Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (115 page)

Suddenly tears sprang into her eyes. 'My father's daughter
wasn't speaking,' she said thickly. 'That was your wife.'

'I know.' He smiled more widely now and dabbed her eyes
with his fingertips. 'Don't I know.'

'Dani . . .' There was a frightened look on her face.

'Hmmmm?'

'You'll be careful? You won't do anything foolish?'

He laughed. 'How could I? I must come back, mustn't I?
There are mountains to move, babies to make. We need every
man, woman, and child to make Herzl's dream of a Jewish homeland a reality.' He grinned confidently, his strong white
teeth gleaming. 'Nothing will happen to me until we have a
houseful of children.'

She felt a pang in her heart. When he smiled, he looked so
young, so fragile, making her aware, not of his strengths, but of his fragility. Bones, muscles, organs, skin—they were all so
damageable.

That night, and the three remaining nights they had together
before he sailed, they made furious, savage love, as if they
had to prove they were strong, potent, and very much alive.

Four days later he drove to Haifa to board the British frigate
to take him to England, and she and the children went along. It was the most miserable ride of her life. Their time together
was down to mere hours, the meter running. Even the twins
seemed to sense her fears and were uncharacteristically sub
dued.

At the wharf, she was surprised by the sight which greeted
her eyes. There was a contingent of at least two hundred other
young Jewish volunteers waiting to set sail aboard the same
ship. From the carnival merriment it was obvious that the men
were going off gladly. Women and men of all ages were on
hand to see them off, handing out flowers and glasses of Semil
lon wine. Musicians played traditional songs, and some
particularly lively couples linked hands to dance an
impromptu
hora
under the relentless sun. Tamara could only
stare. Despite the knowledge that many of the men might not
return, their enthusiasm was not dampened.

Her heart swelled with pride. She looked at Dani. Much as
the settlers had struggled to gain their freedom from the yoke
of the British, many were willing to set aside their differences
and send the flower of their youth off to fight Hitler alongside
the English. They knew what was important to them.

This rousing sight brought a lump to her throat and made
her proud to be Jewish.
The time came for Dani to board the ship, and she had to
bite down on her lips and fight against the tears, but it was a losing battle.
As soon as that ship casts off, he'll be gone, at the
mercy of faceless generals and nameless tacticians, fodder for
an arsenal of bullets and bombs and God only knows what
other horrors, and he might never come back. I might never
hold him in my arms again.

Tears slid in unchecked rivulets down her cheeks as they stood locked in their final embrace, a gust of warm sea wind
rippling through their hair. 'I'll pray for you, Dani,' she whis
pered. She stared into his eyes and stroked his face, as if to
memorize it by touch as well as sight. 'Do what you have to, but don't make me a widow,' she pleaded softly in Hebrew.

Unexpectedly, he threw back his head and laughed. 'I'll be
back in one piece, and soon. Wait and see. One good Jew is
worth ten thousand Nazis. We'll show those Germans. Hitler
won't know what hit him. The war will end in no time.'

Chapter 28

The war dragged on and on, with no end in sight. The days were long and the nights unbearably empty. Tamara felt like
a widow. With Dani gone, there was a void in her life that was
like that terrible loneliness after Louis had died. Had it not
been for the unceasing daily work the kibbutz demanded, she
would have gone out of her mind. As it was, the hours of
drudgery weren't nearly enough to keep her busy. She cared
for the twins, played with them, cleaned the house until it shone, organized theatrical events for the settlement's chil
dren, polished her Hebrew, devoured all the books she could
get her hands on, kept a diary, wrote long weekly letters to
Dani, and made herself available to any of the other families
who could use her help. She was content to do anything as
long as it occupied her mind so that she could forget the con
stant ache of emptiness for a while.

When more of the men went off to join the British forces,
she and the other women learned to clean, oil, load, and practise firing Ein Shmona's hidden arsenal of weapons, so that in
case of an attack they could defend themselves. To the surprise
of the men, the women were no less marksmen than they.
Their touch on the trigger was often more delicate, and they
showed more patience lining up the targets in their sights.

The highlights of Tamara's life became those infrequent but
exhilarating moments when Dani's letters arrived. She read
them over and over. They were invariably censored, and she never knew exactly what he was up to or what his missions
really were, but just hearing from him was enough. She knew
he was a navigator on an aeroplane, out there amid all the violence and chaos, still alive. Those letters were her lifeline,
her salvation from madness.

