Read Online Day After Night by Anita Diamant - Free Book Online Page B

coming?”
    “There is nothing for the doctor to do,” Aliza said crisply. “The bleeding stopped
     and the cut is right at the hairline so you won’t even see the scar, if there is one.
    “Here, Danny,” Aliza said, taking a piece of chocolate from her desk drawer. “Have
     some candy. You were a brave boy. Do you think we should give one to your mother?
     She was not nearly as brave as you.”
    There was a knock at the open doorway followed by a question in English. “Everything
     all right in here?”
    “Yes, Captain,” said Aliza.
    “Colonel,” Tirzah corrected her.
    “The boy?”
    “He is fine.”
    Colonel John Bryce, the British commander of Atlit, removed his hat and stepped inside.
     A short man in polished boots, he made a little bow to Aliza.
    “Does he need the doctor?” he asked in Hebrew.
    “No. He is fine,” Aliza said.
    The officer looked at Danny. “Are you fine?”
    Danny smiled and replied in English, “I am very good, indeed.”
    The inmates hated John Bryce solely on principle. He was not a vindictive or petty
     man and he permitted the Jewish Agency free rein within the camp. Even so, he was
     considered a prig and a fool for his insistence on following rules to the letter,
     often causing delays and complications a more lenient commander might have avoided.
    Not much was known about him; he was a career officer in his late forties, his skin
     deeply lined from years of service in India. He had fought in North Africa during
     the war against Germany and was ending his career in Palestine.
    His feeling for Tirzah was so obvious that Leonie had to turn away, embarrassed and
     a bit envious. She thought it extraordinarily romantic that he had risked exposing
     himself by rushing to her side this way. Tirzah kept her eyes on Danny, so it was
     not easy to read her face.
    “Well, then,” said Colonel Bryce, finding there was nothing for him to do. “Carry
     on.”
    Aliza took another look at Danny’s wound and secured a much smaller bandage over it.
     “It looks very dramatic,” she said, pinching his cheek. “The girls will swoon over
     you.
    “Keep him still for the rest of the day and send him to me in the morning for a quick
     check,” she said to Tirzah. “And don’t make too much of this. Boys will be boys. They
     smash themselves up and they heal. Don’t smother him.”
    After everyone left and Leonie began to sweep up, Aliza asked, “So, tell me. Is the
     pain sharp? In the lower abdomen? Do you have a sore throat?”
    “How do you know all of that?”
    “It’s my job to know,” she said, and motioned for Leonie to go behind the curtain.
     A moment later she appeared with a hypodermic. “Turn around,” she said and lifted
     Leonie’s skirt. “I’ll give you another shot in a few days.”
    “Thank you,” Leonie whispered.
    “No need,” Aliza said. “Come outside. I need a smoke.”
    They sat on the bench on the shady side of the shed and shared a cigarette in silence.
     After a short while, Aliza said, “I could never do what Tirzah is doing.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “What do you think I mean? Fucking for her country!” Aliza smirked. “I shock you,
     do I? How old are you, anyway? Seventeen?”
    “Almost eighteen.”
    “I suppose I look like an old lady to you, but if she is thirty-five, I am only ten
     years older, which isn’t too old, if you know what I mean. Besides, I know what goes
     on in the world.” She took a long drag on the cigarette and shook her head. “I suppose
     women have always been asked to do this kind of thing. You can get a man to tell you
     almost anything in bed. But by now, Tirzah must be an expert about the British prison
     authority and maybe something about the police department, too. Still, for a Jewish
     woman to have to stoop so low? It makes me sick.
    “Of course, when you really stop to think about it, she deserves a medal and a pension,
     just like any other soldier. What a sacrifice. What a