Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (116 page)

'I'm afraid we really must be going. I'll get one of your
neighbours to sit with you.'

She shook her head. 'That's very kind of you, Major Win
wood, but it really isn't necessary. There are a lot of things I
must do. It's been so long since I sent my husband a package.
Just ordinary things, you know, but touches of home.'

'Mrs. ben Yaacov, I realize this is a shock . . .'

'Shock!' She glared at him.

'He's dead,' he said gently. 'You must come to terms with
it. Your husband was killed.'

'Oh, but you're mistaken, Major. You see, he isn't dead.
He's very much alive.'

He stared at her in silence. Her face had become even more
radiant, even more like polished steel. He could almost
imagine shards of light glancing off it.

Even before she heard his Land Rover drive off, she was already at her little desk writing Dani a letter. Her features
furrowed into a frown.
What is all this nonsense about Dani's
being dead. Dani isn't dead. He's alive somewhere. I can feel
it in my bones.

'Dani, my love, my precious sweet. . .' she wrote.

She didn't make a single reference to the major's visit. She
clung desperately to her belief that Dani wasn't dead, that he
would receive her letter or at least know it had been written.
And three weeks later, when the last letter he had written to
her before he'd been shot down arrived, she took it as a sign
that she was right. Somewhere out there, he was alive.

Mentally she entrenched herself, doggedly waiting for him
to return. Never once did she give up and admit defeat.

The war continued and the Allies continued to make headway.

After three winter counterthrusts, Russia began driving the
Axis powers from all of Eastern Europe and the Balkans;
British and American forces invaded North Africa, Italy, and
Norway.

In the Pacific, the Battle of Midway turned back the
Japanese advance, and successive island hopping culminated
in the decisive but costly victories at Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf,
Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Massive bombing raids on the
Japanese homeland began to wear down the Japanese
defences.

It became clear that an Allied victory would be assured.
Then 1944 crept into 1945.

Finally, on May 7,1945, Germany surrendered and the war
in Europe at last ground to a halt. In the Pacific, peace took longer to achieve, but three months and two atomic bombs
later, Japan surrendered on August 14.

When the final tally was made, the war's death toll would
stand at a staggering forty-five million, more than one-seventh
of them Jews who had perished in the Nazi death camps.

Slowly the Jewish Palestinians who had fought with the English were discharged from the armed forces and trickled home.
Some came back wounded, some came back fit in body, but
none had come through the war unscathed.

Tamara waited and waited, but Dani did not return.

During the painful days and weeks and months and then years,
Tamara had staunchly refused to believe that Dani was dead.
Something inside her—some vague intuition, a psychic notion, perhaps, or a wife's unflagging belief that her husband's living
presence could travel on some mysterious wavelength back to
her—simply refused to let her give him up for dead. She was well aware that others took it as a sign that she was unable to
face the truth or that she was so shattered she was becoming
mentally weak. Her friends and neighbours had long since
given up trying to reason with her. Tamara herself couldn't
explain why she felt as she did, but the feeling wouldn't go
away.

It was the First Eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year,
and since it was past sunset, Tamara had to light the holiday
candles from a preexisting flame.
Solemnly she checked the twins to make sure they were still
wearing their yarmulkes, covered her head with the prayer
shawl, and went to the kitchen to get the thick, long-burning
candle she had lit well before the sun had gone down. Care
fully she tilted its flame to the candles she had lined up in little
glass containers on the table. One by one, their wicks caught
fire, flaming with a slight hiss and crackle, flickered, and then
settled into silent, brightening aureoles of steady light. She
took the long-burning candle back to the kitchen. It was to
burn continuously through the Second Eve, when, after sunset
the following day, she would use it to light the holiday candles
once again. According to religious tradition, a fire could not be struck during the holiday, so the preexisting flame had to be kept lit. Throughout the procedure, she couldn't help but
be reminded of how much she had already learned of her faith,
of how much she still had to learn. But unlike the previous
Rosh Hashanahs, she no longer needed to read the prayers.
She had memorized them all, and Hebrew had become such second nature to her that at times she surprised herself by
actually thinking in that once-exotic language.

