Korczak lowered his book. “Have you still not realized that you’ve made it to Wonderland?” he asked, bursting into laughter. “He’s the White Rabbit,” he said and pointed at me. “And you, you’re Alice.”

“Why is she Alice?” I asked. Korczak didn’t reply.

She told him she had come to the outpost just for him, that she heard he had enlisted in the paratroopers after earning a law degree from Oxford. She said she thought it was a great story. “People like to know what wonderful soldiers we have,” she noted, and removed the cap of the camera lens. “It would make them happy to hear about you.”

He was silent for a moment. “Then you’re going to be just as disappointed as my mom was, since I don’t have a degree.”

She laughed before realizing he wasn’t joking. “But your CO, he told me, I mean, I spoke to him a few times …”

“My CO is an idiot who doesn’t know his soldiers,” he interrupted her. “I’m willing to bet you he doesn’t even know my name.” Korczak explained that he had dropped out at the beginning of his third year in law school, and that he had spent the two years leading up to his conscription as a clerk in a dilapidated city hall building. “You can put that in, I’m sure it’ll get you a Pulitzer.”

I saw how the muscles in her face slackened; the realization that her whole trip was in vain was slowly seeping in. She sat on the lower bunk, held her head in her hands, and got up again.

“Okay, listen, I know what we’ll do. We can say you went to law school without mentioning whether you graduated. A few white lies never killed anyone,” she said, and placed her hand on his.

Korczak grimaced, shook off her hand, and returned to his book. “The nation will just have to make do without me,” he announced.

She had yet to realize that she had already lost him. I think it wasn’t the idea of lying that bothered him so much but the fact that the entire conversation had a clear agenda.

She tried to persuade him. At first he gave only monosyllabic answers, but eventually he stopped responding altogether. Finally she gave up and walked out of the room, with me in tow. She sat down on the curb and took out a cigarette. She asked me if I had a lighter. I said I didn’t.

“What a shitty day,” she mumbled under her breath, stepping on a piece of broken glass lying on the road. “I don’t get it, do you have to be an asshole to serve here?” she wondered out loud, and quickly corrected herself. “I mean, not you. You’re sweet, really.”