My first time

I was only a few minutes into my first shift, but the old man with the creased face had been waiting for over an hour. I was standing at the crossing point of the two dusty paths that marked the edge of his village, staring at the black boots I had polished in Tel Aviv two days previously. A delicate rain had begun to fall, slowly turning the paths to mud and weighing down the already heavy pack on my back. My hands gripping the rifle I had been issued that morning became wet and the staccato drumming on my helmet picked up pace as the weather turned foul.
I looked up to see an unnaturally large face blocking my view, as if I were sitting too close my television. Its quizzical look reminded me of my orders to check its owner's papers, search under his clothes, rummage through his scanty but neatly packed belongings and either permit or deny his passage across the junction.
I took a step backwards to view the face from a more comfortable perspective. With correct proportions restored, I observed the advanced age and fragility of its owner. I noticed a leather strap in his left hand leading to a malnourished donkey which, in turn, supported with difficulty a young boy on its back. The child grinned, displaying two perfect rows of eager teeth.
This was the hard part. The part I had been dreading. The part where I had to put my barely sufficient training into practice. So long as the subject of security checks was an abstract threat, a character played by a fellow soldier in a training exercise, I could interrogate, humiliate and imply violence on demand. Now, as I stood in front of that defenceless wet face as it attempted to protect a young life on a diseased donkey's back, I felt the certainties of the briefing room dissolve. In our simulations we had yelled "Where are your papers?", "Open your bag", "Where are you going?" and "Kneel". Here in the rain, surrounded by gutters blocked with leaves and overflowing with sewage, those sessions lost their relevance.
Passing military vehicles careered through puddles, spewing water over my boots. The old man's feet were as exposed as his donkey's. Less than an hour away, rush hour drivers were splashing the same rain over the feet of commuters at Tel Aviv bus stops.
"May I see your papers please?" I asked as gently.
The creased face acquiesced immediately, proffering a dog-eared identity card with his free hand. He reassured the boy with a quick smile that all was well. The boy looked up at his elder and returned the grin, a double row of brilliant white teeth cracking the grey sky.
I checked the details, but to my dismay, no travel permit emerged. I knew what his meant. I sent the creased face, the boy and the donkey through the puddles to wait by the sentry point on the other side of the path. There they joined a huddle of other unfortunates in the long wait for processing. Separated from them by the path, the teeming rain and our mutual histories, I saw the boy no longer smiling. Not yet crying, just waiting with the patience he had inherited from his elders, while the donkey swatted raindrops with its ears.
***************
My first shift ended the following morning, an hour or so after the freezing night gave way to a clear sunny morning. I had spent the night staring from the back of a jeep patrolling the hills above the village. Squeezed into the compartment behind the driver, I tried to get comfortable between the radio and the piles of equipment cluttering up the floor space. My cheek pressed against the cold metal of my unused rifle. Fatigue replaced the tension of the night before.
Daybreak brought the chance to warm my bones. I shaded my eyes with a filthy hand and stared into the pale morning sun. On our final sweep of the area I rocked drowsily in the jeep, contemplating the sleeping bag and stinking paraffin heater waiting in my tent.
As I squinted against the glare, a collection of legs and hooves appeared on the road, receding into the distance. I made out the shape of the old man holding the reins of the donkey on which the boy was silently riding. They had made it out of the village and on to the road. I feared my colleagues would stop and check the old man's papers. I glanced at my companion in the back of the jeep. Sound asleep. The pack on my back and the stiffness in my neck and shoulders made turning round difficult, but I caught a glimpse of the driver. He stared forward through bloodshot eyes, knuckles white around the steering wheel, showing no inclination to stop.
Still shading my eyes, I let my rifle slip down to my boots. With my newly free hand I gave a small wave with the fingers of my free hand. Not a grandiose gesture but enough to signal complicity in the scene in front of me. Neither the creased face nor the boy reacted. What had I hoped for? That they would be grateful? That they would recognize a little kindness from their oppressors? I felt ridiculous in my pantomime uniform. Maybe they hadn't even seen me wave. At least neither of my colleagues had either. So no need for explanations. We approached a bend in the road. In a second they would be a fragment of the past. I bent forward to pick up the rifle leaning against my legs.
I looked up from the floor in time to catch the boy turn to the old man, a smile flowing across his mouth. The jeep took the bend, leaving me with the memory of two rows of white teeth grinning up at a smiling creased face, and a donkey shaking its head, flicking a fly with its ears.

Andy Lewis