Amos and I sink into the comfortable armchairs and she goes into the kitchen to make coffee. After a while she calls to me to come and help. Amos winks again and whispers to me that I should leave some-thing for him to help with. Then I go into the kitchen and close the door behind me.
What can I say? She has changed into a shiny red housecoat. There is hardly any room in the kitchen and with every movement I touch her. Suddenly I notice that she is wearing a wedding ring. ‘Are you married?’ I ask. ‘Yes,’ she answers, ‘but that is not important. My husband is not in town. He disappeared quite some time ago. And he is totally inconsiderate.’ She smiles from ear to ear and I can see her teeth with her tongue gliding between them. So I say to myself: ‘What the hell. What do I care for her bourgeois husband. This idiot is enjoying his life with some woman or other and I am soon going to fall in battle for this donkey.’ So I put my arms around her, she presses herself against me, and I kiss her. She has her tongue down my throat, I can hardly breathe. I can feel her tense in my arms, her housecoat opens and reveals her naked body. I forget the world around me. Have you ever done it standing?"
For a moment the only sound in the tent is Zuzik’s quiet moaning.
"Then we make the coffee, I carry the tray into the room, and we drink it. I tell Amos that he should help her later to wash the dishes. Then we talk about the adventure that I am supposed to have experi-enced in the Negev. She says ‘My God!’ and ‘No, really?!’ and ‘That’s incredible!’ and then she says that it will all be over soon. When I laugh and ask her how she can be so sure about that, she says that her husband told her. Her husband is certain about that. He is an officer in the HISH by the name of Rashke.
"At first that means nothing to me. Then I remember: Rashke is the company commander who pulled the wounded men out of the burning armored car the day before yesterday, in the Jerusalem valley, and got a bullet in the face. I can feel my stomach turning and want to vomit. I get up and leave the house staggering like a drunk. I can still see her astonished expression and Amos beginning to stroke her ... and now: back to your stinking beds. Let me sleep."
"What’s the matter with you?" said Zuzik enviously. "What do you care? And anyway, Rashke had no idea, that you ..."