestinian problem, and it never helped any. I didn't care for repeating those old chewed and predigested ideas. I didn't care to say anything at all.

I did pick myself a line, because if you want to make an impression you need some line, although it does not matter very much which one. I spoke for returning everything except Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in exchange for a peace treaty.

I spoke twice before small meetings of the younger group. I did it in an aggressive, mocking manner, suggesting rather clearly, that anyone who didn't agree with me just had to be awfully innocent or terribly stupid. It got to the stage where I almost enjoyed my performances. I was surprised to see that my speeches caused quite a lot of debate, and after the second one, there was even a review in the daily paper run by the party that referred to a “promising, new personality.”

I didn't think I would go far because I limited my activity to evening meetings. I couldn't take it in larger doses. In broad daylight it just looked too stupid.

My father, on the other hand, meeting me for lunch on a Friday, expressed his satisfaction with my conduct and suggested that I increase my participation. I told him there was no use in pushing. Young people were not taken seriously in politics. Maybe student riots would get some attention, but in this country, students couldn't afford them. Once people started revolting, the country couldn't hold on the way it had to. That was one thing I was sure of, and that was one reason why politics didn't appeal to me. What we actually needed, what I would have actually liked, was to change the system and rid it of the monopoly of the older generation. But we just couldn't afford it in this country. It would amount to supporting the enemy, so I didn't want to be bothered.

I was becoming fed up.

Then, one day, I got a letter from Joy.

Dear Assaf,
I have moved to the biggest town in Israel. I needed the cnange. The address is
7
Horkanos Street. Drop by if you ever feel like it
.

Sincerely,
Joy

I drove around Tel Aviv for nearly an hour trying to find the damned street, when finally a motorized policeman hunted me down for speeding.

“Are you mad, sir?” he asked me, breathing with effort. “Do you know that there are human beings living in this town and even walking in its streets?”

I turned the radio off.

“As a matter of fact,” I said, “I am looking for one of them, she lives in Horkanos Street. Would you know where that is?”

But his face was blank.

“Give me your identity card, driving license, and registration. I shall have to give you a ticket.”

That brought me back to reality.

“I did tell her we were through,” I said grimly, putting my hand in my pocket. “Still, sleeping pills are no solution. But I guess in a few minutes it will be over anyway.”

“What did you say?”

“She'll be better off that way, won't she?” I asked him anxiously. “I mean she never got much of a kick out of life, poor thing.”

“Man do you realize …”

“Do you know where it is?”

“Follow me,” he said, breathing hard again.

He mounted his motorcycle, and roared away.

After ten minutes of speed violation, we were there. I told him I would rather keep it inside the family if nothing had happened yet, and finally convinced him to wait outside. He told me he had enough troubles with his girl friend himself, but they were going to be married next month, thank heavens. I nodded my approval.

“If I'm not down within ten minutes forget about it,” I said, “and thanks.”

It was a large seven-story building of gray concrete, like the ones all over Tel Aviv. These buildings do not add to the beauty of the city, in my opinion.

I started climbing up the stairs, looking at the names on the doors and seeing nothing familiar. I reached the seventh floor and stopped for breath, wondering vaguely when they were ever going to put elevators in these funny buildings. I looked around. There were not many alternatives left. There was really only one, the emergency exit to the roof, so I climbed up there.

Outside, on the roof, there was a small cabin with a gray, peeling door. There was a white sheet of paper on it, bearing the name Joy in large, careless ink letters.

I knocked on the door. It was late afternoon and the sun was setting on the sea behind the huge cluster of gray buildings. I looked at the city with dismay. I thought it had no beauty at all.

Nothing happened. No one came to open the door and there was no sound except the noise of the traffic below, I knocked again, louder, saying to myself, “Don't push me, God. I've warned you once, I won't warn you twice.”

Again nothing happened. I leaned on the handle and shoved the door and it opened creaking like an old window.

I stepped in, closing it behind me and looked around suspiciously. The room was rather dark and for the first few seconds I couldn't see anything at all. Then my eyes got used to the gloom and I saw that there was a dim light coming from a small window that threw a soft glow on the bed at the corner of the room. Upon it, fast asleep, crumbled in a woolen blanket, lay Joy.

I walked slowly around the room. It took me three steps to get from one end to the other, and they were rather small steps. She did not stir.

Her breathing came quietly and regularly. I was wondering how long I could contain myself when I stumbled into a small stool that had been hiding in the corner. It turned over and hit the floor like a cannon shell. Joy sat up with a jerk.

“What is it?” she asked with a weak voice that was out of tune. She was trying to see through the dark.

“It's O.K.,” I said, pulling the stool up and sitting on it. “It's O.K.”

She focused her eyes on me with an effort. They were large and searching and, along with her disorderly long hair, made her look helpless and young like a small, frightened child.

She turned on a small lamp that stood on the floor by her side. She smiled and leaned her head back on the pillow.

“Hello.”

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

The corners of her mouth curled up a little bit.

“Fine.”

I got up and paced the room some more. There wasn't much space left around the bed. By it stood a wooden chair and on that was a white dress. There was a small cupboard with a heavy suitcase on it in the corner. That was about it.

“I was glad to hear from you,” I said cautiously, “after you had disappeared.”

She stood up and let the blanket drop to the floor shaking her hair from her face. Except for her panties and bra, she had nothing on but smooth, sun-tanned skin. I moved to the other side of the room and bumped into the peeling gray door.

“I'll make some coffee,” she said, “O.K.?”

“Yeah. Anything you say.”

She dug a finger into a blue eye and rubbed some sleepiness out. Then she smiled.

“Won't be a minute.”

She retreated into a narrow gap in the wall that was so small I had missed it before. I assumed it led to an ultra-modern vast electric kitchen. I sat on the stool and waited. She came back after a moment, placed herself on the bed, crossed her legs and looked at me innocently. I picked up the white dress that was draped over the chair, and tossed it to her.

“You are tempting me, plus you might catch a cold.”

She put it obediently over her head and slipped it on.

“One or the other,” she said with a muffled voice, through the thin cloth. “The other is more likely.”

Her face appeared from under the white curtain. “I am happy to see you,” she said.

“Why did you disappear?”

“I'm sometimes impulsive.”

“No, I really want to know.”

“I was angry with you, then I lost my job. That made me a lot angrier. Why do you have to be Jewish to have any rights in this country?”

She gestured emptily with her hand.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I just felt like getting away from everything. I was practically on my way to London, then I thought better of it. I moved here.”

“At least it's nearer to the airport,” I commented.

I moved on my stool; it creaked in agony.

“Not so fancy here, is it?” she said and got up. “I'll get the coffee.”