Eagle in the Sky - Smith Wilbur - Страница 53

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Now they began learning really to talk.  Some nights they did not sleep

but spent the fleeting hours of darkness in exploring each other's minds

and bodies, and they delighted to realize that this exploration would

never be completed, for the areas of their minds were boundless.

During the day the blind girl taught David to see.  He found that he had

never truly used his eyes before, and now that he must see for both of

them he had to learn to make the fullest use of his sight.  He must

learn to describe colour and shape and movement accurately and

incisively, for Debra's demands were insatiable.

In turn, David, whose own confidence had been shattered by his

disfigurement, taught confidence to the girl.

She learned to trust him implicitly as he grew to anticipate her needs.

She learned to step out boldly beside him, knowing that he would guide

or caution her with a light touch or a word.  Her world had shrunk to

the small area about the cottage the jetty within which she could find

her way surely.  Now with David beside her, her frontiers fell back and

she was free to move wherever she chose.

Yet they ventured ut together only cautiously at first, wandering along

the lakeside together or climbing the hills towards Nazareth, and each

day they swam in the green lake waters and each night they made love in

the curtained alcove.

David grew hard and lean and suntanned again, and it seemed they were

complete for when Ella asked, Debra, when are you going to make a start

on the new book?

she laughed and answered lightly.  Sometime within the next hundred

years.  A week later she asked of David this time.  Have you decided

what you are going to do yet, Davey?  just what I'm doing now, he said,

and Debra backed him up quickly.  For ever!  she said.  Just like this

for ever.  Then without thinking about it, without really steeling

themselves to it, they went to where they would meet other people in the

mass.

David borrowed the speedboat, picked up a shopping list from Ella, and

they planed down along the take shore to Tiberias, with the white wake

churning out behind them and the wind and drops of spray in their faces.

They moored in the tiny harbour of the marina at Lido Beach and walked

up into the town.  David was so engrossed with Debra that the crowds

around him were unreal, and although he noticed a few curious glances

they meant very little to him.

Although it was early in the season, the town was filled with visitors,

and the buses were parked in the square at the foot of the hill and

along the lake front, for this was full on the tourist route.

David carried a plastic bag that grew steadily heavier until it was

ready to overflow.

Bread, and that's the lot, Debra mentally ticked off the list.

They went down the hill under the eucalyptus trees and found a table on

the harbour wall, beneath the gaily coloured umbrella.

They sat touching each other and drank cold beer and ate pistachio nuts,

oblivious of everything and everybody about them even though the other

tables were crowded with tourists.  The lake sparkled and the softly

rounded hills seemed very close in the bright light.  Once a flight of

Phantoms went booming down the valley, flying low on some mysterious

errand, and David watched them dwindle southward without regrets.

When the sun was low they went to where the speedboat was moored, and

David handed Debra down into it.  On the wall above them sat a party of

tourists, probably on some package pilgrimage, and they were talking

animatedly, their accents were Limehouse, Golders Green and Merseyside,

although the subtleties of prommciation were lost of David.

He started the motor and pushed off from the wall, steering for the

harbour mouth with Debra sitting close beside him and the motor burbling

softly.

A big red-face tourist looked down from the wall and supposing that the

motor covered his voice, nudged his wife.

Get a look at those two, Mavis.  Beauty and the beast, isn't it?  'Cork

it, Bert.  They might understand.

Go on, luv!  They only talk Yiddish or whatever.  Debra felt David's arm

go rigid under her hand, felt him begin to pull away, sensing his

outrage and anger but she gripped his forearm tightly and restrained

him.  Let's go, Davey, darling.  Leave them, please.  Even when they

were alone in the safety of the cottage, David was silent and she could

feel the tension in his body and the air was charged with it.

They ate the evening meal of bread and cheese and fish and figs in the

same strained silence.  Debra could think of nothing to say to distract

him for the careless words had wounded her as deeply.  Afterwards she

lay unsleeping beside him.  He lay on his back, not touching her, with

his arms at his sides and his fists clenched.

When at last she could bear it no longer, she turned to him and stroked

his face, still not knowing what to say.

it was David who broke the silence at last.

I want to go away from people.  We don't need people do we?  'No, she

whispered.  We don't need them.  There is a place called Jabulani.  It

is deep in the African bushveld, far from the nearest town.  My father

bought it as a hunting lodge thirty years ago, and now it belongs to me.

Tell me about it, Debra laid her head-on his chest, and he began

stroking her hair, relaxing as he talked.

There is a wide plain on which grow open forests of mopani and

mohobahoba, with some fat old baobabs and a few ivory palms.  In the

open glades the grass is yellow gold and the fronds of the ilala palms

look like beggars fingers.  At the end of the plain is a line of hills,

they turn blue at a distance and the peaks are shaped like the turrets

of a fairy castle with tumbled blocks of granite.  Between the hills

rises a spring of water, a strong spring that has never dried and the

water is very clear and sweet," "What does Jabulani mean?  Debra asked

when he had described it to her.

It means the "place of rejoicing", David told her.  I want to go there

with you, she said.

What about Israel?  he asked.  Will you not miss it?

No, she shook her head.  You see, I will take it with me, in my heart.

Ella went up to Jerusalem with them, filling the back seat of the

Mercedes.  She would help Debra select the furniture they would take

with them from the house and have it crated and shipped.  The rest of it

she would sell for them.  Aaron Cohen would negotiate the sale of the

house, and both David and Debra felt a chill of sadness at the thought

of other people living in their home.

David left the women to it and he drove out to Em Karem and parked the

Mercedes beside the iron gate in the garden wall.

The Brig was waiting for him in that bleak and forbidding room above the

courtyard.  When David greeted him from the doorway he looked up coldly,

and there was no relaxation of the iron features, no warmth or pity in

the fierce warrior eyes.

You come to me with the blood of my son on your hands, he said, and

David froze at the words and held his gaze.  After a few moments the

Brig indicated the tall-backed chair against the far wall, and David

crossed stiffly to it and sat down.

If you had suffered less, I would have made you answer for more, said

the Brig.  But vengeance and hatred are barren things, as you have

discovered.  David dropped his eyes to the floor.

I will not pursue them further, despite the dictates of my heart, for

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