by Wilbur Smith
‘Let’s go to Barcelona,’ he laughed.
David drove quietly through the outskirts of the town, and Debra looked over her shoulder at Joe.
‘Are you comfortable?’ she asked in the guttural language she had used before.
‘If he’s not – he can run behind,’ David told her in the same language, and she gawked at him a moment in surprise before she let out a small exclamation of pleasure.
‘Hey! You speak Hebrew!’
‘Not very well,’ David admitted. ‘I’ve forgotten most of it,’ and he had a vivid picture of himself as a ten-year-old, wrestling unhappily with a strange and mysterious language with back-to-front writing, an alphabet that was squiggly tadpoles and in which most sounds were made in the back of the throat, like gargling.
‘Are you Jewish?’ she asked, turning in the seat to confront him. She was no longer smiling; the question was clearly of significance to her.
David shook his head. ‘No,’ he laughed at the notion. ‘I’m a half-convinced non-practising monotheist, raised and reared in the Protestant Christian tradition.’
‘Then why did you learn Hebrew?’
‘My mother wanted it,’ David explained, and felt again the stab of an old guilt. ‘She was killed when I was still a kid. I just let it drop. It didn’t seem important after she had gone.’
‘Your mother—’ Debra insisted, leaning towards him, ‘– she was Jewish?’
‘Yeah. Sure,’ David agreed. ‘But my father was a Protestant. There was all sorts of hell when Dad married her. Everyone was against it – but they went ahead and did it anyway.’
Debra turned in the seat to Joe. ‘Did you hear that – he’s one of us.’
‘Oh, come on!’ David protested, still laughing.
‘Mazaltov,’ said Joe. ‘Come and see us in Jerusalem some time.’
‘You’re Israeli?’ David asked, with new interest.
‘Sabras, both of us,’ said Debra, with a note of pride and deep satisfaction. ‘We are only on holiday here.’
‘It must be an interesting country,’ David hazarded.
‘Like Joe just said, why don’t you come and find out some time?’ she suggested offhandedly. ‘You have the right of return.’ Then she changed the subject. ‘Is this the fastest this machine will go? We have to be in Barcelona by seven.’
There was a relaxed feeling between them now, as though some invisible barrier had been lowered, as though she had made some weighty judgement. They were out of the city and ahead the open road wound down into the valley of the Ebro towards the sea.
‘Kindly extinguish cigarettes and fasten your seat belts,’ David said, and let the Mustang go.
She sat very still beside him with her hands folded in her lap and she stared ahead when the bends leapt at them, and the straights streamed in a soft blue blur beneath the body of the Mustang. There was a small rapturous smile on her mouth and the golden lights danced in her eyes, and David was moved to know that speed affected her the way it did him.
He forgot everything else but the girl in the seat beside him and the need to keep the mighty roaring machine on the ribbon of tarmac.
Once when they went twisting down into a dry dusty valley in a series of tight curves and David snaked the Mustang down into it with his hands darting from wheel to gear leaver, and his feet dancing heel and toe on the foot pedals – she laughed aloud with the thrill of it.
They bought cheese and bread and a bottle of white wine at a village cantina and ate lunch sitting on the parapet of a stone bridge while the water swirled below them, milky with snow melt from the mountains.
David’s thigh touched Debra’s, as they sat side by side. He could feel the warmth and resilience of her flesh through the stuff of their clothing and she made no move to pull away. Her cheeks were flushed a little brighter than seemed natural, even in the chill little wind that nagged at them.
David was puzzled by Joe’s attitude. He seemed to be completely oblivious of David’s bird dogging his girl, and he was deriving a childlike pleasure out of tossing pebbles at the trout in the waters below them. Suddenly David wished he would put up a better resistance, it would make his conquest a lot more enjoyable – for conquest was what David had decided on.
He leaned across Debra for another chunk of the white, tangy cheese and he let his arm brush lightly against the tantalizing double bulge of her bosom. Joe seemed not to notice.
