Free Drunken Angel (9781936740062) by Alan Kaufman

atop her head in a gruesome pyramid, cooked the standard household fare of turkey meatballs, falafel, salad, coffee, chocolate cookies, all topped off with filterless Selon cigarettes and Rishon LeZion brandy. At this juncture, they had no idea whatsoever about me and booze.
    It didn’t take them long to discover.
    Elia was first to note how I seemed to down glassful after glassful of the brandy until none was left, whereupon I started on the wine. But she simply chalked it up to my bohemian temperament. The word drunkard was not yet assignable to me in their love-blinded eyes.
    After a week on the sofa, I made my move. Crept into Tsofnat’s bedroom. It was dark, but she was up. Lying there in a white nightgown, very still.
    She said in a frank voice: “You have come for something?”
    â€œYes,” I said, leaning over to plant a kiss. She jerked her face away, my kiss landing on her frizzy hair, which felt like steel wool.
    â€œNot so fast,” she said. “My mother will hear.”
    â€œShe won’t care. She likes me.”
    â€œYou are so sure of yourself?”
    â€œYes,” I said. And made to kiss her again. Again she jerked away. A part of me watched myself act like a cad yet felt helpless to stop.
    â€œLook,” I said. “You know why I’m here. Why play games? We’re adults.”
    â€œI don’t know what you mean.”
    â€œI mean”—I lied—“that I want you. I want to make love to you. I think you’re beautiful.”
    â€œMore beautiful than your Finnish whore?”
    I paused to absorb this. “I knew that I should not have told Elia about that.”

    â€œHelky. Is that her name?”
    â€œWhat does it matter?”
    â€œA little slut with long legs and tits that lift like this?” With both hands, she clutched her sagging breasts and shoved them up so hard they almost bounced off her chin, which had begun to show signs of doubling.
    I winced. “Tsofnat,” I pleaded. “What’s the point?”
    Inside, I was panicking. Had ditched kibbutz and Helka for a free ride on this cash cow, and now she was refusing to give milk.
    â€œShe was ugly!” I blurted out. “Hideous, in fact!”
    Tsofnat stopped, looked at me. “Liar,” she said hopefully.
    â€œI’m telling you, she was—I don’t know just how you’ll take this, because you have four of them yourself, but she was a dog. A complete dog.” My hand made descriptive motions before my face. “Her eyes were small, her nose out to here, she had lips like a mule, the only thing pretty on her was her...”
    I paused here. I knew that my lie would better persuade by avoiding undue exaggeration, that everything ugly has something beautiful about it, but whatever I chose to exalt mustn’t be something that would throw Tsofnat into a permanent tailspin of self-loathing, some body part which she despised in herself, but rather should be a part of her physiognomy of which she could be proud, a competition category in which she felt unthreatened.
    â€œHer neck,” I said. “She had a long, slender neck, like yours.”
    Neck, after all, was not so important. Face, breasts, ass were the real minefields.
    I took Tsofnat’s hand in mine. “And she had pretty tapering fingers like yours.”
    â€œOh,” said Tsofnat, withdrawing her hand a little but not completely.
    â€œAnd her waist. She had a little wasp waist like you.” Letting her
hand go, I clasped my hands around her waist, drew her close. “I admit. That little waist of hers turned me on a lot. Those little hands. But she didn’t have those eyes of yours to look into when—”
    â€œHumping?” She pulled back, tried to get free.
    â€œTalking,” I said.
    â€œYes, sure,” she spit with fascinated skepticism. “I bet you talked much with this Finn.”
    â€œHer English was very