Something to Answer For

by P. H. Newby

  Abravanel could be heard slithering away, probably in his slippers, and Townrow shouted after him, “If you think there’s going to be a British invasion why worry about Elie’s property being nationalised? It would only be for about a fortnight.”

  Abravanel shouted back, “Elie was my friend.”

  It became an exaggeration to say he was a prisoner. He did not want to get out. He was tired. He was waiting for this French doctor from Ismailia, though as the days went by it seemed less and less likely that he would come. Leah no longer mentioned him. It was one more uncertainty to add to the list. Townrow’s face creased as he thought of them. No doubt it was a grin. What underlay everything was the basic uncertainty about Elie. Everything else, his own nationality and what had happened to Leah in the Greek Sailing Club that he had been unable to find her, this all seemed to spring from not knowing the truth about Elie. He wondered why he took the confusion so calmly. Serene. The word was one you could use. He would have liked everybody else to share his serenity.

  Particularly Leah. One evening she began talking about her husband again. Apparently the first sign of his illness had been his complaint that the phone was being tapped. He worked in an automobile plant—he was an electrician—and he became convinced the company were tapping his phone to make sure he didn’t talk about this new process they were developing. He had never been a good sleeper. She used to put out sandwiches and a vacuum flask of coffee in case he went down to the kitchen in the middle of the night. After a meal he could sometimes drop off again. But one night she heard him banging the utensils about. He had one of the kitchen knives, she discovered, and was hacking away at the bread board as though it were a sabre. He pointed it at her when she went into the kitchen, so she went straight back out into the hall and phoned a friend whose husband came round about half an hour later bringing with him, of all people, a Roman Catholic priest. You see, this friend was Catholic and in the excitement the husband had assumed Leah’s husband was Catholic too, though they knew Leah was not, and so the priest came, very sleepy and putting up his hand all the time to hide the yawns. He was very kind, though. It had been snowing and the men had snow on their shoulders.

  “What happened?” said Townrow.

  “We all went back to bed after a bit. The following week he started being a voluntary patient.”

  “So you came home.”

  “After a bit. There was nothing I could do. I like the States, though. People’re friendly. But if you’re a foreign girl they’re funny sometimes.”

  “When did you hear from him?”

  “He’s not voluntary now.”

  “What you want is an affair.”

  “With you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh no.”

  “You’ve got to learn to be positive about life.”

  “I don’t call it positive to be unfaithful to my husband.”

  “Could be, you know. You’ve got to get on some sort of wave and ride it. Or you go under.”

  The French doctor from Ismailia had the name of Duchâteau and turned out to speak excellent English. He was in his fifties, clean-shaven, very black hair shot with white, big black eyebrows that would have made an oblique angle had they met, energetic, quick. He was an old friend of the family. He gave Townrow a perfunctory examination and shrugged. “Your face has healed. You’ve had bad burns, Judging by what Leah tells me you’ve no symptoms of dysentery, but I expect they’ll come back. I would have come before but I’m sending my family home. I put them on a boat for Marseilles this morning.”

  “She didn’t say I was crazy?”

  “Everybody is, more or less.”

  “Her husband is.”

  “So it seems. What’s the next move?”

  “The police are holding me on a sort of suspended murder charge. They also suspect me of espionage. When they know I’m actually living in the flat of a woman married to an American and she’s Jewish they’ll think it’s an Israeli conspiracy.”

  “And it isn’t?”

  Townrow stared at him. “What sort of a specialist are you, anyway? You a psychiatrist? No? Well, I don’t know why Leah called you in. I wonder you didn’t bugger off back to France with your family. You getting jumpy or something?”

  Duchâteau refused to lose his temper. “I have an official position so naturally I will stay. There is bound to be fighting. But you know this probably better than I do. My belief is the French Government is quite delighted over the nationalisation of the Canal. It is just the excuse to knock Nasser out. If it weren’t for Nasser the Algerian rebellion would fizzle out next week. The French are more realist in this than the British. Naturally I am concerned about all this. My family have been settled in Algeria since 1871.”

