Interrupted Romance (13 page)

The rest was history.
 
The commandos had sneaked into the plane in darkness and surprised the three other hijackers on board.
 
Two of them had gone to sleep and didn't know what hit them.
 
The third was easily taken out in the surprise attack.
 
Two passengers were slightly wounded in the melee.

The soldiers radioed for support teams, who came in helicopters supplied with fresh water, some food and blankets.

The bodies under the aircraft were picked up - a woman and two men - and placed on stretchers in a separate helicopter.
 
One of the male 'bodies' groaned, surprising a young medic in the team.

"This one's alive!" he shouted.

With all the hijackers dead, the rescuers were free to call in another aircraft to which the passengers could be transferred to take them on to Cairo.
 
The dead and injured crew and passengers were flown immediately to hospital in Israel.
 
Adam was among them.

The other survivors of the shoot-out identified him as a victim, not a hijacker.
 
They told the authorities of Adam's brave action against the hijacker who was going to kill him and of the subsequent attack on him by another, which led to him falling out of the plane.
 
They had all thought him dead.

One of the nursing staff at the hospital recognised Adam, from when he had been hospitalised after the airport bombing attack.
 
His parents were advised immediately that their son was alive.
 
The media was notified that the 'Hero of Ben Gurion' was a survivor, again.

Dafna missed the headline story when it was broadcast world-wide.
 
She already believed him to be dead, so stopped watching any television when she woke from her long sleep.
 
She lay in her bed, grieving.

It was Mrs Bergman, the neighbour and friend, who saw the story first and came to the house to tell her friend, Mrs Zoreff, that Adam had been found alive, miraculously, although injured.

They rushed (as fast as their old legs would carry them) to Dafna's room to tell her the news.

"Dafna, darling.
 
He's alive.
 
Your Adam is alive.
 
They found him."
 
They were both talking at once and she couldn’t understand at first.

"Adam is alive?
 
He's alive?
 
Really?" she looked at them dumbfounded.

"Yes.
 
He survived.
 
Not only that, but he is a hero.
 
He killed one of the terrorists who tried to kill him!" said old Mrs Bergman, with a smug look.
 
She felt proud to know such a brave man.
 
As though she had known all along that he was beyond death.

Dafna stared at them with her mouth open.
 
No more words came out.

"Your Adam is tough," Mrs Bergman said.
 
"Blind, but tough."

"Sweetheart," her mother said to her, shaking her out of her stupor.
 
"It's true, he is alive.
 
When they threw him from the plane he landed on the man he'd already thrown out!
 
He didn't die, but he has head injuries where someone else hit him.
 
He's in hospital in Tel Aviv… again."

Dafna held her face in her hands, laughing and crying at the same time.
 
Adam was alive.

The old ladies were reading her mind.
 
Mrs Bergman looked at her friend, then turned to Dafna saying, "If you would like to go to Israel to be with your man, I will happily stay and look after your mother.
 
What do you both say to that?"

Dafna looked at her mother, who nodded in agreement.
 
"Of course, dear, I'm fine.
 
I can manage quite well and with Mrs Bergman's help I will be OK here.
 
Everything will be done for me.
 
The 'Meals' people will come.
 
Dr Robinson has already said he would have the Blue Nurses call in.
 
You go to Adam.
 
I think that after all he has been through, he will be glad to see you.
 
Perhaps you should ring his parents and ask if you could be with them for a little while, in Tel Aviv, before you go to your own apartment."

They were acting like fairy godmothers, grinning at each other, holding hands in their excitement at sharing in this romance with its happy ending.
 
It was an adventure, after all, no longer a tragedy.
 
They were thrilled with their little part in it.
 
Mrs Zoreff most of all.

Her daughter was speechless with happiness but nodded that she understood.
 
In a daze, she got off the bed and went into the bathroom to shower and wake herself up, in case it was a dream.
 
Under the stream of water, which mingled with the tears that flowed from her eyes, she was only just starting to believe it.
 
Adam was alive.

CHAPTER 17

 
Adam heard his mother's soft voice calling him.
 
"Adam.
 
Adam, my darling.
 
It's Ima.
 
We are here with you.
 
Your father and I are here with you."

He looked about but it was pitch black and he could see nothing and no one.
 
There was a bandage around his head - again - but the back of his head hurt, not his eyes.
 
Then he became aware that he had blinked his eyes.
 
That meant his eyes were open, but unseeing.
 
He was blind again.
 
Really blind, this time.

His expression showed his thoughts and his father gripped his hand hard.
 
"My son, you have been hurt.
 
Do you remember where you got hurt?"

Adam said "
Ken, Aba
."

"On the plane, yes?" said his father.

"Yes," Adam replied.
 
He remembered throwing a man from the plane but nothing more.
 
However, he realised that the hijackers would have attacked him after he did that.
 
"What happened after I fought with that man?"

His father related the story, as they'd heard it from other survivors.
 
The newspapers had been full of the story, with a photo of Adam, unconscious on a stretcher.
 
Television cameras recorded the injured people being brought to hospital from the helicopters, all the time keeping the faces of the soldiers who'd rescued them from view, to preserve their security and anonymity.
 
The whole country was buzzing with the news of the rescue.

The back of Adam's head had been shaved to enable the medical staff to attend to his wound.
 