‘Come on, you big ape,’ David thought scornfully. ‘Fight for it. Don’t just sit there.’
He wanted to test himself against this buck. He was big, and strong, and David could tell from the way he moved and held himself that he was well co-ordinated and self-assured. His face was chunky and half ugly, but he knew that some women liked them that way, and he was not fooled by Joe’s slow and lazy grin – the eyes were quick and sharp.
‘You want to drive, Joe?’ he asked suddenly, and the slow grin spread like a puddle of spilled oil on Joe’s face – but the eyes glittered with anticipation.
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Joe, and David regretted the gesture as he found himself hunched in the narrow back seat. For the first five minutes Joe drove sedately, touching the brakes to test for grab and pull, flicking through the gears to feel the travel and bite of the stick, taking a burst of power through a bend to establish stability and detect any tendency for the tail to break out.
‘Don’t be scared of her,’ David told him, and Joe grunted with a little frown of concentration creasing his broad forehead. Then he nodded to himself and his hands settled firmly, taking a fresh grip, and Debra whooped as he changed down to get the revs peaking. He slid the car through the first bend and David’s right foot stabbed instinctively at a non-existent brake pedal and he felt his breathing jam in his throat.
When Joe parked them in the lot outside the airport at Barcelona and switched off the engine, all of them were silent for a few seconds and then David said softly, ‘Son of a gun!’
Then they were all laughing. David felt a tinge of regret that he was going to have to take the girl away from him, for he was beginning to like him, despite himself, beginning to enjoy the slow deliberation of his speech and movements that was so clearly a put-on and finding pleasure in the big slow smile that took so long to reach its full bloom. David had to harden his resolve.
They were an hour early for the plane they were meeting and they found a table in the restaurant overlooking the runways. David ordered an earthenware jug of Sangria, and Debra sat next to Joe and put her hand on his arm while she chatted, a gesture that tempered David’s new-found liking for him.
A private flight landed as the waiter brought the Sangria, and Joe looked up.
‘One of the new executive Gulfstreams. They tell me she is a little beauty.’ And he went on to list the aircraft’s specifications in technical language that Debra seemed to follow intelligently.
‘You know anything about aircraft?’ David challenged him.
‘Some,’ admitted Joe, but Debra took the question.
‘Joe is in the air force,’ she said proudly, and David stared at them.
‘So is Debs,’ Joe laughed, and David switched his attention to her. ‘She’s a lieutenant in signals.’
‘Only the reserve,’ Debra demurred, ‘but Joe is a flier. A fighter pilot.’
‘A flier,’ David repeated stupidly. He should have known from Joe’s clear and steady gaze that was the peculiar mark of the fighter pilot. He should have known by the way he handled the Mustang. If he was an Israeli flier – then he would have flown a formidable number of operations. Hell, every time they took off, they were operational. He felt a vast tide of respect rising within him.
‘What squadron are you on – Phantoms?’
‘Phantoms!’ Joe curled his lip. ‘That isn’t flying. That’s operating a computer. No, we really fly. You ever heard of a Mirage?’
David blinked, and then nodded.
‘Yeah,’ said David, ‘I’ve heard of them.’
‘Well, I fly a Mirage.’
David began to laugh, shaking his head.
‘What’s wrong?’ Joe demanded, his smile fading. ‘What’s funny about that?’
‘I do too,’ said David. ‘I fly a Mirage.’ It was no use trying to get hot against this buck, he decided. ‘I’ve got over a thousand hours on Mirages.’ And it was Joe’s turn to stare, then suddenly they were both talking at once – Debra’s head turning quickly from one to the other.
David ordered another jug of Sangria, but Joe would not let him pay. He repeated for the fiftieth time, ‘Well, that beats all,’ and punched David’s shoulder. ‘How about that, Debs?’
Halfway through the second jug, David interrupted the talk which had been exclusively on aviation.
‘Who are we meeting, anyway? We’ve driven across half of Spain and I don’t even know who the guy is.’
