Congratulations, said David. He felt very much alone again. Far from
home, and aware that life there flowed on without his presence.
You want to talk to him? Mitzi asked. I'll wake him up There was a
murmur and mutter on the other end, then Cecil came on.
Nice work, David told him, and it really was. Mitzi's share of Morgan
Group would be considerably larger than David's. Cecil had drilled
himself an oil well in a most unconventional manner.
Thanks, Davey. Cecil's embarrassment at being caught tending his oil
well carried clearly over five thousand miles of telephone cable.
Listen, lover. You do anything to hurt that girl, I'll personally tear
out your liver and stuff it down your throat, okay?
Okay, said Cecil, and his alarm was brittle in his tone. I'll put you
back to Mitzi.
She prattled on for another fifty dollars worth before hanging up. David
lay on the bed with his hands behind his head and thought about his
dumpy soft-hearted cousin and her new happiness. Then quite suddenly he
made the decision which had been lurking at the edge of his
consciousness all these weeks since leaving Spain.
He picked up the phone again and asked for the porter's desk.
I'm sorry to trouble you at this time in the morning, he said, but I
should like to get on a flight to Israel as soon as possible, will you
please arrange that.
The sky was filled with a soft golden haze that came off the desert. The
gigantic T. W. A. 747 came down through it, and David had a glimpse
of dark green citrus orchards before the solid jolt of the touch-down.
Lad was like any other airport in the world but beyond its doors was a
land like no other he had ever known. The crowd who fought him for a
seat in one of the big black sheruts, communal taxis plastered with
stickers and hung with gewgaws, made even the Italians seem shining
towers of restrained good manners.
Once aboard, however, it was as though they were on a family outing, and
he a member of that family. on one side of him a paratrooper in beret
and blouse with his winged insignia on the breast and an Uzzi
submachine-gun slung about his neck offered him a cigarette, on the
other a big strapping lass also in khaki uniform and with the dark
gazelle eyes of an Israeli, which became even darker and more soulful
when she looked at David, which was often, shared a sandwich of unleaven
bread and balls of fried chick-peas, the ubiquitous pita and falafel,
with him and practised her English upon him.
All the occupants of the front seat turned around to join the
conversation, and this included the driver who nevertheless did not
allow his speed to diminish in the slightest and who punctuated his
remarks with fierce blasts of his horn and cries of outrage at
pedestrians and other drivers.
The perfume of orange blossom lay as heavily as sea mist upon the
coastal lowlands, and always afterwards it would be for David the smell
of Israel.
Then they climbed into the Judaean hills, and David felt a sense of
nostalgia as they followed the winding highway through pine forests and
across the pale shining slopes where the white stone gleamed like bone
