A Palestine Affair

by Jonathan Wilson

  Kirsch, whose job was to interrogate, found himself tongue-tied. It seemed to him that there was nothing comfortable about Joyce, no place to curl up and rest. Her body was taut, you could tell she’d been a dancer, and her mind was sharp and unsettling. He wondered if she ever relaxed.

  She laid her right hand, palm upward, on his thigh.

  “I’ll have that cigarette now.”

  Kirsch, fumbling for the box, managed a lame question to which he already knew the answer: “So you lived together in London?”

  “For three years, and another three after we married. I met him right at the end of the war. I did go to art school. But the superior teacher was at home. We wound up sharing a studio in West Hampstead. I think Mark liked it less when I ceased to be a student. He became quite critical, sometimes cruel—and petty.”

  “How so?”

  “He’d steal my white paint.” Joyce laughed. “I’d be in the middle of a painting, then perhaps I’d leave the house, go shopping, and when I got back my paint tubes would be squeezed dry. Still, he had a right, you know, he’s the real thing. I’m a dilettante by comparison.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “Please don’t . . . I hate falseness.”

  Abruptly, Joyce rose to her feet. She stubbed her cigarette out on a rock, and then brushed the pine needles from her dress.

  Kirsch stood too. He wanted to hold her, but she turned away from him and began to descend the hill as rapidly as she could manage. Kirsch followed. When they reached the motorbike she turned to face him.

  “Do you know what I think? The middle name of all men should be ‘I’ll disappoint you.’ John ‘I’ll disappoint you’ Smith, Mark ‘I’ll disappoint you’ Bloomberg.”

  “Robert ‘I’ll disappoint you’ Kirsch?”

  “That’s it.”

  “But I won’t disappoint you.” He had said the words before he could think twice; they were trite and absolutely predictable.

  “Won’t you?” she replied. “Well, perhaps I shouldn’t give you the chance.”

  Kirsch felt a space of absolute hopelessness blossoming inside him. Without that “chance” he might as well pack up and go home, back to England and someone safe, like Naomi.

  The sun folded its light under the green arm of pines that stretched along the hilltops. This time when the bike passed Ross’s house the lights were up on the second and third floors.

  Kirsch was going to take Joyce home but he brought her to his place instead. She didn’t object. Far from it. She walked ahead of him through the small garden that fronted his house and clattered up the stone stairs that led from the side entrance to his flat. Once inside he thought to offer her a drink but she was already unbuttoning her dress. She slipped quickly under the thin sheet that covered his bed. Kirsch, still in his clothes, sat on the edge of the mattress. He felt, having got what he wanted, both ridiculous and awkward. He didn’t know what to do first, kiss Joyce, or untie his bootlaces. She made the choice for him, and this time there was no mistaking which one of them was the instigator. She sat up and reached out, clasping her hands around his neck. Her breasts were exposed, bone white in the moonlight that shone thinly through the quartered windows interposed between bedroom and balcony. Kirsch bent his face to hers. He kissed her mouth, cradling the back of her head and cupping her left breast in his hand. Joyce lay back and closed her eyes. Kirsch moved his face down to her breasts, kissing and licking her nipples. He settled on one breast and sucked at it, taking it all into his mouth as if he might swallow it whole. Joyce’s breath quickened. She tugged on Kirsch’s hair and he brought his lips back to hers. He stroked her head with one hand and moved the other between her thighs, inserting first one, then two fingers inside her. Joyce arrested his movement by circling his wrist with her hand.

  “I think,” she said, “that it might be a good idea for you to get undressed now.”

  14.

  Outside the Damascus Gate a semicircle of squatting women sold cut flowers and wild lilies. Bloomberg walked past them and into the suq. It was dusk and the shopkeepers were closing up for the night. Two men rolled a wide bolt of fabric, then stood it on end and walked it, like a drunk companion supported between them, into the back of their shop. Farther down the street, outside a butcher’s shop where flies swarmed over hunks of exposed beef, a small group of vendors were gathered round a makeshift brazier, turning skewers of meat over hot coals.

