I didn’t move away from them. They could feel me watching them. They smiled at me kindly. I took the tassel they offered me and put it in my pocket, still standing close beside them. They were eating, swaying backwards and forwards and chattering in Yiddish. I didn’t understand a single word but I could tell they were talking about politics. And I, a dirty, unkempt soldier, with a ten-day growth of beard, staring at them hard. I was beginning to make them uneasy.
Suddenly I said, “May I have a tomato?” They were astonished, they thought I’d gone mad. But the eldest recovered his composure and handed me a tomato. I sprinkled salt on it, sat down beside them and began asking questions. Where had they come from? What were they doing? How did they live? Where were they going from here? And they replied, the two older men, swaying all the while as if their answers too were a kind of prayer. Suddenly a thought struck me. These men are so free. They don’t really belong to us. They come and go at will. They have no obligations. Moving around like black beetles among the soldiers in the desert. Metaphysical creatures. I couldn’t leave them alone.
But the religious-affairs sergeant, who was acting as a sort of impresario for them, came to move them on. A bombardment was expected soon, they’d better leave. Immediately they stood up, buried the remains of their food, tied up their boxes with string and at fantastic speed mumbled the grace after meals, then they climbed into their jeep and disappeared from sight.
And on one of the rocks I found a black jacket that one of them, apparently the youngest, had left behind. I picked it up. It was made of good thick material. The label was of a tailor in Geulah Street, Jerusalem, guaranteed pure wool. It gave off a faint smell of sweat, but a sweat different from that of the men around me, a sweet smell of incense or tobacco, a smell of old books. For a moment I thought of throwing it back, then suddenly, without thinking, I put it on. It fit. “Does it suit me?” I asked a soldier who was passing. He stopped and stared, I could see he didn’t recognize me. Then he grinned and started to run.
And now there fell around us a bombardment unlike anything that we’d known before. We crouched on the ground, curled up like embryos, desperately scratching at the dry earth with our fingernails. The shells groped for us blindly, pounding angrily and accurately a crossroads only a hundred metres from us. Such a tiny miscalculation. For hours on end we lay in the sand, shells exploding all around us, eyes closed, dust in our mouths, beside us a burning halftrack.
Towards evening, silence returned as if nothing had happened. Deep silence. They moved us forwards five kilometres, to the foot of a hill, and once again we spread out our blankets to sleep.
And at first light, as if time were repeating itself, again we woke up to the sound of chanting and prayer and rhythmic hand clapping. The three of them had returned, as if they’d sprung from the ground, and they were trying to rouse us.
“You were here before! You were already here! You gave us prayer books!” They were silenced by the hostile reception. The three of them were frightened, froze where they stood and then retreated in confusion, mumbling among themselves in Yiddish. But one soldier leaped from his blankets and ran towards them, rolling up the sleeve of his left arm with an expression of pain, as if expecting an injection. Encouraged, the three men began binding tefillin on his arm, opening the prayer book in front of him, showing him what to read, tending him as if he were sick. Leading him a few steps forwards, a few steps back, making him sway in unison with them, turning him towards the east, to the rising sun. We lay in our sleeping bags and watched them. From a distance it looked like they were praying to the sun.
They finished, and once again they sat down to eat, as on the previous day, groping in their cardboard boxes and again bringing out eggs, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes, as if they’d picked them in the desert. But this time they were no longer the centre of attention. The men had lost interest in them, still shaken by the bombardment of yesterday. Slowly I approached them, glanced in the open boxes. These no longer contained sacred objects, they’d given everything away yesterday. The boxes were full of booty they’d picked up, army belts, ammunition pouches, coloured pictures of Sadat, souvenirs for home.
And again, I was amazed at their freedom –
“How are you? Are you well?” I smiled at them, trying to start a conversation.
“The Lord be praised each day,” they replied. I could see they didn’t recognize me.
“Where are you going from here?”
“Home, with God’s help. To tell of the miracles and wonders.”
“What miracles? Don’t you realize what’s going on here?”
They were unmoved.
“By God’s grace, everything is a miracle.”
“Are you married?”
They smiled, surprised at the question.
“Praise the Lord.”
“Praise the Lord yes or no?”
“Praise the Lord … of course …”
Suddenly they recognized me.
“Have we not spoken with you before, sir?”
“Yes. Yesterday morning. Before the bombardment.”
“And how are you, sir?”
“So-so …”
I sat down beside them, in my hand the small knapsack in which the young man’s jacket was hidden. They shifted away slightly.
“Have you lost your jacket?” I asked the young man, who hadn’t spoken yet. He was wearing an Egyptian combat smock that he’d picked up somewhere.
“Yes,” he replied, with a thin, charming smile. “Perhaps you have found it?”
“No …”
“It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, you are forgiven,” the older man reassured him.
And all the while they were eating with such ease, such assurance. I felt a growing attraction to them, it was painful.
The young man with the pretty face was daintily chewing his bread, ignoring me, picking up the crumbs with his thin delicate fingers, still reading that old religious newspaper spread out in front of him. They no longer had tea. They were passing a bottle from hand to hand, manna perhaps, or dew that they’d collected on their way. It was obvious they were content with little. Again I felt an urge to take something from them, a vegetable or a piece of bread. But in the end, without asking permission, I picked up the young man’s hat, which was lying in the sand, and put it on my head. Then, to a rhythm of my own, I started swaying. They smiled, very embarrassed. Their faces went red. I could see they were a little scared of us, a little wary.
“Don’t you find it hot in these hats?”
“Praise the Lord.”
“Does it suit me?” I asked childishly.
“With God’s help … with God’s help.” They forced themselves to smile, bewildered, uncomprehending.