Not After Midnight & Other Stories

by Daphne Du Maurier

  The adults at the table stared back at him, nonplussed. What on earth was the child talking about? His grandfather, trained to be prepared for the unexpected, was the first to reply.

  'The 13th day of Nisan?' he repeated. 'Now, my lively lad, stop trying to be clever and tell us what you mean:

  'I'm not trying to be clever, Grandfather,' replied Robin, 'I'm just stating a fact. I'm going by the Hebrew calendar. Tomorrow, the 14th day of Nisan, at sunset, is the start of Pesach, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The guide told me. That's why there are so many people staying here. They've come on pilgrimage from all over the world. Well, everybody knows-at least Mr Babcock does, I'm sure-that according to St John and many other authorities Jesus and his disciples ate the Last Supper on the 13th day of Nisan, the day before the Feast of Unleavened Bread, so it seemed to me rather appropriate that we should all just have finished our supper here this evening. Jesus was doing precisely the same thing two thousand years ago.'

  He pushed his spectacles back on his forehead and smiled. The effect of his words was not so stunning as he had hoped. No burst of applause. No exclamations of wonder at his general knowledge. Everyone looked rather cross.

  'H'm,' said Colonel Mason, 'this is your province, padre.'

  Babcock did a rapid calculation. He was used to problems being fired at him on the Any Questions programme he gave quarterly at the youth club, but he wasn't prepared for this one.

  'You have evidently read your gospels thoroughly, Robin,' he said. 'Matthew, Mark, and Luke appear to disagree with John as to the exact date. However, I must admit I had not checked up on the fact that tomorrow is the 14th day of Nisan, and so the Jewish holiday begins at sunset. It was rather remiss of me not to have talked to the guide myself.'

  His statement did not do much to clear the air. Miss Dean was frankly bewildered.

  'But how can this be the day of the Last Supper?' she asked. 'We all celebrated Easter early this year. Surely Easter Day was the 29th of March?'

  'The Jewish calendar is different from ours,' said Babcock. 'Pesach, or Passover, as we term it, does not necessarily coincide with Easter.'

  Surely he was not expected to enter into a theological discussion because a small boy enjoyed showing off?

  Jim Foster clicked his fingers in the air. 'That explains why I couldn't get Rubin on the telephone, Kate,' he said. 'They told me the office in Tel Aviv would be shut until the 21st. A public holiday.'

  'I hope the shops and bazaars will be open,' Jill exclaimed. 'I want to buy souvenirs for the family and friends back home.'

  After a moment's thought Robin nodded his head. 'I think they will,' he said, 'at least until sunset. You could give your friends some unleavened bread.' An idea suddenly struck him, and he turned delightedly to the Rev. Babcock. 'Seeing that it's the evening of the 13th day of Nisan,' he said, 'oughtn't we all to walk down the hill to the Garden of Gethsemane? It's not very far away. I asked the guide. Jesus and the disciples crossed the valley, but we needn't do that. We could just imagine we had gone back two thousand years and they were going to be there.'

  Even his grandmother, who generally applauded his every action, looked a little uncomfortable.

  'Really, Robin,' she said, 'I don't think any of us are quite prepared to set forth after dinner and stumble about in the dark. We aren't taking part in your end of term play, remember.' She turned to Babcock. 'They put on a very sweet little nativity play last Christmas,' she said. 'Robin was one of the Three Wise Men.'

  'Oh yes,' he countered, 'my Huddersfield lads staged a nativity play at the club. Set the scene in Vietnam. I was very impressed.' Robin was gazing at him with more than usual intensity, and he made a supreme effort to meet the challenge. look,' he said, 'if you really want to walk down the hill to Gethsemane I'm willing to go with you.'

  'Splendid!' said the Colonel. 'I'm game. A breath of fresh air would do us all good. I know the terrain-you won't be lost with me in charge.'

  'How about it?' murmured Jim Foster to his neighbour Jill. 'If you hold on tight I won't let you go.'

  A delighted smile spread over Robin's face. Things were going his way after all. No risk now of being packed off early to bed.

