Mirage

by James Follett

  Nathan scratched the stubble on his lantern jaw. ‘The going rate for purchasing agents is ten per cent.’

  ‘You’re hardly a purchasing agent, Mr Nathan.’

  ‘Okay - so find someone who is.’

  ‘We’ll also pay you for preparing the aircraft for their flight. Look

  - Mr Nathan, you may be making big money with this airlift, but it can’t last forever. Stalin’s made his point.’

  Lucky said nothing. The stranger had touched on a subject that he had been brooding about. He lifted his beer to his lips and drank but his sunken, unfriendly eyes remained fixed on Emil. ‘You got a shopping list, Mr Leyman?’

  Emil slipped a hand into his inside breast pocket and hesitated.

  ‘Secrecy is very important, Mr Nathan. We don’t want our competitors learning of our plans until production is under way.’

  ‘I can keep my mouth shut,’ said Lucky evenly.

  Emil slid a folded sheaf of typewritten papers across the table. Lucky’s face remained inscrutable as he read carefully through the detailed listings.

  After a few moments he raised his eyes to Emil and said quietly: ‘Tell me, Mr Leyman, are you planning to film a war or fight one?’

  15

  TEL AVIV February 1949

  The sound of aircraft passing low over the moshav woke Leonora. Her first thought was that the farm was the target for a fedayeen attack. Her work-hardened hand reached automatically for the reassuring oiled coldness of the Luger she kept by the bed but she stilled her fingers when she realized what the sound was. Two more aircraft roared past. They did not sound like the usual military aircraft that flew in and out of Lydda throughout the day; these aircraft had high-powered engines; the sort of engines that the British used in their Spitfires and Hurricanes. Aircraft that they sold to enemy air forces of Egypt and Jordan, but not to Israel.

  She rose and went into Daniel’s room - knowing before she opened the door that he would be at the open window, staring up at the night sky. The boy’s room was decorated with hundreds of pictures of aircraft cut from the innumerable copies of Flight magazine that Emil brought with him when he returned to the moshav at weekends.

  ‘Real aeroplanes!’ said Daniel excitedly when Leonora joined him at the window. ‘Rolls-Royce Merlins! You can hear them landing if you listen.’

  ‘You should be in bed, young man,’ Leonora scolded gently, reaching for the window catch.

  ‘No - please. Let me stay. I can see them if the moon comes out.’

  ‘There’s no moon and there won’t be any more aircraft.’

  Leonora was wrong: ten more machines flew over the moshav - some circling to the north as though waiting for landing space to be made ready for them. It was another thirty minutes before the night fell still and she managed to coax Daniel back into bed.

  A light was on in the kitchen. Emil had left his room and was making coffee. She entered the kitchen and sat at the table without speaking, watching Emil fill the percolator. He had already set two mugs on the table.

  ‘The aeroplanes woke Daniel,’ she explained.

  Emil looked at his watch. ‘There won’t be any more. Not tonight.’

  She knew better than to ask how he knew. She never questioned

  Emil about his work. In return he kept his promise never to pry into her past or private life. For that she was grateful. Not that working ten - sometimes twelve - hours a day on the moshav gave her much time for a private life. In the few months that she had been running the fruit farm, Emil had stuck to their agreement; he had never made the slightest attempt to force himself upon her in any way apart from a celebratory kiss on the cheek when she had received her first cheque from a fruit agent for the crop of late melons that she delivered to Haifa in a borrowed truck. More important to her, Emil had never questioned her again about Daniel’s father.

  At first she had puzzled over his attitude towards her. She knew that he was attracted to her sexually - that was obvious from the way he looked at her. But why hadn’t he made some sort of overt move after several months? It even crossed her mind that his sole motive was to have a hold over her life in a manner that denied her to other men. But such questions had been dispelled three weeks earlier when he had bluntly asked her to marry him. She had said that she would need time to think it over. Since then he had not mentioned the subject again. It annoyed her that his silence had placed the onus on her to make the next move.