Months, then years, passed, and still there was no end in
sight. Europe and the Pacific became two massive chess
boards, and while victories had initially belonged to Germany
and the Axis powers, US involvement brought about a turning
point. Slowly the tides of war started to favour the Allies
in their relentless drive to push back the Axis powers. Now England no longer had to depend on her deteriorating defen
sive position. Thanks to American technology and massive
infusions of aid, including men, armaments and ammunition,
Allied bombers began nightly retaliatory sweeps over Ger
many—missions in which Dani ben Yaacov was taking part.

Knowing that much from his letters, life became a living hell for Tamara. Each day dawned as a waiting game, and
only long past nightfall, after no one arrived to proclaim her a widow, did she fall into nightmarish, uneasy sleep. Her nerves
became ragged, on edge. She was so cross, so crotchety, her
neighbours began to tread with special care around her.

Then, during a scorching, deceptively peaceful-dawning
Tuesday in August 1942, Tamara'a world short-circuited com
pletely. In the morning, an irrigation pump feeding water to
the fields and the settlement overheated and exploded.
Around noon there was an Arab attack from the hills which
took more than two hours to repel. In the early afternoon, the
twins got into a wretched fight, and she'd had to punish them. And early that evening, just as she was certain her world had
settled back into sanity, a British Land Rover screeched to a
halt in front of her house and a British officer knocked on her
door.

'Mrs. ben Yaacov?' he asked in a raspy voice.

'Y-yes?'

'Mrs. Dani ben Yaacov?'

A sudden fear swept through her and she clapped a hand
over her mouth to stifle the scream. It was as if she were frozen
to the door, unable to speak, or nod, or move.

Slowly she let her hand drop from her mouth. But a ghastly
smile that could not thaw was frozen on her face.

'I am Major Winwood.' The British officer peered at her
closely with concern. 'Are you quite all right, madam?'

'O-of course I am, Major,' she said, holding the door to the living room wider. 'Won't you come in? It's a beastly day, in
the mid-nineties, I think. Surely you could use some refresh
ment?'

'Mrs. ben Yaacov, if you'd please sit down . . .' His breath
ing was laboured, wheezy from a lifetime of smoking.

'I'm fine!' she said too quickly, with too much fierce chirp
iness. 'Please make yourself comfortable.' She gestured to a
chair and then paced the room, wringing her hands nervously.
'I'm afraid the house is in such a mess. To tell you the truth, I
really wasn't expecting visitors. If I'd known you were coming,
I'd . . .' Her voice trailed off, as she found it difficult to con
tinue with the niceties.

He remained standing, his feet planted wide apart. 'Please
understand that I find it very difficult to have to break this
news to you, Mrs. ben Yaacov. Saturday last your husband was
on a nighttime bombing mission over Germany . . .'His voice
trailed off.

She whirled around, her face alabaster white. 'G-go on.'

He avoided her eyes. 'I regret that it is my duty to have to
inform you that his plane was shot down somewhere over the
Ruhr.'

She shut her eyes and the world seemed to tilt and scratch
and shriek. Interminable minutes passed before she could
trust herself to speak. 'P-please . . . what happened?'

'From eyewitness accounts, all we know is that his plane
sustained a direct hit.'

Her mind reached out, found a straw, and grasped at it with
all its might. 'The crew parachuted to safety, I take it.'

'The plane exploded in midair. I'm afraid there wasn't time
for the crew to evacuate. There . . .there are no remains. I'm
sorry.'

She was thrown into a sudden tailspin. She swayed, stum
bled, and then her body seemed to cave in on itself. He
reached out to catch her before she fell, but before she col
lapsed she pulled herself together and her swaying lost
momentum.

Shot down.

She shut her eyes and gripped the table.

The major was telling her that Dani was dead. That he was
forever lost to her.

A midair explosion.

With no remains.

'Mrs. ben Yaacov . . .'

She took a deep breath, her face shining as brightly as pol
ished steel. 'I'm fine, Major. For a moment I
...
I felt a little
weak. You must forgive me.' She made a fluttering gesture
with her hand. 'I'm all right now, really I am. Won't you invite
your driver in for something cool to drink?'