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carelessly . Laying bare with an icy chisel certain latent contradic–
tions. Drawing in a few sentences some clever logical lines, as
though tracing geometrical shapes . Directing a devastating rejoinder
to one of the lions in the room, and surprising all of us by backing
the opinion of the weakest intellect present. Setting up a compact
argument and fortifying it with a preventive bombardment against
any possible rejoinder. And concluding, to the general stupefaction,
by indicating a possible weak point in your own argument, which no
doubt had escaped everyone's notice. In the ensuing silence you
would turn to me and command: "Lady, these good people are too
shy to tell you that they want some coffee." Then you would start fid–
dling with your pipe again, as if to say that the break was over and it
was time to resume the really serious business. I was enthralled by
the frost of your polite ruthlessness . The moment the door closed
behind the last departing couple I would wrench your neatly pressed
best shirt out of your corduroy trousers and thrust my fingers into
your back, into the hair on your chest. Only the following morning
would I clear up and wash the dishes.
Sometimes you got in at one o'clock in the morning from
maneuvers, from a brigade-level field exercise, from a night vigil of
taming some new tank (what were you getting in those days? British
Centurions? American Pattons?), with eyes red from the desert dust,
powdered bristles on your face, gritty sand in your hair and the soles
of your shoes, your salt sweat stiffening the shirt on your back, and
yet as brisk and lively as a burglar inside a safe . You would wake me
up, demand some supper, take a shower without closing the door
and emerge dripping wet because you hated drying yourself. You
would sit down in an undershirt and tennis shorts at the kitchen
table and devour the bread and salad and the double omelette that I
had prepared for you in the meantime. Far from sleep you would put
some Vivaldi or Albinoni on the record player. You would pour
yourself some cognac or a whisky-on-the-rocks, sit me down in my
nightie in an armchair and sink into the chair opposite, put your
bare feet up on the coffee table , and start lecturing me with a kind of
repressed, derisive rage: denouncing the idiocy of your commanding
officers; tearing to pieces the "mentality of the Palmach mob";
sketching the appearance of the theater of war toward the end of the
century; thinking aloud about "the universal common denominator"
of armed conflicts as such . And suddenly you would change the sub–
ject and tell me about some little woman soldier who had tried to
seduce you earlier that evening. Interested to know if I was jealous.
