“I’m coming!” Mayan replied.
She took three brisk steps toward the bed, bent over and kissed Kirsch on the lips.
“My Mila,” Kirsch said teasingly, but she didn’t smile.
Through the open door of his room he could see the headlamps of the dawn bus still shining. The driver shouted something in Hebrew and revved the engine. The last passengers took this, as intended, as a warning of imminent departure and hustled to take their seats.
After the bus had left he saw Rosa walking toward the path that would bring her up to the manor. She had obviously chosen to ignore him. He couldn’t blame her.
The rising sun released a burnt-wood scent from under the torn stripped bark of the eucalyptus trees. Kirsch moved to the chipped pitcher and bowl set on a table in the corner of his room and began to splash water over his head. He didn’t hear his visitor approach until the young man in uniform had taken two steps into his room.
“Captain Kirsch?”
Kirsch looked up, his face dripping with water.
“Yes, but who are you?”
“Corporal Edward Hiestand, sir. I have orders to accompany you to Jerusalem.”
Kirsch remembered the note from Ross that he had thrown away.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Hardly, sir. I believe your help is needed with an interrogation. Shall we say half an hour to get ready, sir?”
“And who am I interrogating?” Kirsch asked even though the question was superfluous. He knew as soon as the corporal announced himself why he was being brought back to Jerusalem.
Hiestand was looking at his briefing letter. “A Mrs. Joyce Bloomberg, sir.”
“And what if I don’t want to return with you?”
The corporal stood with a slightly bemused expression on his face. His pale skin was covered in freckles. Kirsch guessed that Palestine was his first posting, and that he hadn’t been out here very long.
“They said that might be the case, sir.”
“And?”
“And I’m not alone, sir. There are three of us.”
“That’s quite an escort for someone who isn’t under arrest.”
Hiestand shrugged. “You must be good at your job, sir. Very much in demand.”
“Has this request been authorized by Sir Gerald Ross?”
“Couldn’t tell you, sir. I got my orders from Sergeant Phipps.”
Kirsch, conscious that the corporal was trying to avoid staring at his withered leg, moved away from the washstand, sat on the bed and began to pull on his trousers.
“Give me twenty minutes,” he said.
Halfway back to Jerusalem they caught up with the bus in which Mayan was riding. The army vehicle got stuck behind it for almost twenty minutes until, near Jenin, the road widened enough for its driver to overtake. Kirsch, stretched awkwardly in the front passenger seat, strained to catch a glimpse of Mayan, but he was too low down, and in any case, the windows of the bus were covered in a thin layer of dust.
36.
Bloomberg traveled through the night to reach Haifa. Too exhausted to face the drive, he had found a ride in the open back of a lorry that was delivering bricks and asbestos sheets to a building site in Safed. The air was warm and there was little wind, but the calm did nothing to hold down the dust that choked his nose and mouth. Separated from his load by wooden slats, even the driver, a large broad-faced individual with water-buffalo shoulders, had tied a handkerchief over the lower half of his face, like a cowboy. Bloomberg coughed and spat into the road; his chest felt tight but he knew that the deep source of the constriction was poison in his own soul trying to find a way out. Nothing much mattered now except that he locate Kirsch, and Ross too. If he could secure Joyce’s release he might at least make partial amends for his years of selfishness. The thought of her cooped up in the governorate while some threatening boorish officers grilled her for information was unbearable.
