Then she pulled a little packet from her pocket - a small box of chocolates. I didn’t know what to say - at that moment it was not a very useful present. My young friend turned such a bright red that I was reminded of a ripe tomato (all my fantasies at that time had something to do with food), she stuttered that she had forgotten that I couldn’t eat anything, and suggested that I could perhaps share out the chocolates among the nurses. I smiled gratefully to her, accepted the present, and declared firmly "The day is certainly not far away, when I can eat that!"
The visitors left. The pain returned. I held the chocolate in my hand and gazed at it. It was nicely packaged and had something provocative about it. And as I examined the chocolate, a remarkable change came over me ...
There are three phases in recovering from a serious wound.
The first phase is complete apathy. Everything apart from pain is unimportant. The doctors and nurses can do what they want with the patient.
When the patient has overcome this phase, the second begins. He starts to develop an interest in his surroundings, but mainly its dis-advantages. He doesn’t feel well, which has an effect on his attitude.
The third phase is recovery. The attractions of the world re-emerge. The nurses are suddenly pretty and nice. He gets hungry. In short, the spirits of life awake ...
That bar of chocolate propelled me from the first into the second phase. Until then I was indifferent to everything. My world had shrunk - to my bed, the doctor who tortured me twice a day, and the nurses who kept watch around my bed twenty-four hours a day. I didn’t dare to believe that my body could ever work properly again.
My will awoke while I was looking at the chocolate. "What the hell," I said to myself, "one day I am going to eat it!" I didn’t give it to the nurses or to my neighbor who had lost his legs. I put it in my drawer.
This chocolate became a symbol: for health, home, Tel Aviv, the full life that I wanted to rejoin. I would regularly bring it out, look at it, and dream.
Two and a half weeks after I was wounded the doctor decided that it was time for my stomach and intestines to start working again. On the same day the needle was removed from my leg, and I was