Interrupted Romance (19 page)

His lips had been so warm and his body so hard.
 
He had held her so tightly, crushing her.
 
She wanted that feeling again!
 
Oh, when would he call her and ask to see her?
 
How much longer would she have to wait?

It had occurred to Dafna that if the unthinkable happened - Adam never wanted to see her again - she would sell the book shop and possibly return to Sydney, to her mother, and start another life on the other side of the world.
 
This would be better than staying here with all the reminders of her lost love about her.
 
However, this was not an option to which she looked forward.
 
Hopefully, this would never have to be considered seriously.

CHAPTER 21

It was time to begin accepting some of the many invitations she had received from friends, asking her to join them for concerts, to go to the beach, to parties, a wedding, a picnic.
 
There didn't seem to be much point in waiting for Adam to call her.

Five of her friends from school were going to the concert hall in Tel Aviv for a night of folk songs, which were immensely popular, and Dafna agreed to join them.
 
They were to meet for coffee before the show and catch up on all the gossip.
 
None of them had married yet, choosing instead to begin careers, and all of them had travelled quite a bit outside Israel, so there would be many stories to tell over coffee.
 
It promised to be an interesting night.

They spent over an hour in the café, talking and laughing the whole time.
 
There were shrieks of laughter as a particularly funny episode in someone's life was related.
 
Some of the other patrons in the café smiled at their frequent bursts of joyful chatter as each one tried to outdo the others' stories.
 
Dafna remained quieter than the others, hoping nobody would notice her reticence.
 
Her mind kept going back to Adam, always Adam.
 
But, they wouldn't allow her to be totally silent, and demanded a rundown of her recent trip to Sydney.
 
They wanted to know about Australia.
 
Were there kangaroos hopping down the streets?
 
What did a koala feel like?
 
Does everyone say 'G'day' there?
 
None of them had been further away from Israel than Europe or America, but they all wanted to learn about the country down under, and they were excitedly throwing questions at Dafna, who finally threw her hands up in the air in defeat.

"Please!
 
One at a time.
 
I can't keep up with you all," she said smiling.
 
She was saved from answering too many questions when one of the girls looked at her watch and jumped up.

"Quickly, we've only got ten minutes before they start.
 
Let's go.
 
We can come back for another drink after the show."

They paid their bill and hurried from the café, heading toward the Cultural Centre.
 
They found their seats and settled down to enjoy the evening's performance with just a minute to spare before the lights were dimmed.
 
The singers began with popular favourites, and before long had the whole audience singing along with them.
 
The mood was set.
 
It was relaxing, enjoying the evening among friends.
 
During the interval one of her friends told her that she should sing more often, her voice was truly lovely to listen to and pitch-perfect.

The second half started with a sombre, but melodic, song of the bravery of a young soldier, killed in battle.
 
The words were written by his younger brother and had become an instant hit in Israel, where battles seemed to be forever being fought, by many young men and women.
 
More than one person in the audience wiped away a trickling tear.
 
The story struck home to many of the people sitting in that hall.
 
However, the mood picked up after that and gradually surged to a rollicking finale with everyone in the place singing their hearts out, at the top of their lungs.

Dafna had really enjoyed being out with her friends and was pleased that they had asked her to join them.
 
She'd forgotten how much fun these folk nights were.
 
Once, it seemed ages ago, she'd gone frequently to these shows where the object was to enjoy yourself as well as to keep alive the songs of Israel.
 
If only Adam could be there with her, it would be perfect.

After the singing session, the girls adjourned to the café for another coffee.
 
They settled in for a long talk but Dafna excused herself with the excuse of an early start in the morning, and left them at about eleven o'clock.
 
She promised to come to the next sing-along in a month's time.
 
There were kisses on the cheeks, all around the table, and she left them to it.

She hailed a taxi out on the street and sat back thinking about the past few months, all the way home.

Adam's mother called her every week with an update of his condition.
 
His operation had been postponed due to him catching a heavy head cold.
 
It dragged on for over a week, then went to his chest.
 
He was miserable and frustrated at the delay but could do nothing about it.
 
There would be no anaesthetic while his chest was congested.
 
His headaches were being controlled with a strong painkiller and he was taking an antibiotic for the chest problem.

To add to the problem, the cold turned into bronchitis and the constant coughing made his head pound even more.
 
He was going through a bad time, but still didn’t want to see Dafna.
 
She despaired at ever being with him again.
 
His mother was sympathetic but unable to change Adam's mind.

Dafna buried herself in her work over the following few weeks.
 
She went out whenever anyone invited her.
 
The brother of one of her girlfriends called into the shop one day to ask her to go to the movies with him and she accepted after a brief hesitation.

David was as blonde as Adam was dark.
 
His eyes weren't as blue as Adam's.
 
He wasn't as tall as Adam.
 
Dafna cursed herself for this constant comparison of every man she met, with Adam.

But David was a charming companion and managed to divert her attention away from her thoughts for hours at a time.
 
She felt guilty after being out with him, as though she had been unfaithful to Adam, just by going out with another man.
 
Even though she chided herself about this reaction, it changed nothing.
 
However, when he invited her to join him at a concert later in the week, she agreed to go with him.

The concert was a dress-up affair and Dafna took particular care with her grooming.
 
