Mitla Pass (60 page)

“Oh, Rome is so much fun, Daddy. ...”

There were presents and a big pillow fight and a wrestle on the bed,

Mother, Dad, dog, and daughters, all mixed up together, until they were gasping for breath, and they jabbered, overlapping each other. After a long time, the girls were worn out and slept a lovely sleep with their dog, a sleep of peace they had not known in so long.

Gideon closed their door and smiled. And now he and Val were alone.

“I’m so terribly sorry about Shlomo and all the others,” she said.

“Yeah, it was a nasty little war.”

“Say, I’ve got an idea,” Val said. “We’ve got a tub big enough to float a cruiser in. How about you and me sudsing up a tub and getting in and popping the cork on some bubbly?”

“Deal.”

After they had luxuriated and fooled around in the bath, as a prelude of sweeter things to come, they wrapped themselves in big terry robes which had been warmed on special heating pipes. Val’s hair was still wet from the shampoo. Even under the thickness of her robe, the beautiful lines of her body could be discerned.

“You look terrific, Val,” he said.

“You look like you could use a lot of T.L.C.,” she said.

There was a stack of mail on the desk. “Anything urgent?”

“Let’s see. Sal Sensibar has a couple of screenplays for you to look at. He says he can get you thirty-five thousand on a flat deal, for twelve weeks’ work.”

“That’s real good. Three months. It won’t hold the novel up too badly. Should be enough bread to see us through.”

“I’ve booked passages home on an Italian liner. We’re so damned broke, I thought it would be a good idea to have Christmas and New Year’s at sea.”

“Fabulous idea,” he said.

“I had to bargain like hell, and we’ve got two first-class staterooms, and they’ll let the girls keep Grover in their cabin. Let’s see, stack of letters from your dad. Why don’t we let that go till tomorrow.”

“Brilliant idea.”

“And I’m dying to show you Rome,” she said.

“All yours, baby.”

“How’s the book coming along in your head?”

“It’s going to be real good, Val. I mean, real good. I’ve got a lot of things solved.”

“Any new ideas for the title?”

She filled their champagne glasses again.

“I’m thinking
Galilee.
Anyhow, that’s good enough for a temporary title. Let’s see how it wears.”

“Galilee.
It’s beautiful, Gideon.”

They clinked glasses again and sipped. Val turned her back, took a deep breath, and braced herself. “Is Natasha over and done with?” she said, unevenly.

He turned her around and lifted her chin so he could see into her eyes. “I think so, with all my heart. I don’t ever intend to see her again. Val, I need your forgiveness for her and for a lot of others.”

“I’ve always forgiven you,” she said.

“I don’t ever expect you to forget. I’ll try to know when you are hurting and I’ll comfort you. But I promise ...”

“No promises,” she interrupted, “just do your best and remember, we’re very touchy and we’ve got to learn how to manage our own pain and to help each other.”

“Val.”

“Yes, dear.”

“I forgive you for your little deal, too.”

“Thanks, pal,” she said, “I’ve really needed that.”

They held each other softly. The song over the American Armed Forces radio station played ...

“Dance, ma’am?”

“Love to, Marine.”

I saw you last night,

And got that old feeling,

When you came in sight,

I got that old feeling.

The moment that you passed by,

I felt a thrill,

And when you caught my eye,

My heart stood still

Once again I seemed to get,

That old yearning,

And I knew the spark of love

Was still burning.

There’ll be no new romance for me,

It’s foolish to start,

For that old feeling

Is still in my heart. ...

“Hey, Marine.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’ve got a lousy voice.”

“Singing is not my long suit. I’m going to be a great writer someday. Hey, why don’t you come over to the hospital tomorrow night? I’m putting on a play.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Wrote it, directed it, produced it, and I’m starring in it.”

“Cocky, aren’t you?”

“You bet. Stick with me, honey, and I’ll take you over the rough spots.”

The music stopped. “God, that bed looks good,” he said.

She lay down and opened the top of her robe for him.

“I love your tits,” he said, crawling alongside her and rubbing his face against a breast, gently, with sweet soft brushes of his lips.

“My tired little warrior. Shhhh. Shhhhh. The battle’s over for now. The fighting’s all done.”

He was already half asleep. Tomorrow you go into battle again, Val thought. All of your strange breed seem to have this compulsion to take on the pain of the world. That’s why you love John Steinbeck. What pain you must be in now. I have to understand it better and help you. My Gideon, the soul of a poet, the rage of a lion.

They had never felt so good to each other. His head was now buried in her bosom as she ran her fingers through his hair. She and Gideon had inflicted terrible damage on each other, and much of the bitterness was just below the surface. They’d get through this book together; then what? What war would her warrior seek next? Could he ever stop fighting?

