A Tale of Love and Darkness

LATE ONE summer afternoon. It is the end of the first grade, or maybe the beginning of the second grade, or the summer between the two. I am alone in the yard. The others have all gone off without me, Danush, Alik, Uri, Lulik, Eitan, and Ammi, they've gone to look for those things among the trees on the slope of the Tel Arza woods, but they wouldn't have me in the Black Hand gang because I wouldn't blow. Danush found one among the trees, full of smelly sticky stuff that had dried up, and he washed it out under the tap, and anyone who didn't have the guts to blow it up wasn't fit to belong to the Black Hand, and anyone who didn't have the guts to put it on and pee into it a bit, like an English soldier, there was no question of his being admitted to the Black Hand. Danush explained how it worked. Every night English soldiers take girls to the Tel Arza woods and there, in the dark, it goes like this. First they kiss a long time, on the mouth.

Then he touches her body in all sorts of places, even under her clothes. Then he pulls both their pants down and puts one of those things on and he lies on top of her and so on and in the end he wets. And this thing was invented so that she wouldn't get wet from him at all. And that's the way it goes every night in Tel Arza woods, and that's the way it goes every night with everyone. Even Mrs. Sussmann, the teacher, her husband does it to her at night. Even your parents. Yes, yours too. And yours. All of them. And it gives you all sorts of nice feelings in your body and it builds up your muscles and it's also good for cleansing the blood.