“Pea soup won’t help you here,” Dad said. His face flushed red. Truth be told, at that moment, I agreed with him. I was also starting to feel that this whole enlisting business had gone too far, but I didn’t want to leave Grandpa to fend for himself.

“It’s not as if they’re going to deploy him to Lebanon tomorrow,” I said, trying to calm things down. “They’ll probably set him up with a suitable position, it’s a special unit for people his age, isn’t it?”

Grandpa nodded.

“How exactly is enlisting to Golani suitable for an eighty-year-old man, in any scenario?”

“They know what they’re doing. I bet they adjusted the whole training course for them, I’m telling you. Old people are doing crazy things nowadays. Just yesterday I read about a ninety-year-old Japanese man who ran a full marathon. Compared to him, Grandpa’s still a baby.”

“You truly don’t grasp the difference between a marathon and boot camp?” Dad yelled. “The army isn’t supposed to provide employment for bored widowers. How could you, who fought a war, not understand that?”

“Because you, who served as a student-soldier in the Tel Aviv headquarters, do understand?” I barked at him. “What’s the big deal? So he’ll pull a little guard duty. It’s better than lying in bed all day waiting for a stroke.”

Grandpa coughed. I could see by his expression that he was trying to hide the insult; with a few brief sentences, we’d practically buried him alive.

“I don’t know about you guys,” he said, “but I’m going to enjoy a nice bowl of soup.” Grandpa got up, took a few steps toward the stairs, and stumbled on a loose tile. His cup almost fell, and the remainder of his coffee spilled over his white shirt, staining it with black, moist grains. Dad rushed toward him. He picked him up gently, cleaned his hands with a torn tissue he fished out of his pocket. Then he went downstairs to fetch a wet kitchen towel. I offered Grandpa to help him down the stairs.

“Don’t. At eighty, a man should start learning to manage by himself,” he announced and descended the entire staircase, only to come back up because he had forgotten his rifle on the roof.

10.

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July 27, 2009, 03:52:48

Subject: Re: Hi Yuli