Eagle in the Sky - Smith Wilbur - Страница 24

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But the future threw no shadow over their happiness on that bright day,

and with Joe driving this time they ran back for Jerusalem.  Debra

insisted that they stop for a group of tank corp boys hitch-hiking home

on leave, and although David protested it was impossible, they squeezed

three of them into the small cab.  It was Debra's sop to her feelings of

guilt, and she sat in the back seat with her arms around David's neck

and they all sang the song that was that year a favourite with the young

people of Israel, Let there be peace.

In the last few days while David waited to enter the airforce, he loafed

shamelessly, frittering the time away in small chores like having his

uniforms tailored.  He resisted Debra's suggestion that if regulation

issue were good enough for her father, a general officer, then they

might be good enough for David.  Aaron Cohen supplied him with an

introduction to his own tailor.  Aaron was beginning to develop a fine

respect for David's style.

Debra had arranged membership for David at the University Athletic Club,

and he worked out in the first class modern gym every day, and finished

with twenty lengths of the Olympic-size swimming pool to keep himself in

shape.

However, at other times, David merely lay sunbathing on the terrace, or

fiddled with electrical plugs or other small tasks Debra had asked him

to see to about the house.

As he moved through the cool and pleasant rooms, he would find an item

belonging to Debra, a book or a brooch perhaps, and he would pick it up

and fondle it briefly.  Once a robe of hers thrown carelessly across the

foot of the bed and redolent of her particular perfume gave him a

physical pang as it reminded him sharply of her, and he held the

silkiness to his face and breathed the scent of her, and grudged the

hours until her return.

However, it was amongst her books that he discovered more about her than

years of study would have revealed.

She had crates of these piled in the unfurnished second bedroom which

they were using as a temporary storeroom until they could find shelves

and cupboards.  One afternoon David began digging around in the crates.

It was a literary mixed grill, Gibbon and Vidal, Shakespeare and Mailer,

So1zhenitsyn and Mary Stewart, amongst other strange bedfellows.  There

was fiction and biography, history and poetry, Hebrew and English,

softbacks and leather-bound editions, and a thin greenjacketed volume

which he almost discarded before the author's name caught his attention.

It was by D.  Mordecai and with a feeling of discovery he turned to the

flyleaf.  This year, in Jerusalem, a collection of poems, by Debra

Mordecai.

He carried the book through to the bedroom, remembering to kick off his

shoes before lying on the lace cover she was very strict about that, and

he turned to the first page.

There were five poems.  The first was the title piece, the

two-thousand-year promise of Jewry Next year in Jerusalem had become

reality.  It was a patriotic tribute to her land and even David, whose

taste in writing ran to Maclean and Robbins, recognized that it had a

superior quality.  There were lines of startling beauty, evocative

phrasing and penetrative glimpses.  It was good, really good, and David

felt a strange proprietary pride, and a sense of awe.  He had not

guessed at these depths within her, these hidden areas of the mind.

When he came to the last poem, he found it was the shortest of the five,

and it was a love poem, or rather it was a poem to someone dearly loved

who was gone and suddenly David was aware of the difference between that

which was good and that which was magic.

He found himself shivering to the music of her words, felt the hair on

his forearms standing erect with the haunting beauty of it, and then at

last he felt himself choking on the sadness of it, the devastation of

total loss, and the words swam is his eyes flooded, and he had to blink

rapidly as the last terrible cry of the poem pierced him to the heart.

He lowered the book on to his chest, remembering what Joe had told him

about the soldier who had died in the desert.  A movement attracted his

attention and he made a guilty effort to hide the book as he sat up.  it

was such a private thing, this poetry, that he felt like a thief.

Debra stood in the doorway of the bedroom watching him, leaning against

the jamb with her hands clasped in front of her, studying him quietly.

He sat up on the bed and weighed the book in his hands.  It's lovely, he

said at last, his voice was gruff with the emotions that her words had

evoked.

I'm glad you like it, she said, and he realized that she was shy.

Why did you not show it to me before?  'I was afraid you might not like

it.  You must have loved him very much?  he asked softly.

Yes, I did, I she said, but now I love you.

Then, finally, his posting came through and the Brig's hand was evident

in it all, though Joe admitted that he had used his own family

connections to influence the orders.

He was ordered to report to Mirage squadron Lancewhich was a crack

interceptor outfit based at the same hidden airfield from which he had

first flown.  Joe Morde.  was on the same squadron, and when he called

at Malik Street to tell David the news, he showed no resentment that

David would out-rank him, but instead he was confident that they would

be able to fly together as a regulor team.  He spent the evening

briefing David on squadron personnel, from'Le Dauphin'the commanding

officer, a French immigrant, down to the lowest mechanic.  In the weeks

ahead David would find Joe's advice and help invaluable, as he settled

into his niche amongst this tightly-knit team of fliers.

The following day the tailor.  delivered his uniforms, and he wore one

to surprise Debra when she backed in through the kitchen door, laden

with books and groceries, using her bottom as a door buffer, her hair

down behind and her dark glasses pushed up on top of her head.

She dropped her load by the sink, and circled him with her hands on her

hips, her head cocked at a critical angle.

I should like you to wear that, and come to pick me up at the University

tomorrow afternoon, please, she said at last.

(why?  J Because there are a few little bitches that lurk around the

Lauterman Building.  Some of them are my students and some are

colleagues.  I want them to get a good look at you, and eat their tiny

hearts out.

He laughed.  So you aren't ashamed of me, " Morgan, you are too

beautiful for one person, you should have been born twins It was their

last day together, so he indulged her whimsy and wore his uniform to

fetch her at the English Literature Department, and he was surprised to

find how the dress affected the strangers he passed on the street the

girls smiled at him, the old ladies called shalom, even the guard at the

University gates waved him through with a grin and a joke.  To them all

he was a guardian angel, one of those that had swept death from the very

sky above them.

Debra hurried to meet and kiss him, and then walked beside him, her hand

tucked proudly and possessively into the crook of his elbow.  She took

him to eat an early dinner at the staff dining-room in the rounded glass

Belgium building.

While they ate, a casual question of his revealed the subterfuge she had

used to protect her reputation.

I'll probably not get off the base for the first few weeks but I'll

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