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Eagle in the Sky
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Текст книги "Eagle in the Sky"


Автор книги: Wilbur Smith


Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

beautiful, David was touched and embarrassed by the gift, thank you. And

he buttoned his shirt over it and then reached awkwardly to kiss her,

but she drew away and warned him.

Not in here.  He's a Moslem, and he'd be very offended.  All right, said

David.  Let's go and find some place where we won't hurt anybody's

sensibilities.  They went out through the Lion Gate in the great wall

and found a stone bench in a quiet place amongst the olive trees of the

Moslem cemetery.  There was a half moon in the sky, silver and

mysterious, and the night was warm and waiting, seemingly as expectant

as a new bride.

You can't stay on at the Intercontinental, Debra told him, and they both

looked up at its arched and lighted silhouette across the valley.  Why

not?  Well, first of all it's too expensive.  On your salary you just

can't afford it.  You don't really expect me to live on my salary? David

protested, but Debra ignored him and went on.

And what is more important, you aren't a tourist any more.  So you can't

live like one.  'What do you suggest?  'We could find you an apartment.

Who would do the housework, and the laundry, and the cooking?  he

protested vehemently.  I haven't had much practice at that sort of

thing.  I would, said Debra, and he froze for an instant and then turned

slowly on the seat to look at her.  What did you say?  I said, I would,

she repeated firmly, and then her voice quavered.  That's if you want me

to.  He was silent for a long moment.

See here, Debs.  Are you talking about living together?

I mean, playing house-house on a full-time basis, the whole bit? 'That's

precisely what I am talking about.  But – He could think of nothing

further to say.  The idea was novel, breath-taking, and alive with

enchanting possibilities.  All David's previous experiences with the

opposite sex had been profuse rather than deep, and he found himself on

the frontiers of unexplored territory.  Well?  Debra asked at last.

Do you want to get married?  his voice cracked on the word, and he

cleared his throat.

I'm not sure that you are the finest marriage material in the market, my

darling David.  You are as beautiful as the dawn, and fun to be with,

but you are also selfish, immature and spoiled stupid Thank you kindly

Well, there is no point in me mincing words now, David, not when I am

about to throw all caution aside and become your mistress.  Wow!  'he

exclaimed, with all the frost thawing from his voice.  When you say it

straight out like that, it almost blows my mind.  Me too, Debra

confessed.  But one condition is that we wait until we have our own

special place, you may recall that I'm not so high on public beaches or

rocky islands.  I'll never forget, David agreed.  Does this mean that

you don't want to marry me?  He found his mortal terror of matrimony

fading under this slur on his potential marriage worth.

I didn't say that either, Debra demurred.  But let's make that decision

when both of us are ready for it.  'Right on, doll, said David, with an

almost idiot grin of happiness spreading over his face.

And now, MajorMo an, youmaykissme, 'shesaid.

.  rg But do try and help me remember the conditions.  A long while

later, they drew a little apart to breathe and a sudden thought made

David frown with worry.

My God, he exclaimed, what will the Brig say!  He won't be joining us,

she told him, and they both laughed together, excited by their own

wickedness.  Seriously, what will you tell your parents?  I'll lie to

them graciously, and they'll pretend to believe me.  Let me worry about

that.  Beseder, he agreed readily.

You are learning, she applauded.  Let's just try that kiss again, but

this in time in Hebrew, please.  'I love you, he said in that language.

Good boy, she murmured.  You are going to make a prize pupil.  There was

one more doubt to be set at rest, and Debra voiced it at the iron gate

to the garden, when at last he took her home.

Do you know what the Bris, the Covenant, is?  'Sure, he grinned, and

made scissors out of his first and second finger.  It seemed in the

uncertain light that she blushed, and her voice was only just audible.

Well, what about you?

That, David told her severely, is a highly personal question, the answer

to which little girls should find out for themselves, and his expression

became lascivious, the hard way.

All knowledge is precious as gold, she said in a small voice, and be

sure that I will seek the answer diligently.

David discovered that the acquisition of an apartment in Jerusalem was a

task much like the quest for the Holy Grail.  Although the high-rise

blocks were being thrown up with almost reckless energy, the demand for

accommodation far outweighed the supply The father of one of Debra's

students was an estate agent and the poor man took their problem to his

heart; the waiting-list for the new blocks was endless, but an

occasional apartment in one of the older buildings fell vacant, and he

used all his influence for them.

