Waltz with Bashir Page #5

I remember my men telling me:

"Frenkel, you walk too fast.

Like a rabbit."

So what do you do? Patchouli!

In the dark, at night...

They couldn't miss me!

The scent is really strong,

even out in the field.

I still use it.

I bombed Beirut today

I bombed Beirut every day

If I came close to death

I couldn't say

I bombed Beirut every day

At the pull of a trigger

We can send strangers

straight to Hell

If I came close to death

I couldn't say

I bombed Beirut every day

Our daily routine was this:

Get up in the morning,

prepare breakfast

on those frying pans,

potted beef and eggs.

On the beach.

- On the beach.

Take a quick swim,

back into uniform,

then go after some terrorists.

Someone yelled, "Frenkel!"

I noticed a boy holding an RPG.

A kid.

Frenkel, was I there too?

Sure. From training camp,

you were with me wherever I went.

Even there?

- Yes, there too.

Good to know. Of course I was there.

Is it possible that I can't remember

such a dramatic event?

We call them "dissociative events".

It's when a person is in a situation

but feels outside it.

I was once visited by a young man,

an amateur photographer.

I asked him in 1983, "How did you

survive through that gruelling war?"

He replied, "It was quite easy.

I regarded it as a long day-trip."

He told himself,

"Wow! What great scenes:

shooting, artillery,

wounded people, screaming...

He looked at everything

as if through an imaginary camera.

Then something happened.

his 'camera' broke.

He said that the situation

turned traumatic for him

when they arrived in the vicinity of the

stables in Beirut.

The Hippodrome.

He saw a huge number of carcasses

of slaughtered Arabian horses.

"It broke my heart.", he

said. What had those horses done

to deserve such suffering?"

He couldn't handle seeing

those dead and wounded horses.

He had used a mechanism

to remain outside events,

as if watching the war on film

instead of participating.

This protected him.

Once pulled into the events,

he could no longer deny reality.

Horror surrounded him

and he freaked out.

You told me earlier that

you can't remember being in the orchard

where the boy with the RPG was.

Can you remember other things?

Like going home

chatting with friends,

events from that time,

something that maybe reminds you

of that time?

Yes, in detail.

- For example?

I can remember perfectly

every furlough.

I remember when I was about 10,

there was a war going on.

And everything came to a halt.

All the fathers were at the front.

All children sat with their mothers

closed indoors,

behind closed blinds in the dark.

Just waiting for a plane to drop a bomb

and kill them all.

No one even dreamed of going outside.

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