‘This guy is a girl,’ Joe laughed, and Debra filled in.
‘Hannah,’ and she grinned at Joe, ‘his fiancée. She is a nursing sister at Hadassah Hospital, and she could only get away for a week.’
‘Your fiancée?’ David whispered.
‘They are getting married in June.’ Debra turned to Joe. ‘It’s taken him-two years to make up his mind.’
Joe chuckled with embarrassment, and Debra squeezed his arm.
‘Your fiancée?’ asked David again.
‘Why do you keep saying that?’ Debra demanded. David pointed at Joe, and then at Debra.
‘What,’ he started, ‘I mean, who – what the hell?’
Debra realized suddenly and gasped. She covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes sparkling. ‘You mean – you thought—? Oh, no,’ she giggled. She pointed at Joe and then at herself. ‘Is that what you thought?’ David nodded.
‘He is my brother,’ Debra hooted. ‘Joe is my brother, you idiot! Joseph Israel Mordecai and Debra Ruth Mordecai – brother and sister.’
Hannah was a rangy girl with bright copper hair and freckles like gold sovereigns. She was only an inch or two shorter than Joe but he lifted her as she came through the customs gate, swung her off her feet and then engulfed her in an enormous embrace.
It seemed completely natural that the four of them should stay together. By a miracle of packing they got all their luggage and themselves into the Mustang with Hannah perched on Joe’s lap in the rear.
‘We’ve got a week,’ said Debra. ‘A whole week! What are we going to do with it?’
They agreed that Torremolinos was out. It was far south, and since Michener had written The Drifters, it had become a hangout for all the bums and freaks.
‘I was talking to someone on the plane. There is a place called Colera up the coast. Near the border.’
They reached it in the middle of the next morning and it was still so early in the season that they had no trouble finding pleasant rooms at a small hotel off the winding main street. The girls shared, but David insisted on a room of his own. He had certain plans for Debra that made privacy desirable.
Debra’s bikini was blue and brief, hardly sufficient to restrain a bosom that was more exuberant than David had guessed. Her skin was satiny and tanned to a deep mahogany, although a strip of startling white peeped over the back of her costume when she stooped to pick up her towel. She was long in the waist, and leg, and a strong swimmer – pacing David steadily through the cool blue water when they set out for a rocky islet half a mile off shore.
They had the tiny island to themselves and they found a patch of flat smooth rock out of the wind and full in the sun. They lay side by side with their fingers entwined and the salt water had sleeked Debra’s hair to her shoulders, like the coat of an otter.
They lay in the sun and they talked away the afternoon. There was so much they had to learn about each other.
Her father had been one of the youngest colonels in the American Air Force during World War II, but afterwards he had gone on to Israel. He had been there ever since, and was now a major-general. They lived in a house in an old part of Jerusalem which was five hundred years old, but was a lot of fun.
She was a senior lecturer in English at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and, this shyly as though it was a rather special secret, she wanted to write. A small volume of her poetry had already been published. That impressed David, and he came up on one elbow and looked at her with new respect, and a twinge of envy, for someone who saw the way ahead clearly.
She lay with her eyes closed against the sun, and droplets of water sparkling like gems on her thick dark eyelashes. She wasn’t beautiful, he decided carefully, but very handsome and very, very sexy. He was going to have her, of course. There was no doubt in David’s mind about this, but there seemed little urgency in it now. He was enjoying listening to her talk, she had a quaint way of expressing herself, once she was in full flight, and her accent was strangely neutral – although there were faint echoes of her American background now he knew to look for them. She told him that the poetry was merely a beginning. She was going to write a novel about being young and living in Israel. She had the outline worked out, and it seemed like a pretty interesting story to David. Then she started to talk about her land and the people who lived in it. David felt something move within him as he listened – a nostalgia, a deep race memory. Again his envy stirred. She was so certain of where she was from and where she was going – she knew where she belonged, and what her destiny was, and this made her strong. Beside her he felt suddenly insignificant and without purpose.
