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

next days. There was nothing extraordinary about any of them.
    Thus, another week started.
    In the evening, Ram took the company for a lo-kilometer run. He used to do that every Sunday, if there wasn’t anything more important to do. Ram was the best long-distance runner in the regiment. I was sitting alone in the canteen with a bar of chocolate and a few bottles of Coke, when he gathered the men outside in the yard. There were about forty of them there, the upper parts of their bodies bare, all the soldiers that weren’t on duty that night.
    â€œO.K.,” Ram was saying quietly, “all the lame and sick can fall out.”
    No one did.
    I raised my eyebrows, and took a big swig; Ram’s methods often surprised me.
    â€œLet’s go then.”
    He turned, and started running into the darkness. The three lines of men soon disappeared after him.
    Ram believed that soldiers with six months of army behind them could be trusted with some free choice in matters that weren’t strictly operational. He didn’t force soldiers to run 10 kilometers if they said they were sick. After all, people could feel sick, he told me. It had even happened to him.
    In his recruiting days, when his platoon had done the traditional 8-kilometer “white circle,” for the first time, Ram hardly made it. He had been lying on his bunk, coughing and sweating, when the squad commander called everyone out. Ram cursed under his breath as he got to his feet. He disliked any kind of evasion. Soldiers were not supposed to have an easy time. He had liked making the extra effort that was a part of army life. But he knew he was finished for the day. There was no sense in overlooking the fact that he just wasn’t well.
    He got out of the tent and joined the rest of the soldiers. Most faces revealed displeasure. The “white circle,” the sandy pathway circling the camp, was not well liked by the young recruits.
    â€œO.K. Let’s start hearing about all your sicknesses,” the corporal said scornfully, “but it won’t help you, nobody’s staying here who isn’t dead.”
    Ram, listening to the jeering voice, disapproved of its owner and of its owner’s attitude. He thought about it as they started running and he still had it in the back of his mind when they were doing the last few hundred meters. He could see the faint light coming through the window of the supply room and he fixed his eyes on it, and tried to empty his mind of any other thought. When we get to the light, he thought obscurely, trying to wet his dry lips with his dry tongue, we will stop, that can’t be too hard. When they reached the light and stopped, he ran a few meters more into the small group of eucalyptus trees, puked out his lunch and then lay on his back on the dry, brown leaves and closed his eyes. A corporal who discovered him there an hour later, walked him to the sickroom. He remained there for two days till his fever was down and he was back to normal again. Ram told me he had felt very silly about that incident. He disliked weaknesses in himself.
    I was sitting in the canteen when the group of runners returned. A few minutes later, after Ram had relieved them, he walked in.
    â€œGive me a big gulp from that thing and I’m gone,” he said cheerfully as he approached me. “What would Coca-Cola ever do without you?”
    â€œThey’d give up,” I said as he picked the sixth and last bottle from my table and emptied it. “Not all of it, for God’s sake, not all of it.”
    â€œI’m going to visit the northern posts,” he announced, ignoring my protest. “Want to come?”
    â€œAre you kidding me? It’s way past my bedtime.”
    He shrugged. “Well, don’t say I didn’t give you the chance.”
    â€œMuch obliged, but I’d rather go to sleep.”
    â€œO.K.”
    He started moving away, and stopped.
    â€œWant to do me a