Jamus stops laughing, with his mouth still open. Suddenly he looks very sad.
* * *
We have finished, but don’t feel like getting up. This crouching position is comfortable and somehow fits our mood.
"Give me some paper!"
I generously tear off half of a sheet of old newspaper, which I have been keeping in my pocket for this purpose, and hand it to Jamus. We concentrate on reading the headlines.
"Miserable creatures!" Jamus curses. "Listen to what a military expert writes: even if the UN imposes a ceasefire on the two sides for several years, there is no doubt they will both stock up on weapons in preparation for a second round. That will then be deci-sive ..." Jamus tears up the paper and carefully wipes his bottom. "The war is not yet over, and they are already considering how to kill off the survivors."
"Come on, let’s go for a little walk," I suggest.
We don’t feel like going back to our comrades who are lying under the trees. We want to be alone and walk through the fields. The ground is covered in rotting watermelons, the other field is a dried-up vegetable plot. There are weeds everywhere. In a few weeks these too will be dried out.
Rotten fruit, deserted houses. The work of generations destroyed. How many hours’ hard work does each plant need? I don’t like agri-cultural work. Earlier on, when I was just ten, I worked for half a year in Nahalal.2 Since then I don’t find this work romantic any more. And I can’t tell plants apart.
"I don’t know," Jamus thinks aloud, "dead plants and fruit are much more sad than a corpse. When you see this here you can’t believe in God any more."
"Did you ever believe in God?" I ask with interest.
"I am not talking about some kind of dear father in heaven, who gives his children sweets or a smack like in the Bible. I mean some kind of morality..."
"Not lighting a light on the Sabbath? Or not eating pork?"
"Don’t be childish! What the Jews call a religion is rubbish. A col-lection of assorted superstitions and rituals. I mean a real religion that tells you what you should do and what you should not."