Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (2 page)

And what blood it was! What a fine, fierce lineage was her
heritage!

Her smile returned as she exultantly thought of her dis
tinguished flesh and blood, remembering them in a brilliant
flash of absolute clarity the way she had last seen them, in
person, not frozen in the photographs they had exchanged regularly by mail over the years: a passionately close, loving
family, proudly gathered at the airport to see her off in the
silvery World War II-vintage DC-3, its twin propellers already
whirling, which was to fly her and twenty other passengers
to Athens. From there, connecting flights would take her to
London and on to New York.

Daliah could imagine her mother in precise detail on that
stark sunny morning, one hand pressing down the crown of
her wide-brimmed straw hat against a gust of hot wind. At fifty-four, Tamara had still possessed a startling, eye-catching
beauty, with teeth—flawlessly capped back in 1930—as toothpaste-advertisement-perfect as they had been when she
was the toast of thirties Hollywood. Tamara's hypnotic emer
ald eyes, gleaming with jewelled radiance so like Daliah's
own, coupled with the extraordinarily high Slavic cheekbones and plucked, pencilled-arch brows, had made her the most
fabulous face of them all and had been, on that tearful but
exhilarating departure, as theatrically expressive as they were
in her old black-and-white films.

During the eleven years of separation, Daliah had
religiously watched Tamara's old classics whenever they were
played at nostalgia festivals or repeated and re-repeated on the
late and late-late shows. She had sat through them enthralled,
barely believing that the beguiling film siren on the screen
could actually be her mother. By the time
the end
flickered
on the screen, she always felt a morose, gnawing pang of guilt
and homesickness, vowing to fly to Israel as expeditiously as
possible for a long visit.

Now Daliah felt a warm pleasure radiate throughout her
body, and her eyes sparkled in anticipation of the reunion she had put off so often, and yet waited and longed for with such
keen desperation.

Her thoughts and images switched fondly to her father. How incredibly handsome he had looked that morning when he had
come to send her off, his starched short-sleeved khaki shirt
stained damp under the armpits, his thick, dark chest hair
curling out from the V of his open-throated collar. His manner
had always been so authoritative, but beneath it lurked a pro
found strength, an unshakable belief in what he had helped
create, and a bottomless depth of love for his family.

General Dani ben Yaacov was more than a family figure
head adored by his worshipping daughter. He had been a
fierce Haganah fighter, battling to thrust Palestine into the
fledgling state of Israel, and then had hawkishly protected
that most precious of almost holy treasures with a motherlike
ferocity so that it might remain an oasis of Jewish freedom amid the simmering turmoil of the otherwise Arab Middle
East. Since her departure, he had retired from the military,
ironically rising in power in the process: a civilian finally, but
nevertheless the staunchest of loyal patriots, he had scoffed at
the idea of enjoying his golden years in quiet privacy, and
had easily been swayed into being a consultant to the Israeli
parliament, swiftly emerging as one of the country's most
powerful and influential men. National treasure that he was,
it was pitiable that the world knew him primarily as the man
for whom the legendary movie queen Tamara had given up
the dizzying ivory heights of her Hollywood tower for true
love—a love firmly implanted in bedrock from the beginning,
a love which had endured all obstacles and grown in strength
with each passing year.

Daliah's thoughts were invaded by the imposing presence
of Grandpoppa, Schmarya Boralevi himself. Grandpoppa—
the only man alive who could, even now, instill a girlish fear
and healthy respect in his sophisticated twenty-nine-year-old
movie-star granddaughter. At seventy-two, the one-legged
patriarch of the family had already been an unofficially deified
living legend, a superhuman monument to the era when Jews still fled the pogroms of the Rusian Pale—that area of Eastern
Poland and the Ukraine which had been a ghetto since the
time of Catherine the Great—to the raw, brawny Promised
Land. Now Grandpoppa would be . . . eighty-three? Was that
possible? Yes, and doubtless he would exude the same robust
health he always had.