The driver, unwilling to make a detour from the main road, dropped him almost a mile from the ticket office. Bloomberg planned to take the first boat over to Cyprus that he could find. He had borrowed a little money from Athill, enough to get him across the water. He hoped he could persuade Ross to finance his return trip: an advance on the painting that was ready to be delivered. He hurried toward the quay as fast as he could and for a moment, on arrival, he was alone there, but as he shuffled forward with his ungainly gait, shouldering his old kit bag with the strap cutting into him, and perspiring from his walk, he heard the gunshot crack of a gangplank on concrete, and before he could reach the window he was swamped by a crowd of new arrivals. He tried to fight his way through the throng of immigrants, some hugging and joyous, but most looking bewildered. The men stood in their white shirts, narrow ties and heavy three-piece suits, tugged at their caps, wiped their brows and stared blankly around as if, in a dream, they had stepped from their homes in Europe intending to go to the office, shop or warehouse, only to find themselves on this blistering, sunstruck Mediterranean quay. Almost all of them clutched landing documents, or smaller scraps of paper that must have listed the names and addresses of their contacts in Palestine. The women, whose long skirts and cotton headdresses seemed immediately more appropriate to the place, shepherded their children, some of whom strained for release while others, dismayed and tearful, buried their faces in their mothers’ skirts. Bloomberg’s heart raced. Once he had been one of those children, and only the point of arrival was different: the Pool of London. Two years old, he had barely learned to walk, and there he was emerging from the hold gripping his mother’s hand and pressing his nails so deeply into her flesh that she cried out in pain. He had no memory of this, only of her later reports, her cherished narrative of arrival, as England moved toward her, the land appearing to sway, the rough voices of waiting longshoremen calling like strange birds, her husband, their family packages strung around his neck, lost somewhere on the crowded deck, and her darling little boy wet-eyed and terrified as she scooped him up and carried him to the gloomy safety of the shore.
The safety of the boat, the Evresis, away from the crowd. Bloomberg, his heart still pounding, sucked in air and inhaled deep breaths while the salt spray cooled his face. Beneath his feet the deck throbbed with the sound of the ship’s engine. He was ashamed of his immigrant panic, but there was nothing that he could do about it. Perhaps the root of all his anger could be located there: he had tried to fulfill his mother’s ambitions for him and claim England as his own. For a while he thought he had succeeded, but the army and his critics had shown him otherwise. He had packed himself off to Palestine because that seemed to be the direction in which they all, including the dead, were pointing him: back on the boat you go, only this time aim your travels to where it all began three thousand years ago. But the truth was that he held allegiance to no place other than the tiny area, indoors or outdoors, where he set up his easel.
He stood by the starboard side rail and watched as the figures, buildings, and ships at anchor dwindled to gray dots, red roofs, and tall masts, then dissolved into the line of hills behind them. In his pocket he held his ticket to Famagusta. He would reach port in ten hours and from there he would find a bus or taxi to take him to Nicosia. In that city he could certainly expect to find Ross; Kirsch’s presence was less certain.
There were drinks and snacks available on the freeboard, but Bloomberg rarely went belowdecks if he could help it. On the voyage out from Southampton to Palestine he had spent a good deal of his cabin time vomiting into a bucket. While the sea churned and the ship tipped and tossed, Joyce, who didn’t share Bloomberg’s susceptibility to imbalance, had sat on her bunk and read, comfortable as in a garden swing. But as long as he could breathe fresh air he was generally fine, and this day was considerately balmy, the cloudless sky an immensity of unstained light.
He hardly noticed the other passengers and he was lost in thought staring into the green and mercifully gentle waves when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“On the m
ove again so soon?”
Bloomberg turned swiftly. It was George Saphir, the reporter from the Bulletin.
“What’s the object of your interest this time? Don’t tell me, Othello’s Tower?”
Bloomberg didn’t respond.
“All right then, the ruins at St. Hilarion? Got to be one of the two.” Bloomberg shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Well, surely you’re not simply taking a holiday? Are you? Or perhaps you’re running away. Good Lord, man, a few days ago you were off to see your wife after two months in the desert. What happened? Didn’t find someone else while you were away, did she?”
“Something like that, yes.”
Saphir had begun to laugh, but he stopped abruptly at Bloomberg’s reply. He looked Bloomberg in the face, trying to ascertain if he was joking or not.
Bloomberg smiled and Saphir breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief.
“You had me worried for a moment there, old friend. I know you painter types are wild men—and women—but . . .” Saphir decided not to continue with his thoughts on bohemian life. Bloomberg noted that he was still sporting the faux pioneer outfit that he had seen him in at the Allenby bar.
