Perhaps she sensed he was watching her for suddenly she turned, gave him a quick grin and a wave of her small hand, whirled round again and smashed her head into a stone wall.
She let out a cry of pain and in an instant Dov was beside her. He scooped her up, examined the bump on her forehead, gently wiped away her tears with his huge hand.
"Cinderella, don’t cry," he murmured comfortingly. "It's a big bump but it will feel better soon. I wish I had some ice to put on it. That's what my mom did for my bumps when I was a little kid."
Cinderella sniffed. "You bumped your head too?" she asked wonderingly.
Dov laughed. "Sure, my head may be big but I still get my share of bumps. We all do. Now tell me where your school is, Cinderella, and I’ll take you there.”
She pointed with a tiny finger. "Down this street."
So Dov, the huge Israeli soldier with the M16 on his back and compassion in his eyes, gently carried his new little friend right to the gate of her school. Both were unaware how incongruous they looked. But to them at that moment it did not matter that he was an Israeli soldier and she was an Arab child, that their peoples were bitter enemies, at war with each other for the same piece of land. Cinderella's uncle may admire suicide bombers, viewing them as holy martyrs. In her school, she would be taught to hate the man who had so tenderly carried her there. And yet perhaps she would remember him with fondness, as he no doubt would remember her…
The media was unaware of this event. CNN was not there to record it, British reporters did not witness the sight, the Peace Now movement was nowhere near. However, this story did come from a very reliable source – my own soldier son, who was there in the narrow streets of ancient Akko early that spring morning.
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