Eagle in the Sky - Smith Wilbur - Страница 34

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waved him to a chair.

Why don't you answer me?  David was becoming angry, and the Brig slumped

into a chair across the large bare room, with its severe monastic

furnishings of books and archaeological relics.

I couldn't tell you yesterday, David, she asked me not to.  I'm sorry.

What is it?  David was fully alarmed now.

She had to have time to think, to make up her mind.  The Brig stood up

again and began to pace, his footsteps echoing hollowly on the bare

wooden floor, pausing every now and then to touch one of the pieces of

ancient statuary, caressing it absently as he talked, as though to draw

comfort from it.

David listened quietly, occasionally shaking his head as though to deny

that what he was hearing was the truth.

So you see it is permanent, final, without hope.  She is blind, David,

totally blind.  She has gone into a dark world of her own where nobody

else can follow her Where is she?  I want to go to her, David whispered,

but the Brig ignored the request and went on steadily.

She wanted time to make her decision, and I gave it to her.  Last night,

after the funeral, I went back to her and she was ready.  She had faced

it, come to terms with it, and she had decided how it must be I want to

see her, David repeated.  I want to talk to her.  Now the Brig looked at

him and the bleakness in his eyes faded, his voice dropped, becoming

gruff with compassion.

No, David.  That was her decision.  You will not see her again.  For you

she is dead.  Those were her words.

Tell him I am dead, but he must only remember me when I was alive David

interrupted him, jumping to his feet.  Where is she, damn you?  His

voice was shaking.  I want to see her now.  He crossed swiftly to the

door and jerked it open, but the Brig went on.  She is not here.  'Where

is she?  David turned back.  I cannot tell you.  I swore a solemn oath

to her.  'I'll find her You might, if you search carefully, but you will

forfeit any respect or love she may have for you, the Brig went on

remorselessly.  Again I will give you her exact words.  "Tell him that I

charge him on our love, on all we have ever been to each other, that he

will let me be, that he will not come looking for me.  " Why, but why?

David demanded desperately.  Why does she reject me?  She knows that she

is altered beyond all hope or promise.  She knows that what was before

can never be again.  She knows that she can never be to you again what

you have a right to expect - he stopped David's protest with an angry

chopping gesture of his hand.  Listen to me, she knows that it cannot

endure.  She can never be your wife now.  You are too young, too vital,

too arrogant- David stared at him - she knows that it will begin to

spoil.  In a week, a month, a year perhaps, it will have died.  You will

be trapped, tied to a blind woman.  She doesn't want that.  She wants it

to die now, swiftly, mercifully, not to drag on Stop it, David shouted.

Stop it, damn you.  That's enough.  He stumbled to the chair and fell

into it.  They were silent for a while, David crouched in the chair with

his face buried in his hands.  The Brig standing before the narrow

window casement, the early morning light catching the fierce old

warrior's face.

She asked me to make you promise - he hesitated, and David looked up at

him, - to promise that you would not try to find her.  No.  David shook

his head stubbornly.

The Brig sighed.  If you refused, I was to tell you this she said you

would understand, although I don't, she said that in Africa there is a

fierce and beautiful animal called the sable antelope, and sometimes one

of them is wounded by a hunter or mauled by a lion The words were as

painful as the cut of a whiplash, and David remembered himself saying

them to her once when they were both young and strong and invulnerable.

Very well, he murmured at last, if that's what she wants, then I promise

not to try and find her, though I don't promise not to try and convince

her she is wrong.  I Perhaps it would be best if you left Israel, the

Brig told him.  Perhaps you should go back to where you came from and

forget all of this ever happened.  David paused, considering this a

moment, before he answered, No, all I have is here.  I will stay here

Good.  The Brig accepted the decision.  You are always welcome in this

house.  Thank you, sir, said David and went out to where the Mercedes

was parked.  He let himself into the house on Malik Street, and saw

instantly that someone had been there before him.

He walked slowly into the living-room; the books were gone from the

olive-wood table, the Kadesh painting no longer hung above the leather

couch.  In the bathroom he opened the wall cabinet and all her toilet

articles had been removed, the rows of exotic bottles, the tubes and

pots, even the slot for her toothbrush beside his was empty.

Her cupboard was bare, the dresses gone, the shelves blank, every trace

of her swept away, except for the lingering scent of her perfume on the

air, and the ivory lace cover upon the bed.

He went to the bed and sat upon it, stroking the fine lace-work,

remembering how it had been.

There was the hard outline of something thin and square upon the pillow,

beneath the cover.  He turned back the lace and picked up the thin green

book.

This year, in Jerusalem.  It had been left there as a parting gift The

title swam and went misty before his eyes.  It was all he had left of

her.

it seemed as though the slaughter at Em Karem was the signal for a fresh

upsurge of hostility and violence throughout the Middle East.  A planned

escalation of international tensions, as the Arab nations rattled their

impressive, oil-purchased, array of weaponry and swore once more to

leave not a single Jew in the land they still called Palestine.

There were savage and merciless attacks on soft targets, ill-protected

embassies and consulates around the world, letter bombs, and night

ambushes on school buses in isolated areas.

Then the provocations grew bolder, more directly aimed at the heart of

Israel.  Border infringements, commando-style raids, violations of air

space, shellings, and a threatening gathering and massing of armed might

along the long vulnerable frontiers of the wedge-shaped territories of

the tiny land.

The Israelis waited, praying for peace, but girl for war.

Day after day, month after month, David and Joe flew to maintain that

degree of expertise, where instinct and instantaneous reaction

superseded conscious thought and reasoned action.

At those searing speeds beyond sound, it was only this training that

swung the advantage from one combat team to another.  Even the superior

reaction times of these carefully hand-picked young men were unequal to

the tasks of bringing their mighty machines into effective action, where

latitudes of error were measured in hundredths of a second, until they

had attained this extra-sensory perfection.

To seek out, to recognize, to close, to destroy, and to disengage, it

was a total preoccupation that blessedly left little time for brooding

and sorrow.

Yet the sorrow and anger, that David and Joe shared, seemed doubly to

arm them.  Their vengeance was allconsuming.

Soon they joined that select half-dozen strike teams that Desert Flower

called to undertake the most delicate of sorties.  Again and again they

were ordered into combat, and each time the confidence that Command had

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