The Glory (11 page)

“Our army sweaters are pretty good.”

“Everything about your army is pretty good.” She stripped a glove off her hand, and took his in a hard clasp. The chilly fingers
interwove in his and tugged.

“Where are we going, Em?”

“To the chapel, first. That’s where Bud and I will get married.”

“What! When?” The news was hardly unexpected, yet the shock was real and physical, a tingle down his arms and back.

“Oh, pretty soon. You’ll get an invitation, natch. I hope you can make it. You and Nakhama.”

Creak, creak, creak of fresh snow underfoot, brisk wind sweeping dry flakes in the air. “Emily, that’s beautiful news. Congratulations.”

Her fingers tightened. “Bud’s idea, doing it here. I’m just as glad to skip the Washington nuptial hoo-ha. My God, what a
marvellous place to have a military school. Look at those mountains, will you?” The snowy range loomed high against the stars,
bluish and jagged. “One of them is Pike’s Peak, isn’t it? And say, isn’t the architecture of that chapel sublime?”

The beauty of the strange soaring structure, suggestive of airplane wings, was much enhanced by the chiaroscuro of glittery
moonlight and black shadow. He said, “I’ve seen pictures of it, but they don’t give the idea at all. It’s wonderful.”

“Zev, you don’t suppose it’s closed? Churches stay open for meditators, don’t they?”

“Let’s try the door.”

It was open. The high interior was lit by a single golden lamp, and tall stained-glass windows showed faint moonlit colors
in the gloom. They sat down in a rear pew. “Wow, what an edifice,” she said, her voice echoing hollowly. “And I doubt we’ll
have fifty wedding guests. But Bud wants this. I told him about us, you know, old Wolf. No X-rated stuff, you understand,
but everything. I had to.”

Barak was fighting off an impulse to take her in his arms, for one last time. It was painfully sweet to be with her again
this way. Queenie! The fey electric unforgettable Queenie, here beside him, her bespectacled face dim and lovely over a snow-flecked
fur collar. That he had gotten in too deep with this alien oddball was a fact of his life. The rest was handling it. The marriage
disclosure was an unquestionable relief. Why then was he taking it as a stab? He cleared his throat. “What was his reaction?”

“Sphinx-like. He just sat there listening, with stone eyes on my blushing face. We were in the Red Fox, actually. He’d driven
out to the school the day after he popped the question, and we were having dinner, and I just came
out
with it. He did nod once. No, twice. I guess sphinxes don’t nod, so let’s say he was like the Commandant’s statue in
Don Giovanni
. Then he talked about other things, as though I hadn’t said a word. I doubt he was all that surprised. Surely he wasn’t expecting
me at my age to be a virgin — though I damn near was, you evil deflowerer, you. Maybe he was relieved that there was no more
to tell. He’s a deep one, Bud.”

“Well, you’re in love, and all set. That’s the main thing, Emily. It’s just great.”

“You can still call me Queenie, chum.”

“That seems outdated.”

Four long years ago, during his first mission to Washington, the bartender in the cheap hotel where he was staying had taken
Emily for a hooker, and had called her Queenie by way of being sociable. She had been tickled to death by this, and as a joke
between them the sobriquet had stuck.

“It isn’t. It won’t ever be, not for me. Is it for you?” In the enormous gloomy empty chapel, his long silence was like a
shout. “Come on, Wolf Lightning.” Her voice trembled, her eyes glistened through her glasses. “Speak up, or forever hold your
peace. Wasn’t it on for years and years with not even a kiss? Just scrawls on paper crossing the ocean? And wasn’t it okay?”

“It was okay, Queenie.”

“Ah! That’s more like it. The one point I made to Bud was that we’d probably go on corresponding. That elicited a nod.”

“And the other nod?”

“When I said I wanted all the kids this rickety frame could still produce. That even brought a faint granite grin and —”

“Hello!” The voice reverberated off the walls and the vaulted ceiling. Benny Luria came striding down the aisle. “Hi there,
Emily,” he said, as though nothing could be more natural than finding these two together in the academy chapel, long after
midnight. Israeli military men seldom showed surprise at pairings, however offbeat. “What a fantastic church! That architect
had imagination, whoever he was.”

Barak said, “So you couldn’t sleep either?”

“I’ll be unwinding for days.” He dropped into the pew. “I’d rather fly five combat sorties than face such an audience again.”

