Your fiancee? asked David again.
Why do you keep saying that? Debra demanded.
David pointed at Joe, and then at Debra.
What, he started, I mean, who, what the hell? Debra realized suddenly
and gasped. She covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes sparkling.
You mean - you thought -? Oh, no, she giggled. She pointed at Joe and
then at herself. Is that what you thought? David nodded.
He is my brother, Debra hooted. Joe is my brother, you idiot! Joseph
Israel Mordecai and Debra Ruth Mordecai, brother and sister Hannah was a
rangy girl with bright copper hair and freckles like gold sovereigns.
She was only an inch or two shorter than Joe but he lifted her as she
came through the customs gate, swung her off her feet and then engulfed
her in an enormous embrace.
It seemed completely natural that the four of them should stay together.
By a miracle of packing they got all their luggage and themselves into
the Mustang with Hannah perched on Joe's lap in the rear.
We've got a week, said Debra. A whole week! What are we going to do
with it?
They agreed that Torremolinos was out. It was far south, and since
Michener had written The Drifters, it had become a hangout for all the
bums and freaks.
I was talking to someone on the plane. There is a place called Colera
up the coast. Near the border. They reached it in the middle of the
next morning and it was still so early in the season that they had no
trouble finding pleasant rooms at a small hotel off the winding main
street. The girls shared, but David insisted on a room of his own. He
had certain plans for Debra that made privacy desirable.
Debra's bikini was blue and brief, hardly sufficient to restrain a bosom
that was more exuberant than David had guessed. Her skin was satiny and
tanned to a deep mahogany, although a strip of startling white peeped
over the back of her costume when she stooped to pick up her towel. She
was long in the waist, and leg, and a strong swimmer, pacing David
steadily through the cool blue water when they set out for a rocky islet
half a mile off shore.
They had the tiny island to themselves and they found a pitch of flat
smooth rock out of the wind and full in the sun. They lay side by side
with their fingers entwined and the salt water had sleeked Debra's hair
to her shoulders, like the coat of an otter.
They lay in the sun and they talked away the afternoon. There was so
much they had to learn about each other.
Her father had been one of the youngest colonels in the American
Airforce during World War II, but afterwards he had gone on to Israel.
He had been there ever since, and was now a Major-General. They lived
in a house in an old part of Jerusalem which was five hundred years old,
but was a lot of fun.
She was a senior lecturer in English at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem and, this shyly as though. it were a rather special secret,
she wanted to write. A small volume of her poetry had already been
published.
