by Wilbur Smith
He sipped the coffee before replying.
‘I killed a man.’ She set down her cup and studied his face solemnly, and he began to speak, telling her the detail of it, the chase and the kill, until he ended lamely, ‘I felt only satisfaction at the time. A sense of achievement. I knew I had done what was right.’
‘And now?’ she prompted him.
‘Now I am sad,’ he shrugged. ‘I am saddened that I had to do it.’
‘My father, who has always been a soldier, says that only those who do the actual fighting can truly know what it is to hate war.’
David nodded. ‘Yes, I understand that now. I love to fly, but I hate to destroy.’
They were silent again, both of them considering their own personal vision of war, both of them trying to find words to express it
‘And yet it is necessary,’ Debra broke the silence. ‘We must fight – there is no other way.’
‘There is no other way – with the sea at our backs and the Arabs at our throats.’
‘You speak like an Israeli,’ Debra challenged him softly.
‘I made a decision today – or rather I was press-ganged by your father. He has given me three weeks to brush up my Hebrew, and complete the immigration formalities.’
‘And then?’ Debra leaned towards him.
‘A commission in the air force. That was the only point I scored on, I had just enough strength to hold out for the equivalent rank I would have had back home. He haggled like a secondhand clothes dealer, but I had him, and he knew it. So he gave in at last. Acting major, with confirmation of rank at the end of twelve months.’
‘That’s wonderful, Davey, you’ll be one of the youngest majors in the service.’
‘Yeah,’ David agreed, ‘and after I’ve paid my taxes I’ll have a salary a little less than a bus-driver back home.’
‘Never mind,’ Debra smiled for the first time. ‘I’ll help you with your Hebrew.’
‘I was going to talk to you about that,’ he answered her smile. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m restless tonight – and I want to walk.’
They strolled through the Christian quarter. The open stalls on each side were loaded with garish and exotic clothes, and leather work and jewellery, and the smells of spices and food and drains and stale humanity was almost solid in the narrow lanes where the arches met overhead.
Debra drew him into one of the antique stores in the Via Dolorosa, and the proprietor came to them, almost wriggling with pleasure.
‘Ah, Miss Mordecai – and how is your dearly esteemed father?’ Then he rushed into the back room to brew more coffee for them.
‘He’s one of the half-honest ones, and he lives in mortal fear of the Brig.’
Debra selected an antique solid gold Star of David on a slim golden neck chain, and though he had never before worn personal jewellery, David bowed his head and let her place it about his neck. The golden star lay against the coarse dark curls of his chest.
That’s the only decoration you’ll ever get – we don’t usually give medals,’ she told him laughingly. ‘But welcome to Israel anyway.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ David was touched and embarrassed by the gift, ‘thank you.’ And he buttoned his shirt over it and then reached awkwardly to kiss her – but she drew away and warned him.
‘Not in here. He’s a Moslem, and he’d be very offended.’
‘All right,’ said David. ‘Let’s go and find some place where we won’t hurt anybody’s sensibilities.’
They went out through the Lion Gate in the great wall and found a stone bench in a quiet place amongst the olive trees of the Moslem cemetery. There was a half moon in the sky, silver and mysterious, and the night was warm and waiting, seemingly as expectant as a new bride.
‘You can’t stay on at the Intercontinental,’ Debra told him, and they both looked up at its arched and lighted silhouette across the valley.
‘Why not?’
‘Well, first of all it’s too expensive. On your salary you just can’t afford it.’
‘You don’t really expect me to live on my salary?’ David protested, but Debra ignored him and went on.
‘And what is more important, you aren’t a tourist any more. So you can’t live like one.’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘We could find you an apartment.’
‘Who would do the housework, and the laundry, and the cooking?’ he protested vehemently. ‘I haven’t had much practice at that sort of thing.’
‘I would,’ said Debra, and he froze for an instant and then turned slowly on the seat to look at her.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, I would,’ she repeated firmly, and then her voice quavered. ‘That’s if you want me to.’ He was silent for a long moment.
‘See here, Debs. Are you talking about living together? I mean, playing house-house on a full-time basis – the whole bit?’
‘That’s precisely what I am talking about.’
‘But—’ He could think of nothing further to say. The idea was novel, breathtaking, and alive with enchanting possibilities. All David’s previous experiences with the opposite sex had been profuse rather than deep, and he found himself on the frontiers of unexplored territory.
‘Well?’ Debra asked at last.
‘Do you want to get married?’ His voice cracked on the word, and he cleared his throat.
‘I’m not sure that you are the finest marriage material in the market, my darling David. You are as beautiful as the dawn, and fun to be with – but you are also selfish, immature and spoiled stupid.’
‘Thank you kindly.’
‘Well, there is no point in me mincing words now, David, not when I am about to throw all caution aside and become your mistress.’
‘Wow!’ he exclaimed, with all the frost thawing from his voice. ‘When you say it straight out like that – it almost blows my mind.’
‘Me too,’ Debra confessed. ‘But one condition is that we wait until we have our own special place, you may recall that I’m not so high on public beaches or rocky islands.’