At unexpected moments of the day, Debra would send out an urgent signal,

and David would fetch her in a taxi at the University and they would

hell across town, urging on the driver, to inspect the latest offering.

The last of these reminded David of a movie set from Lawrence of Arabia

complete with a dispirited palm tree out front, a spectacular display of

bright laundry hanging from every balcony and window, and all the sounds

and smells of an Arab camel market and a nursery-school playground at

recess rising from the courtyard.

There were two rooms and an alleged bathroom.  The roses and wreathes of

the wallpaper had faded, except in patches where hangings had protected

their original pristine virulent colouring.

David pushed open the door of the bathroom and, without entering,

inspected the raggedy linoleum floorcovering and the stained and chipped

bath tub; then pushing the door further he discovered the toilet bowl

festering quietly in the gloom with its seat set at a rakish angle like

the halo of a drunken angel.

You and Joe could work on it, Debra suggested uncertainly.  It's not

really that bad.  David shuddered, and closed the door as though it were

the lid of a coffin.

You're joking, of course, he said, and Debra's determinedly bright smile

cracked and her lip quivered.  Oh, David, we are never going to find a

place!  'And I can't wait much longer.  'Nor can I, admitted Debra.

Right.  David rubbed his hands together briskly.  It's time to send in

the first team.

He was not sure what form the presence of Morgan Group would take in

Jerusalem, but he found it listed in the business directory under Morgan

Industrial Financeand the Managing Director was a large mournful-looking

gentleman named Aaron Cohen who had a suite of offices in the Leumi Bank

building opposite the main post office.  He was overcome with emotion to

discover that one of the Morgan family had been ten days in Jerusalem

without his knowledge.

David told him what he wanted, and in twenty hours he had it signed and

paid for.  Paul Morgan picked his executives with care, and Cohen was an

example of this attention.  The price David must pay for this service

was that Paul Morgan would have a full report of David's transaction,

present whereabouts and future plans on his desk the next morning, but

it was worth it.

Above the Hinnom canyon, facing Mount Zion with its impressive array of

spires, the Montefiore quarter was being rebuilt as an integrated whole

by some entrepreneur.  All of it was clad in the lovely golden Jerusalem

stone, and the designs of the houses were traditional and ageless.

However, the interiors were lavishly modernized with tall cool rooms,

mosaic -tiled bathrooms, and ceilings arched like those of a crusader

church.  Most of them had their own walled and private terraces.  The

one that Aaron Cohen procured for David was the pick of those that

fronted Malik Street.  The price was astronomical.  That was the first

question that Debra asked, once she had recovered her voice.  She stood

stunned upon the terrace beneath the single olive tree.  The stone of

the terrace had been cut and polished until it resembled old ivory, and

she ran her fingers lightly over the carved front door.  Her voice was

hushed and her expression bemused.

David!  David!  How much is this going to cost?

That's not important.  What is important is whether you like it.  It's

too beautiful.  It's too much, David.  We can't afford this.  It's paid

for already Paid for?  She stared at him.  How much, David?  'If I said

half a million Israeli pounds or a million, what difference would it

make?  It's only money.  She clapped her hands over her ears.  No!  she

cried.  Don't tell me!  I'd feel so guilty I wouldn't be able to live in

it.  Oh, so!  You are actually consenting to live in it.  'Try me, she

said with emphasis.  You just try me, lover? They stood in the central

room that opened on to the terrace, and although it was light and airy

enough for the savage heat of summer that was coming, it smelled now of

new paint and varnished woodwork.

What are we going to do about furniture?  David asked.

Furniture?  Debra repeated.  I hadn't thought that far ahead.  For what

I have in mind, we'll need at least one kingsize bed.

Sex-maniac, she said, and kissed him.

No modern furniture looked at home under the domed roof, or upon the

stone-flagged floors.  So they began to furnish from the bazaars and

antique shops.

Debra solved the main problem with the discovery in a junk yard of an

enormous brass bedstead from which they scraped the accumulated dirt;

they polished it until it glowed, fitted it with a new inner-spring

mattress, and covered it with a cream-coloured lace bedspread from

Debra's bottom drawer.

