YVES NAVARRE
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we , the new boys' army. You have my love. I must sleep . I will need
all my strength. Tomorrow. Your brother Tofigh. We will come
back to Ghaemshahr."
Seven o'clock in the morning. On a height, above Kasr-e–
Cherine . They made us get out of the trucks. They were armed.
Their automatic rifles were loaded. "That's to protect you ." Ten
times the order was given to the sections all together to stand at at–
tention . A great silence settled. They distributed shells to the
leaders . So I had a loaded rifle. Then, a thousand, in sections of
twenty, in three ranks, almost elbow to elbow, we formed a front of
several hundred meters , they ordered us to advance. They yelled,
"Attack, attack!" The destroyed city was three kilometers away,
down below. We began to run. The first hundred meters we hurtled
down, anxious, joyous, on the attack. We were going to reconquer
one of our cities. We. Some of us were bounding. Others were giv–
ing war whoops . Then , there was an explosion, a mutilated body .
We went on. And suddenly so many explosions, bodies lifted off the
ground in brief, black clouds. We slowed down. I heard crying.
Kids' crying. Me crying when I used to cry. The littlest ones. From
up above the soldiers were still yelling, "Attack." There were ten ,
twenty explosions again and each time the body of one of us blew up,
flew up . Blood was squirting. I got hit in the cheeks. We stopped.
We'd got only halfway to the dead city. We looked at each other. I
yelled at them to stop.
Then, like madmen, shouting holy words, the soldiers, our
brothers and our fathers, tore down the slope shooting in our direc–
tion , toward the sky . "Go ahead!" Those of us who moved were
blown up by mines. The cries . Then there was a cry louder than the
explosion. A short cry. I turned toward the soldiers. There were five
of us in the section. I felt them, clutching, all around me, hanging
onto my belt. And I fired. With our rifle . Against our soldiers. No,
we didn't want that. Not like that. My rifle's shells were blanks. Our
soldiers were coming back toward us, not firing in the air anymore,
but at us . Some tried to get away by crawling. There were no more
than a few dozen of us. We regrouped . Guns in the first row. We
tore off our grey neckerchiefs, raised our arms and threw the blank
shells.
Then , treating us like rebels, the soldiers fired at us. Those
children's cries, those cries of yours, Reza, when you pretended to
die when we used to play firing squad, those cries. Real ones, then
blood in our mouths, one on top of another, we were just a heap.
