different here? Two years after the war no one will be interested in whether you fought in Ibdis or were sitting in the Romano House."
I know that she is right. Maybe all of us at the front really are stu-pid, while the clever ones are constructing the state the way they want it. That’s what the stupid ones always do: they form a living ladder which others use to climb to fame. Then monuments will be made to the clever ones and the stupid will be forgotten.
* * *
I pretend to need some rest, send them all out of the room, and lock myself in.
My room is chaotic. The desk is covered in all sorts of things I brought back in previous "leaves" - small items of booty, orders of the day, pages of my diary, letters from friends, and photos that I lifted from Arab houses. That is one of my quirks. I collect pictures of Fellaheen, especially those of women and children. I want to remind myself later who our "enemies" were.
The books are dusty. I look at them without warmth. During the war I have learned more than from all these books. The books about the "art of warfare" annoy me the most. Scribblers who have never experienced what war is really like. Otherwise they couldn’t have written such clever books. The political books I also find unattrac-tive. Still I miss the calm of days gone past. How nice it was to read a good book in the light of the table lamp. The radio would play classi-cal music, and I would feel that I understood the world.
I start clearing up. Wipe away the dust, sweep the floor, until the room starts to look pleasant again. I get everything ready for the night. Systematically, like before a particularly dangerous operation. The wineglasses are ready, the cigarettes in the right place. I get some cake from my mother. Then I take a shower. The cold water refreshes me. At the front we say that a cold shower is as good as four hours’ sleep.
Then I just have to laugh out loud. It amuses me to be getting everything ready to sleep with a girl without knowing who she is.
* * *
It is eight o’clock and everything is ready. All I have to do now is find a girl.
First I went to Shifra. I like her and enjoy her company. She has a boyfriend who is serving in another brigade and never gets in my way because he is never in town when I am on leave.