  “Here,” he said to Jacob Rosen, his invisible companion, “is this what you wanted to see? I hope you’re not disappointed.” Jacob wiped the dried blood from his eyes and looked around.

  Bloomberg walked on without direction. The intimate sounds, odors and visions of the market, diversions that at another time he too might have appreciated and admired, meant little to him now. But when was that other time? A month, a year ago? What came more vividly to his imagination was the scent of Joyce’s body when she had woken in fear next to him early this morning. He guessed that she had been dreaming of the murder victim. Half asleep, Bloomberg had pressed his face into her neck, bumping and nuzzling like some half-demented pet. Now, he was out walking in order to give her time to collect herself, and become comfortable with the lies she was about to tell him. Lies he had encouraged her toward. He told himself it was for her own good. To let her go was the only altruism of which he was capable. It wasn’t much, but it was better than doing nothing. In an hour or so he would return home.

  At their moment of parting Ross had outlined to Bloomberg yet another commission that he had in mind. Perhaps he was feeling bad for him on account of Joyce’s little motorbike escapade. At any rate, Ross wanted a painting, several works in fact, of ancient temples in some place called Petra that Bloomberg had never heard of. He was willing to send Bloomberg on an expenses-paid trip into Transjordan. Joyce could accompany him (a not so subtle diversion on Ross’s part?) and the two of them would have support and protection from a couple of bedouin guards. The journey held some possible, if unlikely, dangers, hence the need for the guards. What did Bloomberg think? Bloomberg thought, wandering now through a short stretch of the suq that seemed devoted to cheap postcards and cigarettes, that he would rather a hole in the ground simply opened up and swallowed him. On the other hand, in for a hundred pounds, then why not in for five hundred? Only not with Joyce. If he went at all, he would travel alone.

  He withdrew a sheet of lined paper from his trouser pocket. On it was a typed list of places that the Zionist organization had asked him to visit for the purposes of sketching Jewish men and women at work: the Lodzia sock factory (that would require a trip to Tel Aviv), the Delphiner Silk Looms, Raanan Chocolate Ovens, and Silicate Brick Kilns. There was also a kosher abattoir and the maternity ward of the Shaarei Zedek Hospital. Bloomberg crushed the paper into a ball and threw it toward a pile of stinking garbage, where it became part of the detritus of rotten vegetables settled at the entrance to a narrow passageway, a site that appeared to be home to a large coven of the city’s stray cats.

  By the time that he arrived home in Talpiot it was after nine. He expected to see lights on in the house and was mildly surprised to find the place in darkness. He went in, poured himself a quarter tumbler of brandy, sat on the edge of the bed, and downed the drink. After a while he dragged his favorite wicker chair outside, and sat slumped like a dozing sentry by the doorway. The gibbous moon offered enough light to draw by, but Bloomberg had neither the energy nor the inclination for work. He was half asleep when he heard light footsteps on the road. On hearing the gate swing open, he roused himself.

  “Nice time?” he shouted toward a patch of darkness that began at the foot of the path and spread below a dense overgrowth of jasmine that hugged the perimeter wall and absorbed moonlight.

  Joyce stopped moving.

  “Is he better than me? Couldn’t be worse, right? Well, come on. I’ll make you a cup of hot cocoa. Tuck you in. Pretend we’re in wintry London instead of this God-infested hole.”

&nbs
p; She remained motionless. Bloomberg rose clumsily from his seat, knocking it over in the process. He stumbled forward three steps. There was Joyce, pale and remorseful. Only it wasn’t Joyce. It was an Arab boy. Bloomberg glanced quickly at the boy’s hands. “Charge a gun, run from a knife.” His father’s words came back as if stored forty years for precisely this moment. But there was no weapon visible.

  The boy knelt quickly, scrabbled around and appeared to scoop something from the ground; then he turned and ran.

