Interrupted Romance Read online

  He was horrified, but quick-thinking. The necklace he wore around his neck, with the Star of David hanging from it, was swiftly pulled off and dropped into his pocket. He didn't know if anyone had seen him do it, but he guessed they were all too busy with their own horrors to be watching him. There wasn't anything he could do but sit and wait to see what eventuated. Thank God, Dafna hadn't come with him! As an extra precaution he pulled his Israeli passport from his pocket and shoved it down the back of his seat.

  Dafna sat glued to the TV, watching every news item, hoping for some quick resolution of the hostage crisis.

  She called Adam's father in the evening in the hope that there was good news that she hadn't yet seen. But it didn't work out that way.

  The authorities had maintained communications with the aircraft and were stalling for time, not wanting to release any prisoners in return for hostages, hoping for a different ending.

  Then, on the second day, from a camera installed in a circling helicopter, came the view of a woman's body being dropped from the aircraft to the sandy strip beneath the plane. Dafna froze. They were killing passengers. The body looked pathetic and tragic - so small under the vehicle which held so many more to ransom. The commentator's voice rose almost an octave in shock. The whole world would be holding it's breath, waiting for something to change the course of, what could be, a case of mass murder.

  Dafna was living from hour to hour, barely eating, goggle-eyed from watching the screen for so long. Her mother put pieces of fruit in her hand from time to time, hoping she would at least eat that. Some of it she ate, others she dropped.

  The latest communiqué from the aircraft advised that another passenger would be killed in six hours' time if the authorities didn't release the men in the Cairo gaol.

  Dafna was beside herself with worry. God, don't let it be Adam. He's suffered enough already.

  She was only human. Sooner or later she would have to fall asleep. It finally happened on the third day. Her mother covered her with a blanket and left her to sleep on the lounge chair, which had almost become her home since the hijacking.

  It was during this time, that she missed the news she had been dreading. Seeing Adam on the television, on his own.

  Back on board the ill-fated flight, the captors were becoming increasingly violent in their frustration. Adam could hear the thuds as passengers were beaten and kicked.

  Conditions on board were unbelievably bad. The water was rationed and had almost run out. The engines had stopped long ago and the air inside the aircraft was fetid and thick. Most people were sitting with handkerchiefs over their faces. The toilets had given up working. Food had just about run out. Several people needed medical attention. There was, by chance, a doctor on board, but he could do little without medication for some of his patients. There was a limited amount on board and not necessarily the type that was required.

  During the late afternoon, Adam was dragged from his seat and propelled, with kicks and punches, down the aisle towards the exit door. Someone called out "Leave him alone, he's blind." He heard the sound of flesh hitting hard against flesh, followed by a cry of pain. No one else made a sound.

  The hijacker was almost hysterical in his outrage that his demands hadn't been met. He was going to make an example of Adam. He poked Adam in the back with the muzzle of a gun, pushing him forward.

  Adam heard the door being opened. He knew his time had come. The air coming through the doorway was a relief, albeit still pretty warm, but fresher than what they'd all been breathing for a few days.

  Being blind, he was easy prey. The man behind him was too complacent. Adam rounded on him, knowing approximately where he was standing. He surprised the criminal, grabbing him by the throat and whipping him out through the doorway. The man's scream stopped suddenly with a thud as he hit the ground. Adam was attacked by a second man, who smashed the butt of a gun against his head. He, too, fell through the doorway, landing metres below. He landed, unconscious, on the man he had thrown out of the plane.

  The two bodies, which fell from the plane, were shown clearly on television from the camera in the helicopter. Obviously, the captors were using the appearance of the helicopter to televise their violence in an attempt to get what they wanted. They orchestrated their terror to coincide with world viewing.

  Using a telephoto lens, the cameraman was able to project a clear picture of an unknown man flung from the aircraft, followed shortly after by another. The second man landed on his back, on top of the first man, so his face could be seen. It was Adam.

  In Israel, Adam was identified. There had been no movement from either of the men on the ground and it was presumed that they were dead.

  Adam's father, although grieving, made the call to Sydney, to Dafna.

  CHAPTER 16

  Dafna had been sedated by the doctor, whom her mother had called.

  After hearing the news of Adam, Dafna had quietly fainted. Her mother revived her with a damp cloth, then called for the doctor to come to tend to her. Explaining what had happened, Mrs Zoreff also felt weak at the knees. Her doctor thought he would have two patients on his hands, but the older woman took control of herself. They helped Dafna to her bed where she slept in drugged unconsciousness for twelve hours.

  It was because of this that Dafna missed the second piece of news from Israel. During the night, after seeing Adam's body hit the ground, the authorities planned a rescue mission by Israeli commandos.

  In their usual immaculate style, the mission was carried out at night, swiftly and successfully. They had travelled to within three kilometres of the grounded aircraft by vehicle, then on foot to within fifty metres. As there were no lights about, the hijackers had no idea that anyone hostile was anywhere near them. Some of them had left the plane to walk about outside in the cool of the night. They were taking turns to get away from the smell on board. The three guards on the ground were easily sighted in the night scopes of the Israeli snipers who held them. Quietly, without arousing any suspicions from the remaining guards on the plane, the commandos wriggled up close enough to shoot the guards with silenced rifles. The makeshift ladder, which leaned up against the plane, was all that was needed to allow the soldiers access to the plane's interior.

  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 s
miled her acceptance. Putting her arms around Dafna, she hugged her and kissed her cheek.