“How about a sandwich?”
Saphir retrieved a small package from his bag and unwrapped two thick slices of bread, cheese, and tomato.
“No salt, I’m afraid.”
Bloomberg refused the offer of food. Despite the placidity of the Mediterranean, his stomach had already begun to churn.
“Then you’re not going to tell me why you’re on this boat. Don’t worry, I shan’t press you.”
“I’m going to Nicosia. I need to see Sir Gerald. And you?”
Saphir appeared to ponder his options for a moment, then his eagerness to reveal at least part of his news overcame him.
“There’s something brewing,” he said. “My Greek priest friend Pantelides let me in on it. And Ross is already setting up shop. No longer in Damascus. Well, you know that, of course.”
“What’s brewing?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give you the details. But there are implications for Palestine, and I think I’ve got a scoop on my hands. I can tell you that we share a destination.”
“In that case,” Bloomberg said, “perhaps you’d like to pay for my taxi fare from Famagusta.”
Saphir smiled. “I’m sure the Bulletin won’t mind,” he said. “I hereby appoint you my official illustrator.”
The coast of Palestine passed from sight and then there were only the dull bottle green waves to stare at and the steam clouds emanating from the ship’s funnels.
Bloomberg stood back from the rail and looked around for somewhere to sit. He didn’t want Saphir to know how even the deep easy roll of this ship possessed the ability to make him seasick. He found a spot halfway down the deck and sat, legs outstretched, with his back to a heavy coil of chains. Saphir followed and settled himself a few feet away.
“By the way,” he said, taking a bite into his bread and cheese, “you remember you asked me the other day about the De Groot case.”
Bloomberg nodded.
“Well, the strangest thing. Right after you’d left the Allenby, in comes a fellow I know from Government House, Fordyce, works for Bentwich, and usually he’s pretty careful with me, you know—I am an unabashed fully fledged Zionist and so on—but this time he seems almost eager to give me some news. ‘What is it?’ I ask. And he starts to tell me about De Groot, says the chap was queer as a coot, used to stalk the little Arab boys and most likely it was one of these poor youngsters’ brothers or fathers who decided to exact some heavy revenge. All a personal matter, no politics involved. I ask him, ‘Any arrest imminent?’ thinking I might be in place for that newsworthy event. ‘No,’ he says, ‘they believe the culprit’s long gone. Fled to Egypt or somewhere.’ Finita la commedia.”
Bloomberg tried to keep his expression neutral. “And who did you think had killed him? That is, before you received the new information.”
“Well, everybody was aware that they were looking for an Arab; the whole of Jerusalem knew the police were after a suspect named Saud. And I’m sure I thought along with most people that this was a case of an Arab seizing an opportunity to kill a prominent Jew.”
“Yes, but De Groot was not a Zionist.”
“Far from it. Do you know what I heard someone say? That the black hats had done it themselves, a ploy to win the sympathy of worldwide Jewry. Taking things a bit too far, I thought.”
“And would it have been ‘taking things a bit too far’ to suggest that the Zionists themselves were responsible?”
Saphir’s eyes widened. It seemed the first time that such an outlandish idea had crossed his mind.
“That would be impossible,” he murmured. “As crazy as believing that members of his own sect did it.”
“But suppose he knew something, something that could threaten the advance of the Zionist movement?”
Saphir looked at Bloomberg. “Do you know something?” he asked.
“I don’t know anything,” Bloomberg replied, “I’m only speculating. It just seems a little convenient, doesn’t it—an Arab killer who has disappeared to another country?”
“They hate us, you know, the Orthodox. We protect them from the Arabs and in return they tell us we’re blasphemers and infidels.”
“I thought the British were protecting them, along with everyone else.”
“The British won’t be around forever. And it doesn’t look as if they’ve done a very good job. De Groot’s dead, isn’t he? And there will be Jews dead every day if we don’t get control.”
