kibbutzim in the Negev. It was quite clear to him that he, too, had a duty to fulfill.
* * *
If the war had not broken out, one day we would have heard of the composer Jochanan Silbermann, renowned throughout the world. But now he is lying somewhere in the south of the country, his handsome face calmly facing the stars, and his chest riddled with bullets. One of many who don’t come back from the field of battle.
That is a very high price that you pay, homeland, for your freedom.
The death of Jochanan moved me to describe a soldier who hates war, who is a pacifist deep in his heart, but still distinguished himself in bat-tie. In the war we learned to behave like cynics and pour scorn on ideals. But that was just pretense. The experience of the war made idealists of the fighters.
Jaladiyya
Fatima
She sat on the jeep, shook her curly head, and watched us through humorous eyes. They were the eyes of a clown, and the bandages on her legs and neck underlined this impression.
We laughed out loud. Who has ever seen a dog bandaged up like a soldier returning from battle? But then we looked into the eyes of the soldier sitting next to her, and stood with open mouths. Something about those eyes killed our laughter stone dead.
"A strange fellow" I said to Menashke. "Who is that?"
Menashke was the biggest scandalmonger of the brigade. He knew everybody. No one knew exactly what his duties were supposed to be. But when we wanted to know what had happened to someone, where somebody had been wounded, or who was going with who, we knew that all we had to do was ask him. He was a modern information sys-tem on two legs.
"What, you don’t know Eli?" asked Menashke. "There’s a good story for you."
* * *