was joy. His natural reflexes had worked. You could rely on them - in case of need, they would save him. That is the reward for a man who exposes himself to danger. The feeling that he has escaped from danger. Danger? What danger? He looks at the corpse. An old, ema-ciated Arab woman. She had probably stayed behind because she didn’t have the strength to keep up with the others.
How could he have known that it wasn’t an armed man? Self defense, that was all.
* * *
The old woman looked at him through half-closed eyes. Her mouth was askew, as if scornful of his feeble excuses. He wanted to run away. But he could not. Something drew him, forced him to enter that low, disorderly little room. An almost empty room. A bro-ken scythe, a pile of straw in the corner, a torn, filthy mattress, a dirty plate, and a large mirror. The mirror annoyed him. Why was there a mirror in every Arab room? Rafi had no desire to see himself at that moment. The Sten was still loaded. He fired at the mirror and destroyed it.
* * *
On the ground lay a string of red prayer beads. That was one of the reasons he had gone away from the group. He wanted to find some prayer beads for Rinah. With childish pride she had shown him a kef-fiyeh7 that Moshe had given her, and had asked him for some prayer beads. And he, the great war hero, did not tell her that Moshe had probably got it from a dead soldier or a fleeing Fellah. He had kept quiet about that and promised her the prayer beads. Now he had them. Probably the old woman’s only inheritance. He kicked the prayer beads into the pile of hay.
Outside he heard loud voices. He leapt out and saw one of his comrades struggling with an Arab boy of about twelve years of age, with black hair and dark eyes. Even in this moment of extreme fear his dirty face was beautiful. And the fear in his eyes was contradicted by the pride in his face.
"What are you doing with him?" asked Rafi.
"I’m telling you, he’s a spy. Just a dirty Arab spy. Hiding in dark rooms, to disappear in the night and betray our positions to the Egyptians!"
"You can’t do anything to him," said Rafi with apparent