Sometimes he stopped and kicked a gravel listlessly,
watching its trajectory transfixed, until it hit the rustling bush and
vanished.
"Hey, you!" - it was the warden, materialising with the greyness of an
impeccable camouflage.
"The chief wants to talk to you about your silence."
Shalev's eyes shifted in the manner of a hunted game. A muscle pulsed
wildly in his cheek.
"He doesn't speak" - I ventured, head bowed, eyes locked on the grimy
shoes of our custodian - "I can accompany him. He corresponds with me
and..."
"You do what you are told to do" - the words awhipping, eyes socketed
in bloodshot red - "or you will end up just like him, in the solitary!"
Bad winds thrashed Shalev's flimsy summer shirt as he descended towards
the patched glass door at the entrance to the headquarters.
Back in the barracks, I sat cross-legged on Shalev's bed, eyeing his
neatly folded blankets, clean smelling, flower-patterned sheets, the
mound of books under his night lamp.
I got up, tucked my shirttails into my cord-held trousers and crossed
the square between the barracks and the management. Shalev was seated,
overflowing, on a tiny stone bench, studying his fingers as he crossed
and then uncrossed them.
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