The People of Forever Are Not Afraid: A Novel by Shani Boianjiu

Author:Shani Boianjiu
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Literary, Fiction, Contemporary Women, War & Military
ISBN: 9780307955968
Publisher: Hogarth
Published: 2012-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

WHEN I twist my neck and see the military police officer, I laugh. Sometimes you have to laugh. Sitting on the sand, I have to. I have spent two years in the army, walking in and out of the busy shops of the Azrieli mall with my hair down during breaks, riding trains with blue eye shadow on my face. Once I even wore my nose piercing, the one Hagar convinced me to get, while in uniform when I was taking a bus from Tel Aviv Central, where it is always swarming with blue berets, eager to write you up.

And here, in this nowhere, two weeks before I am done with my service, this is where I get written up. Now is when they find me.

“Your ID number, soldier,” the officer says without looking at me. He is looking deep into the lines of his pocketbook, clutching the pen. Where the hell did he come from?

I lower my head again. I close my eyes.

“Your ID number, soldier,” the officer says.

I don’t answer. I raise my head and look at him, calm. He moves a bit, so that the sun again explodes on me. I squint and stare. He can’t make me talk. He can’t put his hands on my mouth, make it move and make air and sound come out of my throat. No force in the world can do that.

“Your ID number, soldier,” the officer says. “I am going to ask one more time, and then you’ll be in trouble.”

I know I won’t be in that much trouble. It will take a few days for the complaint to trickle from the military police down to my base. By then I will have only a few days of service left. The most they could do is make me clean bathrooms, but they won’t even do that. My commanders love me. I am the oldest trainer left in the base. Hagar and the other two are already doing Europe. The base has been quiet since the war a year ago. No one will go after me now. I even think my new officer, Shai, is in love with me. After all, I have been a good soldier. I taught a lot of boys how to shoot.

“I am not a soldier,” I say.

“You are wearing uniform pants and military boots. You are a soldier, and you have the chutzpah to walk around with half a uniform on?” the officer says.

“I am not a soldier,” I say. “I am not.”

Imagine that you know someone is something, you know it for certain, but that person keeps on saying that they are not that thing—they deny it and deny it to no end. Is there anything you could do? There is nothing you could do. If I am a civilian, he has no authority over me. There is no rule that says civilians even have to carry an ID.

The officer crosses his arms, and I smile. There is nothing more I need to say, but I speak.

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