The Gordon swimming pool

A short excerpt of my 5th nover and my 10th book 'An irretrievable step'.

He had to leave Tami's apartment in haste, her mother was supposed to come quite early, and the last thing he wished to happen was meeting Tami's mother. He did not use the lift but descended the stairs and thus avoided the possibility to meet her mother unexpectedly even as a complete stranger while descending to the ground floor in the lift, and it worked quite well he left the building before her mother's arrival.

He crossed the road and sat next to a table inside the café a few yards away from Tami's apartment building's entrance, to have a breakfast as there was no time to waste at his lover's nest, and to watch behind the glass pane the arrival of her mother.

I'm getting used to my new profession, he thought amused. In any case I'm already behaving according to the rules, but what am I doing today and during the rest of the days up to my departure…? I don't have to sit here till her mother will leave, for Tami doesn't know that I'm sitting here, and she'll drive to the university in a few moments from now.

He went over to the café's counter paid his bill and returned to his own apartment. He climbed the stairs running up to the fourth floor doing the little he could to stay in good shape, and decided to go to swim an hour or two at Gordon swimming pool next to Gordon beach. He packed a swimming suit and a towel in a small bag, he left his watch and his identity card behind and took just the money he needed for the entrance fee. He decided to walk on foot to his destination and return the same way, the time was eight fifteen it was quite early and there was no need to hurry.

He hardly touched the swimming pool's water with his toes, when Major Dekel one of the base four company commanders turned to him with a broad smile.

'Hello young Seri, enjoying your leave?'

He looked surprised at the Major's smiling face in the swimming pool's water next to the pool's edge beneath him. He knew the Major very well but never exchanged a word with him up this very moment. He saw him in the field, in the officers' mess and the officers' club at lunch breaks, but Dekel was a senior officer that kept his distance like the rest of his colleagues from junior officers like Seri.

To Seri's relief Dekel did not refer to his dismissal and was rather friendly towards him, and with just a few words right after that short friendly encounter Dekel climbed the pool's ladder and stood beside him wet all over, but he shook Seri's hand warmly and wished him the best of luck and left.

So they know in general terms most of the base officers what I'm supposed to do, and why I was dismissed… Yeah rumors spread like a fire in a dry thorn field, Seri thought quite relieved.

© Haim Kadman July 2013 �" all rights reserved.