Well, no use thinking about it now, Val thought. There was Rome, Christmas at sea, then the greatest time of all,
The Galilee
would be set down on paper.

“Sleep, baby ...”

“Sleep ... sleep ...”

Just before the battle, mother,

I am thinking most of you,

While upon the field we’re watching,

With the enemy in view,

Comrades brave are ’round me, lying ...

Miss Abigail! Miss Abigail! Oh, look at the stars! It’s so beautiful up here! Watch me! I’m going to step out of the plane! I’m not scared anymore! You’ll be so proud of me! Look! Here I go! MISS ABIGAIL! MISS ABIGAIL! I’VE CAUGHT THE TAIL OF A COMET!

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

T
HIS BOOK REQUIRED EXTRAORDINARY
research, and an extraordinary researcher. Clarifying confusing military history and accounts of battles plus running down a thousand and one little sticklers was a gigantic job, beautifully done. I would like to thank and acknowledge Priscilla Higham for her tremendous skill and ingenuity, for her complete devotion to this project, and mainly for her friendship, particularly when the waters got rough.

And to my wife Jill. God bless the writer’s wife.

A Biography of Leon Uris

Leon Uris (1924–2003) was an author of fiction, nonfiction, and screenplays who wrote over a dozen books including numerous bestselling novels. His epic
Exodus
(1958) has been translated into over fifty languages. Uris’s work is notable for its focus on dramatic moments in contemporary history, including World War II and its aftermath, the birth of modern Israel, and the Cold War. Through the massive popularity of his novels and his skill as a storyteller, Uris has had enormous influence on popular understanding of twentieth-century history.

Leon Marcus Uris was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the son of Jewish parents of recent Polish-Russian origin. As a child, Uris lived a transient and hardscrabble life. He attended schools in Baltimore, Virginia, and Philadelphia while his father worked as an unsuccessful storekeeper. Even though he was a below-average student, Uris excelled in history and was fascinated by literature; he made up his mind to be a writer at a young age.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Uris dropped out of high school to enlist in the Marine Corps. From 1942 to 1945 he served as a radio operator in the South Pacific, and after the war he settled down in San Francisco with his first wife, Betty. He began working for local papers and wrote fiction on the side. His first novel,
Battle Cry
, was published in 1953 and drew on his experience as a marine. When the book’s film rights were picked up, Uris moved to Hollywood to help with the screenplay, and he stayed to work on other film scripts, including the highly successful
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
in 1957.

Uris’s second novel,
The Angry Hills
(1955), is set in Greece but contains plot points that center on Jewish emigration to the territories that would eventually become Israel. The history that led to Israel’s earliest days is also the subject of Uris’s most commercially successful novel,
Exodus
. Not long after Israel first achieved statehood, Uris began researching the novel, traveling 12,000 miles within the country itself, interviewing over 1,200 residents, and reading hundreds of texts on Jewish history. The book would go on to sell more copies than
Gone with the Wind
.

Uris’s dedication to research became the foundation of many of his subsequent novels and nonfiction books.
Mila 18
(1961) chronicles Jewish resistance in the Nazi-occupied Warsaw ghettos, and
Armageddon
(1964) details the years of the Berlin airlift.
Topaz
(1967) explores French-American intrigue at the height of the Cold War during the Cuban Missile Crisis, while
The Haj
(1984) continues Uris’s look into Middle Eastern history. Much of Uris’s fiction also draws explicitly from his own travels and experiences:
QB VII
(1970) is a courtroom drama based on a libel case against Uris that stemmed from the publication of
Exodus
, and
Mitla Pass
follows a Uris-like author through Israel during the Suez crisis.
Ireland: A Terrible Beauty
and
Jerusalem: Song of Songs
are sensitive, nonfiction documentations of Uris’s travels and include photographs taken by his third wife, Jill.

Throughout his career Uris continued to write for Hollywood, adapting his own novels into movies, and working as a “script doctor” on films such as
Giant
and
Rebel Without a Cause
.
QB VII
was adapted for television, becoming the first ever miniseries. Uris passed away in 2003 at his home on Long Island. His papers are housed at the Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin.

Leon with his parents, William and Anna Uris, who divorced in 1929. William “Wolf” Uris emigrated from Russia to America in 1921 and worked a string of blue-collar jobs before settling into a position as a Communist Party organizer. Anna, who came from a close-knit Jewish family in Maryland, raised Leon and his sister, Essie, mostly in Baltimore and Norfolk, Virginia.

A young Uris in 1929, probably at his family’s home in Baltimore. Throughout much of his early life Uris was shuttled between his father in Philadelphia and his mother in Baltimore. He eventually came to regard his mother as “psychologically unhinged” and his father as a “failure.” This led him to seek success in the world at all costs. “I can say without hesitation,” he once wrote, “that, from earliest memory, I was determined not to be a failure.”