The Last Princess (33 page)

Foolishly, Lily had hoped that maybe being separated from her for so long now would have impelled him to say, “I miss you so…. I wish you were here.”

She bit her lip and managed to murmur, “I’m glad that the work is going well.”

“We’re going to Mount Carmel day after tomorrow,” Harry continued, “and I don’t know how long that will take. I want to speak to the descendants of the Aaronsohn family who came here from Rumania in, oh, 1867 or so. You know, I mentioned that I was very interested in Aaron Aaronsohn, the agriculturist.”

Had that been mentioned during one of those numbing dinner-table conversations where he and Valerie went on and on, nearly ecstatic over their
Genesis
-related research? “That sounds wonderful,” Lily said rather blankly.

As he continued, she found herself thinking, Harry hasn’t asked once how I am or what I’m doing.

Finally, belatedly, he paused. “How is everything going for you, Lily?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“I’m glad. Well, I’ll be in touch again soon.”

“Yes, I’d like that.”

Valerie was filled with new confidence as they said their good-byes. There had been no endearments, only a one-sided conversation. Harry could have no idea how neglected Lily must feel.

Harry, on the other hand, had hung up feeling frustrated and misunderstood. Lily had shown little interest and no enthusiasm for his discoveries. He just couldn’t share anything with her.

Unconsciously comparing her with Valerie, he thought, What a difference! Valerie had entered into his world fully and completely. She was as thrilled as he about everything that was going on. But what impressed Harry most was that she had an extraordinary feeling for the scope of the work he was attempting.

It had really been tough, with the heat up there in Masada, and Valerie had shown her mettle. She never once complained.

By the time they sat on the terrace the next evening at sunset, he found himself thinking that she seemed different from the image he had always carried of her. She had more depth, more soul, more maturity and insight than he had ever given her credit for.

He had always thought she was beautiful, but somehow out here in the deserts of Israel she had acquired a loveliness of spirit which seemed to shine through in everything she said and did.

One of the servants came out on the terrace and announced dinner. Extending his hand, Harry asked, “Valerie? Shall we?”

It was very quiet. Rafi and Tony were still out in the truck and the houseboy had disappeared.

Valerie shook her head, smiling. “No. Let’s have another drink.”

As the scent of roses wafted gently through the air, they watched the sun sink in a glory of red, orange, and glowing gold. For a long moment, it seemed to hang suspended in the pink-streaked sky.

God, this country is magnificent! Harry thought.

Standing near his shoulder, Valerie gave voice to his thought. “Isn’t it breathtaking?”

He, looking into her eyes, took the glass from her hand and set it down on the table. Harry felt impelled by a deep sense of inevitability as he took Valerie’s arm. Although he had refused to recognize it, he realized that he had been fighting this for a long time. He would have liked to be indifferent to Valerie’s appeal, but now that seemed impossible. Yesterday’s conversation with Lily had left Harry with a brooding resentment and here was Valerie, warm and willing.

Harry fondly recalled those tempestuous nights back in Manhattan. Suddenly he was overwhelmed by the urge to feel her body once again. He bent and kissed her with deliberate sensuality.

Darkness began to fall. The sound of a muezzin could be heard in the distance as Harry turned and led her down the winding steps to his balcony and through the French doors into his bedroom. Moonlight filtered through the slats of the shutters, casting shadows onto the marble floor.

He undressed her slowly, savoring the touch. Then her fingers were on him, unbuttoning first his shirt, then softly working the zipper of his trousers. As the last piece of underclothing was discarded, they clung to each other in an impassioned moment.

Valerie kissed the lobe of his ear, then his cheek; she opened her mouth and gently touched his tongue and then deepened the pressure. The kiss ventured down slowly, unhurriedly, until it reached the place that made Harry moan with ecstasy.

Lifting her up from her knees, Harry brought her to the bed. His world spun as he entered her. Valerie writhed with pleasure under his weight.

Then she was upon him, planting reverent kisses all over his chest and face. Finally, Harry lost all control as he moved urgently within her. Nothing mattered to him except her.

