I will teach you the meaning, he said. I am about to give you a
practical demonstration of decadence in such a sensitive spot that you
are likely to remember it for a long time. She ducked behind the olive
tree as he lunged, and her books spilled across the terrace. Leave me!
Hands off, you beast.
He feinted right, and caught her as she fell for it. He picked her up
easily across his chest.
David Morgan, I warn you, I shall scream if you don't put me down this
instant. Let's hear it. Go ahead! and she did, but in a ladylike
fashion so as not to alarm the neighbours.
Joe, on the other hand, was delighted with the 350.
The four of them took it on a trial run down the twisting road through
the Wilderness of Judaea to the shores of the Dead Sea. The road
challenged the car's suspension and David's driving skill, and they
whooped with excitement through the bends. Even Debra was able to
overcome her initial disapproval, and finally admitted it was beautiful,
but still decadent.
They swam in the cool green waters of the oasis of Em Gedi where they
formed a deep rock pool before overflowing and running down into the
thick saline water of the sea itself.
Hannah had brought her camera and she photographed Debra and David
sitting together on the rocks beside the pool.
They were in their bathing costumes, Debra's brief bikini showing off
her fine young body as she half-turned to laugh into David's face. He
smiled back at her, his face in profile and the dark sweep of his hair
falling on to his forehead. The desert light picked out the pure
features and the boldly stated facets of his beauty.
Hannah had a print of the photograph made for each of them, and later
those squares of glossy photographic paper were all they had left of it,
all that remained of the joy and the laughter of those days, like a
lovely flower taken from the growing tree of life and pressed and dried,
flattened and desiccated, deprived of its colour and perfume.
But the future threw no shadow over their happiness on that bright day,
and with Joe driving this time they ran back for Jerusalem. Debra
insisted that they stop for a group of tank corp boys hitch-hiking home
on leave, and although David protested it was impossible, they squeezed
three of them into the small cab. It was Debra's sop to her feelings of
guilt, and she sat in the back seat with her arms around David's neck
and they all sang the song that was that year a favourite with the young
people of Israel, Let there be peace.
In the last few days while David waited to enter the airforce, he loafed
shamelessly, frittering the time away in small chores like having his
uniforms tailored. He resisted Debra's suggestion that if regulation
issue were good enough for her father, a general officer, then they
might be good enough for David. Aaron Cohen supplied him with an
introduction to his own tailor. Aaron was beginning to develop a fine
respect for David's style.
Debra had arranged membership for David at the University Athletic Club,
and he worked out in the first class modern gym every day, and finished
with twenty lengths of the Olympic-size swimming pool to keep himself in