“One would never know,” said Emily. “Your lecture was a wow. My fiancé wants to talk to you about it.”

“I have a seminar with the faculty at ten. Be glad to see him before or after. Zev, how about this academy? All these wide
low plain buildings, like wartime temporaries, and at the heart of it all this stunning church. Makes me think.”

“What about?”

“Well, I’d been at Tel Nof base two years before I even found out we had a synagogue. When my mother died I went looking for
it to say Kaddish. It was in a trailer behind the base kitchen. We’re supposed to be the people of the Bible, aren’t we? These
Americans seem to be more biblically inclined.”

“I’d call it pretty biblical,” said Emily, “to return to Zion after thousands of years, and learn to fly jet fighter-bombers
so you can stay there.”

Luria turned to peer at her. “That’s not bad. I’ll remember it.”

“Our air tickets are confirmed,” said Barak. “You fly to Los Angeles at two
P.M
., and I’ll return to D.C.”

They left Luria sitting in the chapel. Outside the wind had sharpened, and fine snow stung their faces. “Well, this is no
fun,” she said. “Tell you what, let’s pop by your digs. I’ll pick up that Plutarch, I need it more than you. I’ll smother
that clock with a pillow and maybe I’ll read myself to sleep.”

“By all means,” said Barak, his nerves quickening.
What now
?

When he closed the door of the suite she threw her arms around his neck, and kissed his mouth with gentle affection. “No happy
hour, kiddo, if you’re wondering. I do want to talk, then I’m tooling off with Plutarch. Don’t make a pass at me now, there’s
a good lad, just sit down quietly.”

“Why, it never crossed my mind,” said Barak, dropping in an armchair.

“Ho!”

“Ho is right, Queenie. It’s been a while.”

Her eyes flashed at him. She threw open her coat and sat on the bed. “Well, curb the old beast, hon, it mustn’t be on, you
know that. Not that you don’t look powerfully sweet to these longing eyes —”

“All right, all right. Curbed. Talk away.”

“Fine. Good Conduct Medal for the Gray Wolf. Now
listen
. You just said I’m in love with Bud. Not so. He’s a fine guy and we’ll be all right, but falling in love has happened to
me just once, and it won’t again.” Their eyes met, and after a silence she said in a roughened voice, “No, it won’t, and it’s
hopeless.”

“Emily —”

“Zev, it always was, but once I realized that Nakhama knew, it became intolerable. The more so, when she as much as said she
didn’t mind.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t present when you two had it out, but it must have been something.”

“It sure was, old scout. She was smart, decent, and mighty adroit. Lethal, one might say. In some ways that wife of yours
can run rings around you.”

“That’s no news. Nakhama’s never mentioned any of this to me, not once ever brought it up, so I have to take your word for
it. Anyway, you’re committed now, that part’s over, and the rest is letters, right? As long as we live, if you like. Agreed.”

“Not so fast. I want you to understand me, dearest. I was halfway around the world,” she said, her voice faltering, “wrestling
with this thing all the way, when I decided once for all in New Delhi that I’d done the right thing. That there was no solution
but Bud. Out of the frying pan, into the freeze compartment.”

“Oh, come off it, Quccnic —”

“It’s God’s truth. That’s when I wrote you from New Delhi. And that’s when I wrote to Bud that I’d marry him if he really
wanted me, once we met again.”

“And he did.”

“And how. And I truly like him. He’s a gent, and patient, and bright as they come. Moreover, if you’re into military types
— which present company excepted, I sure ain’t — he’s a catch. A careerist who’s going places.”

The words obscurely jarred Barak. This tantalizing, disturbing presence of Queenie in his suite, on his bed, was not something
to prolong. He picked a book off a side table. “Well, here’s Plutarch.”

“Throwing me out, are you? Not that I blame you.” She accepted the book with a tart smile, still sitting there.

“Hey, stay till morning, by all means.”

“No thanks, but there’s just one more thing I must tell you.”

“Shoot.”

“It’ll sound vain, maybe, but I swear I’ve become more seductive, or something. Result of having discovered what love is?
On my travels, so help me, I was beating them off — guys on ships, guys on trains, guys on planes. How come?”

“What was the competition, Queenie?”

She burst out laughing, and jumped up. “Oh, go to hell.”

He seized her, and their kiss was long and passionate. Then she murmured, “This sweater smells familiar. In fact you do.”

