Herman Wouk - The Glory

by The Glory(Lit)

  "Those MiG pilots were proficient," Benny was saying. "Anybody who puts down Arab aviators, or Arab fighting men altogether, makes a mistake. They are brave able warriors. Their political leadership is something else, and not part of this discussion. The superiority of our pilots is due to factors of motivation - and therefore of training - that are unique to Israel's air force. Maybe we do have one secret weapon at that, gentlemen, called in Hebrew en brera. Which means 'no choice.' "

  A map of Israel flashed on the screen, with colored arrows and numbers. Slapping the pointer here and there, Benny said, "As you see, gentlemen, a MiG can cross my country west to east in about ninety seconds. So an Israeli pilot lives and breathes one mission, Clear skies over Israel. That's his reason for flying and for living. In combat he'll take risks, plunge into dangers, pierce the envelope of safe performance, because he knows that Israel's survival rides on his wings.

  "Yes, we're proud - maybe a little too proud - of being Israel's eagles. I assure you we all hope for the day when our neighbors will make peace with us, and these wonderful machines we fly will be grounded as toys we've outgrown. Air war is wasteful and perilous. I've seen too many horrible crashes and lost too many dear, dear friends to believe otherwise."

  All at once Benny Luria's voice weakened and went hoarse. He stopped speaking, and it took him a long moment of oppressive silence to recover. Danny gripped Barak's hand. When his father spoke again, the voice was quiet and firm. "So I confess to you almost in a whisper that nevertheless I've loved it, loved every minute of my service. I hope my jet-lagged son here in the fourth row, who has heroically stayed awake during this dull talk, will one day be a pilot, a tayass in the Israel Air Force, as his brother is now training to become one. And in a lower whisper I confess that I'm damned glad we're getting those forty-eight Skyhawks."

  The cadets jumped to their feet. The applause this time was the real thing. Barak put his arm around Danny, who was applauding a bit too much. Emily leaned past him to touch the boy's arm. "How proud you must be of your father."

  "My English not too good yet," said Danny with difficulty. "I understood most."

  Speaking over the prolonged applause, Halliday asked Barak, "Where did Luria get his English? It's excellent."

  "War college in England. Also, our generation grew up under the British Mandate."

  "I see." An arid smile. "He managed to get in a little politics, at that."

  "Target of opportunity," said Barak. "Yes, indeed."

  "Am I disturbing you?" Emily's voice again, low and charged. "It's late as hell, I know." Barak was bedded down in a VIP suite of the base guesthouse, and she was calling from the superintendent's luxurious quarters across the lawn.

  "No problem. I'm in my pajamas reading. Reading Plutarch, as a matter of fact."

  "Oh, sure." They had corresponded at length, off and on, about Plutarch.

  "On my life. I found a beat-up Modern Library copy in this room." So he had, amid a shelf of faded best-sellers.

  "Let's go for a walk."

  He glanced at his travel clock. "At one in the morning?"

  "Look, Wolf, I thought we'd talk over breakfast, but I'm not sure I can get away from Sparky and his wife. Anyway, I can't sleep. There's a mantel clock in this room driving me bats, every fifteen minutes going bing bang bong-"

  "What about Halliday?"

  "Bud? He must have gone to sleep hours ago. He has to run his five miles at dawn."

  "Where do we meet?"

  "At that eagle statue."

  "You're on. Ten minutes."

  There she was by the pedestal, a dark huddled shape in bright moonlight. The deep snow crunched under his tankist's boots as he hurried to her. "Hi, it's damn cold," she greeted him. "Are you warm enough in that sweater?"

  "Our army sweaters are pretty good."

  "Everything about your army is pretty good." She stripped a glove off her hand, and took his in a hard clasp. The chilly fingers interwove in his and tugged.

  "Where are we going, Em?"

  "To the chapel, first. That's where Bud and I will get married."

  "What! When?" The news was hardly unexpected, yet the shock was real and physical, a tingle down his arms and back.

  "Oh, pretty soon. You'll get an invitation, natch. I hope you can make it. You and Nakhama."

  Creak, creak, creak of fresh snow underfoot, brisk wind

  sweeping dry flakes in the air. "Emily, that's beautiful news. Congratulations."

  Her fingers tightened. "Bud's idea, doing it here. I'm just as glad to skip the Washington nuptial hoo-ha. My God, what a marvellous place to have a military school. Look at those mountains, will you?" The snowy range loomed high against the stars, bluish and jagged. "One of them is Pike's Peak, isn't it? And say, isn't the architecture of that chapel sublime?"

  The beauty of the strange soaring structure, suggestive of airplane wings, was much enhanced by the chiaroscuro of glittery moonlight and black shadow. He said, "I've seen pictures of it, but they don't give the idea at all. It's wonderful."

  "Zev, you don't suppose it's closed? Churches stay open for meditators, don't they?"