  'You know,' he said, touching the Rev. Babcock's arm, his voice sounding very loud and clear, 'if we were really the disciples and you were Jesus, you would have to line us all up in a row against the wall there and start to wash our feet. But my grandmother would probably say that was going a bit too far.'

  He stood aside, bowing politely, to let the grown-up people pass. He was destined for Winchester, and he remembered the motto, Manners Makyth Man.

  The air was sharp and clean, like a sword's blade. No wind- the air alone made the cutting edge. The stony path led downwards, steep and narrow, bound on either side by walls. On the right the sombre cluster of cypress trees and pines masked the seven spires of the Russian cathedral and the smaller humped dome of the Dominus Flevit church. In the daytime the onion spires of St Mary Magdalene would gleam golden under the sun, and across the valley of Kidron the city walls which encompassed Jerusalem, with the Dome of the Rock prominent in the foreground and the city itself spreading ever further west and north, would not fail to awaken some response in every pilgrim heart, as it had done through the centuries, but tonight… Tonight thought Edward Babcock, with the pale yellow moon coming up behind us and the dark sky above our heads, even the low hum of the traffic beneath us on the main road to Jericho seems to blend and merge into the silence. As the steep path descended so the city rose, and the valley separating it from the Mount of Olives down which they walked became sombre, black, like a winding river-bed. Mosques, domes, spires, towers, the rooftops of a myriad human dwellings fused together, blotted against the sky, and only the walls of the city remained, steadfast on the opposite hill, a threat, a challenge.

  'I'm not ready for this,' he thought. 'It's too big, I can't take it, I shan't be able to explain what it means, not even to this small handful of people who are with me. I ought to have stayed in the hotel reading up my notes and studying the map so as to be able to speak with some sort of authority tomorrow. Or, better still, have come here on my own.'

  It was wrong of him, uncharitable, but the perpetual chatter of the Colonel at his side got on his nerves, made him edgy, irritable. Who cared what his regiment had been doing in '48? It was out of keeping with the scene spread out before them.

  'And so,' the Colonel was saying, 'the Mandate was handed over to the U.N. in May, and we were all out of the country by July 1st. To my mind we should have stayed. The whole thing has been a bloody nonsense ever since. No one will ever settle down in this part of the world, and they'll still be fighting over Jerusalem when you and I have been in our graves for years. Beautiful spot, you know, from this distance. Used to be pretty scruffy inside the Old City.'

  The pine trees to their right were motionless. Everything was still. To their left the hillside appeared bare, uncultivated, but Babcock could be mistaken: moonlight was deceptive, those white shapes that seemed to be rocks and boulders could be tombs. Once there would have been no sombre pines, no cypresses, no Russian cathedral, only the olive trees with silver branches sweeping the stony ground, and the sound of the brook trickling through the valley below.

  'Funny thing,' said the Colonel, 'I never did any proper soldiering once I left this place behind me. Served for a time back home, at Aldershot, but what with reorganisation in the army, and one thing and another, and my wife wasn't too fit at the time, I decided to pack it in and quit. I should have been given command of my regiment if I had stayed, and gone to Germany, but Althea was all against it, and it didn't seem fair to her. Her father left her the Hall, you know, in Little Bletford. She had been brought up there, and her life was centred in it. Still is, in fact. She does a great deal locally.'

  Edward Babcock made an effort to attend, to show some sign of interest. 'You regret leaving the army?'

  The Colonel did not answer immediately, bu
t when he did the usual tone of brisk self-confidence had gone; he sounded puzzled, strained.

  'It was my whole life,' he said. 'And that's another funny thing, padre-I don't think I've ever realised it before tonight. Just standing here, looking at that city across the valley, makes me remember.'

  Something moved in the shadows below. It was Robin. He had been crouching against the wall. He had a map in his hand and a small torch.

  'Look, Mr Babcock,' he said, 'that's where they must have come, from the gate in the wall over to the left. We can't see it from here, but it's marked on the map. Jesus and his disciples, I mean, after they had had their supper. And the gardens and trees were probably all up this hill then, not just down at the bottom where the church stands today. In fact, if we go on a bit further and sit down by that wall, we can picture the whole thing. The soldiers and the high priests' attendants coming down with flares from the other gate, perhaps where that car is showing now. Come on!'

