Eagle in the Sky - Smith Wilbur - Страница 23

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roof.

David had expected Joe to be a little reserved, after all it was his

baby sister who was being set up in a fancy house; but Joe was as

natural as ever and enjoyed the beer and the company so well that Hannah

had to intervene at last.  It's late, she said firmly.

Late?  asked Joe.  It's only nine o'clock.  'On a night like tonight,

that's late.  'What do you mean?  Joe looked puzzled.  Joseph Mordecai,

diplomat extraordinary, Hannah said with heavy sarcasm, and suddenly

Joe's expression changed as he glanced from Debra to David guiltily,

swallowed his beer in a single gulp, and hoisted Hannah to her feet by

one arm.

Come on, he said.  What are we sitting here for?  David left the terrace

lights burning, and they shone through the slats of the shuttered

windows, so the room was softly lit, and the sounds from the outside

world were so muted by distance and stone walls as to be a mere murmur

that drifted from afar, and seemed rather to accentuate their aloneness

than to spoil it.

The brass of the bedstead gleamed softly in the gloom, and the ivory

lacework of the bedspread smelled of lavender and moth balls.

He lay upon the bed and watched her undress slowly, conscious of his

eyes upon her and shy now as she had never been before.

Her body was slim and with a flowing line of waist and leg, young and

tender-looking, with a child's awkward grace, and yet with a womanly

thrust of hip and bosom.

She came to sit upon the'edge of the bed, and he marvelled once again at

the lustre and plabticity of her skin, at the subtlety of colouring

where the sun had darkened it from soft cream to burned honey, and at

the contrast of her dusky rose-tipped breasts and the dark thick bush of

curls at the base of her softly curving stomach.

She leaned over him, still shyly, and touched his cheek with one finger,

running down his throat on to his chest where the gold star lay upon the

hard muscle.  You are beautiful, she whispered, and she saw it was true.

For he was tall and straight with muscled shoulders and lean flanks and

belly.  The planes of his face were pure and perfect, perhaps its only

fault lying in its very perfection.  It was almost unreal, as though she

were lying with some angel or god from out of mythology.

She twisted her legs up on to the bed, stretching out beside him upon

the lace cover, and they lay on their sides facing each other, not

touching but so close that she could feel the warmth of his belly upon

her own like a soft desert wind, and his breath stirred the dark soft

hair upon her cheek.

She sighed then, with happiness and contentment, like a traveller

reaching the end of a long lonely journey.

I love you, she said for the first time, and reaching out she took his

head, her fingers twining in the thick springing hair at the nape of his

neck, and drew it tenderly to her breast.

Long afterwards the chill of night oozed into the room, and they came

half-awake and crept together beneath the covers.

As they began drifting back into sleep she murmured sleepily, I'm so

glad that surgery won't be necessary, after all, and he chuckled softly.

Wasn't it better finding out for yourself?  Much better, lover.  Much,

much better, she admitted.

Debra spent one entire evening explaining to David that a

high-performance sports car was not a necessity for travel between his

base and the house on Malik Street, for she knew her man's tastes by

then.  She pointed out that this was a country of young pioneers, and

that extravagance and ostentation were out of place.  David agreed

vehemently, secure in the knowledge that Aaron Cohen and his minions

were scouring the country for him.

Debra suggested a Japanese compact similar to joe's, and David told her

that he would certainly give that his serious consideration.

Aaron Cohen's henchman tracked down a Mercedes Benz 3 5 0 SL belonging

to the German Charg6 d'Affaires inTel Aviv.  This gentleman was

returning to Berlin and wished to dispose of his auto, for a suitable

consideration in negotiable cash.  A single phone call was sufficient to

arrange payment through the Credit Suisse in Zurich.

It was golden bronze in colour, with a little under twenty thousand

kilometres on the clock, and it had clearly been maintained with the

loving care of an enthusiast.

Debra, returning on her motor scooter from the University, found this

glorious machine parked at the top end of Malik Street, where a heavy

chain denied access by all motor-driven vehicles to the village.

She took one look at it, and knew beyond all reasonable doubt who it

belonged to She was really quite angry when she stormed on to the

terrace, but she pretended to be angrier than that.  David Morgan, you

really are absolutely impossible.  'You catch on fast, David agreed

amiably; he was sunbathing on the terrace.  "How much did you pay for

it?"

"Ask me another question, doll.  That one is becoming monotonous."  "You

are really," Debra paused and searched frantically for a word of

sufficient force.  She found it and delivered it with relish.

"Decadent!"

"You don't know the meaning of the word," David told her gently as he

rose from the cushions in the sun and drifted lazily in her direction.

Though she had been his lover for only a mere three days she recognized

the look in his eye and she began backing away.

I will teach you the meaning, he said.  I am about to give you a

practical demonstration of decadence in such a sensitive spot that you

are likely to remember it for a long time.  She ducked behind the olive

tree as he lunged, and her books spilled across the terrace.  Leave me!

Hands off, you beast.

He feinted right, and caught her as she fell for it.  He picked her up

easily across his chest.

David Morgan, I warn you, I shall scream if you don't put me down this

instant.  Let's hear it.  Go ahead!  and she did, but in a ladylike

fashion so as not to alarm the neighbours.

Joe, on the other hand, was delighted with the 350.

The four of them took it on a trial run down the twisting road through

the Wilderness of Judaea to the shores of the Dead Sea.  The road

challenged the car's suspension and David's driving skill, and they

whooped with excitement through the bends.  Even Debra was able to

overcome her initial disapproval, and finally admitted it was beautiful,

but still decadent.

They swam in the cool green waters of the oasis of Em Gedi where they

formed a deep rock pool before overflowing and running down into the

thick saline water of the sea itself.

Hannah had brought her camera and she photographed Debra and David

sitting together on the rocks beside the pool.

They were in their bathing costumes, Debra's brief bikini showing off

her fine young body as she half-turned to laugh into David's face.  He

smiled back at her, his face in profile and the dark sweep of his hair

falling on to his forehead.  The desert light picked out the pure

features and the boldly stated facets of his beauty.

Hannah had a print of the photograph made for each of them, and later

those squares of glossy photographic paper were all they had left of it,

all that remained of the joy and the laughter of those days, like a

lovely flower taken from the growing tree of life and pressed and dried,

flattened and desiccated, deprived of its colour and perfume.

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