The silence in the tunnel was broken every now and then by Uri's moans, his hand pressing on his shoulder, which was wrapped in a dark bandage.
Yusuf changed the bandage each time with cold silence, without saying a word, as if his
humanitarian duty did not exempt him from accountability.
Daniel sat not far away, contemplating Uri's increasingly pale face.
He finally decided to break the silence, his voice faint:
"Are you okay?"
Uri laughed briefly, a laugh mixed with pain and contempt:
"Do I look fine? Stuck here... with the animals."Daniel furrowed his brow, feeling insulted even though he was not Arab.
"They saved your life. He..." He pointed to Yusuf. "...treated your wound."
Ori muttered under his breath:
"I'd rather die than owe them anything."
Then he raised his eyes to the ceiling, and his voice grew louder, as if he were reaffirming his beliefs:
"Ever since I was a child in Boston, they taught me that Arabs are monsters who know nothing of civilisation. We are God's chosen people, and this land is ours. Non-Jews were created only to serve us. I was waiting for the day I could join the army... to amuse myself by killing everything that is not Jewish."
Daniel trembled at these words.
He thought he was a hardliner in his belief in the cause, but he found himself face to face with someone even more ruthless and more sincere in his display of hatred.
Yusuf suddenly intervened, his voice cold as ice:
"Now you can't even raise your hand, and you're screaming like a spoilt child who has lost his toy. That's how everyone who believes they are above humanity... falls helpless at the first wound."
Uri glared at Yusuf with hatred, but did not respond.
Tears welled up in his eyes, but he hid them with his usual growl.
Daniel kept watching him, his heart filled with questions:
Is this what I would have become if I had continued my service? Is hatred inevitable? Or is what Yusuf says... about all humans, about shared freedom... closer to the truth?