She opened her eyes. suddenly, squinting a little in the sunlight, and looked up at him.
‘Oh dear,’ she smiled. ‘We are so sad, David. Do I talk too much?’ He shook his head but did not answer her smile, and she became solemn also.
She studied his face carefully, with minute attention. The sun had dried his hair and fluffed it out, and it was soft and fine and very dark. The bone of his cheek and jaw was sculptured and finely balanced, the eyes very clear and slightly Asiatic in cast, the lips full and firm, and the nose delicately fluted with wide nostrils and a straight graceful line.
She reached up and touched his cheek.
‘You are very beautiful, David. You are the most beautiful human being I have ever seen.’
He did not move, and she ran the finger down his neck on to his chest, twirling it slowly in the dark body hair.
Slowly he leaned forward and placed his mouth over hers. Her lips were warm and soft and tasted of sea salt. Her arms came up around the back of his head and folded around him. They kissed until he reached behind her and unfastened the clasp of her costume between the smooth brown shoulder blades. She stiffened immediately and tried to pull away from him.
David held her gently but firmly, murmuring little soothing noises as he kissed her again. Slowly she relaxed and he went on gentling her until her hands went to the back of his neck again, and she sighed and shuddered.
His hands were skilled and expert, masterful enough to prevent rebellion, not rough enough to panic her. He pushed up the thin material of her costume top and was surprised and enchanted with the firm rubbery weight of her breasts and the big dusky rose-brown nipples which were pebble-hard to his touch.
It was shocking, completely foreign to his experience, for David was not accustomed to check or denial, but Debra placed her hands on his shoulders and shoved him with such force that he lost his balance and slid down the rock, grazing his elbow and ending in a heap at the water’s edge.
He scrambled angrily to his feet as Debra came up with a fluid explosive movement, fastening her costume as she did so. A single bound of her long brown legs carried her to the edge of the rocks and she dived outwards, hitting the water flat and surfacing to call back at him.
‘I’ll race you to the beach.’
David would not accept the challenge and followed her at his own dignified pace. When he emerged unsmilingly from the low surf, she studied his face a moment and then grinned.
‘When you sulk you look about ten years old,’
she told him, which was no great exercise of tact, and David stalked back to his room.
He was still being extremely dignified and aloof that evening when they discovered a discotheque named ‘2001 AD’ run by a couple of English boys down on the sea-front. They crowded round a table at which there were already two BEA hostesses and a couple of raggedy-looking beards. The music was loud enough and the rhythm hard enough to jar the spine and loosen the bowels, and when the two hostesses gazed at David with almost religious awe Debra forsook her attitude of cool amusement and suggested to David that they dance. Mollified by this little feminine by-play, David dropped his impersonation of the Ice King.
They moved well together, sharing the gut rhythms of the harsh music, executing the primeval movements that reeked of Africa with a grace that drew the attention of the other dancers.
When the music changed Debra came to him and laid her body against his. David felt some force flowing from her that seemed to charge every nerve of his body – and he knew that no relationship he had with this woman would ever run calmly. It was too deeply felt for that, too volatile and triggered for momentary explosion.
When the record ended they left Joe and Hannah huddled over a carafe of red wine and they went out into the silent street and down to the beach.
There was a moon in the sky that lit the dark cliffs crowding in above the beach, and reflected off the sea in multiple yellow images. The low surf hissed and coughed on the pebble beach and they took off their shoes and walked along it, letting the water wash around their ankles.
In an angle of the cliff, they found a hidden place amongst the rocks and they stopped to kiss again, and David mistakenly took her new soft mood as an invitation to continue from where he had left off that afternoon.
Debra pulled away again, but this time with determination and said angrily, ‘Damn you! Don’t you ever learn? I don’t want to do that. Do we have to go through this every time we are alone?’
‘What’s the matter?’ David was immediately stung by her tone, and furious with this fresh check. ‘This is the twentieth century, darling. The simpering virgin is out of style this season – hadn’t you heard?’