  “Hey!” Bloomberg shouted after him, and barged breathlessly toward the gate. He picked up a small rock, gestured as if to throw it after the intruder, but then thought better of the idea and let the stone fall to the ground. He looked around for a moment, as if utterly bewildered as to how he had come to this place. The stars slid in unfamiliar, unsteady formations across the sky.

  Shortly after dawn, when Joyce finally arrived home, Bloomberg was asleep in their bed. She removed the empty brandy bottle from her pillow, undressed and, shivering slightly, slid under the covers beside her husband, if she could still call him that.

  15.

  Kirsch climbed the broad winding stairs that skirted the outer wall of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He felt pleasantly exhausted and his back itched under his cotton shirt. Joyce had dug her nails hard into him and left surface scratches as reminders of her passion.

  He continued on up to the roof, following the bishop’s procession as it curled past a set of anachronistic mud huts, their tiny windows cut in the shape of crucifixes. A tall thin monk, clad all in white, elevated a bright yellow umbrella above the bishop’s head. Once inside the Abyssinian church, Kirsch stood at the back, separated by the width of a flagstone from the crush of worshipers who sang and swayed to a tomtom’s beat. He was there in search of De Groot’s woman. He had gone to her home and been told by a neighbor that this was the service she attended some Sundays. Observing the congregation now, Kirsch could understand her impulse: the pink ceiling, the vibrant paintings on the walls, the ecstatic African music. It was a wonderfully sensual brand of Christianity. He felt like joining the wild hymn singing himself—but that, of course, was for another reason.

  There were more than two white people at the service; the Abyssinian church was on the “must-see” list for new arrivals to the city. Kirsch noticed Helen Willis, who had come out to join her husband, Jerry, a fortnight earlier, and, seated in the front row, recognizable from behind by the monk’s fringe that surrounded his bald pate, was Lawrence Milton, the new district officer for Jerusalem.

  “Business or pleasure?”

  For a horrible moment Kirsch thought it was Bloomberg’s voice that he heard. But on turning he saw, to his relief, J. V. Rowlands, the mandate’s antiquities expert. Rowlands was wearing an entirely inappropriate wool suit. Sweating profusely, he dabbed his forehead with an oversized handkerchief.

  “Work, I’m afraid,” Kirsch replied.

  “The De Groot case?”

  Kirsch half smiled. He wasn’t about to say anything that could be reported back to Ross.

  “I heard there were twenty thousand black hats at the funeral,” Rowlands continued. “Can that be true? Didn’t know the city had so many— although from the noise in the Jewish Quarter you’d think there were a half a million in there.”

  “It was a large crowd.”

  “Any suspects? They say your victim liked to play a little with the Arab boys. Of course he’s not alone in that.”

  Out of the corner of his eye Kirsch saw a slightly overweight woman with unkempt hair make her way down one of the side aisles and into an already crowded pew at the front of the church.

  “I also heard he owed money and didn’t pay up. The Arabs don’t like that, you know. They’re very honorable people.”

  “Excuse me,” Kirsch said. “There’s someone I have to talk to.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The singing, loud and melodious, reached a climax, then trailed into silence. The drums stopped beating and the bishop gestured for the members of the congregation to take their seats.

  “By the way”—Rowlands gripped Kirsch’s arm—“what do you make of Bloomberg? Ross tells me his new work is superb.”

  “I’m sorry?” Kirsch whispered, pretending that he hadn’t heard the question.

  “Wife’s a bit inscrutable,” Rowlands continued, “which is odd for an American, usually they’re transparent. Somehow, no one wants to have them to tea. Should we?”

  “I wouldn’t risk it,” Kirsch replied. “They’ll probably drink out of the saucers.”

