“I knew it would be like this,” he said.
“I hoped it would,” she replied, her eyes still closed.
He stared at her for a long time, and then bent to kiss her once more; he rose to his feet and stared at his watch.
“Grete,” he said, sinking down briefly on one knee. “I have a job to do now. I must leave you. But tonight I’ll come to you.”
And, without waiting for an answer, he embraced her briefly and was gone, walking swiftly along the river towards the head springs and the narrow valley which led to Jordan. She turned her head to follow his progress for a moment; then she set off towards the kibbutz.
26. Love and War
At the entrance to the first ravine from which the Jordan rushed, blue-green and ice-cold, there was an old ruined mill, built at some time during the Middle Ages and long since fallen into decay. This was to be an observation point and, thanks to the gift of arms from the retiring British, Aaron had now decided to man it with a patrol of three scouts and a light machine gun. Here they would first be in contact with any intruder into the valley; and the kibbutz would certainly hear any exchange of fire.
David climbed the rocky side of the ravine and, with a long sliding run, came to the entrance of the mill in time to hear old Karam shout with a chuckle:
“Halt, who goes there?”
The whiskered Yemeni emerged from the shadows among the ruins chuckling, followed by the two blonde boys from Sweden.
“Everything okay?” said David, and followed them into the shadowy room which echoed the sound of the current thumping against the stone walls. The machine gun stood in an embrasure covering the end of the ravine.
“Good,” he said. “Good. Now listen, no heroism from you three; I don’t expect any action from you, simply a signal of engagement. Then make your way back. Fire a green signal. But please make sure it is an enemy and not a flock of sheep or something like that.”
Everyone grinned, and old Karam permitted himself a raucous chuckle. It was a capital joke. A few more orders given and discussed, a few trials of the little weapon’s powers of traverse, and David set off once more for the kibbutz. None of them had noticed the three silent robed figures on the cliff edge above, who, without sound or movement, studied the position and counted the number of its defenders.
Grete had dozed off, despite her intention to stay awake and wait for him; it must have been around midnight when she awoke with a start, to see his naked body outlined against the square of light where the window was.
“David,” she whispered softly in the silence and he moved swiftly to her side.
“It has started in the south,” he said. “Jerusalem is besieged and they are fighting at the Jaffa Gate and in Gaza.”
He had put his Sten gun in the corner and his revolver on the table beside the blue bowl of cyclamen. She sat up and felt his strong arms around her.
“What about us?” she said.
David began to kiss her softly and thoughtfully on the throat, the cheek, the breast. Then he said:
“Our turn will come when the British pull out of the valley; until then we are safe. After that…
He pulled her slowly down beside him on the bed and said in a tone which was almost exultant, “Think; we have so much time before us; and now everything is coming right, just as I thought it might, thought it would; you, Israel, everything!”
“I can’t understand what has happened to me,” she whispered.
“You have come back to yourself.”
“David, could the child being dead for certain make me change?”
“That among other things, perhaps the most. Kiss me.”
In the confused silence of the little room, the spell cast by their lovemaking seemed to spread out tentacles of lassitude around them, but she felt suddenly buoyant, self-confident, able to return stroke for stroke, kiss for kiss.
“I want to see your face,” he said suddenly, and before she could move he lit a match to stare down at her, brushing her hair back from her forehead with his hand, tucking it back in order to free her ears, the better to kiss them. Then the match went out and the darkness closed in on them. In the silence of the camp around them their own soft quick breathing seemed to magnify itself, until they had the illusion that it was not they who breathed, but the starlit night-universe itself. Yes, the night was breathing in its sleep.
David said: “Tonight I am going to make you a child.”
Her mind had dissolved into smoke, she could find nothing to say in reply; she lay passive under his kisses, like a creature sentenced to death, awaiting the stroke of the headsman’s axe.
From the dark nothingness of sleep, was it the thin calling of the cocks that woke them — or perhaps it was the simultaneous sound of bugle-calls on the violet hillsides beyond the valley? A clear-rinsed dawn was coming up. She heard his rapid breathing as he dressed; the faint bugle-calls seemed to belong to the sounds of another world altogether. The smoke would be rising from their fires, he thought. Abruptly he kissed her and was gone. The light was rising at the edges of the eastern escarpments.
“David!” she called out, rising and running to the window, but he was already striding away through the trees in the direction of the fort. Suddenly, a sense of doom possessed her; all the fond fancies of the darkness, of their lovemaking, had vanished at the frail sound of the bugle-calls. She sat down on the bed heavily and said aloud: “I know he is going to be killed; I know it.” And throughout the day the weight of this conscious thought pressed on her mind, heavy with a premonition like a child in the womb.
But David shared none of her fears; at this moment he was gazing through powerful glasses at the mill which covered the head springs of the Jordan. He grunted as he saw a wisp of smoke rising. Doubtless that old rogue Karam was making a morning brew of coffee in the Yemeni fashion. There was no movement, no fires or sounds from the great mass of rock on the eastern side. The world looked so peaceful and so empty in the dawn light that one might be forgiven for thinking that the Arab army which crouched behind the towering cliffs, ready to pounce, was a mere figment of the imagination.
How sound carried in the quiet valley! He heard the distant roar of transport from the British camp, and knew that the convoys were being formed and would soon be on the road. His pulse beat faster with the thought that soon they would be alone, face to face with whatever destiny held in store for them. He waited until he saw the first dust plumes rise from the mountain roads before turning to the business of the day.
Peterson arrived, pale and serious, to convey the committee’s compliance with David’s first military act as its local representative. He proposed to issue an order of the day; crisply he dictated the first of such documents:
“Distribution of arms is now complete and all section leaders know their places. If we need an emergency muster I will sound the siren. Meanwhile I want the camp to retain an air of complete normality. Remember that, though there is fighting in the south, we may not be attacked at all.”
Anna snapped her pad shut and lumbered off down to the cellars where the duplicating machines were; in one of the cellars she caught sight of Grete with a group of children. They had temporarily moved the school below ground, in case of air attack.
Peterson yawned and puffed a cigarette. “I didn’t get much sleep,” she said. “Nor you, I suppose.”
David looked at her and then away. “What is the news?” he asked quietly and she replied: