The Marsh Angel, Hagai Dagan [free e reader .TXT] 📗

skies, Princess Polnochi, snow and starlight weaved in her hair, clutching a Kalashnikov.

You’re not supposed to be here, you know.

He looked up and saw Ophira, standing in a partly-undone pink plaid shirt, revealing a deep cleavage, her head wrapped in a green towel wound like a turban. He didn’t say a thing, just stared at her in awe. The night reconfigured around her, and was suddenly delightful and staggeringly beautiful. She giggled and gestured with her towel-covered head to the structure behind her. Girls’ quarters, she said.

Oh, I… I didn’t notice where I was going.

Is this how you unwind after shifts like these? You get lost and end up in the girls’ quarters?

Maybe, his mouth contorted into a cautious smile.

Wouldn’t it be simpler to just smoke a cigarette or something?

Do you smoke? He didn’t recall ever seeing her smoke.

After shifts like these, of course. How can you not?

Okay. Do you have a cigarette here?

No.

Too bad.

Hold on a second. She approached a near-by window and called in a hushed voice: Ronna! A buzz-cut head popped out of the window. Do you have a cigarette?

The buzz-cut woman slunk back into the room and reemerged a moment later, clutching a cigarette and a lighter. Here, she said. And Ophirchuk, don’t bring him into the room. I don’t need my weekend ruined over another one of your flings.

The head disappeared back into the room. Ophira giggled, slightly embarrassed, and lit the cigarette.

Doesn’t anyone sleep around here? Tamir wondered.

We have a noon shift tomorrow, Ophira explained. She took a long drag of the cigarette and passed it over to Tamir. He put his lips where Ophira had just put hers, and sucked the sweet smoke. He felt a bit dizzy and intoxicatingly light-headed. His gaze cut across the thick cloud of smoke and found her eyes. They silently passed the cigarette from one to the other. It’s late, she finally said. It was a tough shift.

Yes.

But you were… okay.

So were you. You were more than okay.

When you say it like that, it almost sounds like a compliment, she smiled.

Yeah, I don’t know, since I’ve been in the army, the words just… don’t come out. Sometimes it feels like I’ve become mute. Like I forgot how to talk.

Really? Weird.

Yeah, but what I really meant to say was that you were…

What?

Wonderful.

She laughed. Okay, now you’re exaggerating.

No, really, you’re… Listen, what I told you last time…

Forget about it, I didn’t take it personally.

Somehow, it came out distorted. What I really wanted, I…

Words aren’t coming out again?

He sighed. Something like that.

Maybe it’s better this way. You might say something you’ll regret later.

Or that I’ll regret not saying it.

Well, we’ll have time to talk later. Cigarette’s finished, anyway. She took a final drag.

He swam and swam, his arms and legs flailing, but the sweet muddy earth in her eyes poured into the night and he writhed in it helplessly. What makes him be so hesitant?

She stomped the cigarette butt and stared at the floor. When she lifted her eyes again, her gaze had gone cold. The warm muddy earth clotted. Peat and volcanic stone covered the face of the primordial swamp. Good night, she said, I’ll see you in the bunker. She turned her back to him, her green turban towering to unimaginable heights, piercing the night sky.

c. Black Material

There was no getting around having to go back to the base at the end of leave periods. Tamir waited outside the kibbutz for the bus to come, which then started climbing its way up to the Acre-Safed road; the olive groves at the foothills of Dir al-Assad opened out, the shoddy gas-stations and roadside restaurants of Rama came into view, and the pine forests crowning the settlement of Amirim protruded into view through his window. Tamir felt the inevitability of this ascent, that it was necessary, that he was trapped in some kind of railcar-of-destiny slowly chugging along, pulling him away from his mother’s apple pie, away from the roads whose touch his feet no longer felt, away from everything that dissipates and retreats towards what is real, definitive, and absolute; to what resides in the heavens, awaiting him, destined for him.

Joseph Arbeiter, known as Jonny, waited for him in the bunker. Jonny was untroubled, laid back, and a bit scattered, as he tended to be. He told Tamir that nothing unusual had happened over the past couple of days. There was some mortar fire by Hezbollah towards three South Lebanon Army outposts. Two soldiers suffered mild injuries, and one moderate. SLA, Jonny quickly added, to clarify no Israelis were hurt. There was some increased activity on the Lebanese Army network— there’s some flare-up between Christians and Sunnis around Tripoli, and they must have transferred troops from the southern sector up there. You can go over the material, Jonny said, but it’s pretty dull. Somehow, he managed to enjoy his work, despite never taking any kind of interest in any of it.

Zaguri came out of the reception room, winked at Jonny, and told him he’s going home soon.

Didn’t you just come back? Jonny laughed and patted Zaguri on the back.

Don’t tell anyone, Zaguri laughed. The best Tamir ever got from him was a courteous nod.

Good guy, Jonny said, as he watched Zaguri walking away. He’s not here often, but he’s a hell of a producer, and he knows how to hold a shift.

Tamir didn’t say anything. As far as he could see, Jonny thought that everyone was a ‘good guy.’ He envied how easy-going Jonny was, but knew that there was no point for him to even try and act that way himself. How did he become so high-strung and uptight? What made him this way? His father’s prolonged silences? The heavy fog blanketing the fish ponds in the early morning hours?

So, I’m off, Jonny said chirpily. Hang in there, don’t take things to heart— take’m to the lungs. You know what, scratch that, smoking’s bad for you. Say, is it true you want to transfer to headquarters?

I’m… thinking about