Max turned in time to see Vitorin Zammit fire off his third shot, in time to see a portion of the lead Macchi’s engine cowling fall away.
“My God, I think he hit it!” someone called.
Old Zammit had not only hit it, he had actually done some damage. The Macchi’s engine coughed, clearing its throat, then coughed again, and again, misfiring badly now, a ribbon of black smoke snaking out behind it as it climbed toward Saint Julian’s.
“Well, holy shit,” said Elliott.
The trickle of smoke soon became a raging torrent, and the Macchi started to lose height, falling well behind its companion.
“Is it possible?” Freddie asked incredulously.
“Oh yes,” replied Max. A number of enemy fighters had been brought down over the airfields by rifle fire since the long-suffering ground crews had been issued with Lee-Enfields—a gesture intended to boost their morale. No one had expected them to actually hit anything.
It came to Max quite suddenly what he had to do. He glanced over at Vitorin Zammit, who was staring in dumb disbelief at his handiwork. Then he turned and took Pemberton by the arm, leading him off through the crowd.
“Where are we going?” asked the Information Office’s newest recruit.
“To work.”
HE LAY STRETCHED OUT ON THE MATTRESS, NAKED, staring at the ceiling and the dancing shadows thrown by the small pepper-tin lamp.
He raised his arm and examined it in the flickering light, flexing his elbow, his wrist, his fingers, enjoying the silent articulation of the joints, the play of muscle and sinew beneath the skin.
He was proud of his hands. Men didn’t notice hands. Women did. His mother had. She had always praised him for his hands. Then again, kind words had come easily to her, maybe too easily for the compliments to have had any real value. She had scattered them about her like a farmer spreading seed from a sack.
He saw her now as a young woman: the blue of her wide-set eyes; the arched eyebrows, dark and dense, which she’d refused to pluck as other women did because Father had liked them just the way they were. Or so he’d said.
My, you’re looking handsome today.
I think that’s the best I’ve ever heard you play the piano.
The best day of my life? When I gave birth to you.
You’re the best boy in the world.
She’d come from parents with low intellectual horizons, and she’d used words such as “best” a lot.
Maybe that’s what lay at the heart of everything. She had never felt worthy of the world in which she’d found herself, not worthy of the man who had taken her by the hand and led her into Eden. See all this? This is my world, but now it is yours too.
But Eden didn’t come cheap—she must have learned that early on—and she had chosen to repay cruelty with kindness. She was known for her kindness. It was what defined her in the eyes of others. No one was unworthy of her selfless ministrations.
He suspected now that some baser urge had lain behind her behavior: an instinct for survival. How could her husband possibly harm such a kind and decent person, such a good wife?
It hadn’t worked, but she had kept the faith. It was hard to respect her for it, but at least it had shown a certain determination.
You’re the best boy in the world.
He saw her now, ruffling his hair, smiling warmly down at him, her prominent incisors, the small white scar on her lower lip from the time Father had struck her with a shoe. And he saw what she was doing: one person looking to provide the love of two. The intentions had been good, if ultimately counterproductive. The more she had smothered him with maternal affection, the more Father had felt the need to counteract her “damned pampering” of him.
It was strange that she had never stopped heaping praise upon all and sundry, even after the accident, when there was no longer any need to do so. He also found it strange that she had never taken tweezers to those unruly eyebrows when she must surely have wanted to, when at last she could.
That’s what annoyed him most, he realized—that even after Father was gone, he had managed to live on in her.
He lowered his arm to the mattress and smiled at this thought, a smile of pleasant surprise. When was the last time he had cared enough about anything to be annoyed by it?