| OCR Text |
Show 220 buildings beyond the barbed wire with Ouzi machine guns at their hips. Small and unmoving, they did not seem real. I closed my eyes "Don't worry about it," I heard Talma say. She had followed me, sat beside me now on the steps. "The others are just being bad Jews, do not be concerned." I did not open my eyes. Her hand was on my knee and I could feel its heat and weight. I could not keep from being concerned: for Talma, for myself, even for the others whose ignorance might be contagious and whose contempt, next year or the year after, might be fatal. "Hello, Mr. Alden, here are your wages." It was Moshe, standing above me on the steps, come to rescue me with his words. I looked up to thank him but there was only his beard, his heavy Mosaic beard, and the white envelope which sailed by my face to land in the mud. I picked up the wet envelope and opened it. Moshe was gone. Seventy-five Lirot, enough to hold off Mohammed and eat for a week but nothing more. I put the bills in my pocket and turned to Talma. "What about you?" I asked. "Why didn't he pay you?" "I don't work for the money," she said. I blinked. I had to get away from her, from all of them. I told her I was going back to work. She started to follow but I put up my hand for her to stay, please stay back, and she did. When I got to the pit I immediately backed down the ladder into the hole, slowly, feeling below me for the one broken rung. At the bottom my feet sank ankle-deep in the soft earth. It was |
