"No. Thank heavens there are many of you. You‘ll find yourself on the road in two days."
He turned his back and went towards the door, but before he went through it he heard the fat man chuckling behind his back:
"But take care the rats don‘t eat you before you set out." - P35
The lorry, a small world, black as night, made its way across the desert like a heavy drop of oil on a burning sheet of tin. The sun hung high above their heads, round, blazing, and blindingly bright.
None of them bothered to dry their sweat any longer. Assad spread his shirt over his head, bent his legs, and let the sun roast him without resistance. Marwan leaned his head on Abu Qais‘s shoulder and closed his eyes. Abu Qais stared at the road, tightly closing his lips under his thick gray moustache. - P63
None of the four wanted to talk anymore, not only because they were exhausted by their efforts, but because each one was swallowed up in his own thoughts. The huge lorry was carrying them along the road, together with their dreams, their families, their hopes and ambitions, their misery and despair, their strength and weakness, their past and future, as if it were pushing against the immense door to a new, unknown destiny, and all eyes were fixed on the door‘s surface as though bound to it by invisible threads. - P63
The thought slipped from his mind and ran onto his tongue:
"Why didn‘t they knock on the sides of the tank?" He turned right round once, but he was afraid he would fall, so he climbed into his seat and leaned his head on the wheel.
"Why didn‘t you knock on the sides of the tank? Why didn‘t you say anything? Why?"
The desert suddenly began to send back the echo:
"Why didn‘t you knock on the sides of the tank? Why didn‘t you bang the sides of the tank? Why? Why? Why?" - P74
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