Assembled behind the wall, they wait with their weapon in hand, with their soul in their mouth. Men and women dressed alike in kilts and fezzes, children with necklaces hanging on their bodies like amulets in icons, drugged with opium. As soon as the moon disappears into the passing clouds, the command of the captains is heard throughout the phalanx like a suffocating whisper. Fighters and women and children move towards the great Exodus, silently passing through the gate. Some lean and kiss the bullet-riddled wall, others the excavated earth from the bombs. They water them, they water them with their sacred tears.