‘I’ll never forget,’ David agreed. ‘Does this mean that you don’t want to marry me?’ He found his mortal terror of matrimony fading under this slur on his potential marriage worth.
‘I didn’t say that either,’ Debra demurred. ‘But let’s make that decision when both of us are ready for it.’
‘Right on, doll,’ said David, with an almost idiot grin of happiness spreading over his face.
‘And now, Major Morgan, you may kiss me,’ she said.
‘But do try and help me remember the conditions.’
A long while later, they drew a little apart to breathe and a sudden thought made David frown with worry.
‘My God,’ he exclaimed, ‘what will the Brig say!’
‘He won’t be joining us,’ she told him, and they both laughed together, excited by their own wickedness.
‘Seriously, what will you tell your parents?’
‘I’ll lie to them graciously, and they’ll pretend to believe me. Let me worry about that.’
‘Beseder,’ he agreed readily.
‘You are learning,’ she applauded. ‘Let’s just try that kiss again – but this in time in Hebrew, please.’
‘I love you,’ he said in that language.
‘Good boy,’ she murmured. ‘You are going to make a prize pupil.’
There was one more doubt to be set at rest, and Debra voiced it at the iron gate to the garden, when at last he took her home.
‘Do you know what the Bris, the Covenant, is?’
‘Sure,’ he grinned, and made scissors out of his first and second finger. It seemed in the uncertain light that she blushed, and her voice was only just audible.
‘Well, what about you?’
‘That,’ David told her severely, ‘is a highly personal question, the answer to which little girls should find out for themselves,’ and his expression became lascivious, ‘the hard way
.’
‘All knowledge is precious as gold,’ she said in a small voice, ‘and be sure that I will seek the answer diligently.’
David discovered that the acquisition of an apartment in Jerusalem was a task much like the quest for the Holy Grail. Although the high-rise blocks were being thrown up with almost reckless energy, the demand for accommodation far outweighed the supply.
The father of one of Debra’s students was an estate agent and the poor man took their problem to his heart; the waiting-list for the new blocks was endless, but an occasional apartment in one of the older buildings fell vacant, and he used all his influence for them.
At unexpected moments of the day, Debra would send out an urgent signal, and David would fetch her in a taxi at the University and they would get the hell across town, urging on the driver, to inspect the latest offering.
The last of these reminded David of a movie set from Lawrence of Arabia complete with a dispirited palm tree out front, a spectacular display of bright laundry hanging from every balcony and window, and all the sounds and smells of an Arab camel market and a nursery-school playground at recess rising from the courtyard.
There were two rooms and an alleged bathroom. The roses and wreathes of the wallpaper had faded, except in patches where hangings had protected their original pristine virulent colouring.
David pushed open the door of the bathroom and, without entering, inspected the raggedy linoleum floor-covering and the stained and chipped bath tub; then pushing the door further he discovered the toilet bowl festering quietly in the gloom with its seat set at a rakish angle like the halo of a drunken angel.
‘You and Joe could work on it,’ Debra suggested uncertainly. ‘It’s not really that bad.’
David shuddered, and closed the door as though it were the lid of a coffin.
‘You’re joking – of course,’ he said, and Debra’s determinedly bright smile cracked and her lip quivered.
‘Oh, David, we are never going to find a place!’
‘And I can’t wait much longer.’
‘Nor can I,’ admitted Debra.
‘Right.’ David rubbed his hands together briskly. ‘It’s time to send in the first team.’
He was not sure what form the presence of Morgan Group would take in Jerusalem, but he found it listed in the business directory under ‘Morgan Industrial Finance’ and the Managing Director was a large mournful-looking gentleman named Aaron Cohen who had a suite of offices in the Leumi Bank building opposite the main post office. He was overcome with emotion to discover that one of the Morgan family had been ten days in Jerusalem without his knowledge.
David told him what he wanted, and in twenty hours he had it signed and paid for. Paul Morgan picked his executives with care, and Cohen was an example of this attention. The price David must pay for this service was that Paul Morgan would have a full report of David’s transaction, present whereabouts and future plans on his desk the next morning – but it was worth it.
Above the Hinnom canyon, facing Mount Zion with its impressive array of spires, the Montefiore quarter was being rebuilt as an integrated whole by some entrepreneur. All of it was clad in the lovely golden Jerusalem stone, and the designs of the houses were traditional and ageless. However, the interiors were lavishly modernized with tall cool rooms, mosaic-tiled bathrooms, and ceilings arched like those of a crusader church. Most of them had their own walled and private terraces. The one that Aaron Cohen procured for David was the pick of those that fronted Malik Street. The price was astronomical. That was the first question that Debra asked, once she had recovered her voice. She stood stunned upon the terrace beneath the single olive tree. The stone of the terrace had been cut and polished until it resembled old ivory, and she ran her fingers lightly over the carved front door. Her voice was hushed and her expression bemused.
‘David! David! How much is this going to cost?’
‘That’s not important. What is important is whether you like it.’
‘It’s too beautiful. It’s too much, David. We can’t afford this.’
‘It’s paid for already.’
‘Paid for?’ She stared at him. ‘How much, David?’