They purchased kelim and woven woollen rugs by the bale from the Arab

dealers in the old city, and scattered them thickly upon the stone

floors, with leather cushions to sit upon and a low olive-wood table,

inlaid with ebony and mother of pearl, to eat off.  The rest of the

furniture would come when they could find it for sale, or, failing that,

have it custom-made by an Arab cabinet-maker that Debra knew of.  Both

the bed and the table were enormously heavy, and they needed muscle to

move them, so they called for Joe.  He and Hannah arrived in his tiny

Japanese compact, and after they had recovered from the impact of the

Morgan palace they fell to work enthusiastically with David supervising.

Joe grunted and heaved, while Hannah disappeared with Debra into the

modern American kitchen to exclaim with envy and admiration over the

washing-machine, dryer, dish-washer and all the other appliances that

went with the house.  She helped to cook the first meal.

David had laid in a case of Goldstar beer, and after their labours they

all gathered about the olive-wood table to warm the house and wet the

roof.

David had expected Joe to be a little reserved, after all it was his

baby sister who was being set up in a fancy house; but Joe was as

natural as ever and enjoyed the beer and the company so well that Hannah

had to intervene at last.  It's late, she said firmly.

Late?  asked Joe.  It's only nine o'clock.  'On a night like tonight,

that's late.  'What do you mean?  Joe looked puzzled.  Joseph Mordecai,

diplomat extraordinary, Hannah said with heavy sarcasm, and suddenly

Joe's expression changed as he glanced from Debra to David guiltily,

swallowed his beer in a single gulp, and hoisted Hannah to her feet by

one arm.

Come on, he said.  What are we sitting here for?  David left the terrace

lights burning, and they shone through the slats of the shuttered

windows, so the room was softly lit, and the sounds from the outside

world were so muted by distance and stone walls as to be a mere murmur

that drifted from afar, and seemed rather to accentuate their aloneness

than to spoil it.

The brass of the bedstead gleamed softly in the gloom, and the ivory

lacework of the bedspread smelled of lavender and moth balls.

He lay upon the bed and watched her undress slowly, conscious of his

eyes upon her and shy now as she had never been before.

Her body was slim and with a flowing line of waist and leg, young and

tender-looking, with a child's awkward grace, and yet with a womanly

thrust of hip and bosom.

She came to sit upon the'edge of the bed, and he marvelled once again at

the lustre and plabticity of her skin, at the subtlety of colouring

where the sun had darkened it from soft cream to burned honey, and at

the contrast of her dusky rose-tipped breasts and the dark thick bush of

curls at the base of her softly curving stomach.

She leaned over him, still shyly, and touched his cheek with one finger,

running down his throat on to his chest where the gold star lay upon the

hard muscle.  You are beautiful, she whispered, and she saw it was true.

For he was tall and straight with muscled shoulders and lean flanks and

belly.  The planes of his face were pure and perfect, perhaps its only

fault lying in its very perfection.  It was almost unreal, as though she

were lying with some angel or god from out of mythology.

She twisted her legs up on to the bed, stretching out beside him upon

the lace cover, and they lay on their sides facing each other, not

touching but so close that she could feel the warmth of his belly upon

her own like a soft desert wind, and his breath stirred the dark soft

hair upon her cheek.

She sighed then, with happiness and contentment, like a traveller

reaching the end of a long lonely journey.

I love you, she said for the first time, and reaching out she took his

head, her fingers twining in the thick springing hair at the nape of his

neck, and drew it tenderly to her breast.

Long afterwards the chill of night oozed into the room, and they came

half-awake and crept together beneath the covers.

As they began drifting back into sleep she murmured sleepily, I'm so

glad that surgery won't be necessary, after all, and he chuckled softly.

Wasn't it better finding out for yourself?  Much better, lover.  Much,

much better, she admitted.

Debra spent one entire evening explaining to David that a

high-performance sports car was not a necessity for travel between his

base and the house on Malik Street, for she knew her man's tastes by

then.  She pointed out that this was a country of young pioneers, and

that extravagance and ostentation were out of place.  David agreed

vehemently, secure in the knowledge that Aaron Cohen and his minions

were scouring the country for him.

Debra suggested a Japanese compact similar to joe's, and David told her

that he would certainly give that his serious consideration.

