"The garden looks very healthy this year."

"The rain has been good," the farmer agreed. "There are many new lambs. It has not been a bad year. And you?"

"My best year. Father, I wish you did not have to work so hard."

"Ah!" A wave of the hand. "What other life have I known? This is my place."

The courage of the man, the son thought. And the old man did have courage. He endured. Despite everything. He had not been able to give his son much, but he had passed along his stoic courage. When he'd found himself lying stunned on the Golan Heights, twenty meters from the smoking wreckage of the personnel carrier, he could have just lain down to die, the son knew, his eye put out, and his left hand a bloody mess that doctors would later have to remove. He could have just lain there on the ground and died, but he'd known that giving up was not something his father would have done. And so he'd risen and walked six kilometers to a battalion aid station, arriving there still carrying his rifle and accepting treatment only after making his report. He had a decoration for that, and his battalion commander had made life a little easier for him, giving him some money to start his little shop, making sure that local officials knew that he was to be treated with respect. The colonel had given him the money, but his father had given him the courage. If only he would now accept a little help.

"My son, I need your advice."

That was something new. "Certainly, father."

"Come I will show you." He led his son into the garden, where the carrots were. With his foot, he scraped dirt off the-

"Stop!" the son nearly screamed. He took his father by the arm and pulled him back. "My God, how long has that been there?"

"Since the day you were hurt," the farmer answered.

The son's right hand went to his eye patch, and for one horrid moment the terror of the day came back to him. The blinding flash, flying through the air, his dead comrades screaming as they burned to death. The Israelis had done that. One of their cannons had killed his mother, and now - this?

What was it? He commanded his father to stay put and walked back to see. He moved very carefully, as though he were traversing a minefield. His assignment in the army had been with the combat engineers; though his unit had been committed to battle with the infantry, their job was supposed to have been laying a minefield. It was big, it looked like a thousand-kilo bomb. It had to be Israeli; he knew that from the color. He turned to look at his father.

"This has been here since then?"

"Yes. It made its own hole, and I filled it in. The frost must have brought it up. Is there danger? It is broken, no?"