The home visit

An excerpt of my 4th book SUMMER TEMPEST.

The home visit

"Summer tempest"

An excerpt

About that same hour Erella roamed between the bedroom and the bathroom of her suite in her underwear, while the bath tub was being filled with warm water. The contents of her suitcase hanged already in the cupboards, and the rest of the things that she has brought along were stuffed in the cupboards' drawers.

A rather long time has passed since she ever took care herself of such tasks, but this trivial matter did not cause her any bad feelings; she could have called room service to handle it, but she did enjoy it, to her own surprise.

After the bath tub has filled up, she shut off its taps undressed, and stood stark naked before the bedroom's huge mirror scrutinizing her body, her proud breasts due to the silicon plants stood up in a conspicuous contrast with the rest of her body limbs, revealing her advanced age despite the plastic surgeries.

How can the race of time be stopped? She thought frustrated, examining her throat, arms, belly and thighs. Diets, jogging, her own gym in her New York penthouse and even plastic surgeries are temporary solutions that don't last. She concluded thoughtfully and moved over to the small bar, and pulled out a small bottle of scotch and poured its content into a glass.

And that's what they call the presidential suite, the provincials! There's no Jacuzzi and the narrow bathroom is pathetic. Which are the rest of the hotels that they have here, Hilton? Why shouldn't I move to the Tel Aviv Hilton? There're some hotels in Jerusalem except The King David, but it's madness to stay there in this crazy period of time… She summed the matter up while entering with care to the bath tub, holding the glass with her right hand. She crouched slowly into a laying position with her head resting on the top side of the tub and gulped slowly the intoxicating drink, yielding totally to  the water warmth.

A short time after she laid the empty glass on the floor beside the bath tub, Erella fell asleep and when she started to glide inside she woke up in alarm.

Good God I've almost drowned! The hysterical thought crossed her mind with a sudden wave of self pity, but for just a friction of second and no more. She stood up drew the plug out and left the emptying tub. After having dried her body she put on some fresh underwear and a light summer gown on top of it, and sprawled over the soft and broad bed. She pushed a pillow behind her back and sent forth her hand and picked up the remote control from the top of the night cabinet. 

After having zapped nervously in several channels with much disappointment she landed on a series, which she used to watch back home in New York, the current session on the screen she saw some six months earlier, but without any better choice she watched it. After some fifteen minutes of yawning out of boredom, in mid scene a horrendous sight appeared all over the screen; it was a live broadcast of a terrorist attack in broad day light, and the sights were sickening. Where the attack was taking place she could not know or identify the exact location, but hardly a few seconds passed and a commentator repeated the entire incidence details: a car bomb exploded in the town of Hedera, some fifty miles northward.

'God almighty, why have I come for, have I lost my mind?' She uttered quite loudly in Hebrew and without switching off the TV set she left the bed, and hurried to her suite's living room, to watch the broadcast on the bigger TV set.

She sat tensed and bewildered in one of the armchairs, watching the evacuation of the corpses, the wounded covered with blood and dust; the obscured street and the destruction has terrified and shocked her. While holding the remote control with a shaking hand, she had a terrible urge to switch off the TV, but was not able to detach herself from the horrific sights.

There was a certain update by the state department, warning U.S. citizens to stay away and not visit the Middle East, Erella remembered all of a sudden. Mike has told her about it, when she offered him to visit Israel together. He did not object at first, but when the time came he sent her on her own.

I wish so much this was the reason for his objection, and not his mistress, or his supposedly frequent business trips… She thought embittered.

© Haim Kadman 2007 " all rights reserved.

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