  "Let's try the door."

  It was open. The high interior was lit by a single golden lamp, and tall stained-glass windows showed faint moonlit colors in the gloom. They sat down in a rear pew. "Wow, what an edifice," she said, her voice echoing hollowly. "And I doubt we'll have fifty wedding guests. But Bud wants this. I told him about us, you know, old Wolf. No X-rated stuff, you understand, but everything. I had to."

  Barak was fighting off an impulse to take her in his arms, for one last time. It was painfully sweet to be with her again this way. Queenie! The fey electric unforgettable Queenie, here beside him, her bespectacled face dim and lovely over a snow-flecked fur collar. That he had gotten in too deep with this alien oddball was a fact of his life. The rest was handling it. The marriage disclosure was an unquestionable relief. Why then was he taking it as a stab? He cleared his throat. "What was his reaction?"

  "Sphinx-like. He just sat there listening, with stone eyes on my blushing face. We were in the Red Fox, actually. He'd driven out to the school the day after he popped the question, and we were having dinner, and I just came out with it. He did nod once. No, twice. I guess sphinxes don't nod, so let's say he was like the Commandant's statue in Don Giovanni. Then he talked about other things, as though I hadn't said a word. I doubt he was all that surprised. Surely he wasn't expecting me at my age to be a virgin - though I damn near was, you

  evil deflowerer, you. Maybe he was relieved that there was no more to tell. He's a deep one, Bud."

  "Well, you're in love, and all set. That's the main thing, Emily. It's just great."

  "You can still call me Queenie, chum."

  "That seems outdated."

  Four long years ago, during his first mission to Washington, the bartender in the cheap hotel where he was staying had taken Emily for a hooker, and had called her Queenie by way of being sociable. She had been tickled to death by this, and as a joke between them the sobriquet had stuck.

  "It isn't. It won't ever be, not for me. Is it for you?" In the enormous gloomy empty chapel, his long silence was like a shout. "Come on, Wolf Lightning." Her voice trembled, her eyes glistened through her glasses. "Speak up, or forever hold your peace. Wasn't it on for years and years with not even a kiss? Just scrawls on paper crossing the ocean? And wasn't it okay?"

  "It was okay, Queenie."

  "Ah! That's more like it. The one point I made to Bud was that we'd probably go on corresponding. That elicited a nod."

  "And the other nod?"

  "When I said I wanted all the kids this rickety frame could still produce. That even brought a faint granite grin and -"

  "Hello!" The voice reverberated off the walls and the vaulted ceiling. Benny Luria came striding down the aisle. "Hi there, Emily," he said, as though nothing could be more natural than finding these two together in the academy chapel, long after midnight. Israeli
military men seldom showed surprise at pairings, however offbeat. "What a fantastic church! That architect had imagination, whoever he was."

  Barak said, "So you couldn't sleep either?"

  "I'll be unwinding for days." He dropped into the pew. "I'd rather fly five combat sorties than face such an audience again."

  "One would never know," said Emily. "Your lecture was a wow. My fianc‚ wants to talk to you about it."

  "I have a seminar with the faculty at ten. Be glad to see him before or after. Zev, how about this academy? All these wide low plain buildings, like wartime temporaries, and at the heart of it all this stunning church. Makes me think."

  "What about?"

  "Well, I'd been at Tel Nof base two years before I even found out we had a synagogue. When my mother died I went looking for it to say Kaddish. It was in a trailer behind the base kitchen. We're supposed to be the people of the Bible, aren't we? These Americans seem to be more biblically inclined."

  "I'd call it pretty biblical," said Emily, "to return to Zion after thousands of years, and learn to fly jet fighter-bombers so you can stay there."

  Luria turned to peer at her. "That's not bad. I'll remember it."

  "Our air tickets are confirmed," said Barak. "You fly to Los Angeles at two P.M., and I'll return to D.C."

  They left Luria sitting in the chapel. Outside the wind had sharpened, and fine snow stung their faces. "Well, this is no fun," she said. "Tell you what, let's pop by your digs. I'll pick up that Plutarch, I need it more than you. I'll smother that clock with a pillow and maybe I'll read myself to sleep."

  "By all means," said Barak, his nerves quickening. What now?

  When he closed the door of the suite she threw her arms around his neck, and kissed his mouth with gentle affection. "No happy hour, kiddo, if you're wondering. I do want to talk, then I'm tooling off with Plutarch. Don't make a pass at me now, there's a good lad, just sit down quietly."

  "Why, it never crossed my mind," said Barak, dropping in an armchair.

  "Ho!"

  "Ho is right, Queenie. It's been a while."

  Her eyes flashed at him. She threw open her coat and sat on the bed. "Well, curb the old beast, hon, it mustn't be on, you know that. Not that you don't look powerfully sweet to these longing eyes-"

  "All right, all right. Curbed. Talk away."