Now, bowing her head, she began to recite the benediction
by heart:
'Boruch atoh adonoi,'
she began. She glanced down
at the children.

'Boruch atoh adonoi,'
they said obediently, and continued
repeating each phrase after her.

'. . .
Yom hazikoron.
'

'. . .
Yom hazikoron.
'

She smiled at them proudly.
'
That was very good,' she said
in English. She was a firm believer in mixing Hebrew with
judicious dollops of English so that they would be bilingual.

Alone with the twins, a glass of sweet red wine, and the flickering candles, she could almost feel Dani's presence. She
bowed her head again and continued to pray, the twins echo
ing every word.
'
Boruch atoh adonoi eloheinu melech hoolom
shehehcheyohnu bikiyemcnu
—'

Abruptly the prayer was interrupted by a knocking at the
door. Tamara felt a stab of annoyance. She didn't
want
com
pany. Hadn't she made that perfectly clear? Why did everyone
have to be so well-meaning at times like this?

The knocks came again, louder this time.

'Mama, aren't you going to answer it?' Asa demanded.

'. . .
Vehegeonu legman hazeh.
'
Hurriedly she finished the
remaining words of the prayer, and then, placing one hand
flat on top of her head to keep the prayer shawl from sliding
off, went to the door and yanked it open.

Her face registered little surprise. 'Come in, Major,' she
said, recognizing the British officer at once. He was the same
man who had come to deliver the news that Dani had been
shot down. His breathing was as wheezy as it had been then.
'Major Winfield, if memory serves me correctly.'

'Winwood, madam,' he corrected.

She opened the door wider and stepped aside. 'Do come
in.'

He took off his hat, held it awkwardly in front of him, and
stepped into the room. She closed the door quietly behind him. He looked at the flickering candles on the table and
turned to her. 'I hope I'm not interrupting something?'

'Only a little holiday celebration which shouldn't be
celebrated alone,' she said, unaware that the prayer shawl
had slipped down over her shoulders. 'Children, this is Major
Winwood. Major Winwood, Ari and Asa.'

'How do you do?' the twins said in chorus.

Tamara looked at the major. 'Can I get you something?'

'In a moment, perhaps. First, I would like to inform you—'

'That my husband is alive and well,' she finished for him,
'and that he will return home shortly.'

He stared at her in surprise. 'How did you know?'

'I always knew,' she said simply. 'I felt it in my heart all
along.'

He cleared his throat and looked embarrassed. 'On behalf
of the Royal Air Force and myself I must apologize for having
upset you unduly when I last came to see you. We really
believed that there was no chance for his survival.'

'But you
didn't
upset me unduly, Major,' she answered him. 'I didn't believe for a moment that Dani was dead. Now, would
you join me in a glass of wine? This is, after all, the occasion
of the Jewish New Year. And it will be a happy new year, I
can see that already.'

'Please, I don't mind if I do, madam.' Again she could hear
him wheezing heavily. She went to get another glass, poured
wine for both of them, and they sat down facing each other across the table. He lifted his glass. 'Cheers,' he said, extend
ing his glass over the candles.

'L'Chaim,
'
she replied.
They clinked glasses and drank.

'Now,' she said, putting her wine down and lifting her chin.
'I would appreciate it if you could fill me in on some of the
details.'

'They're a bit sketchy, I'm afraid. Apparently, when your
husband's plane was shot down he parachuted to safety, but
was severely wounded, and the years he spent in the detention camp didn't help him any. When the camp was liberated, he
had no identification on him, and could barely speak. He was
very sick and emaciated. In fact, if it hadn't been for some
fellow prisoners, we wouldn't even have known that he'd been
with the RAF. Last April he was transferred to a military
hospital in Surrey. He only recently recovered enough to
remember who he was.'