A big red-face tourist looked down from the wall and supposing that the
motor covered his voice, nudged his wife.
Get a look at those two, Mavis. Beauty and the beast, isn't it? 'Cork
it, Bert. They might understand.
Go on, luv! They only talk Yiddish or whatever. Debra felt David's arm
go rigid under her hand, felt him begin to pull away, sensing his
outrage and anger but she gripped his forearm tightly and restrained
him. Let's go, Davey, darling. Leave them, please. Even when they
were alone in the safety of the cottage, David was silent and she could
feel the tension in his body and the air was charged with it.
They ate the evening meal of bread and cheese and fish and figs in the
same strained silence. Debra could think of nothing to say to distract
him for the careless words had wounded her as deeply. Afterwards she
lay unsleeping beside him. He lay on his back, not touching her, with
his arms at his sides and his fists clenched.
When at last she could bear it no longer, she turned to him and stroked
his face, still not knowing what to say.
it was David who broke the silence at last.
I want to go away from people. We don't need people do we? 'No, she
whispered. We don't need them. There is a place called Jabulani. It
is deep in the African bushveld, far from the nearest town. My father
bought it as a hunting lodge thirty years ago, and now it belongs to me.
Tell me about it, Debra laid her head-on his chest, and he began
stroking her hair, relaxing as he talked.
There is a wide plain on which grow open forests of mopani and
mohobahoba, with some fat old baobabs and a few ivory palms. In the
open glades the grass is yellow gold and the fronds of the ilala palms
look like beggars fingers. At the end of the plain is a line of hills,
they turn blue at a distance and the peaks are shaped like the turrets
of a fairy castle with tumbled blocks of granite. Between the hills
rises a spring of water, a strong spring that has never dried and the
water is very clear and sweet,' 'What does Jabulani mean? Debra asked
when he had described it to her.
It means the 'place of rejoicing', David told her. I want to go there
with you, she said.
What about Israel? he asked. Will you not miss it?
No, she shook her head. You see, I will take it with me, in my heart.
Ella went up to Jerusalem with them, filling the back seat of the
Mercedes. She would help Debra select the furniture they would take
with them from the house and have it crated and shipped. The rest of it
she would sell for them. Aaron Cohen would negotiate the sale of the
house, and both David and Debra felt a chill of sadness at the thought
of other people living in their home.
David left the women to it and he drove out to Em Karem and parked the
Mercedes beside the iron gate in the garden wall.
The Brig was waiting for him in that bleak and forbidding room above the
courtyard. When David greeted him from the doorway he looked up coldly,
and there was no relaxation of the iron features, no warmth or pity in
the fierce warrior eyes.
