I didn’t know somebody was going to snatch me up and send me straight into the inferno. I say it again — they simply wanted to kill me.
At first things happened casually. By the time I found the camp it was already midday. I parked the car in the parking lot and looked for the gate, but there wasn’t a gate, just a broken-down fence and a lot of confusion. People running backwards and forwards among the barracks, army vehicles racing about, but behind the mask of feverish activity a new and unfamiliar lethargy prevailed. The system breaking down. Ask a question and nobody listens. Everywhere you’re pursued by the voice of the transistor, but it gives no news. Even the old marching songs have no spirit left in them. Suddenly, folly.
It was obvious, I saw at once, they didn’t know what to do with me. Aside from a passport, I had no document that could have given them something to work on. They sent me from hut to hut, they sent me to the computer building, perhaps the computer would come up with something about me. And the computer did come up with something — not me but an old Jew, about fifty-five years old, living in Dimona, perhaps a relative of mine.
Finally I wandered to a hut at the edge of the camp where all the doubtful cases were assembled, most of them citizens who had just come back from abroad, still with their coloured suitcases, crouching on the withered grass. And a ginger-haired soldier, she was stunted and ugly, was collecting the passports. She took mine as well.
We waited.
Most of those waiting were Israelis who had returned. When they heard that I’d been abroad for ten years it was as if their eyes sparkled. They thought I’d returned especially for the war. I didn’t mind them thinking that, if it was good for their morale to see that even after so much time the Israeli still belongs.
From time to time the ginger-haired girl would come out, call out the name of one of those waiting and lead him into the hut, and after a while he would emerge with a conscription order. At first they were dealing with us as if we were a nuisance, as if they were doing us a favour in drafting us, in taking the trouble to find units for us. As if there was nothing to be gained by all this conscription, as if the war was already over. But as the light faded around us their attitude began to change. The rhythm of recruitment intensified. Suddenly we became important. They needed everyone. The ranks were thinning out. From the transistor there rose a smell of death. Between the lines, among the slogans and the vague reports, it seemed something had gone wrong.
Gradually the crowd around me dwindled. Men who had arrived after me were being called into the office and dispatched to their units and there was no sign of my case becoming any clearer. I was already famished. Aside from that piece of bread that you’d given me in the morning I’d eaten nothing all day. Suddenly I got tired of waiting. I walked into the office and said to the ginger-haired girl, “Well, what about me?”
She said, “You must wait, we have no information about you.”
“Then perhaps I can come back tomorrow?”
“No, you must stay here.”
“Where’s my passport?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“At least let me go and find something to eat.”
“No, you must stay here … don’t start making trouble now.”
And with the first twilight a new party of officers arrived at the camp. I never knew we had officers so old. Some white-haired, some bald, fifty, sixty years old and more, wearing uniforms from different periods, medals on every chest. Some of them lame, leaning on canes. Captains, majors and lieutenant colonels, survivors from another age. Coming to the nation’s rescue, to shore up the tottering, baffled command.
They dispersed among the huts. Now everything was dark. Blankets had been hung over the windows to black out the lights. And on the edge of the camp I suddenly found myself alone, even the sounds of the transistors had died away. A smell of orchards all around. I wanted to call you but the public phone that had been working all day was now dead. Darkness and silence all around. Even the whine of aircraft and helicopters had grown faint. Only a distant siren, perhaps in Jerusalem, passed over like a hushed wail.
At last the little ginger-haired girl came out, it was already nine o’clock, perhaps later. She called me and led me to a room inside the hut. Waiting for me there was a giant major, about fifty years old, completely bald, a red paratrooper’s beret tucked into his epaulette, his uniform newly pressed, he seemed fresh, he even smelled of aftershave lotion.
He stood leaning on a chair, one hand in his pocket and my passport in the other hand, the clerk sat down at the table, already pale with exhaustion. For some reason she seemed confused by the appearance of the major in the office.
“You arrived in Israel four months ago?”
“Yes.”
There was something urgent, intense in his voice. He clipped his words sharply.
“You should have presented yourself within two weeks. Did you know?”
“Yes …”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t expect to be staying … as it happens, I was delayed …”
“As it happens?”
He took a short step towards me and then back. Then I observed a small transistor protruding from his shirt pocket, a thin white flex connecting it to his ear. He was dealing with me and listening to the news at the same time.
“How long have you been abroad?”
“About ten years.”
“And you never came back here?”
“No …”
“Didn’t you care what was happening in this country?”
I smiled. How could I reply to such a question?
“I read newspapers …”
“Newspapers …” he echoed me scornfully and I saw that he was full of anger, a vague, menacing anger.
“What are you? A deserter?”
“No …” I began to mumble, thrown off balance by these savage questions.
“I just wasn’t able to come back …” I paused for a moment and then added, I don’t know why, in a low voice, “I was ill, too.”
“What was wrong with you?” He spat it out harshly, with venom.
“The name of the disease would mean nothing to you.”
He hesitated, looked me over carefully, glanced angrily at the clerk, who was sitting there baffled, not knowing what to write, a blank sheet of paper in front of her. He listened to the transistor plugged into his ear, some important news. His face grew dark.
“Are you all right now?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you present yourself in time?”
“I told you. I didn’t expect to be staying.”
“But you stayed.”
“Yes …”
“Something suddenly caught your fancy?”
There was something obscure about these questions. A hidden, relentless provocation.
“No … I mean … nothing like that … I was just waiting for my grandmother to die.”
“What?”
He took a step towards me, as if he didn’t believe his ears. It was then that I noticed an ugly red scar on his neck. And the hand that was hidden in his pocket was motionless, lifeless, or maybe artificial.
“My grandmother became paralyzed … she lost consciousness, that is why I came home.”
Then began a personal, intimate interrogation, as if he wanted to prepare a list of charges against me without knowing of what crime I stood accused, probing, trying from every angle. We stood facing each other, he like a wildcat poised to spring at me, relenting only at the last moment. The ginger-haired girl listened as if hypnotized, scribbling in pencil on an army form the mass of personal, intimate details, details of no relevance at all to the army.