  He produced some American cigarettes and both men smoked. Duchâteau lectured. “It’s got to stop somewhere. There was 1940. There was Indo-China. Now Algeria. Why is it absurd you and Leah are not agents in some Israeli conspiracy? What could be more likely? There is no need to answer or comment. I am discreet. I have known Leah since her childhood. This story of your being out on the lake. I ask you! And she looks after you! In her own flat! She has tremendous spirit, I tell you. She’s not the usual Levantine Jewess. Clearly, there is nothing seriously the matter with you physically. What else could I do but assume I was being summoned to be of service? Until Friday I shall be here, staying at the Hotel de la Poste. You can have complete confidence.”

  He stood to attention, saluted, and would have walked out if Townrow had not grabbed him by the arm, and said, “You can take it from the old master-spy himself there’ll be no invasion.”

  Duchâteau looked disappointed. “What is the plan to be, then?”

  “The Egyptians are entitled to nationalise the Canal in a few years anyway. If the convoys keep going through——”

  “I can see you do not trust me. I am sorry,” Duchâteau said stiffly, “but in the circumstances perhaps I do not blame you. Always find me at the Hôtel de la Poste. After that Leah has my phone number.”

  This time he managed to escape, contriving an impression of respectful eagerness. Leah came in some time later, looking a bit puzzled, to ask what Townrow had said to him.

  “He wants one of our spare plastic bombs to blow up the Egyptian Army H.Q. He’s ready to disguise himself as a Bedouin and take messages to the Israeli army. And he wants to borrow the transmitter so that he can talk to the American Seventh Fleet. I thought he’d come to give me a stool test. I was amazed.”

  “Why are you so strange? You are laughing at me.”

  “I wouldn’t know whether I was an agent or wasn’t an agent. Don’t tell me. I just don’t want to know. I don’t want you to talk to me. Keep that bloody old fool, your father, out of this place, you hear? I don’t want explanations.”

  The words were savage but he spoke gently, with his hand on her arm. He had come up from the depths and was standing high. Not standing. Rushing forward swiftly through blue air. His flight was effortless. This was how you made use of uncertainty and confusion: fuel to lift you from the launching pad. They were driving him in a marvellous trajectory of hope and love.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Under Inspection

  By the time they were arrested they had given up playing the nurse and patient game. Leah grabbed Townrow and said, “Stop them! You must get in touch with your consul.” Townrow had moved into the bedroom the week before. Leah had time to wrap a gown round herself but Townrow was naked except for his pyjama trousers.

  He stood up and she pressed her body squarely and flatly against his. He put his arms round her and looked over her head, first at Amin in a smart blue uniform with silver pips, registering that the fellow had not bothered even to remove his cap; then at a curiously pale and puffy woman dressed in a buff-coloured cotton suit with a little badge in each of her mannish lapels. They were accompanied by a couple of amazed-looking police sergeants, each with a Sten gun. Townrow stared at these weapons. All the time he
was gripping Leah. She trembled. She was really frightened. Townrow looked at these Sten guns and marvelled, partly that this bunch of policemen should have forced their way right into the bedroom. They must have known they stood a real chance of being scandalised, prudes that they were. Maybe they were not prudes. Maybe they enjoyed exposing themselves to all this psychological tension. Mainly, though, Townrow marvelled at the realisation something had happened to make him love this woman so much he would have been ready to stand there holding her to all eternity. He kissed her on the top of the head.

  “Sweetie! Sweetie! God but you’re sweet,” he said, knowing this was trite, but suddenly ready to produce real tears at the thought of being separated from her. They pricked his eyes.

  “I should’ve thought a time the Israelis were invading you’d be too busy for this kind of bloody nonsense,” he said to Amin.

  “Your Air Force was bombing Cairo this morning,” said Amin.

  “Come again.”

  “The Royal Air Force has bombed Cairo.”

  “Aw, no.” There was no point in Amin lying about this and Townrow had to believe him because yesterday he had heard a B.B.C. broadcast saying Eden had demanded the Egyptian Army retired ten miles west of the Canal. He said to Leah. “He’s been looking at the wrong map.” He didn’t care how much success the Israelis had had in the Sinai peninsula they certainly hadn’t reached the Canal and there was no kind of justice in expecting the Egyptians to fall back as though they had. If an ultimatum like that was possible where did things begin to get absurd?

