Amos Oz - Where the Jackals Howl

Between the men’s and the women’s shower there was a thin partition of patched tin. The general-duty men had punched peepholes here and there, and they used to spend hours in the shower hut, especially on weekends. Itcheh loved to press his huge naked body against the partition until the tin began to creak and groan. On the other side of the partition the girls responded with squeals of fright or anticipation. Then Itcheh would roar with laughter and all those present on both sides of the wall would join in his laughter. Once it happened that Itcheh sprained his ankle on the camp soccer field. He limped to the clinic and surprised Nahum Hirsch as the young man was cutting nude pictures out of a foreign magazine. Nahum probed the twisted ankle to make quite sure that it was a sprain and not a fracture. Itcheh was his usual carefree self. Even when the young man’s fingers groped higher up the leg and his whole body shook, still Itcheh continued to joke and he noticed nothing. Then Nahum fitted an elastic bandage on the ankle joint and stretched it mercilessly. Itcheh let out a low moan of pain but still he seemed not to suspect anything. Finally Itcheh smiled, thanked the orderly for the treatment, and held out his hand. Nahum put his fingers into the huge hand. Itcheh began to squeeze his fingers with fearful pressure. Wave upon wave of pain, pride, and pleasure flowed around the base of the young orderly’s spine. Itcheh intensified his grip still further. Nahum abandoned himself to the sweet ripples of pain, but on his face there was only a polite smile as if to say: I only bandaged your ankle because it was my duty. Then Itcheh relaxed his hold and released Nahum’s hand. He said, “Perhaps we’ll decide to take you on the next raid. The time has come to make you a combat orderly. Eh?”

The sweet smell of chewing gum was wafted over Nahum’s face, and he found nothing to say.

Of course Itcheh had forgotten this promise, and perhaps he was in the habit of throwing similar promises around among the general-duty men. They had chosen little Yonich, of all people. Now, at this very moment, he was running around bent double in the clinging darkness, or perhaps crawling on the ground, half of his face grinning foolishly and the other half like a stone carving. Still complete silence, not a sound to be heard. Only crickets and jackals and faint music from a radio in the living quarters. There is still time.

4

A DENSE night breeze came and stirred the treetops. The shower of whitewash fragments grew. Nahum was overcome by the kind of weariness that follows despair. Suddenly he noticed that unconsciously he had been snapping small twigs between his fingers.

The enemy searchlight was still raking the sky. Even the conquered earth kept sending out waves of clinging warmth, heavy with fragrance.

Light footsteps approached. Nahum knew those footsteps. He stood up and pressed himself against the trunk of the eucalyptus. He lay in wait in the darkness, allowing a crazy hallucination to take control of him. When she passed in front of him, he leapt out from his hiding place and blocked her path. She let out a low cry of fear. But at the same moment she recognized him.

“Hey,” said the orderly in a low voice.

“Out of my way, cut it out,” she said. “Don’t be childish.”

“He’s going to be wounded,” said Nahum sadly and patiently.

“Idiot,” said Bruria.

“He’s going to be wounded tonight. Seriously wounded.”

“Let me pass. I don’t want to see you or listen to you. You’re mad.”

“He’s going to be wounded seriously, but he won’t die. I promise you that he won’t die.”

“Go away. Go to hell.”

“Are you angry? I’m going to save him myself; you shouldn’t be angry with me — this very night I’m going to save his life.”

“You’re a joke. Stop running after me. Don’t say things like that to me. I didn’t tell you to follow me. Get out. I didn’t give you permission to enter this room. Get out, go away, or I’ll call the sergeant major. Get out of here or you’ll be in trouble.”

Nahum followed her movements with a look of longing. She switched on the light, nervous and distracted, began sorting out some papers that were scattered on the chair and the table, pushed something away under the cupboard, and sat down on the unmade camp bed, her face to the wall and her back to him.

“Are you still here? What do you want from me? Tell me, what have I done that makes people like you come here and cause trouble? Get out. Leave me alone. You men make me sick.”

“You’ve insulted me twice in less than ten minutes,” said Nahum Hirsch, “but I won’t hold that against you, not tonight. I’m going to save his life.”

Bruria said: “Any minute now, Jacqueline will be back. If she comes in and finds you here you’ll regret it. I don’t even know who you are. You’re Nahum the orderly. OK, Nahum the orderly, get out of here, now.”

Suddenly Nahum ripped off all the buttons of his khaki shirt with a wild, hysterical movement, and the girl pressed herself against the wall, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide open and terrified. She was speechless. Nahum pointed to his thin, bare chest.

“Now watch carefully,” he whispered frantically, “look. This is where the bullet has entered. He’s taken the bullet full in the throat. It goes in here and out there. On the way, it cuts his windpipe. The veins are severed as well. And blood starts to flow here, down, inside, straight into his lungs.”

His pale fingers sketched the course of the wound on his chest, and the feverish lecture raced on.

“And from the windpipe, here, all the blood pours into the lungs. A hemorrhage like this nearly always causes suffocation and death.”

“That’s enough. Shut up. Please, stop it.”

“They suffocate, simply because there’s no room for air if the lungs are full of blood. Now they are bringing him in from the field straight to me, in the clinic. His face is blue, he’s choking, vomiting blood, spitting blood, his clothes are full of blood, his beard is full of blood, his eyes have rolled up and you can only see the whites. But I don’t panic. I take a knife, a rubber tube, and a pocket light, and I cut his windpipe. Like a butcher, except that I’m doing it to save his life at the last moment. I’m not looking for decorations or prizes. I save his life because we are all brothers-in-arms. Very low down I cut his windpipe — look here, watch — farther down — here. And I insert the rubber tube through the severed windpipe right into his lung. Like this.”

Bruria sat upright, her neck taut, as if mesmerized, under a spell, watching the pale, nimble fingers running over the thin chest like sewing needles, as if searching for some invisible opening. She was silent. Nahum went on without a pause, his voice choking and feverish.

“Now I’m gripping the end of the tube in my mouth. I start sucking the blood out of his lungs to give him a chance to breathe, so he won’t die of suffocation. Watch, sucking and spitting, sucking and spitting, not pausing for a moment, devotedly, lovingly. And watch, now I’m breathing into his lungs, like this, in-out, in-out, like saving a drowned man.”

Gradually, without her realizing it, Bruria’s breathing changed as well. She began to follow the rhythm of the orderly’s breathing. There was a short silence.

“He’s recovering now,” Nahum shouted suddenly. “I can see his eyes moving. And his knees. He’s showing signs of life now.”

Bruria opened her mouth as if to weep or to cry out, yet she neither wept nor cried out, but went on breathing deeply.

“Now he’s already breathing by himself — not through his nose or his mouth, but through the tube that I inserted in his lung. Look. Spitting blood. That’s good for him. Choking. That’s a good sign, too. He won’t die on us now. He’s going to live. Here, open his blurred eye for a moment. Look. This one. The left. Close it. Pale. Now you can go down on your knees beside the stretcher and take his hand in yours and try to talk to him. He won’t be able to answer you, but perhaps he can hear you. I’m going now. Yes. Don’t try to stop me, I don’t need any thanks. I’ve done my duty. I’m going, the ambulance is honking outside and the doctor has arrived. An unknown orderly has taken it upon himself to carry out a difficult operation under field conditions and has saved the life of a national hero. Itcheh and I will embrace on the front page of the newspaper. You don’t owe me anything. Far from it. You’ll get married, live happily ever after. I’ve only done my duty. And I shall continue to love you both from a distance. Good-bye, good-bye, I’m off, I’m going, good-bye.”