  "Fine. Good Conduct Medal for the Gray Wolf. Now listen. You just said I'm in love with Bud. Not so. He's a fine guy and we'll be all right, but falling in love has happened to me just once, and it won't again." Their eyes met, and after a silence she said in a roughened voice, "No, it won't, and it's hopeless."

  "Emily-"

  "Zev, it always was, but once I realized that Nakhama knew, it became intolerable. The more so, when she as much as said she didn't mind."

  He shook his head. "I wasn't present when you two had it out, but it must have been something."

  "It sure was, old scout. She was smart, decent, and mighty adroit. Lethal, one might say. In some ways that wife of yours can run rings around you."

  "That's no news. Nakhama's never mentioned any of this to me, not once ever brought it up, so I have to take your word for it. Anyway, you're committed now, that part's over, and the rest is letters, right? As long as we live, if you like. Agreed."

  "Not so fast. I want you to understand me, dearest. I was halfway around the world," she said, her voice faltering, "wrestling with this thing all the way, when I decided once for all in New Delhi that I'd done the right thing. That there was no solution but Bud. Out of the frying pan, into the freeze compartment."

  "Oh, come off it, Queenie-"

  "It's God's truth. That's when I wrote you from New Delhi. And that's when I wrote to Bud that I'd marry him if he really wanted me, once we met again."

  "And he did."

  "And how. And I truly like him. He's a gent, and patient, and bright as they come. Moreover, if you're into military types - which present company excepted, I sure ain't - he's a catch. A careerist who's going places."

  The words obscurely jarred Barak. This tantalizing, disturbing presence of Queenie in his suite, on his bed, was not something to prolong. He picked a book off a side table. "Well, here's Plutarch."

  "Throwing me out, are you? Not that I blame you." She accepted the book with a tart smile, still sitting there.

  "Hey, stay till morning, by all means."

  "No thanks, but there's just one more thing I must tell you."

  "Shoot."

  "It'll sound vain, maybe, but I swear I've become more seductive, or something. Result of having discovered what love is? On my travels, so help me, I was beating them off-guys on ships, guys on trains, guys on planes. How come?"

  "What was the competition, Queenie?"

  She burst out laughing, and jumped up. "Oh, go to hell."

  He seized her, and their kiss was long and passionate. Then she murmured, "This sweater smells familiar. In fact you do."

  "Shut up, Queenie."

  "Okay. Just hold me."

  And so this familiar slight body was pressed to his once more, no doubt as it never would be again. The Good Conduct Medal fell off, unregarded.

  "Enough, enough. Too much, much too much," she gasped, pulling free. "We're out of the Growlery, Wolf, there's no going back."

  Stumbling on his words he said, "See here, Queenie, we were being - what? - unfair to Nakhama from the start. And if you truly found out she didn't mind, as you claim, then why-"

  Emily put warm fingers across his lips. "Easy. I think you're being very dense, but all right. I was a bitch who stole a bone. Ran off with it, got away with it, loved gnawing on it. But once she said she knew and didn't mind, I was a bitch under the table being thrown a bone. Get the difference? Good enough?" Emily picked Plutarch off the bed. "Fare-thee-well, for I must leave thee. I'll read the Mark Antony chapter, I can use a good cry. Over Cleopatra, of course, the original bitch who stole bones." They went together to the door, where she said, "Come no further, Wolf. I won't be mugged on the academy lawn." And she slipped out.

  From the shelf of old scruffy best-sellers Barak took to bed Arrowsmith, in the familiar orange-and-blue binding. He had read it in his high school class in Vienna, but the first few pages seemed all different. They shut out Emily thoughts, which was all he was asking of Sinclair Lewis...

  R-r-ring! R-r-ring! "Sorry to disturb you, sir. Base duty officer here. The switchboard has a call for you from New York, urgent official business, a Mr. Rafael-"

  "Put him on."

  Various clicks and buzzes. "Zev? How was Benny's lecture?"

  "Gideon, isn't it three in the morning there? Benny did fine. What's up?"

  "Have you talked again to your CIA man?"

  "Yes. He phoned, told me he studied the papers and he totally agrees with your memo."

  "What exactly did he say?"

  "That 'all the territories' is catastrophic, loses the war we won."

  "Sharp gentleman."

  "But, Gideon, he can do nothing about it."

  "Can't he at least find out where the White House now stands? We think that unless the President intervenes, the State Department will sell us out on both words today."

  "I can try calling him."

  "You must do better than that. We know that Kosygin has sent Johnson a very tough letter, and Johnson's called an emergency meeting for this morning. When will you get back to Washington?"

  "About six tonight."

  "No good."

  "Benny has a seminar in the morning, and-"

  "Benny can take care of himself. You must get back by noon the latest. Hitch a ride on a military plane. Be there!" Rafael was not quite himself, a bit frantic or frazzled.

  "For what purpose?"