Bloomberg could have told him, could have produced the crumpled letter from his pocket, shown Saphir the tunic button that Saud had given him, described what Saud had described—the stabbing of De Groot, the boy’s escape and desperate rush down the hillside.
But Bloomberg didn’t offer a word. Saphir couldn’t be trusted, Jews assassinating a Jew was news that he didn’t want either to process or to digest, and besides, as Bloomberg suddenly realized, there was a more vital destination and use for the information that he held.
Saphir finished his sandwich, wiped his hands on its brown-paper wrapping, then went off in search of a drink. By the time he returned Bloomberg had closed his eyes, tipped his gaucho hat over his face, and was feigning sleep.
Real sleep followed soon after, and by the time that Bloomberg awoke the journey was more than halfway over. Saphir was nowhere in sight. Bloomberg found his way down to the toilet; it had overflowed and in order to piss into the fetid bowl he had to roll up his trouser bottoms and stand in a quarter inch of clouded water. Someone had stuffed an English newspaper behind one of the pipes, undoubtedly for use as toilet paper, but a few words in a headline caught Bloomberg’s eye and, even though he knew he might discomfort at least one desperate passenger before the ship reached port, he ripped off the sheet and folded it into his pocket. He emerged, slightly dizzy, through a battery of flies, and felt his way upstairs toward the light breezes of the deck, but, while he had slept, the weather had turned heavy and oppressive and when he reached the open air it offered little relief. Bloomberg gazed down; the sea, a shifting palette of greens and blues, had grown eerily calm, so much so that he could hardly feel the forward movement of the ferry. It seemed for a time as if the captain had changed his mind about the journey and decided to drop anchor.
Bloomberg found a seat and retrieved the sheet of newspaper. The headline that had captured his attention was from London’s Daily Graphic; it led an exhibition review, almost three months old, that concentrated on the first solo show of one of Bloomberg’s former students, Leonard Green. There, beneath the banner head GREEN MAKES CANVAS COME ALIVE, was a photograph of dark-eyed Leonard looking stern and artistic, and a reproduction of one of his recent paintings, a Futurist work that celebrated the factory machinery of an East End garment manufacturer. The reviewer, T. J. Furbanks, was quite certain
that Green’s art was, as its adopted style implied, the work of the future.
Bloomberg read through the review and, from the writer’s descriptions, tried to imagine how the colors of the painting might operate. He found to his pleasure that, however temporarily, he had passed beyond envy: the lavish praise heaped upon Leonard by T. J. Furbanks did not trouble him. Bloomberg’s own career, which he reflected upon now without bitterness for perhaps the first time, had not had such an auspicious beginning. Indeed, he had stumbled for years, praised by the few, until his one-man show five years ago at the Whitechapel Gallery had lifted him high and, it seemed at the time, secured his reputation forever. But the euphoria, both his and his critics’, had not lasted: a tiny crack in the general appreciation of his work slowly widened to a fissure. The group show of Jewish painters that he had organized restored him somewhat, but by last year the fissure had reached canyon width. Rereading the Green article Bloomberg wondered if anything—a career, a marriage, even a country—that started out badly could ever be put right: the effort to get things back on track was so enormous. It was true that a glowing start such as Leonard’s could also quickly fade to black, but at least the chance was there.
The Evresis pushed on through a bleak subdued twilight; lone figures, couples, and family groups circled past Bloomberg, who, as the travelers wandered to the rail and back, picked up whispers of conversation, words and phrases in four or five languages that lapped at the corners of his mind. Once, a young boy squatted next to him, peeled an orange, and offered him a slice, but otherwise he remained undisturbed. If he had thought to bring paper and pencil he would have used the opportunity to sketch, but his hands remained idle. His mind, however, was in a fever of expectancy.
Shortly after midnight a slow clanging of bells announced that the boat was steaming cautiously through the narrow pass into Famagusta. Out of nowhere, it seemed, Saphir appeared at Bloomberg’s side and the two men watched as the lantern lights of the old harbor city beckoned with false serenity out of the folds of night.
A Palestine Affair Page 26