"Tomorrow I’m going to get myself a boil on the balls," muttered Kebab.
* * *
The journey is awful. The vehicle jumps around, the wounded man moans and groans. We want to help him, but what on earth can we do? "Mayia, mayia"1 the Arab moans. We have no water. We hold him firmly so he is shaken around less. Our hands are covered in his blood.
"I am going to die," he whispers. "You won’t die" the medic tries to comfort him with the little Arabic he has picked up. "Wait a moment. The doctor will come soon."
"I am going to die. Going to die!" the wounded man repeats.
Strange thoughts dance through my head. We ought to tell him that everything will be OK. That he will soon be treated, that we will take him to a hospital. But my mouth is sealed. I hold him firmly, feel his writhing body and his pain. A revolting brown liquid flows over my hands. And I always thought that blood was red.
* * *
We carry him into the medical tent. The doctor examines him and puts on a new bandage. The doctor is very unpopular. A short man from Poland who treats every sick or wounded patient as though he was a shirker.
I drop my trousers and show him my bottom. The boil is red and swollen. A little nurse tries to treat it. She is young and embar-rassed. After two weeks on the front my body is not particularly clean. I don’t care. I look at the wounded Arab. An officer of the intel-ligence corps comes in. "How does it look?" he asks the doctor, who shrugs his shoulders as though the matter had nothing to do with him.
"Where do you come from?" he asks the wounded man in Arabic. He doesn’t answer. Just whimpers to himself like a whipped dog.
"Min wien inta,"2 shouts the officer.
Now the wounded man answers, falteringly. He is a Fellah from Masmiyya. He has a wife and two small children. He was going to the town of Lod to earn some money. He doesn’t know where the Arab fighters are. He doesn’t know anything about the war. He is a simple Fellah who wants to feed his wife and two children.
The officer is annoyed.