“Yes, soldier boy. Anything else?” Mr. Gotthilf was too busy stacking coins on his sticky counter to look up. Behind him, on a shelf lined with candy and olive and pickle jars, was a photograph of a heavyset, coarse-looking woman in a tastelessly low-cut dress. A necklace of tear-shaped beads fell from her throat and vanished into the cleft. On her knees she held a small child with neatly combed hair parted in the middle, glasses, a tie, and a three-piece suit, with a handkerchief in the breast pocket. A black mourning ribbon cut diagonally across a bottom corner of the picture, which had been framed in a kitschy, fake mother-of-pearl. Why was it that other people’s sorrows so often seemed just so much soap opera while our own always strike us as terribly poignant? What was the reason for all this suffering no matter where you looked? Even in this pathetic dump! Maybe it’s a lousy cop-out to run away. Maybe my father and that whole chorus line of old men are right after all. Maybe I should go right home and devote my life from now on to the War on Suffering.

“Yes, soldier boy. Anything else?”

Yonatan hesitated. “Right,” he said in his low voice, “you can give me some chewing gum. And I think I’ll have a cup of espresso too.”

He took his purchases back to the table as if his sally to the counter had cost him the last of his strength. Never mind, though. Everything was going smoothly. They could look for him all they pleased. The whole bunch of them. And bring the police and the border patrol with their bloodhounds. Why shouldn’t they? Suppose I’d been killed. Let them comb the wadis. Let them look for my corpse. Why not? I’m already a million miles away. And they’re never going to find me. Because I’m off to where I’m being waited for.

Two officers entered the cafe and sat down at a nearby table. Do I know them? Who could remember every face from the whole goddamn army? From some chess tournament, maybe, or that farm machinery course? Everyone here looked like everyone else. The safest thing to do is to keep your head down, your mouth shut, and clear out as soon as you’ve finished your coffee. Damn! I forgot to tell them to watch out for that cracked electrical outlet near the porch door. You can get a shock from it. I didn’t even leave a note.