Once it was over, Valerie curled up close to him, content, remembering how she had dreamed of this ever since his first week in Jerusalem. She had lain in her bed in her room just below Harry’s at the King David, wanting him so much that it was all she could do to keep from sneaking down the corridor and up the stairs.

But Harry was already beginning to feel the old, nagging regret. He had done exactly what he had vowed he’d never do again.

Lust was not the force that drove Harry. If it had been, he would have been in Valerie’s arms long before this. But as he lay there beside her, stroking her hair, he knew he would be sleeping with her again and again.

Still, his last remaining shred of conscience forced him to say, “Valerie, you know I find you very attractive. But I want you to understand that if we have an affair, I still can’t promise you anything. Lily and I have our problems—you know that—but I still love her, and eventually I know that we will be able to work things out.”

Valerie was tempted to roll her eyes and frown. But exercising restraint, she remained understanding. “Of course, Harry,” she told him. “I know that. It’s worth it to me just to be with you now.”

In spite of his confident speech, Valerie could detect that Harry was trying to convince himself. He was powerfully attracted to her, and his work was drawing them even closer together. Time was on her side.

Breaking the tension of the moment, he ruffled her hair teasingly, brushed a kiss across her forehead, and hopped out of bed.

As he pulled on his robe he ordered, “Out of bed, wench. I’m starved.”

Rafi and Tony exchanged a single, significant glance as Harry and Valerie entered the dining room. They had seen this happen before, back in New York, and had guessed it would be only a matter of time before the secretary and the boss climbed back into bed together.

In the ensuing weeks, Harry was happier than he had been in a very long time. Valerie had given him more than just a physical release; she had given him the kind of affection and understanding he’d been starved for, ever since Jeremy’s death had torn him from Lily. Yet this time, he found that he was not tortured by guilt because this time, Lily had no good excuse for leaving him.

Valerie was there and Harry was frankly grateful to her for alleviating his loneliness and longing.

His work began to progress better and faster. The physical stimulus of his affair with Valerie seemed to act as a mental stimulus. His work became even more meaningful with her there to share in it.

And Valerie was a tremendous help to him. Harry was rare among authors in that when it came to his work, he was completely objective. His ego was irrelevant; the best idea must carry the day, even if it came from someone else.

He had come to realize that Valerie’s opinions were invaluable. She edited his scripts, pointed out foibles in his reasoning, made him see that one idea or scenario didn’t work quite as well as another. More and more often he found himself taking her advice.

He treasured the great empathy he found in Valerie—a quality he had always found lacking in Lily. Valerie wanted to take a large role in his writing, while Lily had always shied away from that part of his life.

Often in the early days of their marriage, he had wanted to share a moment of triumph with her, but she had always been too busy. Bath time or feeding time, it was always something. Those occasions had given him a reservoir of injured feelings, a reservoir he now drew on.

Well, you couldn’t have everything, Harry reflected, but right now he was a lucky man to have Valerie around.

After another week had passed, the most crucial part of his research began in earnest—exploring the life of Aaron Aaronsohn.

Packing Rafi, Tony, and Valerie into the van, he headed to Zichron, near Mount Carmel in the northern coastal part of Israel, where Aaronsohn had lived as a young boy.

Aaronsohn’s story enthralled Harry. He had been unique among Jewish pioneers. Like the Americans who had seen the vast prairies and wanted to tame them, Aaronsohn had a vision that had known no bounds. Despite the neglect of centuries, he knew that Palestine could be a land of milk and honey once again.

Born in Rumania, he had emigrated to the Middle East at the age of six. His family was not affluent, but as he grew up, his genius was noticed by the Baron Édouard Rothschild, who sent him to study at an agricultural college in France.

He returned to Israel and became recognized as an outstanding agronomist. With grants he received from American universities, he began to write scholarly papers on scientific agriculture. Palestine was then a barren wasteland, but Aaronsohn discovered a primeval strain of drought-resistant wheat which he believed was the key to making the land productive.

