when fighting broke out in the Keren Kayemet1 House in Beit Dagon.2
A gust of wind in the tent and the flame of the petrol lamp flickers wildly. Without looking around I know that Sancho is back.
"What? Twelve o’clock already?" I close the book and yawn. Seems I haven’t noticed the passing of time.
"No. It’s only eleven," Sancho answers in an odd voice.
The meaning of his words is also strange. His leave didn’t end till midnight. Why should a soldier with his wits about him return from leave a whole hour early, with girls and cafes in the world outside and here just boredom? That is a breach of trust! It wasn’t easy for me to organize this six-hour break for him. The company commander, who can’t stand the officials responsible for culture, knew I was a member of the "intelligentsia" in civil life. So he appointed me as part-time "cultural attache" for the company. In this capacity I could occasionally sneak comrades out with some implausible pretense. Officially Sancho had gone to town to fetch an accordion for a party. If he arrives back a whole hour early, then something terrible must have happened.
"Stomach ache?" I suggest gingerly.
"Yob tvoyu Mat,"3 retorts Sancho and lies on his bed fully clothed.
"You lost, you lost" crows Zuzik, who has woken up and is sitting on his bed. Sancho made a bet with him at lunchtime, that he would make it with a girl that evening if only he could get a few hours leave. For the purposes of the bet, Zuzik and Nachshe, the other two who shared the tent, had talked me into arranging a free evening for Sancho. Sancho and I are a strange pair. He calls me "Don Quixote" and says that I am one of those lunatics who meet an early death in a fight or on the gallows. I call him "Sancho Panza" because he is so materialistic. Sancho is blond, short, and thin. He owns a workshop for precision engineering and regularly proclaims that he has no desire to die for the damned homeland just so the shirkers can have a good time. If he was really a coward he could easily have found a way to avoid the fighting. So the name I gave him does not really fit.
"Tell us what happened," demands Zuzik.
"Go and screw yourself." Sancho’s answer was unambiguous.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Zuzik is angry, it is clear from