Ever since Daliah could recall, Grandpoppa had been the
easiest member of her illustrious family to conjure up visually,
no matter where he might have been at the moment. His
gnarled and gaunt body, with its deeply engraved hide tough
ened and tanned by decades spent in the relentlessly burning
sun, and his shock of unruly sun-bleached white hair and long
bushy white beard lent Grandpoppa the foreboding por
tentousness of a biblical prophet. Which, Daliah considered
with gentle blasphemy, wasn't that far from the truth. Grand
poppa
had
been a modern prophet of sorts, resolutely envi
sioning a land for the Children of Israel long before it had ever
been concretely fought for. His exploits had assumed almost
mythic proportions. 'Thundering Schmarya,' he'd been rever
ently and affectionately nicknamed long ago, and the name
had stuck. He could rightfully claim his bigger-than-life stance
in the annals of Israeli history alongside such fellow luminaries
as Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion, although he
incessantly bellowed that he didn't deserve it.

Only Ari ben Yaacov, her tall and handsome older brother, a proud sabra like her, had not yet achieved legendary status.

But he will in time, Daliah assured herself loyally. Ari's
made of the same starch and fibre as the rest of us, only he
hasn't had the opportunity to prove himself yet. He's a late
bloomer, but his time will come. He's liable to outshine us all.

Then the corners of her orange-glossed, sculptured lips
puckered into a frown as she was once again confronted with
the purpose of her visit. Soon she and Ari would be reunited,
but not for long. His wedding loomed two days hence on the
horizon, and then he would scoop up his bride and carry her
off alone somewhere.

She sighed. Eleven long years had passed, but now Flight
1002 from New York had floated in right on time, and she was
home.
Home.

What a wonderful word that was. Yet
...
A tiny fear nib
bled at her. Was this
really
her home? Or had she been gone
for so long and had so much changed that she would find as
foreign a place as myriads of others she had visited around the
globe?

The chief steward's head appeared over the top of Daliah's
seat. 'Welcome home, Miss Boralevi,' he said cheerfully in
Hebrew. 'I trust you enjoyed your flight?'

She unclasped her belt and turned her face up to his. 'Yes,
I did, thank you.'

He grinned. 'If you'll please follow me now, we'll hustle you
off first.'

She leaned over, yanked her Bottega Veneta shoulder bag from under the seat in front of hers, and got to her feet, cautiously testing her land legs. They could use some stretching
and exercise; her calves were in knots.

Swiftly sidling from between the seats, she tossed her hair
over her shoulders and followed him to the exit. Her spine
was straight, her shoulders squared, and her walk, despite the
tingling pinpricks of sleeping feet, was as casually graceful and
conquering as the most seasoned model's on a fashion runway.
As a stewardess prematurely pulled aside the curtain to econ
omy class, Daliah studiously avoided the sea of upturned
prying faces and gaping mouths.

She could imagine what they were thinking.
Look! For
Christ sakes! A real-life movie star! Hey, I wonder, could you
autograph
. . .
? Could I snap a shot of you and the little
woman?
. . .
Did you see her last flick, the one where she did
the nude scene with Mel Gibson? Christ, I'd jump in the sack
with her anytime.

The chief steward took his position beside the already open
exit to the accordion tunnel connecting the jet to the terminal,
a massive square umbilical cord. As promised, an El Al VIP
representative was waiting for Daliah.

'Elie's not on duty?' the chief steward asked the VIP rep in
surprise. 'I thought he was supposed to meet this flight.'

'You know Elie,' the man said with easy familiarity. 'Panics
every time his wife or one of the kids as much as sneezes. I'm
temporarily assigned to take his place.' The VIP man turned to Daliah and favoured her with a professional smile. Politely but firmly he touched her elbow and led her toward the ter
minal.

Frowning, the chief steward watched their receding backs
until they turned the corner and were out of sight. Funny, he
thought. The VIP man sure was rushing Miss Boralevi.

Hannah, one of the economy stewardesses, rolled her dark
eyes at him. 'You always get the biggies. Hey! What's the
matter? Why the screwed-up face?'

'I . . . don't know.' He shrugged. Whatever was nagging at
his mind had yet to prod his memory. Meanwhile, he had work
to do. Blocking the herd of restless economy passengers, he
bid each of the first-class passengers a warm, friendly good-
bye. Then he let the economy people out.

Too late, he recalled that Elie lived alone with his mother,
who had been left crippled after a PLO raid.

Elie had never married. His records would show that, so he'd
never use such an asinine excuse to get a day off.