Once more, he had been given stitches to a head wound and the legacy was a splitting headache, which was even now increasing in strength as the painkilling drugs wore off.
 
He felt ill.
 
Turning his head to the side, gingerly, he hoped to relieve the discomfort at the back of his head.
 
This proved fruitless, until finally a nurse appeared beside him.
 
She adjusted the drip attached to his arm.
 
When he complained of the pain in his head she pumped a further dose of morphine into his vein.
 
Then she guided his hand to the pump, all the time soothing him with her soft, but firm voice.
 
She explained how to use the pump so that he could do it himself, when the need arose.

It was another two days before Adam started taking notice of his surroundings.
 
He had fallen in and out of sleep, occasionally being aware of sounds and smells, which he knew were associated with a hospital.
 
He had been sedated so that he would lie as still as possible.
 
The nursing staff had been made aware of his past medical history, still fairly recent, and were very careful about restricting his head movements.
 
His sight, or lack of it, was another matter.
 
The blow to the head was blamed as being the direct cause of his total blindness, although the fall from the aircraft to the ground wouldn't have helped.
 
They were adopting a 'wait and see' attitude.
 
Dr Feldman wouldn't be back in Israel for another six to eight weeks.
 
It was hoped that his sight would return spontaneously, blurred though it had been prior to the hijacking.

Dafna was kept up to date with Adam's progress via telephone.
 
His parents gave her a progress report on him and their daughter, Susan.
 
With both children in hospital it was a traumatic time for them.
 
Fortunately, at least they were in the same hospital, by arrangement, so that visiting could be combined.
 
Susan's injuries included multiple fractures and lacerations and she would remain in hospital for some time.
 
Adam had severe concussion and a nasty laceration to the back of his head.
 
No fractures were located, although he had extensive bruising to various parts of his body after the fall.
 
His major concern was his lack of any sight at all.
 
It had been improving before the hijacking.

For Dafna, whose heart was being pulled in two different directions, the agony of decision-making occupied her mind.
 
Should she go?
 
Should she stay?
 
Her mother had given her blessing to go, but even so Dafna knew she would feel guilty at leaving her behind.
 
Many sleepless hours over the few days and nights since the hijacking were taking their toll.
 
She was so tired and worried that she was almost incapable of making any decision at all.

Apart from any other consideration, the cost of flying backwards and forwards between Israel and Australia was taxing her finances severely.
 
The next flight would have to be the last one for a while if she wanted to have some savings left in her account.

She decided to wait another week, maximum, to gauge her mother's state of recovery before committing herself to a decision.
 
It would be a long, long week, she knew.

The previous day she'd had an email from Yael and Ilana, stating that all was well with the book shop and not to hurry back on their account.
 
They were managing quite nicely in her absence, with sales continuing at a steady pace.

To occupy herself, she took her mother shopping for curtain materials, with a view to making new curtains for the bedrooms.
 
Mrs Bergman accompanied them, for the company, and all enjoyed the outing.
 
They stretched out the day with lunch at a local restaurant, before arriving home a little tired from their exertions.

The following day was a sewing day.
 
Dafna did the sewing while the old ladies did the advising, contradicting each other and arguing over styles and lengths.
 
But it filled in the day, one way or the other.
 
Dafna sat back and waited for them to decide final measurements and then set about finishing the curtains under their watchful eyes.
 
By evening, the curtains were hung in two of the rooms.
 
Had she been left alone she would have had them done in half the time, but filling in time was more of a priority than haste.

By the end of the week, which she had allotted to herself for decision-making, Dafna was no closer to a firm idea of what she should do than she'd been previously.
 
But she leaned towards going to Adam.
 
She'd been told, of course, that his sight had gone completely following the attack on him.

She advised her mother that she would fly to Israel to be with Adam at the first opportunity.
 
Her mother had known all along that she would go and smiled her acceptance.
 
Putting her arms around Dafna, she hugged her and kissed her cheek.

"Of course you must go.
 
Didn't I tell you that in the first place?"

"Oh, Mum, you are so good for me and to me," said Dafna.
 
"But are you certain that you will be OK?
 
It will be hard to come back… "

"Don’t worry about a thing, dear.
 
I've got Mrs Bergman watching over me and I really do feel a lot better now.
 
Whatever happens, you must be with Adam now.
 
That poor man has been through more than his fair share of pain."

Dafna flew into Ben Gurion airport several days later, nervous about being in the airport building again, anxious to be with Adam, impatient to be in Tel Aviv where he was now at home with his parents.
 
As soon as they knew she was coming to Israel they had immediately told her that she must stay with them for a few weeks.
 
Adam's father would be at the terminal to meet her.

As she came through the Arrivals gate, she scanned the crowd in front of her for a familiar face.
 
Mr Lavan spotted her first and hurried forward to greet her, kissing her on the cheek and took her suitcase from her hand.
 
Taking her by the arm, he pulled the case along behind him, telling her straight away of Adam's progress.
 
He was recovering well from the head wound, his bruising had all but faded, but his sight was the concern of all the family.

Dafna asked, "Is there no sense of light at all?"

"Nothing," he replied.
 
"We'll take him to Dr Feldman as soon as he returns to Israel.
 
It is our hope that something can be done to restore him to his previous level of sight, which was poor admittedly, but better than no sight at all."