  Emil filled the mugs with coffee and sat opposite Leonora. She pulled her dressing gown protectively shut as she leaned forward to pick up her drink. She felt his eyes on her. Coldly mocking her? No - that was unfair. Emil never mocked her although she sensed that he now found her aloofness more amusing than irksome.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said,’ she said, sipping her coffee.

  ‘I haven’t said anything yet,’ Emil replied.

  ‘Three weeks ago you asked me to marry you.’

  ‘Oh that. There’s no hurry, Leonora. In your own time.’

  ‘You really can be infuriating at times, Emil Kalen.’

  He grinned disarmingly. ‘No. I’m merely patient.’

  ‘In a funny way, I’ve learned to trust you.’

  ‘Progress.’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think that me marrying you is a condition of me and Daniel staying here.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be fair of you if you did think that, Leonora. We made a deal that holds even if we don’t get married. This is and always will be your home if you so wish.’

  Leonora nodded. It was the sort of answer she had expected. ‘I don’t think I love you, Emil. At least I didn’t think I did until I asked myself how I would feel if you brought another woman here.’

  Emil chuckled. ‘I don’t think I’d bring her here. I’d keep her in my

  flat in Tel Aviv. No woman would ever understand our arrangement here ... .’

  Leonora gave a wry smile. There was a brief silence in the room.

  ‘So what was the answer to this question you asked yourself?’ Emil prompted.

  ‘If you found another woman?’ Leonora hesitated. ‘I think I’d be jealous .... And then there’s Daniel. He thinks the world of you ...

  Emil nodded. ‘The feeling’s mutual. He’s a fine boy. I’d be proud to call him my son.’

  Leonora stared into her mug. ‘I want him to be proud of me.’

  ‘There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be.’

  ‘I don’t want him to find out about my involvement in the Irgun. Ever.’

  As usual, Emil offered no criticism of her wishes. ‘Very well, Leonora. If that’s what you want, I’ll see that he doesn’t learn from me.’ He hesitated, reluctant to press her on the question that was uppermost in his mind. ‘So will you accept?’

  Leonora smiled. A sudden smile that was as lovely as it was unexpected. She touched Emil on the cheek with her long fingers. ‘I don’t know if I’m going to resent you for this, Emil Kalen, but it looks like you’ve pushed me into a corner.’ She was about to add: a corner with a bed in it, but she checked herself and finished her acceptance of Emil’s proposal with: ‘So don’t say I didn’t warn you if it turns out that I end up hating you for it.’

  16

  Emil arrived at his office the following morning to find an angry Jacob Wyel waiting for him.

  ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ Jacob demanded.

  Emil smiled blandly at his visitor. Before leaving Berlin he had made it his business to discover what the colloquial English expression ‘queer’ meant. ‘Playing at what, Jacob?’

  ‘Don’t act the innocent with me, Kalen. You know damn well what I mean. In accordance with your instructions I told Lydda airfield to stand by last night to receive five transport flights. Instead—’

  ‘I hope there were five transports, Jacob.’

  ‘Yes - there were. With a cargo of thirty Merlin engines—’

  ‘And another fifteen due next month,’ Emil interjected
, smiling. ‘But you never said anything about the Spitfires!’ Jacob nearly shouted. ‘Twenty Mark Sixteens! I was made to look an idiot!’ ‘That wasn’t intentional, Jacob. I thought it best that as few as possible knew about the operation. Some of your ex-Mahal officers still have an unprofessional attitude to security. They talk in bars.’ Emil held up his hand to stop the denials before they started. ‘I can give you detailed instances, Jacob. Dates. Times. Subject. Until now, it hasn’t mattered so much. But now you’ve got the ability to build up a front-line Spitfire squadron, I think you had better think seriously about putting your house in order before someone is appointed over your head to do it for you.’

  17

  That evening Jacob and Lucky renewed their wartime acquaintanceship in the lounge of the Yarkon Hotel while the group of British pilots that Lucky had recruited to fly the DC-3s and the Spitfires to Lydda celebrated noisily in the adjoining bar.

