third must force a resignation. David grinned smugly as Joe reached a
decision and moved a knight out.
That's not going to save you, dear boy, David hardly glanced at the
knight, and he hit the rook with a white bishop. Mate in five, he
predicted, as he dropped the castle into the box, and then, too late, he
realized that Joe's theatrical expression of anguish had slowly faded
into a beatific grin. Joseph Mordecai used any deception to bait his
traps, and David looked with alarm at the innocuous-seeming knight,
suddenly seeing the devious plotting in which the castle was merely
bait.
Oh, you bastard, David moaned. You sneaky bastard Check! Joe gloated
as he put the knight into a forked attack, and David had to leave his
queen exposed to the horseman.
Check, said Joe again with an ecstatic little sigh as he lifted the
white queen off the board, and again the harassed king took the only
escape route open to him.
And mate, sighed Joe again as his own queen left the back file to join
the attack. Not in five, as you predicted, but in three. There was a
loud outburst of congratulation and applause from the onlookers and Joe
cocked an eye at David.
Again? he asked, and David shook his head.
Take on one of these other patsies, he said. I'm going to sulk for an
hour. 'He vacated his seat and it was filled by another eager victim as
Joe reset the board. David crossed to the coffee machine, moving
awkwardly in the grip of his G-suit, and drew a mug of the thick black
liquid, stirred in four spoons of sugar and found another seat in a
quieter corner of the crew-room beside a slim curly-beaded young
kibbutznik, with whom David had become friendly. He was reading a thick
novel. Shalom, Robert. How you been? Robert grunted without looking
up from his book, and David sipped the sweet hot coffee. Beside him,
Robert moved restlessly in his seat and coughed softly, David was lost
in his own thoughts, for the first time in months thinking of home,
wondering about Mitzi and Barney Venter, wondering if the yellowtail
were running hot in False Bay this season, and remembering how the
proteas looked upon the mountains of the Helderberg.
Again Robert stirred in his chair and cleared his throat. David glanced
at him, realized that he was in the grip of a deep emotion as he read,
his lips quivering, and his eyes too bright.
What are you reading? David was amused, and he leaned forward to read
the title. The picture on the dust jacket of the book was instantly
familiar. It was a deeply felt desert landscape of fierce colours and
great space.
Two distant figures, man and woman, walked hand in hand through the
desert and the effect was mystic and haunting. David realized that only
one person could have painted that, Ella Kadesh.
Robert lowered the book. This is uncanny, his voice was muffled with
emotion. I tell you, Davey, it's beautiful. It must be one of the most
beautiful books ever written.
With a strange feeling of pre-knowledge, with a sense of complete
certainty, of what it would be, David took the book out of his hands and
turned it to read the title, A Place of Our Own.
Robert was still talking. My sister made me read it.
She works for the publisher. She cried all night when she read it. it
is very new, only published last week, but it's got to be the biggest
book ever written about this country.
David hardly heard him, he was staring at the writer's name in small
print below the title.
Debra Mordecai.
He ran his fingers lightly over the glossy paper of the jacket, stroking
the name.
I want to read it, he said softly.
I'll let you have it when I'm finished, Robert promised. I want to read
it now!
No way! Robert exclaimed with evident alarm, and almost snatched the
book out of David's hands. You wait your turn, comrade!
David looked up. Joe was watching him from across the room, and David
glared at him accusingly. Joe dropped his eyes quickly to the
chessboard again, and David realized that he had known of the
publication. He started up to go to him, to challenge him, but at the
moment the tannoy echoed through the bunker.
All flights Lance Squadron to red standby, and on the readiness board
the red lamps lit beside the flight designations. Bright Lance. Red
Lance. Fire Lance. David snatched up his flying helmet and joined the
lumbering rush of G-suited bodies for the electric personnel carrier in
the concrete tunnel outside the crewroom door. He forced a place for
himself beside Joe. Why didn't you tell me? 'he demanded. I was going
to, Davey, I really was.
Yeah, I bet, David snapped sarcastically. Have you read it? Joe
nodded, and David went on, What's it about?" "I couldn't begin to tell
you. You'd have to read it yourself Don't worry about that, David
muttered grimly, I will, and he jumped down as they reached their hangar
and strode across to his Mirage.
Twenty minutes later they were airborne and Desert Flower sent them
hastening out over the Mediterranean at interception speed to answer a
Mayday call from an El Al Caravelle who reported that she was being
buzzed by an Egyptian MIG 2 1J.
The Egyptian sheered off and raced for the coast and the protection of
his own missile batteries as the Mirages approached.
They let him go and picked up the airliner. They escorted her into the
circuit over Lad before returning to base.
Still in his G-suit and overalls, David stopped off at le Dauphin's
office and got himself a twenty-four-hour pass.
Ten minutes before closing time he ran into one of the bookstores in the
Jaffa Road.
There was a pyramid display of A Place of Our Own on the table in the
centre of the store.
It's a beautiful book, said the salesgirl as she wrapped it.
He opened a Goldstar, and kicked off his shoes before stretching out on
the lace cover of the bed.
He began to read, and paused only once to switch on the overhead lights
and fetch another beer. It was a thick book, and he read slowly,
savouring every word, sometimes going back to re-read a paragraph.
It was their story, his and Debra's, woven into the plot she had
described to him that day on the island off the Costa Brava, and it was
rich with the feeling of the land and its people. He recognized many of
the secondary characters, and he laughed aloud with the pleasure and the
joy of it. Then at the end, he choked on the sadness as the girl of the
story lies dying in Hadassah Hospital, with half her face torn away by a
terrorist's bomb, and she will not let the boy come to her. Wanting to
spare him that, wanting him to remember her as she was.
it was dawn then, and David had not noticed the passage of the night. He
rose from the bed, light-headed from lack of sleep, and filled with a
sense of wonder that Debra had captured so clearly the way it had been
that she had seen so deeply into his soul, had described emotions for
which he had believed there were no words.
He bathed and shaved and dressed in casual clothes and went back to
where the book lay upon the bed. He studied the jacket again, and then
turned to the flyleaf for confirmation. It was there. Jacket design by
Ella Kadesh. So early in the morning he had the road almost to himself
and he drove fast, into the rising morning sun.
At Jericho he turned north along the frontier road, and he remembered
her sitting in the seat beside him with her skirts drawn high around her