She brushed her black hair until it crackled and gleamed, then piled it up on top of her head, with a few stray tendrils artistically left to frame her face.
 
Satisfied with that, she applied her make-up with skill and stepped back from the mirror to check on the effect.

'Hmm, not bad', she thought.
 
Then, speaking aloud, she said to her reflection,
 
"But it would be a lot safer if you had some clothes on!"

She grinned to herself as she walked to the wardrobe in her underwear.
 
The intention had been to wear her black dress, but a the last moment Dafna chose a deep burgundy, slim-fitting, ankle-length frock which hadn't seen the light of day for some months.
 
It had shoulder straps barely as wide as shoe-strings.
 
Her gold sandals with the three inch heels were beside the bed and the gold evening bag was already on a chair waiting for her to pick it up.
 
As she wriggled into the dress she was deciding on the jewellery to go with it… the chunky gold necklace and matching earrings, her gold watch instead of her 'everyday at work' watch.
 
The overall effect was stunning.

When she opened the door to David, his eyes travelled slowly down the length of her body, taking in the shiny black hair, the olive skin, the gorgeous burgundy-coloured dress draping her figure, the gold sandals and the painted toenails, which matched her fingernails.
 
He whistled appreciatively.
 
She laughed.

He held her hand in the foyer of the concert hall, rarely taking his eyes off her face, even when friends approached to speak with him and he introduced Dafna to them.
 
He was making her nervous with his open admiration.
 
She began to think that maybe the little black dress would have been a better choice than this striking red attention-seeker.

The warning bell rang to warn the patrons to make their way to their seats.
 
As David led Dafna along the aisle, following a crowd of other people, Dafna caught a glimpse of a familiar figure up ahead.
 
Tall, dark-haired, broad shoulders… surely not Adam, not here, she asked herself.
 
She craned her neck to see over the heads of people in front of her, but was unable to see far enough.
 
David looked at her enquiringly as she was almost walking on tip-toe beside him.
 
Guiltily, she dropped back to normal walking, smiled at David, and said, "Thought I saw someone I know."

Throughout the first half of the concert, Dafna barely comprehended what was going on around her and she certainly missed the music entirely.
 
Her thoughts were on trying to find the tall man again.
 
Without showing David what she was doing, she was systematically looking from side to side, not moving her head, but eyeing the rows of seats within her range of vision.
 
However, she was unable to find the person she was looking for among the hundreds of heads in front of her.

David had taken her hand in his as soon as they had sat down but Dafna wasn't even aware of it.
 
If Adam was out there somewhere, she wanted to find him, to see him.
 
Who had brought him to the concert?

During the interval, they stood with friends of David, chatting about the performance so far.
 
Dafna listened carefully to the opinions of the other young people in order to gauge the reaction to the musical programme, just in case she was asked for an opinion.
 
As she couldn't recall anything about the concert thus far, it would be a few minutes well-spent.
 
This didn't stop her from looking about her at the milling crowd of people trying to buy a drink before the bell rang again.
 
Try as she might, she couldn't spot the tall man anywhere.

The bell rang for the second half of the concert and David and his friends shuffled her along with them, back inside the hall, where they settled down for the continuation of the entertainment.
 
She tried to listen with enthusiasm to the wonderful orchestra, under the baton of a maestro, famed for his excellence of style and interpretation.
 
Parts of a Haydn symphony infiltrated into her senses as she concentrated on the shapes of heads in the semi-darkness.

Dafna had no idea what she would do if she did find the man and it was Adam.
 
Would he want to talk to her?

Before she knew it, the audience was standing and applauding all around her.
 
Whether it was the end of the symphony or the end of the concert, she didn't know but she joined them in showing appreciation for music she had hardly heard.
 
All her thoughts had been on Adam, and the times they had been together, so happily.

Finally, the people started making their way to the exits, slowly, talking amongst themselves.
 
She realised that David was talking to her, too.

"What, David?
 
I'm sorry, I was miles away," she said to him.

"Well, I know that.
 
Did you enjoy the concert, Dafna?
 
What did you think of the finale - wasn't it brilliant?"

"Wonderful," she replied.
 
"It was just wonderful."

"Would you like to go for coffee now?
 
All the others are going," David asked.

"Oh, yes, that would be nice," Dafna said, not meaning a word of it.
 
All she wanted to do was to locate that tall man, to see if it was Adam.

Walking within the group of friends to a nearby café, Dafna tried her best to involve herself in the conversations going on simultaneously.
 
They were laughing at a joke as they went through the doorway and Dafna almost stopped dead in her tracks as she saw the tall, dark-haired man at a table, his back towards her.
 
Behind her, David stumbled as he tried not to walk on her heels when she hesitated so suddenly.
 
A waiter came forward to point out a table on the opposite side of the room, which would be large enough for the whole group, and they trooped over to it, with Dafna locked in the middle of the huddle of bodies.

She positioned herself so that the man was facing her across the room.
 
It was Adam.
 
Dafna could clearly see his face, lined from so many weeks of pain-filled hours and days.
 
He was with a group of men and women who looked vaguely familiar.
 
Dafna realised they were the same people in some of the photos she'd seen in his apartment.
 
Of course, they were family.
 
His cousins and their wives.
 
So he didn't have another woman with him.
 
She realised this had been what was on her mind all evening.