  ‘Overhauling the Spitfires was straightforward enough,’ Lucky was saying. ‘I rented another hangar at Blackbushe and took on a couple of demobbed fitters. I thought the hard bit would be getting the export licences to fly the Spitfires to France but it was no problem. And as for the French - they refuelled us at Bordeaux and didn’t seem to care where we were going so long as it wasn’t Algeria.’

  ‘You did well,’ Jacob commented.

  Lucky took a swallow of beer and wiped his mouth. ‘Made a bob or two. Do even better next time now I know the score.’

  ‘Is there to be a next time?’

  ‘Got to be,’ said Lucky laconically. ‘Got five blokes working for me now.’ He set down his glass. ‘Tell you what I’ve learned from this, Jacob. I don’t reckon there’s a future in the freight business unless you’re big. And as for passengers - there’s this Howard Hughes bloke in America who’s built a five-hundred seat passenger transatlantic flying boat. That’s how big you’re going to have to think to stay in the passenger business. But air forces... warplanes ... that’s something else. No disrespect to Israel, Jacob, but all them dotty little countries that have sprung up since the war, and all them wog colonies that Attlee’s got lined up for independence will all want their own air forces. And all the big aircraft builders - Britain; America; France; Russia - have all gone mad on jets and want to unload their piston stuff. Most of it’s pretty buggered having just been through a war. So ... I unbugger it and flog it. Come to Luckair for your cut-price air force.’ Lucky finished his speech with a grin, and his beer with a burp.

  ‘You would supply anyone?’ Jacob asked.

  Lucky shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  Jacob moved confidingly on to the edge of his chair. ‘Supposing we paid you a premium to work only for us?’

  Lucky greeted Jacob’s suggestion with a hoot of laughter. ‘Christ, Jacob. Israel’s a legit country now. American backing and all that. You want proper fighters. Sabres; Vampires; Meteors. Okay - maybe those Spitties will help you out as trainers but as combat aircraft - modern jets would beat the hell out of them.’

  ‘We can’t obtain or afford modern jets. And even if we could, we couldn’t expect the kibbutzim to service them. Ben Gurion wants us to build the ChelHa’Avir into a kibbutzim air force.’

  Lucky looked cynical. ‘Airstrips beside the cabbage patches?’ ‘Basically - yes.’

  ‘And you agree with him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re both mad,’ said Lucky. ‘Let’s say I’ll work for you but not countries that you don’t approve of? After all, I might be able to supply a banana republic in South America. Hardly a threat to you, Jacob. In return for this right of veto, I get an extra five per cent.’ ‘Agreed on one condition.’

  Lucky raised an eyebrow. ‘Which is?’

  ‘That you give me a stake in Luckair.’

  Lucky’s eyes narrowed. ‘What sort of stake?’

  ‘Twenty per cent.’

  ‘I can give you a two word answer to that.’

  ‘Think of the advantages, Lucky. I’d have a vested interest in seeing that plenty of work is steered your way. My holding could be held in Switzerland. A foreign investor.’

  ‘What about this Eric Leyman guy I take orders from?’

  ‘He’s bound to be promoted out of harm’s way soon.’

  Lucky considered. ‘Ten per cent.’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘Not interested,’ said Lucky emphatically. ‘I can make it with or without you.’

  ‘Except it would be that much easier with me,’ Jacob pointed out. ‘I could swing an order for another twenty Spitfires inside a month. Fifteen per cent, Lucky.’

  Lucky hesitated. He had already located an additional thirty Spitfires which the Czechoslovak government wished to dispose of. ‘Twelve per cent non-voting stock and we’ve got a deal.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Jacob. He signalled to the barman for more drinks.

  18

  April 1949

  Emil and Leonora were married at a private ceremony in the warehouse synagogue at Rishon-Letsiyon. Their guests were a handful of workers from neighbouring moshavs. The celebrations went on into the early hours. It was 3.00am when the last guest left leaving them to clear up.

  ‘Maybe we should have found the time to have gone away,’ said Emil ruefully, surveying the mess. ‘That way someone else would have had to clear up. Shall we leave it?’

