But Sima had other plans. As I kissed her again, slowly and cautiously, letting myself go only so far, she broke off our kiss, raised her head above mine, and said to me, "This won't do, Adam. It won't do at all," and proceeded to break down my resistance with her hands and mouth and in-depth knowledge of the male anatomy.
My resolve to keep a part of me from her turned brittle and crumbled. I quickly lost track of time and everything else apart from Sima. Later, I realized that I had offended her professionally, both by taking two nights instead of one to accept her invitation, and by my attempt to give her just a part of myself. In her bed, she was the one who determined how far things went, how much pleasure to give, and how much to receive. Her clients thought they were in control, but what they bought was the right to be controlled by her. She knew exactly how much of herself to give to each one, how much they really wanted to accept. She never gave all she had. But she was the only one allowed to do so. I had lost that right when I stepped over her threshold.
For the next hour or so, I was adrift in Sima. When we finally broke off, gasping and sweaty, I lay on my back, staring at her ceiling, listening to my breaths and the pounding rhythm of my heart upon my eardrums. A part of me felt like weeping, another wanted to ask Deborah for forgiveness. A third part made me turn to Sima, who lay beside me with a smile of victory and conquest on her lips, and say, "Let's do it again."
18
Afterward Sima Vaaknin asked, "How did you get those?" She was sitting in bed, devoid of any modesty, her naked breasts glistening with sweat, her supple legs elastically curled close to her body. She was pointing at my torso. At my two scars.
"In the war," I said.
She reached over and ran her fingers over the pink, ridged, warped skin. Her expression was one of utter fascination. She licked her lips, and the tip of her skillful tongue protruded out of her mouth like a turtle's head.
"What are they from? Tell me how you got them."
"Both are bullet wounds," I said. "I got them on the same day, when we were fighting the Egyptian Army in the south."
"They don't look like they were caused by the same thing. This one is much bigger."
She was touching the scar that ran a little below my belly button. It was a horizontal line, five inches in length. The other scar, the one on my chest, was the shape and size of a flattened coin. The stomach scar looked the worse of the two, but looks were like human beings—they could be deceiving. My chest wound was the one that had nearly ended my life, that put me in the hospital in critical condition for a week and kept me there for another month. The stomach wound was minor in comparison.
"Here," I said, pointing to my stomach, "the bullet went in from the side, ran through the skin and tissue beneath, and came out the other end. Here," I pointed at my chest, "it got me straight, almost like I'd been stabbed with the point of a dagger. That's why it went in deeper and did more damage."
I studied her face as she looked at my scars. There was not a trace of disgust or dismay in her eyes. She seemed mesmerized, awed. As if she were looking at a work of art or a natural phenomenon that arrested the eye and excited the mind. Which was what she was, with her unblemished, smooth skin, her taut feline limbs, her large fathomless eyes—a natural phenomenon, a work of art.
"Did it hurt very much?" she asked.
I frowned. It was a strange question, as the answer seemed obvious. I got the sense that Sima did not ask me for a confirmation of what she'd already guessed, but because she derived some pleasure from hearing me utter the words. She was used to seeing men exposed, and this was just another form of nakedness.
"Not at first. The heat of battle muffled the pain, and then I was out, bleeding on the ground, half dead and half alive. Later, in the hospital, it hurt. Very much."
I didn't add that right at that moment, perhaps due to her questions or her attention, both scars ached.
She caressed the scars some more, feeling their contours with as much attention and skill as her hands had displayed across other parts of my anatomy shortly before. Was she studying them like a blind man would study a face for later recognition?
"And this?" she asked, brushing a plum-colored bruise on my breastbone with her fingers. "This is new."
I explained how I had gotten the bruise fighting Maryam's pimp and one of his flunkies.
"That's when you broke his ribs?" she asked.
"Yes."
Sima pulled her hands back to her lap. She raised her eyes to mine. "Show me your back."
I stiffened. "What for?"
"I felt it when we were making love." Her black eyes were glinting like snake skin. "I want to see."
I didn't move. She pouted.
"Come on," she said. "It's not like I haven't seen everything else. And you aren't ashamed of those." She pointed at my battle scars. "Why can't I see the ones on your back? Do you think they're ugly?"
That wasn't it. I hardly ever looked at them, and not because they were uglier than the ones on my front, though uglier they were. How could I explain to Sima Vaaknin that scars were the perfect reminder? It was no accident that God chose to mark Cain's skin. It was not just so others would know of Cain's sin in killing Abel, his brother. It was also so Cain would be reminded of it whenever he saw his reflection in a pool of water, whenever he rubbed or scratched his forehead, whenever he saw the frown in the face of a new acquaintance. The scars on my chest and stomach reminded me of being a soldier, of fighting for independence, of having the ability to defend myself. The ones on my back reminded me of being powerless, fearful, at the mercy of devils in human skin, of being less than a man. But there was no point in hiding them from her. Her fingers had already memorized their shape and length and outline. Having her see them would do me no harm. I sat up, turned my back to her, and heard her sharp intake of breath as she saw my ravaged skin.
Her quick fingers darted over my back. At first, there was hesitation in her touch. She had shown none during our lovemaking. She was an expert at it, experienced beyond tentativeness. But this was something new for her, and I could feel—what? A reverential wonderment in her touch?
"My God," she said breathlessly. "I have never seen anything like it."
Her fingers, emboldened now, scurried over the web of interlacing scars on my back, tracing each ridged line. They were put there by a sadistic Austrian camp guard. He had used a whip he'd always carried with him as he walked about the camp. I couldn't say how many lashes he had dealt me. The scars could not answer this question, as they crisscrossed each other in such a tight weave that it was difficult to tell where some began and others ended.
"How did you get these?" she said, her hands still roaming over my scars.
My skin crawled, and I turned and caught her wrists. "Enough."
She blinked, looking at me with her big eyes wider still.
"I'll trade you," she said. "One horrible story for another."
I frowned at her, puzzled.
"You want to know how I got to be what I am. I saw the look in your eyes earlier. You want to know but dare not ask the question. Your instinct was correct. I wouldn't have told you. But if you tell me how you got those scars on your back, I will tell you how my life turned out the way it has."
Her eyes were sparkling. She knew she had dangled a bait that I would be tempted to reach for. Like a feint in battle, the one the enemy falls for, leaving his flank exposed.
I nodded my head slowly, accepting her offer.
"I'll go first," she said, like a child rushing to secure her position on a swing, and began telling her story.