In 1910, he established an agricultural experimental station at Atlit in order to test his dry-farming theories. They succeeded brilliantly, but he ran into opposition from other Jewish settlers, Zionists whose outlook was communal and socialistic rather than scientific and individualistic. They condemned his practice of hiring Arabs to work on his farms, rather than relying on Jewish labor alone. But Aaronsohn was an immensely practical man and if Arab workers could help make the desert bloom, so be it.

That would have been enough to base a novel on, but as Harry became caught up in his research, he discovered a man of tremendous strength, extraordinary power and dimension.

With the outbreak of World War I, Aaronsohn became increasingly concerned about the Turkish rule of Palestine. Not only was there a spreading specter of famine, but also the Turks’ slaughter of a million Armenians, with their bodies left for carrion, made him fear that the Jews would be next. And so it was that he secretly founded a spy network called
NILI
with his brothers and sisters and a few other young Palestinians, with the aim of wresting Palestine for the Jews.

Permitted unusual freedom of movement because of his status as a longtime settler and his agricultural work, he began to collect information about Turkish movements which he then fed to the British, even going back and forth behind the lines to Cairo and London to warn of the projected Turkish attack on the Suez Canal.

But in 1917 the spy ring was discovered. The members, including Aaron’s sister Sarah, were tortured and executed, and only the imminent capture of Jerusalem saved the Yishuv from mass arrests, hangings, and deportations.

Aaronsohn somehow survived the war, living in Cairo, but he died in a plane crash a year and a half later while en route to the Paris Peace Conference.

And strangely, the Zionist movement for which he had done so much barely mourned him—for he was not a socialist and he had exposed them to great risk through his espionage.

Aaronsohn’s story was one of contrasts—from an unsettled childhood to far-flung triumph and acclaim, from the quiet rhythms of farming to highest drama, from happiness to tragedy and loss.

His only wish had been to try to carve out a civilization for future generations. Knowing that the march of science allied to human effort could bring about his vision of a desert in bloom, he loathed war and other such petty human struggles. Yet, unable to ignore the conflict threatening his new land, he had given up his own desires and risked his life for a better world.

His story was emblematic not only of Israel, but of the human experience itself. Harry could not resist Aaronsohn as a model for his protagonist.

The Aaronsohn farm at Zichron had since been preserved as a shrine. Harry let the sandy earth sift through his fingers. Staring at the magnificent blue Haifa bay, where so many refugees had been smuggled into the Promised Land, he imagined the young Aaron standing on the same spot, dreaming of his vision of Israel.

Later, Harry gazed out at the Mediterranean by moonlight and imagined the British frigate lying offshore, waiting for vital information on troop movements to be brought by Aaron or his sister Sarah.

Valerie divined that a great sense of peace had come over him. She felt he had come to some kind of watershed.

“Happy?” she murmured as he turned away from the ocean.

“Very,” he answered, slipping his hand in hers and starting to walk along the beach. “Very happy and content.”

“I’m glad.”

“You’ve been just wonderful. I can’t tell you how good it has been to have you by my side, how much help you’ve been.”

Her only answer was to squeeze his hand.

“But you know, I think we need to relax a little at this point. I’ve gotten some wonderful material, but it’s been so intense I’m ready for a break. How about if I take you to Caesarea for a few days—just the two of us?”

“Oh, Harry, I’d love it!” she cried. Twining herself around him, she gave him a long, passionate kiss—and he didn’t resist.

The next day, leaving Rafi and Tony to do further research at Atlit, they wound down the coast to the ancient Roman sea resort at Caesarea.

Caesarea was a stunning site of antiquity. Established as a port by the Phoenicians in the fourth century
B.C.
, it became the favorite watering-place of the Roman occupiers and was enlarged by Herod into a great maritime city. But as the Roman Empire had disintegrated, the city had fallen into decline, and into the hands of the Byzantines, Persians, and Crusaders, only to be retaken by Saladin.

The place still had an aura about it, no doubt inspired by the historical array of triumphs and defeats which had taken place right there. But now the temples of Rome had fallen to ruins, and the two magnificent huge statues, one in red porphyry and the other in white marble, were merely reminders of past grandeur.