  He began running down the hill in front of them, flicking his small torch to and fro, until he disappeared round a turn of the wall.

  'Watch your step, Robin,' called his grandfather. 'You might fall. It's jolly steep down there.' Then he turned to his companion. 'He can read a map as well as I can myself. Only nine years old.'

  'I'll go after him,' said Babcock. 'See he doesn't get into trouble. You wait here for Lady Althea.'

  'You needn't worry, padre,' replied the Colonel. 'The boy knows what he's doing.'

  Babcock pretended not to hear. It was an excuse to be alone, if only for a few minutes, otherwise the scene beneath him would never make the deep impression he desired, so that he could describe it later to all the lads, when he returned to Huddersfield.

  Colonel Mason remained motionless beside the wall. The slow, careful footsteps of his wife and Miss Dean descending the path behind him were only a short distance away, and Althea's voice carried on the still cold air.

  'If we don't see them we'll turn back,' she was saying, but I know what Phil can be like when he's in charge of an expedition. He always thinks he knows the way, and only too often he doesn't at all.'

  'I can hardly credit that,' said Miss Dean, 'as a military man.'

  Lady Althea laughed. 'Dear Phil,' she said. 'He likes everyone to think he might have become a general. But the truth is, Miss Dean, he would never have made the grade. I had it on the highest authority from one of his brother officers. Oh, they were all fond of him, but the dear old boy would never have gone any further, not in the army as it is today. That's why we all persuaded him to retire when he did. I sometimes wish he would be just a little more active where local affairs are concerned, but there it is, I have to act for us both. And he has done wonders in the garden.'

  'That lovely herbacous border!' said Miss Dean.

  'Yes, and the rock plants too. They make quite a show the whole year through.'

  The slow footsteps passed without stopping, neither woman looking to right or left, so intent were they upon the rough path under their feet. For one moment their two figures were sharply outlined against the trees beyond, then they turned the corner as Robin had done, and Babcock, and disappeared.

  Colonel Mason let them go without calling them back. Then he turned up the collar of his coat, for it seemed suddenly colder, and began to retrace his steps slowly towards the hotel above. He had nearly made the ascent when he bumped into two other members of the party coming down.

  'Hullo,' said Jim Foster, 'you crying off already? I thought you'd be in Jerusalem by now!'

  'Turned very cold,' said the Colonel shortly. 'Not much sense in stumping on down to the bottom. You'll find the others scattered about the hillside.'

  He climbed on past them towards the hotel with a hasty goodnight.

  'Now, if he runs into my wife up there and tells her you and I are together we shall be in trouble,' said Jim Foster. 'Willing to risk it?'

  'Risk what?' asked Jill Smith. 'We're not doing anything.'

  'Now that, my girl, is what I call a direct invitation. Never mind, Kate can console your husband in the bar. Watch your step, this path is steep. The slippery slope to ruin for the pair of us. Don't leave go of my arm.'

  Jill threw off her head-scarf and drew a deep breath, clinging tightly to her companion.

  'Look at all the city lights,' she said. 'I bet there's plenty going on up there. Makes me feel envious. We seem to be stuck at the back of beyond up here.'

  'Don't worry. You'll see it all tomorrow, led by his reverence.

  But I doubt if he'll take you into a discotheque, if that's what you're after.'

  'Well, naturally we must see the historical part first-that's why we're here, isn't it? But I want to go to the shopping centre too.'

  'Suks, my girl, suks. Lot of little trinket-booths in back alleys with dark-eyed young salesmen trying to pinch your bottom.'

  'Oh, you think I'd let them, do you?'

  'I don't know. But I wouldn't blame them for trying.'

  He glanced back over his shoulder. No sign of Kate. Perhaps she had decided against joining the expedition after all. The last he had seen of her was the back of her figure making for the lift en route for their room. As for Bob Smith, if he couldn't keep an eye on his bride that was his lookout. The clump of trees on the other side of the wall further down the path looked enticing. Just the right spot for a little harmless fun.

  'What do you make of marriage, Jill?' he asked.

  'It's too early to say,' she answered, instantly on the defensive.

