about fifty appeared, with a wrinkled face and a leather cap on his head like the ones worn by coachmen in Europe. With him was the mother. Small, fat, and gray haired.
The parents had known nothing. Just now, in the corridor, the nurse had explained the situation to them. They still had not got over the shock.
Their son felt like crying, but could not do so in front of his par-ents. He didn’t want to worry them. The father wanted to cry, but not in front of his son. Only the mother could not control herself. She kept turning her face away, wiping away the tears, and murmuring the eternal question of a soldier’s mother: "Oh God, why did it have to be my son?"
"Don’t worry about me," he consoled them in Yiddish. "I’ll get an artificial leg and become a driver."
"And what about your hands?"
"Oh that’s nothing. Just a couple of wounds that had to be ban-daged."
"Don’t you worry" said the father in a faltering voice. "We will look after you, the same as we did when you were small. We’ll manage."
Time did its job. Moshe slowly recovered. The pain faded. He was served a hearty meal three times a day, and the sisters fed him. And I, who had been fed intravenously for three weeks, watched each mouthful as it disappeared. Then he told me his story. Mine clear-ance. Inaccurate maps. A tank mine with a foot trigger. The explo-sion...
After a few days he was transferred from the severe injuries ward to the recovery ward. When I was allowed to get up, I went to see him. His head bandage was gone, and his face was dotted with scars.
"How are things?"
He smiled. He really smiled. "Good. The pain is gone. And the doctors says that my wounds are making good progress."
"And your hands?" I didn’t know if they had told him yet. A shadow passed over his face. "You know, they removed nearly all my fingers. But somehow I’ll manage."
I looked into his face - the face of a twenty-year-old. Until recently he had had a life full of adventure ahead of him. What kind of a life could he now expect? And a second thought went through my head.