repeated like a literature teacher that Sonia was “a one-dimensional character, much more one-dimensional that Raskolnikov.”
He pulled on a pair of pants and got up to make us tea. I remained naked. “If you have an exam tomorrow, you must sleep,” he said and pulled the sheet up to my chin.
How did I come by the illusion that I “understood him,” having only the vaguest notion of what he was talking about?
“Only someone with an individual voice of his own can describe what is impossible to describe,” he quoted to me once, I don’t know from where.
Alek turned off the reading lamp and went to his cubbyhole of a study, the little room where I am writing now. In the light coming from his room and the light of the street lamp coming from outside, I could still see things, and everything I saw gave rise in me to a feeling of wonder, as if something very wonderful and joyful were dancing and twinkling in all the objects in the world. As if something beyond comprehension and steeped in magic pervaded everything, and I had only just found out. An old wooden cupboard, a mirror in a wooden frame hanging on the wall, a picture of a pale green demon woman reflected in the mirror, the bamboo armchair with a white bedspread thrown onto it. And a chilly breeze sharpening the edges of my body, the touch of the sheet and the configuration of the cascading fabric on the armchair.
Wide awake, more wide awake than I had ever been in my life, I sensed everything with my gaze, and it seemed to me that my eyes could feel textures: the lingering touch of a fold of pale cloth; the dry touch of a pile of books; the hooked green touch of the she-devil’s fingernails; the cold green touch of her figure in the mirror and the curly cold green of her hair. Below her, four patterned floor tiles, patched into the yellowish floor, the tendrils of a vine gaily twining over them.
With this gaze came the sensation that I was filling my body, that I was inhabiting all of it, and that I had been given a form. This was me-my-body, and these were my edges, and beyond them was living air. I extracted my hands from under the sheet, I twiddled my fingers in front of my eyes like a baby, and laughed softly with their movements.
Hello, hello, this is me in space.
At some point I got up and went to Alek. I stood behind him and put my hands on his shoulders. He didn’t turn around, just held one of my hands with his and went on writing with the other. On the desk the German book I had seen before in the kitchen lay open, together with a German-Russian dictionary.
“What are you doing?” A question that in the days to come I learned not to ask.
“If I’m already going to Heidelberg, I should learn German.”
“Tell me more.”
“More about what?”
“More about the army. You were in the army weren’t you?”
“Once a million years ago I studied medicine for half a year, so they made me medical orderly in the Golani Brigade. Logic of the Israeli Defense Forces.”
“So why shouldn’t a girl serve in the army?”
Alek sighed, turned round to face me, and sat me naked on his knees.
Woman (flirtatiously stubborn, arching her neck back and distancing her face from his kisses): No, explain to me.…
Man (kissing her neck, slipping his hand between her legs): Explain to you what? You know everything.
Woman: But still … explain.…
Man: What can I explain to you? What? A soldier is a slave (turning her face towards him and giving her a deep kiss), a soldier is a slave (another kiss with his eyes closed), and a woman in the army is … how do you say it? Slave of the slave.
Woman (with her eyes closed too): A bondmaid.
Man: Right.
ALEK’S FRIENDS
Alek wasn’t keen on presenting his biography in an orderly fashion: “It doesn’t matter now,” “that’s prehistory,” “it wouldn’t mean anything to you anyway.” So that it took me months to put the facts of his CV together, and a lot longer to begin to understand
He pulled on a pair of pants and got up to make us tea. I remained naked. “If you have an exam tomorrow, you must sleep,” he said and pulled the sheet up to my chin.
How did I come by the illusion that I “understood him,” having only the vaguest notion of what he was talking about?
“Only someone with an individual voice of his own can describe what is impossible to describe,” he quoted to me once, I don’t know from where.
Alek turned off the reading lamp and went to his cubbyhole of a study, the little room where I am writing now. In the light coming from his room and the light of the street lamp coming from outside, I could still see things, and everything I saw gave rise in me to a feeling of wonder, as if something very wonderful and joyful were dancing and twinkling in all the objects in the world. As if something beyond comprehension and steeped in magic pervaded everything, and I had only just found out. An old wooden cupboard, a mirror in a wooden frame hanging on the wall, a picture of a pale green demon woman reflected in the mirror, the bamboo armchair with a white bedspread thrown onto it. And a chilly breeze sharpening the edges of my body, the touch of the sheet and the configuration of the cascading fabric on the armchair.
Wide awake, more wide awake than I had ever been in my life, I sensed everything with my gaze, and it seemed to me that my eyes could feel textures: the lingering touch of a fold of pale cloth; the dry touch of a pile of books; the hooked green touch of the she-devil’s fingernails; the cold green touch of her figure in the mirror and the curly cold green of her hair. Below her, four patterned floor tiles, patched into the yellowish floor, the tendrils of a vine gaily twining over them.
With this gaze came the sensation that I was filling my body, that I was inhabiting all of it, and that I had been given a form. This was me-my-body, and these were my edges, and beyond them was living air. I extracted my hands from under the sheet, I twiddled my fingers in front of my eyes like a baby, and laughed softly with their movements.
Hello, hello, this is me in space.
At some point I got up and went to Alek. I stood behind him and put my hands on his shoulders. He didn’t turn around, just held one of my hands with his and went on writing with the other. On the desk the German book I had seen before in the kitchen lay open, together with a German-Russian dictionary.
“What are you doing?” A question that in the days to come I learned not to ask.
“If I’m already going to Heidelberg, I should learn German.”
“Tell me more.”
“More about what?”
“More about the army. You were in the army weren’t you?”
“Once a million years ago I studied medicine for half a year, so they made me medical orderly in the Golani Brigade. Logic of the Israeli Defense Forces.”
“So why shouldn’t a girl serve in the army?”
Alek sighed, turned round to face me, and sat me naked on his knees.
Woman (flirtatiously stubborn, arching her neck back and distancing her face from his kisses): No, explain to me.…
Man (kissing her neck, slipping his hand between her legs): Explain to you what? You know everything.
Woman: But still … explain.…
Man: What can I explain to you? What? A soldier is a slave (turning her face towards him and giving her a deep kiss), a soldier is a slave (another kiss with his eyes closed), and a woman in the army is … how do you say it? Slave of the slave.
Woman (with her eyes closed too): A bondmaid.
Man: Right.
ALEK’S FRIENDS
Alek wasn’t keen on presenting his biography in an orderly fashion: “It doesn’t matter now,” “that’s prehistory,” “it wouldn’t mean anything to you anyway.” So that it took me months to put the facts of his CV together, and a lot longer to begin to understand
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