TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
June 1956
“You want a second round?” Diana teased Peter, who was gasping for breath. She climbed over him, ruffling his hair, and padded to the bathroom. “I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time,” Peter mumbled, “please. And don’t say ‘second round,’” and then, louder, “You know what that means?”
“Yes, I do. I was joking. But anyway…” Back on the bed and kneeling above him, cool and damp from the cold shower, she drew on his back with her nipples and whisked him with her long hair. Her tongue flicked along his side, tickling and teasing. “Do you…?” She stroked his belly and her fingers fluttered beneath him to the valley of his groin.
“No. No … please…” He shivered.
“With me there’s no such word as no. ‘Please’ works, though.” Diana turned him and kissed his lips, pulled on them with hers, as her fingers closed gently around him.
“Please, no. Let me sleep. Second round tomorrow. Next week. Please … leave me … alone,” and Peter was fast asleep.
* * *
The next day Diana, trying to focus on the intelligence report, chuckled when she came across the phrase “second round.” It meant the anticipated war with Egypt, the second attempt by the Arab world to destroy Israel, but she couldn’t help thinking of Peter and his sweet, relaxed face. He slept like a baby, sometimes dribbled like one too, she could do anything to his body and he would never know. He would be leaving on another job in a few days; she wanted to enjoy every moment with him while she could. What else could she do to him? Her mind floated with fantasies until she sighed and went back to the “second round” projections on her desk.
Mossad analysts warned that Egypt could attack Israel in August, fewer than two months away. As she tried to read, two dinner-table voices competed in her head: Moshe cursing the foolishness of it all, and Arie shouting that Israel had to attack Egypt before Egypt attacked Israel. Peter didn’t contribute much to dinner-table politics, and nor did his old friend Wolfie, the newly promoted paratroop captain. They were doers, not talkers. All Wolfie said was that if there was going to be a fight, the Jewish state could not afford to lose. The Arabs could lose dozens of times, Israel, only once.
She couldn’t focus this morning, and she needed to because there was a meeting in the afternoon when section chiefs would present progress on a plan of deception the Office was cooking. If Israel attacked Egypt, it had to be a surprise. But how to achieve surprise with the media speculating every day when war would erupt, Israeli politicians competing with dire warnings and the Egyptians with bloodier threats?
She knew that’s what Peter’s trip was about, but it was all he was allowed to tell her, which, instead of calming her, frightened her more. His unit had become the Office’s tip of the spear.
When Peter played with the twins, washed them, put them to bed, it was on him that her looks lingered now. His bent head, his perpetual smile, his lips kissing first one warm forehead, and then the other. Remember this, she told herself. Their sweet little hands in his rough mitt. Print this instant in your mind, you love this dear man, nothing will ever happen to him. Yet at the same time she told herself: Stop it! Don’t torture yourself. Stop tempting the devil.
She loved to see Peter frying eggs in the kitchen, feeding the twins, encouraging them with one spoon and then another, until he beamed when the plate was empty, accomplishment written across his face. He would catch her smiling at him, and he smiled back as their eyes held, and she would blow him a kiss.
Stay safe, my love.