“Shut up, Queenie.”

“Okay. Just hold me.”

And so this familiar slight body was pressed to his once more, no doubt as it never would be again. The Good Conduct Medal
fell off, unregarded.

“Enough, enough. Too much, much too much,” she gasped, pulling free. “We’re out of the Growlery, Wolf, there’s no going back.”

Stumbling on his words he said, “See here, Queenie, we were being — what? — unfair to Nakhama from the start. And if you truly
found out she didn’t mind, as you claim, then why —”

Emily put warm fingers across his lips. “Easy. I think you’re being very dense, but all right. I was a bitch who stole a bone.
Ran off with it, got away with it, loved gnawing on it. But once she said she knew and didn’t mind, I was a bitch under the
table being thrown a bone. Get the difference? Good enough?” Emily picked Plutarch off the bed. “Fare-thee-well, for I must
leave thee. I’ll read the Mark Antony chapter, I can use a good cry. Over Cleopatra, of course, the original bitch who stole
bones.” They went together to the door, where she said, “Come no further, Wolf. I won’t be mugged on the academy lawn.” And
she slipped out.

From the shelf of old scruffy best-sellers Barak took to bed
Arrowsmith
, in the familiar orange-and-blue binding. He had read it in his high school class in Vienna, but the first few pages seemed
all different. They shut out Emily thoughts, which was all he was asking of Sinclair Lewis …

R-r-r-ing! R-r-r-ing!
“Sorry to disturb you, sir. Base duty officer here. The switchboard has a call for you from New York, urgent official business,
a Mr. Rafael —”

“Put him on.”

Various clicks and buzzes. “Zev? How was Benny’s lecture?”

“Gideon, isn’t it three in the morning there? Benny did fine. What’s up?”

“Have you talked again to your CIA man?”

“Yes. He phoned, told me he studied the papers and he totally agrees with your memo.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“That ‘
all the
territories’ is catastrophic, loses the war we won.”

“Sharp gentleman.”

“But, Gideon, he can do nothing about it.”

“Can’t he at least find out where the White House now stands? We think that unless the President intervenes, the State Department
will sell us out on both words today.”

“I can try calling him.”

“You must do better than that. We know that Kosygin has sent Johnson a very tough letter, and Johnson’s called an emergency
meeting for this morning. When will you get back to Washington?”

“About six tonight.”

“No good.”

“Benny has a seminar in the morning, and —”

“Benny can take care of himself. You must get back by noon the latest. Hitch a ride on a military plane. Be there!” Rafael
was not quite himself, a bit frantic or frazzled.

“For what purpose?”

“Do I know? So that you’re not out in Colorado Springs if for any reason you’re needed. Zev, it’s possible that you’ll do
more for Israel in one hour today than in all your years in the field.”

“You exaggerate. That’s nonsense. But I’m coming.”

A
t the Central Intelligence Agency building in Virginia, in a crowded room lined with clattering teleprinters, Christian Cunningham
was reading a long printout when a boyish black runner came to him with a message slip from security. “Yes, I’m expecting
General Barak. Escort him to my office.”

Zev Barak fell into a doze in an armchair as soon as he sat down, suitcase at his feet, civilian clothes all wrinkled. He
had driven a rented car through the mountains, to make a hairbreadth connection from Denver to Washington via Dallas. “I think
you can use some coffee,” he heard Cunningham say. He opened his eyes and saw the CIA man in shirtsleeves and suspenders,
pressing a desk button.

“Definitely, thanks.” Barak sat up, digging a knuckle in his eye.

“How did the cadets like your colonel?”

“Big hit. Chris, what’s happened in the Security Council today, do you know?”

Cunningham frigidly grinned. “I know your people are fighting a classic rearguard action, right down to the wire. Also, that
something’s going on now at the White House.”

“Something good? Something bad?”

“Well, not good, I’m afraid. But who can read LBJ’s mind, till he speaks it? I’m waiting to hear, from an insider I trust.”
A young woman in a smock brought a coffee service, and put it on the desk. Cunningham said as he poured, “Incidentally, did
Emily tell you she’s getting married in the academy chapel?”

“She did.”

“I’ll have to drag my old bones out there, I guess. In the air force they say Bud Halliday’s a comer.” He extended a cup and
saucer to Barak. “He may make general on the next selection.”