We are alone - he, me, and his tortured breathing.
Suddenly he is aware of me. Very slowly he turns his head in my direction. Our eyes meet and his gaze pierces my eyes. A look full of hate - primitive, simple, boundless hate.
A terrible feeling of guilt. Why does he hate me? Maybe he can sense that my chances of surviving are better than his? I feel I should apologize to him, tell him that I might die too, I would tell him any-thing - just to escape his accusing eye.
Maybe he hates me because I was a soldier in the Haganah, while he was in the Irgun? Should I tell him that I was in the Irgun too, many years ago?
* * *
An Irgun man.
August 1938. In one month I will be fifteen years old. For two years the land has been in turmoil. The leadership of the Yishuv is preach-ing restraint and demanding help from the British. They are hoping for a partition of the land. A radical minority is demanding punitive actions and opposes the partition. I am fourteen years old and iden-tify with this minority.
It is eight in the evening. I am walking along Kalisher Street and approaching the old school at the corner of Hatavor Street. My pulse is racing and my knees are trembling. It is the greatest hour of my life. Behind me are boring school years which have left no impression on me. Then a few months of work, at first in a workshop, then an office. Now a new life stretches before me. A life full of danger and purpose. Like everyone else in my age group I am magically attracted to poli-tics. Without politics, life is empty, devoid of meaning and pointless.
At the entrance of the school a few boys are lounging, and send me scornful glances. Trembling, I walk past them. On watch! In the underground! Romantic books and films go through my head. Danger! That is really living! I am overcome with the will to fight for something, without exactly knowing what.
At the foot of the staircase a boy and a girl are standing. They are older than I am.
"Password!" demands the boy.
"Ye - ho - ash," I stutter. I have repeated this word at least a hun-dred times since this morning, when a mistrustful boy gave me the paper.