Read Online Don't Ask Me If I Love by Amos Kollek - Free Book Online

mucky and dirty. There was a strong, bad smell that came from nowhere. The thin gray walls, planted on the gray soil, added to the depressing atmosphere, even Joy added to it. She looked strange. Extremely thin, so thin, you could almost feel her bones underneath the S.S. uniform. Even the clothes were gray. It all seemed like a scene from a weird black and white movie. I couldn’t remember why I was there. The uniform I saw, as it all came closer, was ripped and torn. The missing pieces of cloth uncovered deep, ugly wounds, smeared with black blood. I looked at the pale, strained face and the white, strawlike hair that hung around in disorder, and wondered whatever aroused my interest in this girl. I was about to walk away from there when an invisible sniper began to play with his rifle. He was a crack shot. The bullets went squarely into Joy’s chest, making a dull, muffled sound as they crushed into the bone. I stuck my hands in my pockets and watched. She didn’t fall down and didn’t utter a word. Her eyes were opened wide and staring aimlessly. They were the only pretty thing about her. The shooting stopped abruptly but the sound didn’t. It was not the same as before, and was growing louder and louder until it became almost painful. I looked around, irritated, but there was nothing to see. Only the gray soil and the gray wall and the gray sky. My eyes fell back on her face. Her mouth was working frantically and it occurred to me that the loud, unpleasant noise was the sound of her screaming. I vaguely considered telling her to be quieter about her problems when I observed that her popping eyes were no longer aimless and I closed my half-opened mouth and followed her gaze. There was a small hole in the wall, just by her feet, and there were furry creatures eagerly crawling out of it. The rats started tearing zealously at her shabby clothes. They had long, glittering teeth and big bloodshot eyes. There were dozens of them, and their number was increasing constantly. They were eating the uniform quickly and it soon all disappeared. Joy made a helpless gesture with her hand and attempted to cover her breasts with a transparent arm, then dropped it lifelessly at her side and gave up. The small animals now started biting at her flesh. Her screams subsided and she sunk quietly to her knees. Her eyes focused on me, no longer wide and horrified. I lowered mine a bit. A vicious-looking rat which was bigger than his companions, climbed on her knee and thrust his teeth in her genitals. A dark stream of blood poured out. The rat pulled his hairy head back and stared at me for a moment from dark wolfish eyes. Then he pushed in again and disappeared in the recess of her body.
    I was relieved to wake up. I put on the light and peered out the window. The moon had disappeared already but the sun was not yet up. It was a little bit after three. I resented the obviousness of the dream. It left me with a bitter taste. I dressed and started hunting for a book, but there was nothing new on my shelf; 1 had read them all. I overcame an impulse to drive over to Joy’s place.
    I lay on my bed and waited for the sun to rise.
    Sprawled in the back seat of a bus, a few hours later, I tried to catch up on my sleep. Ram was sitting next to me and reading the morning paper. Time’s a-wasting, I thought bitterly. If I had enlisted when I should have, I would be chasing Joy at my leisure, between lectures at the university and swimming in the sea. Who needed the army?
    Ram frowned at Nixon’s picture and turned to the back page.
    I remembered Gad saying that Nixon would be the end of Israel after completely ruining the United States first. He didn’t even dislike the American President. He just considered him simple.
    Gad was a born pessimist, he didn’t believe that anything would ever turn out right.
    He isn’t doing so bad for himself right now though, I thought grimly, doing his second year in the