  Kirsch brushed Rowlands aside and began to move forward. Alice was standing directly under a portrait of Jesus on the cross that took up almost half the wall. The blood from Christ’s punctured hands dripped scarlet; the martyr’s crown of thorns, bright green, circled his black forehead. It seemed right, Kirsch thought while working his way though the crowd, this naked black Jesus, better certainly than the draped and sentimentalized white figure of the British Jesus, who rarely sported even the hint of a tan. London at Christmas, rain usually, and Kirsch helping the other children glue cotton wool on hardboard to complete his class nativity scene: the windows steamed up, and the tubercular cough of Johnny Chisholm emanating from the seat next to him; the barely concealed disappointment of his mother when she found out what he had been doing all day—no less painful, Kirsch thought, than that of his present colleagues on their discovery that snow was as rare in Bethlehem as in the Home Counties.

  Having gained his proximity to the woman with the braids, Kirsch took a seat. He was prepared to wait until the end of the service in order to speak to her, but shortly before the sermon began she rose from her place, and, wiping tears from her eyes, headed for the exit door. Kirsch followed. He caught up with her at the top of the steps that led back down to the suq.

  “Miss Bone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Robert Kirsch, Jerusalem Constabulary. I’m investigating the murder of Jacob De Groot. I wondered if we might have a few words.”

  The woman looked as if she might begin to cry again; then she looked away from Kirsch toward the foot of the stairs where a donkey was relieving itself against a stone wall, its steaming urine turning the pale brick brown.

  “This is a terribly inappropriate time, I know,” Kirsch continued. “I tried to reach you at the hospital. If we could only talk for a few moments.”

  He led her back through the suq and into a small café nestled close to the mouth of Jaffa Gate. Kirsch ordered tea but Alice refused his offer of a drink. Her replies, when he began to question her, were brief but to the point. She had, she informed him, nothing to hide.

  “When did you meet Mr. De Groot?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “And where?”

  She blushed.

  “At the Bristol Garden Restaurant. One of the thés dansants. All the nurses used to go—when we could, that is.”

  “At a dance?”

  “Well, at that time Jacob wasn’t . . . Surely you know? He wasn’t a religious man when he arrived in Palestine. He was a socialist.”

  Kirsch looked at Alice’s round open face. There was a thin line across her forehead, a scar etched above her eyebrows, as if left there by the tight fit of her nurse’s cap. Her bushy brown hair was pushed behind her ears, her nose was broad, like a Tartar’s. She was an unprepossessing woman in her features, but with a softness of manner and an intelligence in her eyes that was appealing. He guessed she was approaching forty.

  Kirsch raised his glass of tea to his lips and immediately, evaporating the flavor of the mint, came the scent of Joyce’s cunt, held on the tips of his fingers and under his fingernails. For a moment he was back in his bedroom, Joyce astride him, her eyes closed and Kirsch reaching to touch her nipples. He pushed her breasts together and lifted himself slightly as they fucked. Sweat accumulated in beads on her brow, then coursed down her face and neck. He wanted her breasts in his mouth but she pushed him back down,
keeping her eyes shut tight.

  Alice Bone continued to talk, telling him the story of De Groot’s conversion from socialism to Jewish Orthodoxy and how he had relinquished everything in which he had once believed.

  “But not you,” Kirsch put in.

  “Pardon?”

  “He didn’t relinquish you.”

  Alice’s face grew taut.

  “I don’t mean to be obnoxious, but you must admit your relationship was unusual. A Christian woman and an Orthodox Jew.”

  “We were not lovers, we were friends. Is that so inconceivable?”

  “Friends? But I understood . . .”

  “What did you understand?”

  She stared at him across the table. Her eyes brimmed with tears but she fought them back.

  “Friends, I say,” and then she added in a murmur, “How could it have been otherwise?”

  “Because of his religion?”

  “No.” Alice turned her head to the side and, addressing the empty table adjacent to their own, whispered, “Because of the boy.”

  Kirsch was silent. Perhaps she was lying, perhaps not.

  The waiter moved in smartly to remove his glass and replace it with a scrawled bill. The heat of the day had arrived and the bazaar was closing with a discord of screeching shutters, dragged chains, and heavy padlocks.