What the hell! That’s enough of this tune!

I don’t want to think about Arabs. Not these Arabs. Is it impossi-ble to think of Arabs without remembering something awful? I want pleasant memories, funny ones. I’ll have to search for them. I’m sure they exist. You just have to work at it. Arab voices, laughs ...

Yes! Here ... we are in the village of Manzuva. The sun slowly rises. In the faint morning light the Egyptian positions appear before us, about a kilometer away. We are tired and content. Yesterday evening we did our work well. Six of us crawled to the Egyptian positions until we could feel the barbed wire and hear the coughing of the bored sentry at the machine gun. We crawled among the thorns until we found the telephone cable connecting this position with its neigh-bor. The specialists joined up the cable with our own one which we had laid from our positions in Manzuva. Nothing happened. We crawled back along the cable, covering it all with sand. Nice work.

Now we are sitting and waiting for the Egyptians to talk on the line. Jamus is holding the receiver in his hand. Out of curiosity I have vol-unteered to help him. He will translate and I will write it all down.

"Hallo Falluga! Hallo Falluga!" The voice of a young Egyptian. The Palestinians pronounce the name of the place as "Falluja."

"Naam ya sayyedi"¹³ answers a rather distinguished voice. Wonderful! Seems to be a staff officer in Majdal.¹⁴ We have really tapped the main link connecting all the Egyptian positions on the front.

"What’s the news?" Jamus translates for us.

"Alhamdulillah."¹⁵ A philosophical, rather vague expression.

"Isma ya Suleiman"¹⁶ in a submissive tone. Why is it that, in all the armies of the world, the frontline soldiers lick the asses of the heroes ofHQ?

"What’s up?" The staff man knows his value.

"Suleiman, you are there at HQ and know everything. When are we going to get leave?"

The magic word "leave." Suleiman’s heart melts. He groans. "God knows when. I have no idea."

Jamus and I smile. For a moment they are not our "enemies," peo-pie who could kill us tomorrow - or we them. They are comrades in the Internationale of the gray front mice, who have everything in common - suffering, longing, the experiences, the fear.

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