  “Get dressed, both of you,” said Amin. “We’re taking you off for questioning.”

  “Since when has this been a job for a Legal Officer?”

  “These are unusual times.”

  The policewoman touched Leah on the shoulder and Townrow had to restrain himself from hitting out at her back-handed. If they took her away they’d tear him in half. They would be stripping the living flesh off him. His face and neck ran with sweat. His hands were so wet they slipped on Leah’s shoulders and he said to Amin, “Go on, get out of this room, all of you. We’ll get dressed and come out. What d’you think this is? A zoo?”

  Amin spoke to one of the policemen who began picking up Townrow’s clothes from the chair where they had been thrown. The other came round and rapped Townrow in the kidneys with the butt of his gun.

  “You can get dressed as we go along,” said Amin. “I must warn you not to resist.”

  “I’m going to phone the British Consul.” Leah would have run out of the room but the policewoman grabbed her. A spare policeman, appearing from the hall, put an arm lock on her.

  “The Consul is under house arrest. You do not understand.” Amin was so remote as to sound absent-minded. “This bombing of Cairo. We are in a state of war. Now the British will bomb Port Said and Alexandria. What can we do?” He shrugged. “Mrs Strauss will dress and accompany this lady.”

  “Mrs Strauss!” Townrow had forgotten this was Leah’s name. “She’s an American citizen. You can’t touch her.”

  He tried to hook himself on to the frame of the bed, wrapping his legs round one of the massive Victorian wooden legs, but this only led to the bed being dragged away from the wall. The lead of a reading lamp snapped. A stack of old, yellow newspapers which had apparently been stored under the bed—they were copies of the Journal d’Egypte —came to pieces and spilled round the room to be churned up by the feet, two naked pairs, three booted, Amin’s in brown shoes and the policewoman’s in black, until Mr Abravanel, standing in the doorway, dressed neatly and formally in a dark suit, stiff collar and grey silk tie, was heard to shout, “I warned them. I said the law would punish them if they lived together. It is immoral. It is disgraceful. But everything can be arranged. They will marry. I give you my word.”

  “This is not a question of sexual morality,” said the policewoman, speaking for the first time. She had both arms wrapped round Leah. Her voice was surprisingly deep and masculine. “Under the Revolution we shall have high standards, in public life, private life, everywhere. But first we have to destroy the imperialist aggressors.”

  Townrow had lost his pyjama trousers. He was carried naked into the hall where, one by one, Amin handed him his vest, his pants, his socks, his shirt, and Townrow put them on while Amin asked if an enemy would get such good treatment in Britain when Britain was being attacked and invaded and Mr Abravanel walked up and down saying, “She had a good religious upbringing. It is the century we live in.”

  “I’m not an enemy. What is that woman doing to Mrs Strauss in there?” Townrow nodded at the closed bedroom door.

  “Dressing. She too is to be questioned. You will be questioned. Everything will be written out. The two accounts will be put side by side. Then they will shoot you.”

  “For God’s sake!”

  “I am speaking unofficially. In Egypt we rarely execute people for political reasons, but spying——”

  “When you say the British have bombed Cairo you don’t mean they’ve bombed residential parts?”

  “Obviously they’ve tried to knock out the Egyptian air force. They’ve bombed the air fields.”

  “You know I don’t believe this.”

  “If you shoot this man,” said Mr Abravanel, stopping and speaking to Amin fiercely, “You know what that will mean? This bombing. Of course there has been bombing. Next week the British will be here. If you shoot this man they will shoot you.”

  “I have no doubt of it,” said Amin calmly.

  From the bedroom nothing but silence.

  “I want to see Mrs Strauss before I go.”

  “No.”