‘If I said half a million Israeli pounds or a million, what difference would it make? It’s only money.’
She clapped her hands over her ears. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Don’t tell me! I’d feel so guilty I wouldn’t be able to live in it.’
‘Oh, so you are actually consenting to live in it.’
‘Try me,’ she said with emphasis. ‘You just try me, lover!’
They stood in the central room that opened on to the terrace, and although it was light and airy enough for the savage heat of summer that was coming, it smelled now of new paint and varnished woodwork.
‘What are we going to do about furniture?’ David asked.
‘Furniture?’ Debra repeated. ‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead.’
‘For what I have in mind, we’ll need at least one king-size bed.’
‘Sex-maniac,’ she said, and kissed him.
No modern furniture looked at home under the domed roof, or upon the stone-flagged floors. So they began to furnish from the bazaars and antique shops.
Debra solved the main problem with the discovery in a junk yard of an enormous brass bedstead from which they scraped the accumulated dirt; they polished it until it glowed, fitted it with a new inner-spring mattress, and covered it with a cream-coloured lace bedspread from Debra’s bottom drawer.
They purchased kelim and woven woollen rugs by the bale from the Arab dealers in the old city, and scattered them thickly upon the stone floors, with leather cushions to sit upon and a low olive-wood table, inlaid with ebony and mother-of-pearl, to eat off. The rest of the furniture would come when they could find it for sale, or, failing that, have it custom-made by an Arab cabinet-maker that Debra knew of. Both the bed and the table were enormously heavy, and they needed muscle to move them, so they called for Joe. He and Hannah arrived in his tiny Japanese compact, and after they had recovered from the impact of the Morgan palace they fell to work enthusiastically with David supervising. Joe grunted and heaved, while Hannah disappeared with Debra into the modern American kitchen to exclaim with envy and admiration over the washing-machine, dryer, dish-washer and all the other appliances that went with the house. She helped to cook the first meal.
David had laid in a case of Goldstar beer, and after their labours they all gathered about the olive-wood table to warm the house and wet the roof.
David had expected Joe to be a little reserved, after all it was his baby sister who was being set up in a fancy house; but Joe was as natural as ever and enjoyed the beer and the company so well that Hannah had to intervene at last.
‘It’s late,’ she said firmly.
‘Later asked Joe. ‘It’s only nine o‘clock.’
‘On a night like tonight, that’s late.’
‘What do you mean?’ Joe looked puzzled.
‘Joseph Mordecai, diplomat extraordinary,’ Hannah said with heavy sarcasm, and suddenly Joe’s expression changed as he glanced from Debra to David guiltily, swallowed his beer in a single gulp, and hoisted Hannah to her feet by one arm.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘What are we sitting here for?’
David left the terrace lights burning, and they shone through the slats of the shuttered windows, so the room was softly lit, and the sounds from the outside world were so muted by distance and stone walls as to be a mere murmur that drifted from afar, and seemed rather to accentuate their aloneness than to spoil it.
The brass of the bedstead gleamed softly in the gloom, and the ivory lacework of the bedspread smelled of lavender and moth balls.
He lay upon the bed and watched her undress slowly, conscious of his eyes upon her and shy now as she had never been before.
Her body was slim and with a flowing line of waist and leg, young and tender-looking, with a child’s awkward grace, and yet with a womanly thrust of hip and bosom.
She came to sit upon the edge of the bed, and he marvelled once again at the lustre and plasticity of her skin, at the subtlety of colouring where the sun had darkened it from soft cream to burned honey, and at the contrast of her dusky rose-tipped breasts and the dark thick bush of curls at the base of her softly curving stomach.
She leaned over him, still shyly, and touched his cheek with one finger, running down his throat on to his chest where the gold star lay upon the hard muscle.
‘You are beautiful,’ she whispered, and she saw it was true. For he was tall and straight with muscled shoulders and lean flanks and belly. The planes of his face were pure and perfect, perhaps its only fault lying in its very perfection. It was almost unreal, as though she were lying with some angel or god from out of mythology.
She twisted her legs up on to the bed, stretching out beside him upon the lace cover, and they lay on their sides facing each other, not touching but so close that she could feel the warmth of his belly upon her own like a soft desert wind, and his breath stirred the dark soft hair upon her cheek.
She sighed then, with happiness and contentment, like a traveller reaching the end of a long lonely journey.
‘I love you,’ she said for the first time, and reaching out she took his head, her fingers twining in the thick springing hair at the nape of his neck, and drew it tenderly to her breast.
Long afterwards the chill of night oozed into the room, and they came half-awake and crept together beneath the covers.
As they began drifting back into sleep she murmured sleepily, ‘I’m so glad that surgery won’t be necessary, after all,’ and he chuckled softly.
‘Wasn’t it better finding out for yourself?’
‘Much better, lover. Much, much better,’ she admitted.
Debra spent one entire evening explaining to David that a high-performance sports car was not a necessity for travel between his base and the house on Malik Street, for she knew her man’s tastes by then. She pointed out that this was a country of young pioneers, and that extravagance and ostentation were out of place. David agreed vehemently, secure in the knowledge that Aaron Cohen and his minions were scouring the country for him.