physical pang as it reminded him sharply of her, and he held the
silkiness to his face and breathed the scent of her, and grudged the
hours until her return.
However, it was amongst her books that he discovered more about her than
years of study would have revealed.
She had crates of these piled in the unfurnished second bedroom which
they were using as a temporary storeroom until they could find shelves
and cupboards. One afternoon David began digging around in the crates.
It was a literary mixed grill, Gibbon and Vidal, Shakespeare and Mailer,
So1zhenitsyn and Mary Stewart, amongst other strange bedfellows. There
was fiction and biography, history and poetry, Hebrew and English,
softbacks and leather-bound editions, and a thin greenjacketed volume
which he almost discarded before the author's name caught his attention.
It was by D. Mordecai and with a feeling of discovery he turned to the
flyleaf. This year, in Jerusalem, a collection of poems, by Debra
Mordecai.
He carried the book through to the bedroom, remembering to kick off his
shoes before lying on the lace cover she was very strict about that, and
he turned to the first page.
There were five poems. The first was the title piece, the
two-thousand-year promise of Jewry Next year in Jerusalem had become
reality. It was a patriotic tribute to her land and even David, whose
taste in writing ran to Maclean and Robbins, recognized that it had a
superior quality. There were lines of startling beauty, evocative
phrasing and penetrative glimpses. It was good, really good, and David
felt a strange proprietary pride, and a sense of awe. He had not
guessed at these depths within her, these hidden areas of the mind.
When he came to the last poem, he found it was the shortest of the five,
and it was a love poem, or rather it was a poem to someone dearly loved
who was gone and suddenly David was aware of the difference between that
which was good and that which was magic.
He found himself shivering to the music of her words, felt the hair on
his forearms standing erect with the haunting beauty of it, and then at
last he felt himself choking on the sadness of it, the devastation of
total loss, and the words swam is his eyes flooded, and he had to blink
rapidly as the last terrible cry of the poem pierced him to the heart.
He lowered the book on to his chest, remembering what Joe had told him
about the soldier who had died in the desert. A movement attracted his
attention and he made a guilty effort to hide the book as he sat up. it
was such a private thing, this poetry, that he felt like a thief.
Debra stood in the doorway of the bedroom watching him, leaning against
the jamb with her hands clasped in front of her, studying him quietly.
He sat up on the bed and weighed the book in his hands. It's lovely, he
said at last, his voice was gruff with the emotions that her words had
evoked.
I'm glad you like it, she said, and he realized that she was shy.
Why did you not show it to me before? 'I was afraid you might not like
it. You must have loved him very much? he asked softly.
Yes, I did, I she said, but now I love you.
Then, finally, his posting came through and the Brig's hand was evident
in it all, though Joe admitted that he had used his own family
connections to influence the orders.
He was ordered to report to Mirage squadron Lancewhich was a crack
interceptor outfit based at the same hidden airfield from which he had
first flown. Joe Morde. was on the same squadron, and when he called
at Malik Street to tell David the news, he showed no resentment that
David would out-rank him, but instead he was confident that they would
be able to fly together as a regulor team. He spent the evening
briefing David on squadron personnel, from'Le Dauphin'the commanding
officer, a French immigrant, down to the lowest mechanic. In the weeks
ahead David would find Joe's advice and help invaluable, as he settled
into his niche amongst this tightly-knit team of fliers.
The following day the tailor. delivered his uniforms, and he wore one
to surprise Debra when she backed in through the kitchen door, laden
with books and groceries, using her bottom as a door buffer, her hair
down behind and her dark glasses pushed up on top of her head.
She dropped her load by the sink, and circled him with her hands on her
hips, her head cocked at a critical angle.
I should like you to wear that, and come to pick me up at the University
tomorrow afternoon, please, she said at last.
(why? J Because there are a few little bitches that lurk around the
Lauterman Building. Some of them are my students and some are
colleagues. I want them to get a good look at you, and eat their tiny
hearts out.
He laughed. So you aren't ashamed of me, " Morgan, you are too
beautiful for one person, you should have been born twins It was their
last day together, so he indulged her whimsy and wore his uniform to
fetch her at the English Literature Department, and he was surprised to
find how the dress affected the strangers he passed on the street the
girls smiled at him, the old ladies called shalom, even the guard at the
University gates waved him through with a grin and a joke. To them all
he was a guardian angel, one of those that had swept death from the very
sky above them.
Debra hurried to meet and kiss him, and then walked beside him, her hand
tucked proudly and possessively into the crook of his elbow. She took
him to eat an early dinner at the staff dining-room in the rounded glass
Belgium building.
While they ate, a casual question of his revealed the subterfuge she had
used to protect her reputation.
I'll probably not get off the base for the first few weeks but I'll
write to you at Malik Street - No, she said quickly, I won't be staying
there. It would be too lonely without you in that huge bed. 'Where
then? At your parents home? That would be a dead give-away. Every
time you arrive back in town, I leave home! No, they think I am staying
at the hostel here at the University. I told them I wanted to be closer
to the department You've got a room here? He stared at her.
Of course, Davey. I have to be a little discreet. I couldn't tell my
relatives, friends and employers to contact me care of Major David
Morgan. This may be the twentieth century, and modern Israel, but I am
still a Jewess, with a tradition of chastity and modesty behind me. For
the first time David began to appreciate the magnitude of Debra's
decision to come to him. He had taken it lightly compared to her. I'm
going to miss you, he said. And I you, she replied. Let's go home.
Yes, she agreed, laying aside her knife and fork. . I can eat any old
time. However, as they left Belgium House she exclaimed with
exasperation: Damn, I have to have these books back by today. Can we go
by the library? I'm sorry, Davey it won't take a minute. So they
climbed again to the main terrace and passed the brightly-lit
plate-glass windows of the Students Union Restaurant, and went on
towards the solid square tower of the library whose windows were lighted
already against the swiftly falling darkness. They had climbed the
library steps and reached the glass doors when a party of students came
pouring out, and they were forced to stand aside.
They were -facing back the way they had come, across the plaza with its
terraces and red-bud trees, towards the restaurant.