  Two policemen had to hand their guns to a third so that they could carry Townrow out to the lift. The moment he was convinced Amin was not lying about the bombing attack he felt dizzy. His body was too big for him. He lacked the strength to move it. Back at the Yacht Club, when the Egyptians brought their first convoy up the Canal, he had this same feeling of being able to race about inside his head and guts. That had been a gay occasion. But now he was just amazed how people put up with the fact of being human. This sad-faced Copt who spoke scarcely above a whisper, he was obviously no great hero but he went on breathing and talking as though it meant something. And Abravanel and these policemen: Townrow marvelled they didn’t break down, cry and say they couldn’t carry on.

  Amin said the official car had packed up so they were taking him to jail in an ordinary taxi. This permitted Townrow to see where they were going. He sat in the back seat, propped up between a couple of policemen, saying nothing but trying to concentrate on the fact that everybody had minds and knew they had to die: these men, and everybody in sight, Amin in the front seat by the driver with a comfortable fold in the back of his neck, the men and women on the pavements, the boys riding donkeys, the children, all with the infernal sun falling steeply out of the gritty air, they all knew they would be dragged off; but they went on as though it didn’t matter. He tried to concentrate on this extraordinary indifference, or forgetfulness, as the taxi drove down past the railway station. They hit the Kantara road and were making for the first bridge when the taxi turned right and Townrow saw the mud-coloured walls of the prison in front of him.

  A few minutes later he was in a clean cell with a large, barred window looking on to a courtyard with a big banana tree and the curving trunks of a half a dozen palms, so tall he could not see the foliage at the tops. The window just cut off these trunks. They were gnarled and naked pipes.

  “You’ve got to tell me everything now,” said Amin. “Carefully and from the beginning.”

  Townrow looked up and saw there was a third man in the cell. He was a major in the Egyptian army, sitting at a table with an open notebook in front of him. He nodded and smiled at Townrow and began writing with a huge fountain pen. Well before noon they had forced Townrow to admit the British had bombed the military airstrips and hangars outside Cairo (they brought in a radio and let him hear the B.B.C. on short wave) and
this meant the British and French would be landing any day now. Townrow saw he had been dead wrong about practically everything but the more he confessed the less the Egyptians believed him. They thought he was just pretending to be a crook in order to convince them he wasn’t a spy. He couldn’t make them understand he had been turned inside out. He was obsessed with Leah. He thought about her all the time, even as he lay on the bed talking to these two Egyptians. This was all part of the reversal. No, not that stuff about being redeemed by the love of a good woman. She happened to be the one good he could think of. If there had been any redemption it had been brought about by the shock of disillusionment; if the ordinary man did not instinctively understand the acts of his government and, indeed, found them bestial he could only respond by taking himself in hand. He must tell the truth. He must be honest. That was the logic of it. Otherwise he lost the right to criticise. Townrow rocked from side to side. These bloody Egyptians couldn’t understand the agony he was going through. He just wanted to go on being a bastard, the way he’d always been since they slung him out of college, but, for Christ’s sake, how could he if Eden was one too?

  He kept thinking about Leah. He could see himself on the lake with her. When the bombing started they would be out on the lake looking for Elie’s island. When they found it, Elie would be there, sitting on a pillar, a vague, vast presence like God Almighty. Townrow knew this was all balls, though. The man on the pillar was Leah’s husband, and what could they say to him?

  *

  Townrow said to Amin and the scribbling major you were really living when you were forced to go back over your tracks and you discovered one of your basic assump-tions had nothing behind it. You were alone. You had been slung out: of college to begin with, and that was all a misunderstanding. But it was like being shut out of Eden. And what a sour mockery it was this man’s name should actually be Eden. The listening Egyptians seemed to have all the time in the world. They sipped from glasses of water. Townrow sipped from a glass of water. Prisoners could be heard exercising in the yard. Talk. He could hear his own voice buzzing like a fly. On the previous week the papers had gone through, putting him legally in possession of the Khoury apartment block. That was as far as the old girl would go. The bank deposits, the property in Beirut, the stock, the house down near the station, all these she hung on to. But the plum had been signed over and if these two men thought he was lying he would tell them exactly how it came about. Like the rest of us she had a bad conscience. Not espionage. Townrow said he did not have espionage on his conscience either, he was just an ordinary grafter and if they didn’t believe him would they listen carefully?