No woman had ever smiled at him quite like that. It was the sort of smile that went with the surroundings, drawing him in, enveloping him with a tenderness he had never experienced before.

As if she sensed what he was thinking, the smile disappeared from her face. He took the tray from her hands and said gently, “The coffee smells good.”

She led the way into the other room, and they sat down by the empty fireplace and he put the tray on a small table. As he poured, he said, “Nothing you’ve told me fully explains why a girl like you should be doing this sort of work.”

She held her cup in both hands and sipped coffee slowly. “My parents were German refugees who went to Palestine during the Nazi persecution, but I’m a sabra – Israeli born and bred. It makes me different in a way which would be difficult to explain. People like me have been given so much – I’ve never known what it is to suffer as my parents did. Because of that, I have a special responsibility.”

“It sounds more like a king-size guilt complex to me.”

She shook her head. “No, that isn’t true. I volunteered for this work because I felt I had to do something for my people.”

“Surely there are other things you could have done back home,” he said. “There’s a new country to be built.”

“But for me it isn’t enough. This way, I feel I can do something for all men – not just for my own race.”

Chavasse frowned and drank some of his coffee and she sighed. “I’m sorry, it’s difficult to put into words, but then feelings always are.” She shrugged and produced a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of her kimono and offered him one. “If it comes to that, how does anyone get into this kind of work? What about you, for instance?”