"It is better to get shrapnel in your belly after you have taken a shit. Then your intestines are empty," Jamus adds.
That is an old piece of lore. When we were green recruits we used to take notice of such things. Before the first battle - just in case -1 emptied my bowels. Since then we have become fatalists. You can die with an empty bowel and stay alive with a full one. In general it is bet-ter to fill yourself up before each action. You never know when you will next have the chance ...
The aircraft fail to discover our new location. They circle a few times over the village, fire a few salvos into the orchard where we were before, and disappear.
"Perhaps they have to use up their munitions before the ceasefire starts?" I suggest.
"There is no ceasefire!" Jamus asserts.
"Why not?"
"There will always be politicians who like war. Particularly among us!" Jamus explains - hoping, of course, that I will contradict him.
But I just get angry. I imagine a disgusting politician sitting in his office in Tel Aviv with a cup of coffee and a buttered roll in front of him. I can see him in front of me. He has a fat face, an ironed shirt, and a gold tooth in his upper jaw. He speaks like a eunuch in a high voice, drinks a noisy mouthful, and explains to his colleagues: "We must fight. The hope of generations depends on our youth which is giving its blood to realize the Zionist dream. With courageous hearts we shall take the path of suffering and honor..." He sits there and we crouch here. He has hemorrhoids and status.
"If only I could get my hands on one of these politicians," I dream.
"What would you do with them?"
"I would ... I would ..." I search for an image to satisfy my sadistic fantasies.
"I know," says Jamus, "I’ve thought about this for a long time. Imagine that we put all these war-loving functionaries in a small room. Then we take a hand grenade, remove the charge, and put the detonator back in. Then we drop this hand grenade through a little window into the room. The people see the safety lever come off and then they all die from a heart attack like real heroes."
"But what if they don’t even know how a hand grenade works?"