She sat on the floor and held the bullet up and looked at it and began laughing. All the Druse men started laughing too. Kitty sobbed half hysterically.
“Mussa,” Karen said, “get him back on the bed quickly. Don’t let anything touch that wound.”
Karen helped Kitty to her feet and sat her down in a chair. She pried the bullet from her hands and wiped them clean. The girl moved over to Ari and poured sulfa powder into the wound and laid a bandage over the top of it lightly. Then she sponged Ari down. Kitty remained crumpled and sobbing.
Karen ordered everyone from the room and poured another drink for Kitty and left.
Kitty sipped the brandy and walked over to Ari and felt his pulse. She pried his eyes open and watched his color.
Yes … he was going to come through all right …
She laid her head on his chest. “Ari … Ari … Ari … Ari…” she whispered between sobs.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Ari remained in excruciating pain. The medicines failed to arrive. Kitty was unable to leave him for a second. Several times she had to call Mussa for men to keep Ari from thrashing around and endangering the open wound.
Up the hill in the center of the village the dancing and chanting and hilarity continued. The bride, who had been hidden all day, was taken from seclusion. The groom, dressed in a cutaway coat and top hat, mounted a horse and rode to her through a flower-strewn lane flanked with rifle-bearing Druse men.
After the ceremony many of the Jewish visitors, with the children from Gan Dafna, lit a campfire and there were more songs and a hora. There was Hebraic dancing to the tambour and flute and the Druse dancers, too, took their turn in the center ring.
Karen remained constantly in the outside room. She came in to spell Kitty for intervals during the long night. Morning found both of them exhausted from the lack of sleep and the prolonged tension. Kitty sat at the edge of the bed and sprang up each time Ari groaned or moved.
By morning the medicines still had not arrived.
“You had better take the children back to Gan Dafna,”
Kitty told Mussa. “Is there anyone else here who speaks English?”
“Yes, I will have him stay here.”
“Good. Can you get another bed set up or a couch or something for me to rest on? I’ll have to remain right here for some time.” ,
“It will be arranged.”
‘ Kitty went into the next room where Karen dozed on a bench. She brushed the girl’s cheek gently. Karen sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Is he all right?”
“No. He is in very bad pain. I want you to go back to Yad El with the children this morning.”
“But, Kitty …”
“Don’t argue. Tell Dr. Lieberman I have to stay here until I can get things under control.”
“We are supposed to leave Palestine the day after tomorrow.”
Kitty shook her head. “Cancel our flight. We can make new travel arrangements later. I have to stay here until they can get someone else up here to take care of him properly. I don’t know how long it’s going to be.”
Karen embraced Kitty and turned to leave.
“Karen. Get to Safed, will you, and tell Bruce Sutherland where I am. Ask him if he will come to Haifa to meet me. Tell him to stay at the largest hotel. I’ll find it, whatever it is. Have him bring some clothes for me.”
By noon the hundreds of celebrants began drifting away from Daliyat el Karmil. The Druses left for their mountaintop villages and the Jews went back to the kibbutz and to Haifa. Mussa took the truckload of children back toward Gan Dafna.
When they were all gone, the Druses relaxed the heavy guard around Ari. The English-speaking Druse stood by in the next room.
Kitty Fremont was alone with him in this strange place. In this first moment of quiet the full impact of these events hit her. She stood over his bed and looked at him.
“God Almighty,” she whispered. “What have I done?” All the months of fighting him, all the carefully built-up resistance, collapsed in that mad second that had sent her rushing to his side. At this moment she feared this power that Ari held over her.
Late in the evening the messenger arrived with medicines from Yagur kibbutz. He had been working his way through the mountains and hiding for long periods of time. British patrols were everywhere looking for the wounded from the Acre jail raid.
Kitty quickly administered a liter of plasma to Ari and filled him with penicillin as insurance against the infection
that she feared must be inevitable under the circumstances of the operation. She redressed the open wound and injected morphine to ease the murderous pain.
For the next two days and nights Kitty kept Ari under morphine sedation to block off the pain. She watched his progress from minute to minute. The incision was beginning to bind together. There appeared to be no great crisis. Ari was awake only for brief moments, during which he took some nourishment, but when he was awake he was too torpid to realize what was taking place around him. The Druse villagers marveled at Kitty’s nursing efficiency and stamina. The women were particularly pleased with the way she snapped out orders to the men.
By the time Kitty knew Ari was safe, that time was the only requirement, she had become uncertain and filled with anxiety: the question of leaving Gan Dafna was in her mind again.
She pondered again her right to leave the children of Gan Dafna who needed her. Where was the line between professionalism and humanity? And what of Karen? Was Karen coming to America only out of fear of losing Kitty?
Of the thoughts that weighed on Kitty the worst was a factor she could no longer rationalize. Once before she had been draw into this strange group of people against her wilclass="underline" on Cyprus she had resolved not to work for them-and then she saw Karen. Now, it appeared to be a repetition: on the eve of her departure she was pulled back to Ari. Was this a coincidence or was her fate being shaped by a higher power? As much as her basic common sense resisted the fantastic idea, it kept haunting Kitty. She feared the power of Palestine.
Ari made swift progress under Kitty’s ministrations. He was a remarkable man, Kitty reflected. The pain that he had borne could have killed an ordinary human being. By the end of the fourth day she had reduced the morphine sharply. She had also discontinued the use of penicillin, certain that the wound was healing and would not become infected.
Ari awoke on the fifth morning hungry, eager to shave and clean up, and in a cheerful frame of mind. As Ari emerged in renewed vitality, Kitty went into a shell. She adopted an icy, impersonal, clinical attitude. She snapped orders like a sergeant major, prescribing the next week’s plans as though he were a complete stranger.
“I hope by the end of this week to have you completely off drugs. I want you to start exercising the leg and give it as much motion as possible. However, you must be very careful about putting too much strain on the incision. It isn’t stitched.”
“How long before I’ll be able to walk?”
“I can’t say without an X ray. I am inclined to think the bone was just cracked and not chipped. If there was a chip you would still be in severe pain. However, I can safely say that you aren’t going anywhere for at least a month.”
Ari whistled under his breath as she pulled the sheet up around him.
“I’m going out for a walk,” she said. “I’ll be back in a half hour.”
“Kitty. Just a moment. I … uh … look, you’ve been very kind. You’ve watched over me like an angel. Since this morning you have seemed angry. Is there something wrong? Have I done something?”
“I’m tired, I’m worn out. I’ve been up for five nights. I’m sorry I can’t do a song and dance for you.”
“That’s not it. There’s something more. You’re sorry you came here, aren’t you?”