Triple Read Free

Dickstein long?"
    "We met in 1943," Cortone said. He watched her brown fins close around the
    cigarette. She even smoked beautifully. Delicately, she picked a fragment
    of tobacco from the tip of her tongue.
    "I'm terribly curious about him," she said.
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    "Everyone is. Hes only a boy, and yet he seems so oU Then again, he's
    obviously a Cockney, but he's not in the least intimidated by all these
    upper-class Englishmen. But hell talk about anything except himself."
    Cortone nodded. "Im finding out that I don!t really know him, either."
    "My husband says hes a brilliant student."
    "He saved my life."
    "Good Lord." She looked at him more closely, as if she were wondering
    whether he was just being melodramatic. She seemed to decide in his
    favor. "I'd like to hear about it."
    A middle-aged man in baggy corduroy trousers touched her shoulder and
    said, "How is everything, my dear?" 9

Ken Folleff
    "Fine," she said. "Mr. Cortone, this is my husband, Professor Ashford."
    Cortone said, "How are you." Ashford was a balding man in ill-fitting
    clothes. Cortone had been expecting Lawrence of Arabia. He thought: Maybe
    Nat has a chance after all.
    Eila said, "Mr. Cortone was telling me how Nat Dickstein saved his life."
    "Reallyl" Ashford said.
    "It's not a long story," Cortone said. He glanced over at Dickstein, now
    deep in conversation with Hassan and Rostov; and noted how the three men
    displayed their attitudes by the way they stood: Rostov with his feet
    apart, wagging a finger like a teacher, sure in his dogma; Hassan leaning
    against a bookcase, one hand in his pocket, smoking, pretending that the
    international debate about the future of his country was of merely academic
    interest; Dickstein with arms folded tightly, shoulders hunched, head bowed
    in concentration, his stance giving the lie to the dispassionate character
    of his remarks. Cortone heard The British promised Palestine to the Yews,
    and the reply, Beware the gifts of a thief. He turned back to the Asbfords
    and began to tell them the story.
    "It was in Sicily, near a place called Ragusa, a hill town," he said. "I'd
    taken a T-force around the outskirts. To the north of the town we came on
    a German tank in a little hollow, on the edge of a clump of trees. The tank
    looked abandoned but I put a grenade into it to make sure. As we drove past
    there was a shot---only one-and a German with a machine gun fell out of a
    tree. He'd been hiding up there, ready to pick us off as we passed. It was
    Nat Dickstein who shot him."
    Eila!s eyes sparkled with something like excitement, but her husband had
    gone white. Obviously the professor had no stomach for tales of life and
    death. Cortone thought: If that upsets you, pop, I hope Dickstein never
    tells you any of his stories.
    - "The British had come around the town from the other side," Cortone went
    on. "Nat had seen the tank, like I did, !nd smelled a trap. He had spotted
    the sniper and was waiting to see if there were any more when we turned up.
    If he hadn't been so damn smart I'd be dead."
    The other two were silent for a moment. Ashford said, "It's not long ago,
    but we forget so fast."
    10

TRIPLE
    Eila remembered her other guests. "I want to talk to you some more before
    you go," she said to Cortone. She went across the room to where Hassan was
    tying to open a pair of doors that gave on to the garden.
    Ashford brushed nervously at the wispy hair behind his ears. "The public
    hears about the big battles, but I suppose the soldier remembers those
    little personal incidents."
    Cortone nodded, thinking that Ashford clearly had no conception of whar war
    was like, and wondering if the professor's youth had really been as
    adventurous as Dickstein claimed. "Uter, I took him to meet my cousins-the
    family comes from Sicily. We had pasta and wine, and they made a hero of
    Nat. We were together only for a few days, but we were like brothers, you
    know?"
    "Indeed."
    "When I beard he was taken prisoner, I figured rd