Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (109 page)

She didn't let go of the blanket, but she found the strength
to speak. 'You'll have to wait somewhere else if you want me
to get dressed.'

He shook his head. 'I took a big risk just coming here. I do
not think it wise for me to wait outside. It would attract too
much attention, yes?'

Oh, but he was sly, with an answer for everything.

'The bathroom!' Damn her voice! It was shrill, sharp, reedy.
'I
t's . . . it's only two doors down, on the left. Lock the door
and no one will see you in there.'

His smile widened and he did not move.

'I'll be ready in five minutes,' she said quickly. 'Now, go.
Go!'
The words were a groan of torment.

He hooked his thumbs in his trouser belt, 'I think you are
trying to get rid of me. You are frightened of me, yes? Or just
shy?'

'Shy. I'm very shy.' She took a deep breath. 'As soon as I'm
ready, I'll go across the hall and tell my friend Inge I'll be
gone. Then I'll tap on the bathroom door and get you.' She
tried to sever the gaze between them. But it held. She counted silently to herself and with an effort wrenched her eyes away
from his on 'three'. She turned away, stepping toward the
wardrobe. 'Where are we going, by the way?'

'A little ways from here, to a kibbutz named Ein Shmona.
But please, do not tell your friend. The fewer people who
know—'

'The safer my father will be. How long will I be gone?'

'A day or two. Three at most.'

'What do you suggest I take?'

'Pack a small case with essentials. Only what is necessary,
and dress casually. It is rough terrain.'

She nodded, focusing her eyes safely, far above his. 'Now,
go . . .' she hurried toward the door and opened it. For a
moment he did not move, as though challenging her to throw
him out. She waited, the colour flooding her face, but she did
not move either. Then he puckered his lips, tossed her a silent
kiss, and slipped soundlessly down the hall.

She closed the door and leaned back against it, heaving a
deep sigh of bewilderment. She felt curiously unsteady, at
once exhilarated, agonized, and drained.

She shut her eyes and shook her head as if to rid it of his
image, but something told her that the mind pictures would
continue to appear of their own accord, no matter how hard she tried to erase them or how far away from him she tried to
flee.

'We are approaching Ein Shmona now,' Dani said finally as
they crested a particularly steep incline after an exhausting all-
night drive. Tamara sat forward to catch her first glimpse of
the desert community her father had helped found. In her mind's eye she could already imagine it. Dusty, sparse, and
deserted, like some frontier town in a western movie.

But then the narrow road curved through one last cleft in
the neolithic cliffs and they came out of the mountains. Below,
arid hills dipped to the almost flat stony desert.

'There it is!' Dani said, and Tamara followed the direction
of his finger. She caught her breath. Any doubts she had been
entertaining were dispelled forever. This was a far cry from
the frontier town of her imaginings. Seen from the hills above,
Ein Shmona was carefully laid out in a perfect circle, with a
cluster of gleaming houses in its centre and a lush patchwork of fields of various hues of green radiating outward in a cartwheel
pattern.

It cannot be, she told herself. It goes against all laws of
nature. This lush agricultural community simply can't exist in
the middle of the desert. It's a mirage, or my imagination, or
some trick.

But as they approached closer, she realized Dani had been right: life really
had
been breathed into the desert. It was
blooming riotously.

He dropped her off at her father's house. It was on
the outermost rim of the circularly laid-out community, at the
edge of a field of lettuce and green beans. She noticed that the
buildings out here were much farther apart than those in the
centre of the wheel. Obviously this house, like the others edging the perimeter of the community, was part of the first line
of defence. The nearer one got to the centre of the kibbutz, the more protection would be afforded from hostile Arab
raids. That was where the school, child-care centre, com
munity hall, infirmary, and livestock sheds were located.

The house was a flat-roofed, unpretentious cottage built of pinkish-white rough-hewn stone blocks. The front door was
thick and heavy, unlocked, and Dani held it open for her. He
made a point of staying outside.

'Please wait inside,' he said, handing over her small Vuitton
overnight bag. 'Your father should be arriving shortly.'

