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me get into bed with my clothes on,” I said, stupidly.
    “That was a rule in our house too, but we ignored it.”
    “No one ignored my mother. She wasn’t the sort of person you could ignore.”
    “Where is she?”
    “She died in a car accident—she got stuck in a traffic jam and a truck behind her was speeding and couldn’t stop fast enough. He smashed into her car. My father’s in Belgium. I’ve been living with neighbors and relatives for the past five years—that’s why I don’t really have a permanent home. I grew up in the south, in the desert, but we moved when I was twelve, two years before my mother died, for my father’s work. And I hate my sergeant, but not as much as she hates me. That’s the story of my life, so far. Not very mysterious, as you see.”
    “What’s going on now? Why me?”
    “I don’t know. I liked the way you sang Seer, go flee . Your voice is like a blanket—a pale blue cotton blanket with bright red diamonds. I guess I love you.”
    “Love at first sight?”
    “Not really. I had the whole evening to look at you.”
    He laughed so hard he began to cough, and he had to sit up.
    Finally he calmed down. “Are you always this impulsive?”
    “I’m not impulsive. But you know, there are only three other virgins in my barracks, one because she’s religious and two because they’re terrified of their fathers. So, don’t you think it’s about time?”
    “You’re just lucky. You’re very lucky, because I could be a total jerk. A total jerk who didn’t have any feelings for you at all.”
    “No, I can tell you aren’t a jerk. And I can tell you like me, too.”
    “You can’t really tell these things, Dana. Trust me.”
    “I can. Maybe some people can’t but I can.”
    “You can’t assume you know a person just because you like his voice and you have some chance association with it.”
    “It’s not a chance association. Voices have colors and shapes for me, and textures. Not always, but a lot of the time. I used to think everyone was like that, but now I know I’m just weird.”
    “How about we just talk for now?”
    “Well, all right. But can’t we at least kiss? I want to try at least one new thing.”
    “Surely you’ve kissed before?”
    “Not really.”
    “God help us.”

    I fell behind because I was taking photographs, and I was one of the last to enter Ein Mazra’a, an orderly town with green trees and small apartment buildings, many of them unfinished, surrounded by scaffolding or simply left as they were, dark compartments gaping at the street from cement shells. The army ordered us to turn back. Military vehicles zoomed past us, their sirens howling through the streets. That’s what the army did, it created crises before any existed; it created a military emergency out of the void, the way God created the heavens and the earth.
    The organizers dropped onions on the ground, smashedthem open with their shoes, and handed out the pieces, in anticipation of tear gas: onions helped a little if you held them to your nose. We slid the shiny white crescents into our pockets. Then the organizers instructed us to sit on the ground while they negotiated with the army. We placed our hopeful signs against the wall, where they acquired a life of their own, like sentries from toyland.
    At first the streets were empty because of the curfew, though we saw Palestinians watching us from their balconies, women and children mostly, women and teenage girls, watching from their balconies and roofs, happy to see us but still unsure, waiting for events to unfold. Then all at once the men began streaming out of the houses and their children followed them. The women stayed indoors for the most part, or stood in doorways, but the men and children came out: boys of all ages and very young girls wearing pretty dresses: purple velvet or bright cotton prints. The men and boys had short trimmed hair and tanned arms, and wore light-colored jeans or white cotton slacks with polo