Aaron Cohen's henchman tracked down a Mercedes Benz 3 5 0 SL belonging

to the German Charg6 d'Affaires inTel Aviv.  This gentleman was

returning to Berlin and wished to dispose of his auto, for a suitable

consideration in negotiable cash.  A single phone call was sufficient to

arrange payment through the Credit Suisse in Zurich.

It was golden bronze in colour, with a little under twenty thousand

kilometres on the clock, and it had clearly been maintained with the

loving care of an enthusiast.

Debra, returning on her motor scooter from the University, found this

glorious machine parked at the top end of Malik Street, where a heavy

chain denied access by all motor-driven vehicles to the village.

She took one look at it, and knew beyond all reasonable doubt who it

belonged to She was really quite angry when she stormed on to the

terrace, but she pretended to be angrier than that.  David Morgan, you

really are absolutely impossible.  'You catch on fast, David agreed

amiably; he was sunbathing on the terrace.  "How much did you pay for

it?"

"Ask me another question, doll.  That one is becoming monotonous."  "You

are really," Debra paused and searched frantically for a word of

sufficient force.  She found it and delivered it with relish.

"Decadent!"

"You don't know the meaning of the word," David told her gently as he

rose from the cushions in the sun and drifted lazily in her direction.

Though she had been his lover for only a mere three days she recognized

the look in his eye and she began backing away.

I will teach you the meaning, he said.  I am about to give you a

practical demonstration of decadence in such a sensitive spot that you

are likely to remember it for a long time.  She ducked behind the olive

tree as he lunged, and her books spilled across the terrace.  Leave me!

Hands off, you beast.

He feinted right, and caught her as she fell for it.  He picked her up

easily across his chest.

David Morgan, I warn you, I shall scream if you don't put me down this

instant.  Let's hear it.  Go ahead!  and she did, but in a ladylike

fashion so as not to alarm the neighbours.

Joe, on the other hand, was delighted with the 350.

The four of them took it on a trial run down the twisting road through

the Wilderness of Judaea to the shores of the Dead Sea.  The road

challenged the car's suspension and David's driving skill, and they

whooped with excitement through the bends.  Even Debra was able to

overcome her initial disapproval, and finally admitted it was beautiful,

but still decadent.

They swam in the cool green waters of the oasis of Em Gedi where they

formed a deep rock pool before overflowing and running down into the

thick saline water of the sea itself.

Hannah had brought her camera and she photographed Debra and David

sitting together on the rocks beside the pool.

They were in their bathing costumes, Debra's brief bikini showing off

her fine young body as she half-turned to laugh into David's face.  He

smiled back at her, his face in profile and the dark sweep of his hair

falling on to his forehead.  The desert light picked out the pure

features and the boldly stated facets of his beauty.

Hannah had a print of the photograph made for each of them, and later

those squares of glossy photographic paper were all they had left of it,

all that remained of the joy and the laughter of those days, like a

lovely flower taken from the growing tree of life and pressed and dried,

flattened and desiccated, deprived of its colour and perfume.

But the future threw no shadow over their happiness on that bright day,

and with Joe driving this time they ran back for Jerusalem.  Debra

insisted that they stop for a group of tank corp boys hitch-hiking home

on leave, and although David protested it was impossible, they squeezed

three of them into the small cab.  It was Debra's sop to her feelings of

guilt, and she sat in the back seat with her arms around David's neck

and they all sang the song that was that year a favourite with the young

people of Israel, Let there be peace.

In the last few days while David waited to enter the airforce, he loafed

shamelessly, frittering the time away in small chores like having his

uniforms tailored.  He resisted Debra's suggestion that if regulation

issue were good enough for her father, a general officer, then they

might be good enough for David.  Aaron Cohen supplied him with an

introduction to his own tailor.  Aaron was beginning to develop a fine

respect for David's style.

Debra had arranged membership for David at the University Athletic Club,

and he worked out in the first class modern gym every day, and finished

with twenty lengths of the Olympic-size swimming pool to keep himself in

shape.

However, at other times, David merely lay sunbathing on the terrace, or

fiddled with electrical plugs or other small tasks Debra had asked him

to see to about the house.

As he moved through the cool and pleasant rooms, he would find an item

belonging to Debra, a book or a brooch perhaps, and he would pick it up

and fondle it briefly.  Once a robe of hers thrown carelessly across the

foot of the bed and redolent of her particular perfume gave him a

physical pang as it reminded him sharply of her, and he held the

silkiness to his face and breathed the scent of her, and grudged the

hours until her return.

