The Marsh Angel by Hagai Dagan (ebooks online reader .TXT) 📗

You already asked me that over the phone.

Yes, well, now I can ask you face to face.

No, I told you, we only get Hezbollah stuff.

Okay, did they say anything about my guys?

If they had, I would have told you already, she smiled. I wouldn’t hide intelligence from you. So, when do you get off? It’s five o’clock already, and I’m starving.

He apprehensively scoured his little kingdom, his desk, his computer, his drawers and cabinet, worried that some crucial new bit of information might pop up while he’s away.

You look like someone who’s afraid to leave his hometown.

That simile did the trick. He got up from his seat. Okay, where are we going, then?

There’s a place I really want to try out. Bebaleh, on Ben Yehuda Street.

That’s Jewish cuisine, isn’t it?

Ashkenazi, with a Hungarian twist. The cook is called Avri, he used to work in Café Budapest before.

I see you know your stuff.

I love eating out, and I try to stay up to date.

Ben Yehuda… Okay, let’s hitch a ride out to the road and figure out which bus will take us there.

Don’t be silly. I remind you, I’m from Denia. I have a car. You’re going to get the full VIP treatment— a ride right up to the restaurant door.

Are you going to pay for the meal, as well? he joked, and immediately regretted it.

Depends what I get in return… she replied without hesitation.

On the way over, Tamir told her about the meeting at GHQ. She laughed. Moti’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, she remarked. Most of the truly talented people leave the unit at the end of their service. A year or two later, tops. Some good people do stay, she added, but there are a lot of mediocre people who think they have a better chance of making it in the army than in civilian life. That’s mostly the case. But hey, maybe they’ll offer you a job in research now.

He fell silent. Would he want a job in research? He thought that what he wanted most was to get out of that uniform as fast as possible and lie naked in some cabin in the woods— a blanket of snow outside, fire crackling in the fireplace inside, and a remarkable woman sitting beside him, bundled up in bear furs. And to study philosophy. Perhaps to study philosophy beside a bear-fur-clad remarkable woman in a fire-heated cabin. He hadn’t made up his mind yet.

Cat got your tongue? Come on, let’s go get some chopped liver.

The two entered the restaurant and ordered chopped liver, gefilte fish, herring, schmaltz, latkes, varenikes, and two glasses of beer. As Neta lifted her fork to her mouth and closed her lips over a mound of chopped liver dotted with fried onions, she closed her eyes and a let out a long sigh of pleasure. Tamir suspended his fork in the air, midway to the gefilte fish, and looked at her. He suddenly recalled his porky and exuberant art teacher showing his class slides of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and decided that Neta had Pre-Raphaelite lips.

God, it’s orgasmic, she mumbled through her Pre-Raphaelite lips.

Really?

Oh, you gotta try it!

He tried it. It really was delicious. Much better than the chopped liver they served in the kibbutz.

He prepares it with a ton of goose fat, you see… It’s just… Wait, you have to try it with horseradish. There are rules to uphold. Chopped liver is eaten with horseradish. And it blends so perfectly with the beer, doesn’t it?

Yes.

I was raised on Austrian food, but this Ashkenazi food— there’s a restaurant like this in Haifa that I visit on occasions, but it’s not half as good as this— every time I eat this Ashkenazi food, it’s like… coming home. The yekkes,19 for all their snobbishness, came to Vienna from Galicia. At the end of the day, we’re all Galicians, aren’t we?

As she said those words, her eyes half closed, her hand clutching a glass of beer, her fork delivering another bite of chopped liver crowned with horseradish to her lightly-parted expectant lips, Tamir was seized by a desire to kiss her.

That Avri’s a magician, isn’t he? He takes these simple dishes and turns them into pure gold. Maybe we should try to pull him to Efroni as a reserve soldier.

He smiled. They drank their beer, relaxed, and looked at each other. There was an unspoken understanding between them. She paid for the meal, and they drove back to his place. Neta said she had to take a shower. After she emerged, wrapped in a purple towel, Tamir went in to take a shower as well. She waited for him under the covers, only her curls protruding from the blanket, illuminated by the faint moonlight coming through the window.

Well, what are you standing around for, she teased him, aren’t you coming?

I’m looking at your curls.

Ah, yes, she smiled, my trademark. Come on already!

He tucked in next to her under the covers. Her body was warm and soft, as if she radiated a layer of heat that enveloped her body. Without pausing, he burrowed his head between her breasts and down to her belly.

What are you doing? she laughed.

Digging in.

Is that what it’s called? It feels very… childish.

He recoiled slightly.

No, it’s fine, if that’s what gets you off…

He hesitated momentarily, but the warmth exuded from her body drew him in again. He pressed his head against her belly, thinking how at this very moment her stomach was digesting the chopped liver doused in goose fat. From a distance, he thought he could hear her purring like a kitten. He descended further down her body, probing his way south and below, along the slopes of her curls.

That’s nice of you, but you really don’t have to, he heard her chirpy voice above him.

What?

I know it’s an accepted procedure and that girls like it, and I really do appreciate the gesture, but we can skip straight to the next part, as far as I’m concerned. I’m a rare breed, the