Yonatan, who was the only one waiting for a ride, eventually decided that this caption needed correction. He first thought of scratching on the penis, with the sharp corner of an ammunition clip, FUCK EVERYTHING. And then, over the whole drawing, MEA CULPA. Or THREE CHEERS FOR JUSTICE. In the end, he contented himself with crossing out GOOD TO THE LUST and inserting the word DEAD after DROP. As he did so, two ragged-looking reservists pulled up in a decrepit old command car, one wearing a heavy army overcoat, the other with his head and shoulders wrapped in a gray blanket. Without a word Yonatan clambered in the back, dumped his gear on a pile of similar belongings, cuddled up in his windbreaker, and squatted comfortably on a stack of greasy tarpaulins. As soon as they set out, the increasing speed of the vehicle hammered exhilaratingly in his veins. He narrowed his eyes against the wind and gulped its cold, astringent blows deep into his lungs. Gritty particles picked up from the road slashed at his face. In his hand, he held firmly the ammunition clip with which he’d recaptioned the lewd drawing in the shelter.

For a long while out of Beersheba, the fringe of the desert sprouted with fields of coming Bedouin wheat, as though its soft hills had been tinted by a brush as far as his watering eyes could see—a lovely pastel green, rippled now and then by the wind, gleaming here and there with dazzling pools of rainwater, growing fainter as it stretched to meet the pale blue horizon, where a transcendent compromise seemed to have been reached between the color of the sky and the color of the grain. A promised reconciliation.

Far away, in a place where the heavens descended gently on earthly fields, there was love in this world. All would end happily there. A perfect peace.

Between him and that place endless waves were billowing across an endless expanse. Field after lonely field. Flat earth bounded by soft hills, flat earth stippled by droplets of light, all the way to the edge of the world, with only a single road to spear it like a black arrow, answered only by the roar of a motor. This is life. And the world. And me. And love. Just wait peacefully and you will receive it. Just go on resting and all will be given you. Everything is waiting. All things are possible. The magic is on its way.