Eagle in the Sky - Smith Wilbur - Страница 39

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you.  You'd have to read it yourself Don't worry about that, David

muttered grimly, I will, and he jumped down as they reached their hangar

and strode across to his Mirage.

Twenty minutes later they were airborne and Desert Flower sent them

hastening out over the Mediterranean at interception speed to answer a

Mayday call from an El Al Caravelle who reported that she was being

buzzed by an Egyptian MIG 2 1J.

The Egyptian sheered off and raced for the coast and the protection of

his own missile batteries as the Mirages approached.

They let him go and picked up the airliner.  They escorted her into the

circuit over Lad before returning to base.

Still in his G-suit and overalls, David stopped off at le Dauphin's

office and got himself a twenty-four-hour pass.

Ten minutes before closing time he ran into one of the bookstores in the

Jaffa Road.

There was a pyramid display of A Place of Our Own on the table in the

centre of the store.

It's a beautiful book, said the salesgirl as she wrapped it.

He opened a Goldstar, and kicked off his shoes before stretching out on

the lace cover of the bed.

He began to read, and paused only once to switch on the overhead lights

and fetch another beer.  It was a thick book, and he read slowly,

savouring every word, sometimes going back to re-read a paragraph.

It was their story, his and Debra's, woven into the plot she had

described to him that day on the island off the Costa Brava, and it was

rich with the feeling of the land and its people.  He recognized many of

the secondary characters, and he laughed aloud with the pleasure and the

joy of it.  Then at the end, he choked on the sadness as the girl of the

story lies dying in Hadassah Hospital, with half her face torn away by a

terrorist's bomb, and she will not let the boy come to her.  Wanting to

spare him that, wanting him to remember her as she was.

it was dawn then, and David had not noticed the passage of the night. He

rose from the bed, light-headed from lack of sleep, and filled with a

sense of wonder that Debra had captured so clearly the way it had been

that she had seen so deeply into his soul, had described emotions for

which he had believed there were no words.

He bathed and shaved and dressed in casual clothes and went back to

where the book lay upon the bed.  He studied the jacket again, and then

turned to the flyleaf for confirmation.  It was there.  Jacket design by

Ella Kadesh.  So early in the morning he had the road almost to himself

and he drove fast, into the rising morning sun.

At Jericho he turned north along the frontier road, and he remembered

her sitting in the seat beside him with her skirts drawn high around her

long brown legs and her thick dark hair shaking in the wind.

The whisper of the wind against the body of the Mercedes seemed to urge

him, Hurry, hurry.  And the urgent drumming of the tyres carried him up

towards the lake.

He parked the Mercedes beside the ancient crusader wall and went through

into the garden on the lake shore.

Ella sat upon the wide patio before her easel.  She wore a huge straw

hat the size of a wagon wheel adorned with plastic cherries and ostrich

feathers, her vast overalls covered her like a circus tent and they were

stiff with dried paint in all her typically vivid colours.

Calmly she looked up from her painting with her brush poised.

Hail, young Mars!  she greeted him.  Well met indeed, and why do you

bring such honour on my humble little home?  'Piss on it, Ella, you know

damn well why I'm here.  'So sweetly phrased, she was shifty, he could

see it in her bright little eyes.  Shame on it that such vulgar words

pass such fair lips.  Would you like a beer, Davey?  'No, I don't want a

beer.  I want to know where she is?

Just who are we discussing?  Come on, I read the book.  I saw the cover.

You know, damn you, you know.  She was silent then, staring at him. Then

slowly the ornate head-dress dipped in acquiescence.  Yes, she agreed. I

know.  'Tell me where she is.  'I can't do that, Davey.  You and I both

made a promise.

Yes, I know of yours, you see.  She watched the bluster go out of him.

The fine young body with the arrogant set of shoulders seemed to sag,

and he stood uncertainly in the sunlight.

How about that beer now, Davey?  She heaved herself up from her stool

and crossed the terrace with her stately tread.  She came back and gave

him a tall glass with a head of froth and they took a seat together at

the end of the terrace out of the wind, in the mild winter sunlight.

I've been expecting you for a week now, she told him.  Ever since the

book was published.  I knew it would set you on fire.  It's just too

damned explosive, even I wept like a leaky faucet for a couple of days,

she giggled shyly.  You'd hardly believe it possible, would you?

That book was us, Debra and me, David told her.  She was writing about

us.  Yes, Ella agreed, but it does not alter the decision she had made.

A decision which I think is correct, by the way.  She described exactly

how I felt, Ella.  All the things I felt and still feel, but which I

could never have put into words.  It's beautiful and it's true, but

don't you see that it confirms her position.

But I love her, Ella, and she loves me, he cried out violently.

She wants it to stay that way.  She doesn't want it to die, she doesn't

want it to sicken.  He began to protest, but she gripped his arm in a

surprisingly powerful grip to silence him.  She knows that she can never

keep pace with you now.  Look at you, David, you are beautiful and vital

and swift, she must drag you back, and in time you must as certainly

resent it.  Again he tried to interrupt, but she shook his arm in her

huge fist.  You would be shackled, you could never leave her, she is

helpless, she would be your charge for all your life, think on it,

David.  I want her, he muttered stubbornly.

I had nothing before I met her, and I have nothing now.  That will

change.  Perhaps she has taught you something and young emotions heal as

swiftly as young flesh.

She wants happiness for you, David.  She loves you so much that her gift

to you is freedom.  She loves you so much that for your sake she will

deny that love.  Oh, God, he groaned.

If only I could see her, if I could touch her and talk to her for a few

minutes.  She shook her massive head, and her jowls wobbled dolefully.

She would not agree to that.  Why, Ella, tell me why?  His voice was

rising again, desperate with his anguish.

She is not strong enough, she knows that if you came near her, she would

waver and bring even greater disaster upon you both.  They sat silently

together then and looked out across the lake.  High mountains of cloud

rose up beyond the heights of Golan, brilliant white in the winter

sunlight, shaded with blue and bruised grey, and range upon range they

bore down upon the lake.  David shivered as an icy little wind came

ferreting across the terrace and sought them out.

He drank the rest of his beer, and then revolved the glass slowly

through his fingers.

Will you give her a message from me, then?  'he asked.

I don't think Please, Ella.  just this one message.  She nodded.

Tell her that what she wrote in the book is exactly how much I love her.

Tell her that it is big enough to rise above this thing.  Tell her that

I want the chance to try.  She listened quietly, and David made a

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