The People of Forever Are Not Afraid Read Online Free PDF Page A

with Gali. Gali stands even taller, perking up her chin.
    “How are you feeling with the mask, soldier?”
    “Good.”
    “Do you love the army?”
    “Yes. It is hard but it is a rewarding experience and I learn a lot.”
    “Do you love your country?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who do you love more, your mother or your father?”
    “I can’t really answer that. I think I love them both the same amount, but in different ways.”
    “Are you afraid to die?”
    “No.”
    “Take off your mask. You can run out when you feel you have to.”
    I watch Gali fumble to untie the elastic of her mask and then remove it. Immediately, her face crumbles inward like she is sucking on a punctured straw.
    “Do you love the army?”
    Gali opens her mouth to speak and then closes it quickly. She is drooling already. She opens her mouth again, smaller this time, and grunts out a sound. “Yeah.”
    “Do you love your country?”
    Gali is flapping her arms near her throat, like a fish.
    “Ahhh,” she mumbles, and the mucus from her nose falls to her mouth. She runs out like a stork.
    Now it is me.
    “Do you love the army?” my commander asks.
    “Yes and no. I mean, I definitely believe that it is important in a country like ours to serve in the army, but I hope for peace, and on a personal level of course boot camp presents its own hardships and also—”
    “Enough. Are you afraid to die?” she asks. She skips two questions. She knows I am trouble, although I have barely caused any yet. Maybe trouble isn’t something you do, it is something you are. I think Dan told me that once, but what do I know about what he said or meant?
    “No, I am not afraid to
die
,” I say. Short and concise. What she wants to hear, and also the truth.
    “Take off your mask. You can run out when you feel you have to,” my commander says. She sounds different than when she said it to Gali. More content.
    I take off my mask and at first I feel nothing but the painin my scalp. Then I feel the fire, the burn. I cannot open my eyes. I stop taking air in through my nose. But I open my mouth, I do.
    And I talk. I have been waiting for so long. This is my chance. As long as I am choking, I am allowed. Yael and Lea are not here to drown my words with their chatter. No one in my family is around to ignore me. My talking serves a purpose. My talking, my tears, are a matter of national security. A part of our training. I will be prepared for an attack by unconventional weapons. I could save the whole country, that’s how prepared I’ll be. My entire head is burning but my mouth rolls off words; they taste like bananas, and they go on and on and on.
    My commander runs out of the original four questions. She has to make up a new one.
    “What is your earliest memory?” she asks. It is a question they used to ask before someone was brilliant enough to come up with the mom and dad question.
    I don’t leave on my own. She tells me to.
    I talk and I talk and I talk.
    I think I stayed inside the tear-gas tent longer than any soldier has ever before.
    Outside is when I cannot breathe. I cannot open my eyes and, although I do not want them to, my feet start running on their own, faster and faster. I can taste blood in my mouth coming from my nose, and my throat burns as though it is stuffed with boiling oil. The skin of my face is rubbed with sandpaper. I run and I run, until arms catch me midair and hold me for a very long time. When I can finally see again, through the water in my eyes, I see where I was heading: thecliff. It was my commander’s arms that grabbed me. She held me, before I fell. My commander, this was her job.
    They are sure I cheated, although they cannot for the life of them imagine how I did it. I am told I stayed in a tent full of tear gas for over two and a half minutes, and they say that is just not possible, that there must have been some funny business going on. It felt like I was talking longer. It felt like in that time I got to tell everything,