Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [195]
“Hey, did Yoffe ever reach Sharm al-Sheikh?”
“Yes, and he beat Zechariah by a half day.”
“Good. Cyprus, huh. Where?”
“Kyrenia.”
“Any idea how we got here?”
“A friendly driver brought us from Famagusta. He is with relatives across town.”
“Jeeze, that’s interesting.”
“We landed on Cyprus three days ago. You were blotto, oblivious. I have learned every Marine Corps song from the American Revolution on. Anyhow, we cruised out from Nicosia and wound up in the Turkish Quarter of Famagusta yesterday and ran into this nice gentleman, whom we hired as a driver. He introduced us to the delights of opium. Seeing that neither of us had ever tried it before and seeing that mere alcohol was not going to do away with your blues and blahs, and seeing that you declared with bravado that every real writer had to try everything at least once, we did, and here we are.”
“I said all that, huh?”
“And much, much more. You wanted to send Shlomo off in grand style. You did him proud.”
“You know something, my goddam stomach feels like a sewer is running through it, and my head is about to explode.”
Natasha went inside and fixed a potion in a glass, fished for a pair of aspirins in her purse, and drew a glass of water. “Here, just close your eyes and drink this first.”
“What is it?”
“Cognac and bitters, an old Hungarian cure-all.”
“That’s not Israeli cognac, is it?”
“Of course not. You lectured me about that for a full hour in Jaffa.”
“I did, huh.” He drank, winced, and then downed the aspirins.
“Catch some air out here; it will do you good. I’ll order up some lunch.”
“I, uh, really don’t think I want anything to eat.”
“You haven’t had anything but booze and opium in your stomach for forty-eight hours.”
“All right, but nothing too ... you know, greasy.”
When Natasha returned to the balcony, she found Gideon entranced with the beauty of the harbor. On the far side was an ancient fortress, probably Venetian.
“That harbor is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen,” he said. “What’s the name of this hotel we’re in?”
“The Dome. It’s veddy veddy British, middle-ranking civil-servant type holiday place.”
Gideon scratched his stubbly face, then held his hands out, making a square as though it were a camera view finder, putting the quay into focus. “Dome Hotel, Kyrenia, Cyprus,” he said, like a “voice-over” of the scene in a screenplay. “I just might start my novel here. That would be wild! We’ll have to go down there and take a good look later.”
Gideon turned around and, seeing her radiant in her colors, hair now flowing with the breeze, her robe a violent verdant with the sun shimmering off it. He brought her to him, untied the front of her gown. The knot disappeared easily, and he reached inside around her waist and brought all that white softness to him, then lifted her in his arms and took her through the French doors to the big fluffy down featherbed where he buried himself in her.
It took no more than a touch from either of them to set them off again yet one more time, only to be halted by the arrival of the food.
“Good,” he said, “I think our tanks are trying to run on empty.”
Fortunately the British chef, a former hard-assed cook in the Navy, was on vacation, and his Greek assistant had made up the sumptuous platter of seafood, lobster, squid, dainty little eels, shrimps, chips, veggies, and vino ... retsina and ouzo. They tried the ouzo. It blended well, not agitating his hangover.
They recounted the past week or so, much of which was very hazy.
“You said to me, I wanna go get fucked up,” she swaggered, imitating an American accent. “So, what girl could refuse such a charming invitation?”
The first stop was the King David Hotel. “We barely made it inside our room. Some people in the hall were quite shocked. You stood in the doorway and started to unzip your pants before a group of Hadassah ladies.”
“Oh shit, real kid stuff,” Gideon chastised himself.
“Then you turned around and mooned them, much to their delight.”
“Gimme some