  'Of course it is. Silly question. But most honeymoons are a flop. I know mine was. It took Kate and me months to get adjusted. That Bob of yours is a great fellow, but he's still very young. All bridegrooms suffer from nerves, you know, even in these enlightened days. Think they know it all, but they damn well don't, and the poor girls suffer for it in consequence.' She did not answer, and he steered her towards the trees. 'It's not until a man has been married for some time that he knows how to make his wife respond. It's technique, like everything else in life-not a question of letting nature take its course. And all women vary. Their moods, their likes and dislikes. Am I shocking you?'

  'Oh no,' she said, 'not at all.'

  'Good. I wouldn't want to shock you. You're far too sweet and precious for that. I don't see any sign of the others, do you?'

  'No.'

  'Let's go and lean against the wall down there, and look at the city lights. Wonderful spot. Wonderful evening. Does Bob ever tell you how lovely you are? Because it's true, you know….'

  Kate Foster, who had been upstairs to take her hormone pills, came down to the lounge to look for her husband. When she couldn't find him she went into the bar, and saw Bob Smith all alone, drinking a double whisky.

  'Where is everybody?' she asked. 'Our lot, I mean,' for the room was still crowded.

  'Gone out, I think,' he answered.

  'What about your wife?'

  'Oh yes, she went. She followed Lady Althea and Miss Dean. Your husband was with her.'

  'I see.'

  She did see, too. Only too well. Jim had deliberately given her the slip when she went upstairs.

  'Well, it won't do you any good sitting there drinking that poison,' she said. 'I suggest you get your coat and come with me and join the rest of the party. No sense in mooning here on your own.'

  Perhaps she was right. Perhaps it was wet and ineffectual to sit drinking all alone when by rights Jill should have been with him. But the way she had smiled at Foster was more than he could stand, and he had thought, by staying here, that it would be a sort of lesson to her. In fact, he had only been punishing himself. Jill probably couldn't care less.

  'All right,' he said, sliding off the stool, 'we'll go after them. They can't have gone far.'

  They set off together down the path that led to the valley, a strangely ill-assorted couple, Bob Smith long and lanky, a mop of dark hair nearly touching his shoulders, hands thrust deep in the pockets of his coat, and Kate Foster in he
r mink jacket, gold earrings dangling beneath blue-rinsed hair.

  'If you ask me,' she said, as she stumped down the path in her unsuitable shoes, 'this whole outing to Jerusalem has been a mistake. Nobody is really interested in the place. Except perhaps Miss Dean. But you know what Lady Althea is, she had everything arranged with the vicar, and has to play lady of the manor whether she's in England, on board ship or in the Middle East. As for Babcock, he's worse than useless. We'd have been better without him. And as for you two… Well, it's hardly the best start for married life to let your wife do just as she pleases all the time. You want to show a little authority.'

  'Jill's very young,' he said, 'barely twenty.'

  'Oh, youth… Don't talk to me about youth. You all have it too good these days. In our country, anyway. Very different for some of the youngsters in this part of the world-I'm thinking of the Arab countries in particular-where husbands keep a tight watch on their brides to make sure they don't get into trouble.'

  I don't know why I'm saying all this, she thought, it won't sink in. They none of them think of anyone but themselves. If only I didn't feel things so acutely, it does no good, I make myself ill with worry about everything-the state of the world, the future, Jim… Where on earth has he got to with that girl? My heart keeps missing a beat. I wonder if those pills suit me…?

  'Don't walk so fast,' she said. 'I can't keep up with you.'

  'I'm sorry, Mrs Foster. I thought I saw two figures in the distance over by those trees.'

  And if it is them, he wondered, what of it? I mean, what can I do? I can't make a scene just because Jill chose to wander out of the hotel with another member of the party. I shall have to hang about and say nothing, and then wait until we're back at the hotel and give her hell. If only this bloody woman would stop talking for one moment….

  The two figures turned out to be Lady Althea and Miss Dean. 'Have you seen Jim?' Kate Foster called.

  'No,' replied Lady Althea. 'I was just wondering what's happened to Phil. I wish our menfolk wouldn't tear off in this way. It's so inconsiderate. I do think Babcock at least should have waited for us.'