senior officers. They have more refined voices than the two we just heard. One of our pilots has been shot down near Beit Jibrin. He is about to be taken for interrogation to Iraq Suweidan. Very good! We’ll have to inform the brigade staff straight away. Maybe he can be rescued while he is being transferred.
"When was the last time you were in Egypt?" asks Beit Jibrin.
"Oh, Egypt," Iraq Suweidan moans longingly. "Just two weeks ago."
"Really?" Beit Jibrin is full of envy. "What is Groupi like?" When he mentions the well-known cafe in Cairo, his voice is suddenly wide awake.
"Full of life! You can hardly tell that a war is on."
"These shirkers! Damn them!" Beit Jibrin burst out. "Here we are lying in the dirt and they are enjoying a life of paradise. I would send my company there and finish off the lot of them." Cairo or Tel Aviv. Groupi or Pilz. The relation between the front and the rear is identical.
"And how is your wife?"
"My God!" Iraq Suweidan tries to sound shocked. But it doesn’t work. With them, too, there are no love secrets between soldiers. "You know what? It was like the days after the wedding. For four whole days I didn’t leave the bed ..."
"You lucky fellow. And the children ..."
"They are both fine. The little one already calls me ‘Papa.’ He takes after me. A little devil."
"Egypt," Beit Jibrin dreamed, "home, girls, cafes, music. What a dream!"
I have stopped writing. And Jamus is translating the words in a trance. Home, girls, cafes, music. What a dream!
We, however, are in neither Cairo nor Tel Aviv, but in Beit Jibrin and in Manzuva, only a few kilometers apart. And we live in two dif-ferent worlds, ready, in the name of Arab freedom or Zionist progress, to kill each other, ready to subordinate ourselves to any for-eign power, just to prolong this idiotic fratricidal war for years and generations...
* * *
I only experienced it once, such a bridge from front to front, an invis-ible bridge that lasted for several days.