move. You will think the same way, talk the same way, move the same way - dress right! The motherland is in danger - eyes front! The ter-rorists want to destroy us - forward march! If you are lucky, it will last eighty years
The Moroccans are singing. Let them sing. Tomorrow morning, when I command them to dig trenches, they will be crying. Their French songs are beautiful, even if I can’t understand much. They are cheerful songs. We don’t have songs like that. Our songs are sad. Even our marching songs. Maybe that is the way it has to be. We can be funny and crack jokes. Even when we are suffering deeply and dog tired. But being happy is far from us. We are a generation without joie de vivre. We don’t know how to enjoy life. Our pleasures are piti-ful: movies, dancing, and sexual lust. That is all. We didn’t have the time to develop fully as human beings. We were too busy: playing with guns, pamphlets, illegal newspapers - those were our pleasures.
* * *
Girls, yes, yes, yes,
Girls, no, no, no,
Girls - on both knees ...
* * *
The Moroccans are cheerful. We don’t have songs like that. Even our national anthem is a dirge.
My hand touches something warm. Who is that? Oh yes, little Shulah. I stroke her absent-mindedly. She presses against me. Up till then it had never occurred to me that Shulah is a woman. She is small, dark skinned, and quiet. Nobody pays attention to her. She works somewhere in the battalion. In the stores, in the kitchen, in the radio room? I don’t know.
* * *
Let us drink - yes, yes, yes
Let us drink - no, no, no,
Let us empty the glasses ...
* * *
It is dark all around and the rain is drumming on the roof. Outside it is cold, inside nice and warm. The bodies of fifty men, who tomorrow will be killed or wounded.