  ‘We must do it now,’ said Leonora firmly. ‘I hate a mess in the morning.’ By setting to work, she postponed for another hour having to face the question that was uppermost in both their minds: namely that they had not prepared for the beginning of their married life. Emil had his bedroom and Leonora had hers. They hadn’t even bought a double bed.

  ‘I suppose I could move your bed into my room,’ Emil suggested when the last glass had been put away. ‘Our room,’ he hastily amended and avoided Leonora’s eye.

  ‘You look much too tired to be shifting furniture at this time of night, Emil Kalen.’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ he admitted, not wanting to pressure her.

  She was standing by her bedroom door. She had changed out of her wedding dress and was wearing a shapeless cleaning smock. Nevertheless, she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. His heart ached. He wanted to crush her to him but, in a curious way, he was still a little overawed by her and could not accept that she was his wife.

  ‘We can do it tomorrow. Good night, Emil.’ She came forward and kissed him on the cheek. She had often kissed him like that but this time her fingers stroked the hair from his eyes. ‘Good night, Emil.’ And then she was gone, closing her door softly behind her.

  Minutes later he lay in bed, staring up into the darkness, wondering if he had made a terrible mistake. How could he have had the arrogance to even dream that such a beautiful creature could be his? He was dozing off when the soft click of his door closing brought him awake. He could hear breathing. Drawing nearer ...

  ‘Leonora?’

  She slipped into the narrow bed beside him.

  ‘Le—’

  Warm lips on his stilled her name. He touched her shoulder and realized with a shock that she was naked. Her legs entwined with his. His arm went to her waist but she seized his hand and ground his fingers with such force against her breast that the thrill of the touch was overshadowed by a fear that he might be hurting her. She forced her tongue into his mouth and moved her knee into his groin.

  She left an hour later as silently as she arrived and without once speaking or mentioning his name. When he woke in the morning, he lay in bed listening to Daniel playing aeroplanes in the passage and wondered if it had all been a dream.

  Leonora behaved at breakfast as if nothing had happened. Daniel was playing with a new toy - an expensive all-metal model Spitfire. Emil wondered who among their friends could afford such a gift. Leonora made him toast and coffee, as she usually did, and got Daniel ready for an outing. She packed him off and returned to the kitchen. By now Emil was convinced that the previous night had been a dream brought abou
t by a mixture of exhaustion and too much drink. It was then that Leonora did something extraordinary: she circled her arms around Emil’s neck as he sat at the table. She kissed him sensually on his ear and nibbled his earlobe.

  ‘God help me, but I think I could love you, Emil Kalen,’ she said simply.

  They spent the first week of their fortnight’s honeymoon on the back-breaking work of grubbing out an overgrown almond grove and laying a new irrigation pipe in readiness for the new growing season. During the second week Emil helped with the local cooperative’s erection of slides and swings for the children of the moshav workers.

  ‘You’ll wear yourself out,’ said Leonora reprovingly when she brought Emil his lunch.

  Emil laughed and hugged Leonora. ‘I’m enjoying myself. This is what building a country really means.’

  It was Leonora’s turn to laugh. ‘Putting up kids’ slides?’

  ‘I like to see you laugh, Leonora,’ Emil replied, unwrapping and biting into a beef sandwich.

  Leonora sat beside Emil on an upturned wheelbarrow, separate from the main working party. ‘And you also like avoiding my questions, Emil Kalen. How can putting up a children’s slide be building a country?’

  ‘Because it’s something we can do for ourselves. In Holland such a project would be debated endlessly before anything was decided. And when it was decided, there would be experts called in to design it. And when the designs had been approved, contractors would be invited to tender to build it. Here, we decide to have swings and slides one week and we build them the next.’

  ‘You’re talking like a Gurionite.’

  ‘I don’t agree with him on some things - he’s a difficult man to argue with. I’ve wasted hours trying to get him to see reason. But his brand of socialism is founded on commonsense. Look at the clever way he defused your Irgun. Israel is lucky to have such a leader.’

  Leonora’s curiosity was aroused. ‘You argue with Ben Gurion?’

  ‘Endlessly.’