Inside, despite the scorching heat outside, the house was
deliriously cool, like a shadowy cave. The thick stone walls
did a good job of insulating it. Sunlight slanted in through the
closed wooden shutters over the small windows, throwing thin
shafts of brightness across the floor and up the opposite wall.

This was where her father lived.

She hesitated for just the barest fraction of a second. Then,
despite harsh admonishing from her conscience, she snooped.

Ever since meeting him in California, she had wondered
how her father lived: whether he was comfortable or lived
Spartanly; what colours he liked; what books he read; from what he derived his strengths and his pleasures. He was still a
vast mystery to her, and she was determined to learn every
thing about him. And what better way to know a man than to
investigate his lair?

There were two rooms, the larger of which she had entered upon coming in. To one side of the front door was a coat rack
from which hung various hats, and on the other, a little age-
speckled mirror. Directly above the threshold was a small
silver mezzuzah.

Eyes roving, she turned a few slow circles, not wanting to
miss anything. The rough stone walls had been smoothly stuc
coed and then washed with a hint of the palest pink, and
the overhead timbers were exposed and white, giving the low
ceiling an airiness it would otherwise not have had. A dried garland of grapevines hung along the central crossbeam.

Underfoot, the stone-flagged floor was softened by several
small Oriental prayer rugs that added a note of luxury, and at
the far end of the room a massive ebonized Victorian dresser
topped with a matching ornately carved mirror stood against
the outside wall. To either side of it were bookcases packed with volumes; where possible, books had been slid horizon
tally atop the neat vertical rows. She crouched in front of
one of the bookcases, rippling an index finger along the book
spines on the shelf. She read off the titles to herself;
Self-
Emancipation,
by Judah Pinsker;
Der Judenstaat,
by Theodor
Herzl; and
Old New-Land,
also by Herzl. There was a tatty, ancient copy of the Old Testament, several dictionaries, and
political tomes in Hebrew, German, Russian, and English.

A round table stood in the centre of the room, surrounded
by six Victorian parlour chairs, the seats and backs of which
had recently been upholstered in blue-and-white-checkered
cotton. She circled the table slowly, reaching out and fingering
the roughly cast bronze menorah which stood as its centre
piece. It felt cool and smooth.

She noted with special delight that art was not lacking. On
one wall, two watercolours of flower samples hung one above
the other, and over each bookcase was a large framed engrav
ing of Jerusalem. On table surfaces and on shelves and displayed inside a glass-fronted cabinet which matched the
Victorian dresser were carefully mounted shards of ancient pottery and little figurines from antiquity, which she guessed
had been unearthed nearby.

A second door led to a very small bedroom, hardly bigger
than the brass bedstead and painted cupboard which domi
nated it. The first thing that caught her eye was a framed
photograph of herself on the small nightstand beside the bed.

She felt a glow of warmth as she walked over and picked it
up. It had been clipped from a magazine. In it she stared into the camera, lips pouting, one hand drawing mink lapels close
to her throat. She recognized it instantly as one of the standard
publicity shots the studio used to send out to the press.

Suddenly she knew what she had to do. She slid the picture
out of the frame and pulled open the top drawer of the bedside
cabinet. Taking out a pen, she angled a personal message
across the bottom:
For my father, with all my love, his
daughter, Tamara.

She blew on the ink to speed its drying. There. For now, at
least, that was a little better.

She slid the picture back into the frame, replaced it on the
bedside cabinet, and headed back out. At the foot of the bed
she tripped on a prayer rug. Straightening it, she felt the floor
give a little under her feet. Frowning, she squatted on her
haunches and flipped the rug aside. Set into the floor was a
heavy wooden trapdoor with a recessed handle. She was about
to grasp it when a little voice inside her piped up:
You've no
business prying. Haven't you poked around enough in someone
else's life?

She debated for mere moments.

With a shriek of its hinges, the trapdoor flipped aside, hit
ting the stone floor with a bang. Tamara leaned over the hole.
The door had been deceptively small for such a huge . . . She
gasped and drew back in horror. Inge had been right: spies
never did find anything good. A veritable arsenal was
deposited in there—dark, malevolently gleaming guns, oiled rifles, several machine guns, a box of bayonets, two crates of
dynamite.