However, it was amongst her books that he discovered more about her than

years of study would have revealed.

She had crates of these piled in the unfurnished second bedroom which

they were using as a temporary storeroom until they could find shelves

and cupboards.  One afternoon David began digging around in the crates.

It was a literary mixed grill, Gibbon and Vidal, Shakespeare and Mailer,

So1zhenitsyn and Mary Stewart, amongst other strange bedfellows.  There

was fiction and biography, history and poetry, Hebrew and English,

softbacks and leather-bound editions, and a thin greenjacketed volume

which he almost discarded before the author's name caught his attention.

It was by D.  Mordecai and with a feeling of discovery he turned to the

flyleaf.  This year, in Jerusalem, a collection of poems, by Debra

Mordecai.

He carried the book through to the bedroom, remembering to kick off his

shoes before lying on the lace cover she was very strict about that, and

he turned to the first page.

There were five poems.  The first was the title piece, the

two-thousand-year promise of Jewry Next year in Jerusalem had become

reality.  It was a patriotic tribute to her land and even David, whose

taste in writing ran to Maclean and Robbins, recognized that it had a

superior quality.  There were lines of startling beauty, evocative

phrasing and penetrative glimpses.  It was good, really good, and David

felt a strange proprietary pride, and a sense of awe.  He had not

guessed at these depths within her, these hidden areas of the mind.

When he came to the last poem, he found it was the shortest of the five,

and it was a love poem, or rather it was a poem to someone dearly loved

who was gone and suddenly David was aware of the difference between that

which was good and that which was magic.

He found himself shivering to the music of her words, felt the hair on

his forearms standing erect with the haunting beauty of it, and then at

last he felt himself choking on the sadness of it, the devastation of

total loss, and the words swam is his eyes flooded, and he had to blink

rapidly as the last terrible cry of the poem pierced him to the heart.

He lowered the book on to his chest, remembering what Joe had told him

about the soldier who had died in the desert.  A movement attracted his

attention and he made a guilty effort to hide the book as he sat up.  it

was such a private thing, this poetry, that he felt like a thief.

Debra stood in the doorway of the bedroom watching him, leaning against

the jamb with her hands clasped in front of her, studying him quietly.

He sat up on the bed and weighed the book in his hands.  It's lovely, he

said at last, his voice was gruff with the emotions that her words had

evoked.

I'm glad you like it, she said, and he realized that she was shy.

Why did you not show it to me before?  'I was afraid you might not like

it.  You must have loved him very much?  he asked softly.

Yes, I did, I she said, but now I love you.

Then, finally, his posting came through and the Brig's hand was evident

in it all, though Joe admitted that he had used his own family

connections to influence the orders.

He was ordered to report to Mirage squadron Lancewhich was a crack

interceptor outfit based at the same hidden airfield from which he had

first flown.  Joe Morde.  was on the same squadron, and when he called

at Malik Street to tell David the news, he showed no resentment that

David would out-rank him, but instead he was confident that they would

be able to fly together as a regulor team.  He spent the evening

briefing David on squadron personnel, from'Le Dauphin'the commanding

officer, a French immigrant, down to the lowest mechanic.  In the weeks

ahead David would find Joe's advice and help invaluable, as he settled

into his niche amongst this tightly-knit team of fliers.

The following day the tailor.  delivered his uniforms, and he wore one

to surprise Debra when she backed in through the kitchen door, laden

with books and groceries, using her bottom as a door buffer, her hair

down behind and her dark glasses pushed up on top of her head.

She dropped her load by the sink, and circled him with her hands on her

hips, her head cocked at a critical angle.

I should like you to wear that, and come to pick me up at the University

tomorrow afternoon, please, she said at last.

(why?  J Because there are a few little bitches that lurk around the

Lauterman Building.  Some of them are my students and some are

colleagues.  I want them to get a good look at you, and eat their tiny

hearts out.

He laughed.  So you aren't ashamed of me, " Morgan, you are too

beautiful for one person, you should have been born twins It was their

last day together, so he indulged her whimsy and wore his uniform to

fetch her at the English Literature Department, and he was surprised to

find how the dress affected the strangers he passed on the street the

girls smiled at him, the old ladies called shalom, even the guard at the

University gates waved him through with a grin and a joke.  To them all

he was a guardian angel, one of those that had swept death from the very

sky above them.

