Eight hours later he was dead. Our first casualty. To "toughen" us and familiarize us with the difficulties of life at the front, we had to march from kibbutz to kibbutz on foot. The whole battalion marched in an enormously long row through the dark night. In the dark the first company lost contact with the rest. The men took up a circular defensive position on the ground. And when we suddenly appeared in silhouette ten yards in front of them, they panicked and opened fire. Israel was the first to be hit.
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Everything in war has its own perfume. Even love. I can remember the first time I kissed Yucki. It was in Beit Sarah. One of the aban-doned villages, which distinguished itself with its particularly aggres-sive fleas. We poured buckets of liquid DDT over ourselves. That didn’t bother the fleas at all. Scientists assert that living creatures can adapt to anything in time. These fleas led a wonderful life and thrived in a sea of DDT.
Yucki spent a few days in this damned village with us. Like us she also stank grossly of DDT. The stink was enough kill a steer. Only the fleas didn’t mind it. They promenaded all over us while we were run-ning through the village, looking for souvenirs for Yucki. I kissed her in one of the houses, on a pile of hay. The DDT smell combined advantageously with the other domestic smells, the charcoal, the goat droppings. It was a symphony of stink, a symphony of military love. For a few moments we even forgot the fleas.
Strange how all the smells of war are sweetish. Sweetly disgusting. The smell of rotting flesh. Apparently you can get used to it. We never succeeded.
In Iraq-Sharkiah we were stationed for two weeks in a wadi that stank appallingly. The stink came from a small mound in the middle of the wadi. We never found out what it was. A dead donkey, a camel, or maybe even a human. That is also typical for war: you smell death. But you generally don’t know who died there, who killed them, or why. Most deaths in war have no reason. You don’t even ask yourself what you are killing for. That is a question for your superiors.
"And from afar he smells war..."? Not always from afar. Sometimes the smell is very close, envelops you, suffocates you, digs its claws into your lungs. Like on that awful day, the day of death.
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