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We climb a long sloping road to the northern border, the so-called blue line where kamikaze drones fly, where daily volleys of rockets and mortars crater the upper edge of this tiny nation. I am here as a volunteer, an extra pair of hands to barbeque meat for seventy-odd soldiers, the young men defending this particular sector of soil. I gaze out the passenger window at the hazy valley below, a matt green patchwork of fields and marshes, a stopover for a billion birds a year.
At the crest we downshift and my buddy greets a pair of reservists lolling in beach chairs beside a pole tent. With little interest they wave us onward. We zigzag through a maze of station guards, park in a eucalyptus grove, then stand in the shade and stretch our legs. This alpine village unpeopled last autumn and its streets are now so silent that even the breezes sound loud.
Our contact comes over to offer us a tour of the building his platoon recently repurposed. As we stroll the concrete corridors, I can nearly hear the sneaker squeaks of grammar schoolers who had pitter-pattered here days before the dawn of war. Side rooms that were once classrooms are now crammed with bunk beds, kit lockers, duffle bags—clear signs this space is certainly not civilian. Exiting, we pause at the threshold of an auditorium. Here, taped above the double doors, are foamboard posters boasting mug shots of militants this squad has eliminated. To a man the slain soldiers bear grizzled beards and selfsame shemaghs of black and green plaid. The heads of these newly departed martyrs all hover in a seeming sea of calligraphy. We three eye the row of placid faces, communing as it were with these late combatants of the counterforce to our north.
As we putz around waiting for the sun to sink and our coals to whiten, back-to-back mortars strike an outcrop of limestone just beyond the treeline. The blasts do not quite quake the earth beneath our feet, but they remind us that the enemy is near enough to smell our beef. Next time, my buddy says, we hit the deck behind that stone wall. At first his advice seems overstated, but then again it comes from a man who has fought in every conflict here dating to the eighties. In his fifties now, he attends talk therapy twice a week, not to work through the events of October, but to vent his rage about his age—the fact that the army is forcing him to sit this battle out. He does these barbeques to stay close to the fray, which he says beats stewing back at home, especially since his older son now fights in the south and his younger one will soon enter service.
Come nightfall the enlistees file in. The platoon quartered here is special forces, yet many soldiers look more like yeshiva boys. They sport olive green kippahs and boxy mesh shirts with slits running up the sides and fringes hanging from the hems—a combat version of the prayer shawl enjoined in the age-old Book of Numbers, a garment some men even view as bulletproof.
I man the gridirons since the meat smoke does not seem to bother my eyes. Our grills are packed to the gills, ablaze with skewers of seasoned chicken and a hodgepodge of kebabs. My buddy mills around making small talk with the soldiers and learns that the officers are having a meeting inside yet expect the enlistees to wait for its end before they can eat. I tong the sizzling meat into chafing trays of flimsy foil, stacking them high in mermite boxes to keep our meal hot. With Shabbos-like care the soldiers arrange the banquet tables into a hollow square, then array them all with plasticware. To cap it off, a red haired soldier stands on a chair and festoons lights from tree to tree, like a spider spinning a web of amber luster, an illumined oasis from war.
When the officers emerge, they amble over and the feast begins. I eat standing so I can scan the tables and dish out fresh meat as tins come empty. As our midnight dinner ends, soldiers stop by to shake our hands, saying the cinnamon stick kebab was far and away their favorite.
While my buddy and I pack up the trunk, a gangly soldier asks us for a lift to a nearby base. We agree and he hops in the backseat with his rucksack and rifle. As we wind our way down one mountain and over to another, the teenager sits propped forward with his hands on our seatbacks, guiding us along a series of lone gravel roads that maze through a forest of wild olive trees and bone-dry wadis. It turns out this kid is a marathoner and is visiting a friend on the brink of being booted from his unit. Sunup tomorrow, this passenger of ours will run alongside his pal to offer moral support so he can ace his three thousand meter race—all to remain in the army.
In the wee hours after arriving home, I spot a red alert on my phone. There, along the blue line, is the village we just visited. As a suicide drone enters its airspace, I picture the faces of the soldiers we met and fed. If nothing else, the men will fend off this threat on a full stomach.
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David is an American writer with current and forthcoming stories in Cloudbank, arc, Ink In Thirds, As Surely As the Sun, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Severance.