Debra hurried to meet and kiss him, and then walked beside him, her hand

tucked proudly and possessively into the crook of his elbow.  She took

him to eat an early dinner at the staff dining-room in the rounded glass

Belgium building.

While they ate, a casual question of his revealed the subterfuge she had

used to protect her reputation.

I'll probably not get off the base for the first few weeks but I'll

write to you at Malik Street – No, she said quickly, I won't be staying

there.  It would be too lonely without you in that huge bed.  'Where

then?  At your parents home?  That would be a dead give-away.  Every

time you arrive back in town, I leave home!  No, they think I am staying

at the hostel here at the University.  I told them I wanted to be closer

to the department You've got a room here?  He stared at her.

Of course, Davey.  I have to be a little discreet.  I couldn't tell my

relatives, friends and employers to contact me care of Major David

Morgan.  This may be the twentieth century, and modern Israel, but I am

still a Jewess, with a tradition of chastity and modesty behind me.  For

the first time David began to appreciate the magnitude of Debra's

decision to come to him.  He had taken it lightly compared to her.  I'm

going to miss you, he said.  And I you, she replied.  Let's go home.

Yes, she agreed, laying aside her knife and fork.  .  I can eat any old

time.  However, as they left Belgium House she exclaimed with

exasperation: Damn, I have to have these books back by today.  Can we go

by the library?  I'm sorry, Davey it won't take a minute.  So they

climbed again to the main terrace and passed the brightly-lit

plate-glass windows of the Students Union Restaurant, and went on

towards the solid square tower of the library whose windows were lighted

already against the swiftly falling darkness.  They had climbed the

library steps and reached the glass doors when a party of students came

pouring out, and they were forced to stand aside.

They were -facing back the way they had come, across the plaza with its

terraces and red-bud trees, towards the restaurant.

Suddenly the dusk of evening was lit by the searing white furnace glare

of an explosion, and the glass windows of the restaurant were blown out

in a glittering cloud of flying glass.  It was as though a storm surf

had burst upon a rock cliff, flinging out its shining droplets of spray,

but this was a lethal spray that scythed down two girl students who were

passing the windows at that moment.

Immediately after the flash of the explosion the blast swept across the

terrace, a draught of violence that shook the red-bud trees and sent

David and Debra reeling against the pillars of the library veranda.  The

air was driven in upon them so that their eardrums ached with the blow,

and the breath was sucked from their lungs.

David caught her to him and held her for the moments of dreadful silence

that followed the blast.  As they stared so, a soft white fog of

phosphorus smoke billowed from the gutted windows of the restaurant and

began to roll and drift across the terrace.

Then the sounds reached them through their ringing eardrums, the small

tinkle and crunch of glass, the patter and crack of falling plaster and

shattered furniture.  A woman began to scream, and it broke the spell of

horror.

There were shouts and running feet.  One of the students near them began

in a high hysterical voice, A bomb.  They've bombed the cafe.  One of

the girls who had fallen under the storm of glass fragments staggered up

and began running in small aimless circles, screaming in a thin

passionless tone.

She was white with plaster dust through which the blood poured in dark

rivulets, drenching her skirt.

In David's arms Debra began to tremble.  The swine, she whispered, oh,

the filthy murdering swine.  From the smoking destruction of the

shattered building another figure shambled with slow deliberation.  The

blast had torn his clothing from his body, and it hung from him in

tatters, making him a strange scarecrow figure.  He reached the terrace

and sat down slow, removed from his face the spectacles that were

miraculously still in place and began fumbling to clean them on the rags

of his shirt.  Blood dripped from his chin.

Come on, grated David, we must help.  And they ran down the steps

together.

The explosion had brought down part of the roof, trapping and crushing

twenty-three of the students who had come here to eat and talk over the

evening meal.

Others had been hurled about the large low hall, like the toys of a

child in tantrum, and their blood turned the interior into a reeking

charnel house.  Some of them were crawling, creeping, or moving

spasmodically amongst the tumbled furniture, broken crockery and spilled

food.  Some lay contorted as though in silent laughter at death's crude

joke.

Afterwards they would learn that two young female members of El Fatah

had enrolled in the university under false papers, and they had daily

smuggled small quantities of explosive on to the campus until they had


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