Summary

Pages 27 – 42. First person narrator Oren (a young Jewish soldier living in Israel) describes a weekend day in his life working on a tomato farm, weekends being the time he has away from a hated minor chauffeuring job in the military. He describes concerns over high temperatures causing rot in the tomato crop; comments on how his popular, athletic older brother Asaaf has recently been discharged from active duty in the Gaza Strip; and gripes about how Asaaf and his girlfriend Yael seem to be taking it easy while he’s working. Oren insists that Asaaf get up and work, but an accident with a tractor leads to Asaaf being injured and Oren, along with their mother and Yael, driving him through the nearby city to the hospital, commenting in narration that for the first time in his life, he is not crumbling...