Men in the Sun by Ghassan Kanafani

As darkness fell, Abul Khaizuran drove his lorry away from the sleeping city. Pale lights trembled along the side of the road, and he knew that those lampposts that were retreating in front of the window would come to an end shortly, when he had left the city far behind him. The darkness would be unbroken. The night was moonless, and the edge of the desert would be silent as the grave.

He turned his lorry off the asphalt road and drove along a sandy track that led into the desert. He had made up his mind at noon to bury them, one by one, in three graves. Now he felt consumed with exhaustion, as though a drug had been injected into his arms. He had no strength to work, and he wouldn't be capable of wielding a spade for long hours to dig three graves. Before he went to take his lorry out of Haj Rida's garage, he told himself that he wouldn't bury them. He would throw the three corpses into the desert and return home. But now he wasn't pleased with the idea. He didn't like to think that his companions' bodies should be lost in the desert, at the mercy of birds and beasts of prey, and that there would be nothing left of them after a few days except white bones lying on the sand.

The lorry moved over the sandy track with a muted noise, while he went on thinking. He wasn't thinking in the strict sense of the term, but a series of disconnected scenes was passing ceaselessly through his brain, incoherent and inexplicable. He could sense exhaustion creeping through his limbs like straight columns of ants.

A breeze sprang up and carried to his nostrils a smell of putrefaction. He said to himself: "The municipality piles up the rubbish here. " Then he reflected: "If I dumped the bodies here they would be discovered in the morning and buried under official auspices. " He turned his steering wheel and followed the tracks of many wheels that had dug their path through the sand before him, and then he switched off the headlamps, advancing slowly by the light of the side-lamps alone. When the black heaps of rubbish rose up in front of him, he switched off the side lamps. The air around him filled with the putrid stench, but he soon got used to it. Then he stopped his lorry and climbed down.

Abul Khaizuran stood beside his lorry for a few moments to make sure that no one was watching him, then he climbed up onto the back of the tank. It was cold and damp. He turned the curved metal handle slowly and pulled the iron disk up so that it burst open with a sharp explosion. Supporting himself on his arms, he slid lightly down inside. The first corpse was cold and firm, and he tossed it over his shoulder. He pushed the head out of the opening first and then, holding the corpse by its legs, he lifted it and threw it upwards, hearing the heavy sound it made as it slid over the edge of the tank, and the muffled bump as it struck the sand. He had great difficulty in prising the hands of the other corpse away from the iron support, but then he pulled it by its legs to the opening and threw it out over his shoulder, straight and stiff. He heard it strike the earth. The third corpse was easier than either of its companions.

He jumped down, slowly closed the opening, and climbed down the ladder to the ground. There was thick darkness everywhere, and he was relieved that he would be saved by it from seeing the faces. Holding them by their feet, he dragged the corpses one by one and threw them onto the end of the road, where the municipality's dustcarts usually stopped to dump their rubbish, so that the first driver arriving in the morning would easily have an opportunity to see them.

He climbed into his seat, turned on the engine and slowly reversed, trying his utmost to mingle the tracks of his lorry's wheels with those of others. He had decided to drive back to the main road in reverse, in order to confuse the traces completely. But a thought occurred to him when he had covered some distance, and he switched off the engine again, walked back to where he had left the bodies, and took the money from their pockets. He also removed Marwan's watch. Then he retraced his steps to the lorry, walking on the edge of his soles.

As he returned to the lorry and lifted one leg up, a sudden thought flashed into his mind. He stood rigid in his place, trying to do or say something. He thought of shouting, but immediately realized what a stupid idea that was. He tried to finish climbing into the lorry, but didn't feel strong enough. He thought that his head would explode. All the exhaustion which he felt suddenly rose to his head and began to hum in it, and so he put his head in his hands and began to pull his hair to expel the thought. But it was still there, huge and resounding, unshakeable and inescapable. He turned to look back to where he had left the corpses, but he could see nothing, and that glance simply set the thought ablaze so that it began to burn in his mind. All at once he could no longer keep it within his head, and he dropped his hands to his sides and stared into the darkness with his eyes wide open.

The thought slipped from his mind and ran onto his tongue: "Why didn't they knock on the sides of the tank? " He turned right round once, but he was afraid he would fall, so he climbed into his seat and leaned his head on the wheel.

"Why didn't you knock on the sides of the tank? Why didn't you say anything? Why?"

The desert suddenly began to send back the echo:

"Why didn't you knock on the sides of the tank? Why didn't you bang the sides of the tank? Why? Why? Why? "

* H1, H2, H3, and so on, are pumping stations on the IPC pipeline from Kirkuk to the Mediterranean. H4 is about 70 km within Jordanian territory. (Tr.)

* The first sura of the Quran, customarily recited at the conclusion of an agreement or contract. (Tr.)

* "Khaizuran" means "cane," "bamboo. " (Tr.)

* Hatim, of the bedouin tribe of Taiy, is proverbial among the Arabs for his limitless generosity and hospitality. (Tr.)