Arabesque

by Geoffrey Household

  It needed little effort of the imagination to throw herself back into the raw sensitivity of that Armande who had been the loveless, shrinking, black-listed dancer at the Casino. She was clever openly to abuse Abu Tisein, but she became depressed and bitter over her wine, and allowed Montagne to draw his own conclusions. He drew them.

  “In the jolly little dog kennel,” he said, “where I hide myself among the excrement of my own thoughts, I pass my time in making a special study of Jewish politics. And I flatter myself that I have discovered the worst enemy of the Zionists. It is a good beginning for us.”

  “The Arab League?” she asked.

  “The League? Never! The Arabs are intelligent, my child. They know that they have only to attack, for all the democracies to come down on the side of the Jews. No enemy of the Zionists would pay a piastre to the Arabs. The Arabs are waiting. They know how to wait. The Jews do not.

  “Jewish Palestine is an explosive, Armande. It can be made to destroy itself. And there is no lack of those who will supply …”

  He held up finger and thumb two inches apart, as if they measured between them the length of a detonator. Armande recognised the gesture. In the privacy of her flat Montagne had a disconcerting habit, when fulminating against the Boche, of pulling out a detonator from its packing of cotton wool and exhorting it to carry out his final curses.

  “Some for one motive, some for another will help them to blow themselves up. You and I, because we hate them. I have hated Franco. And Petain. And the Catholics and monarchists who pervert my general …”

  Armande watched his eyes. They should have been burning, but they were cold, even a little hazy, at the bottom of the deep sockets.

  “… But they were decent little hates—mere dislike, shall I say?—if I compare them to my hatred for this Jewish Agency. After Hitler and his crew are in hell, the Zionists will be the only National Socialists left in the world.”

  Armande’s acting broke down in indignation.

  “That isn’t so,” she cried. “They are nationalist and they are socialist, I know. But you cannot call them Nazis. They have to be strong in order to create.”

  “Strength through joy,” spat Montagne, “and the same pretty tactics. We were in their way, eh? Little people in their way!”

  Armande had ruined her chance of discovering more. She was sure that he was not suspicious, but ordinary common sense would prevent him telling any more of his anti-Zionist intrigue to a person who was not in sympathy. She led him gently through National Socialism into a discussion of Spanish politics.

  There was now plenty to tell Guy Furney. She called him up. He asked her to lunch at a garden restaurant on the banks of the Nile, where the grilled pigeons were famous, and a table could be discreetly arranged among shrubs at a distance from other guests, who, for the most part, were respectable Egyptians enjoying family parties. Armande decided to look the humble and admiring employee in printed cotton. She had evolved an unconscious but consistent code for dealing with the quantity of free meals that came her way. If she was being entertained for herself, she did her best to please and excite her host; if she was fed as an agent of H.M. Government, she took pains to appear inconspicuous.

  “That’s a very clear story,” said Furney when she had made her report. “Now let us see what facts there are.” He smiled at her as if to disclaim any superior intelligence. “We know (a) that Montagne blames the Jews for his misfortune. Personally I think that he should blame me or the French or this damned G.H.Q. which shifted me out of Beirut at the beginning of the case. But there it is. (b) That all his fanaticism has been channelled into this personal grudge; in fact, that he’s running amok, (c) That, in contradiction to all this, he is mixed up in an intrigue with Jews. Now it would all become much clearer if we knew what sort of Jews—Zionists, anti-Zionists, neutrals or just plain black market.”

  “Not that,” Armande replied. “He cares nothing at all for money or comfort. He’s just a bitter ascetic.”

  “My poor Montagne! I’d like to drop the whole thing, and force the French to court-martial him and clear him.”

  “Then why don’t you?” she asked eagerly.

  “Because I can’t, Mrs. Herne. The difficulties are all greater than ever, for our relations with the French are worse. In Syria there are mean, conceited little men on both sides. If I now produce Montagne, there would be such a scandal between allies that only the Cabinet could settle it. I’m not afraid of being bust. It would make no difference to my career, and they could easily put somebody in my chair who was just as good and less of a nuisance. Dons—Lord, they could send the whole lot of us back to the Senior Common Room! It wouldn’t make the slightest difference to the war, and it would save a lot of office space. But this Montagne affair could poison relations for years. There’s not enough back-slapping, Mrs. Herne, not enough trust. Did you ever know a chap called Loujon?”

  “Very well.”

  “Of course you did! I’d forgotten. Well, Loujon and I—good Lord, leave me out of it!—Loujon and his opposite number in the Palestine police could have fixed up the whole affair in a frontier pub, and nobody any the wiser. And next week Loujon would have been down in Jerusalem asking for some outrageous favour in return. And got it. In the days of peace, Mrs. Herne, an official just assumed the good will of another. There are only Americans left to do that now. And we say they overdo it. By the way, returning to Montagne’s friends, what shape was the parcel he gave them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How I like to hear that! In the army there’s a most unscholarly shame about saying ‘I don’t know’. Get Rashid to clear that point up, will you? Now I have the addresses of Montagne’s enigmatic friends, and I’ll find out their names. Then, I am afraid, we shall have to pass the whole case over to Security.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Captains and Agents

  Captain Dion Prayle crossed and recrossed his long legs as he sat in a comfortable basket chair and discussed current business with Laurence Fairfather. Prayle’s section had a roving commission in Trans-Jordan, which allowed him, if he wished, to drop in at conferences anywhere between Palestine and Bagdad. After the simplicity of desert frontiers, he felt a puzzled sense of hothouse romance in the Jerusalem Field Security office, which might, he admitted, be exaggerated by the after-effects of a considerable party, half artistic, half political, to which Fairfather had taken him the previous night.

  Prayle was also listening to music, which affected him profoundly so long as it was unconventional. The sound of heavy lorries, shifting gears at the corner of King George Avenue, harmonised with an accordion record which was played in the canteen next door. He wondered why all six-ton lorries seemed to strike the same combination of notes when the engine took up the drive in bottom gear, and why the moaning of many cogs in a gearbox should be in harmony with the many stops of the accordion, whatever it was playing. Law of averages, he supposed. When so many notes were struck simultaneously, the ear selected those chords which were most pleasant.

  “Five miles from nearest pub,” he said ironically.

  Now that the troops were no longer kept busy in providing a front with its bodies and supplies, G.H.Q. was fussing about their morale. All the local newspapers had pilloried an advertisement in some English paper: Lonely soldiers five miles from nearest pub want radio. This was the subject of bitter mirth from the troops in Syria, Palestine and Egypt who had been out there three or four years without complaint, two thousand miles from the nearest pub.

  “You have a slight hang-over, Dion,” said Fairfather, “well earned in excellent civilian company. There’s only one in fifty of us who ever have the chance. Anyway, the real trouble is sex.”

  Another newspaper report that 50,000 or 5,000 or any multiple of Canadians had married British wives was also upsetting the troops. Except for a very small and enterprising minority they had no chance of any normal sexual life.

  “Four years Confined to Brothels,” Pr
ayle agreed. “But why worry? Their morale is wonderful, and nothing is going to make it any better till they are sent home. Has uncle’s loaf found any solution to our problem?”

  “It has,” Fairfather replied. “I’m going to go and ask the Jewish Agency.”

  “Cuckoo!” said Prayle. “Den of lions.”

  “It’s not. It’s the Jewish Agency. And the Mandate says it shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty’s Government (that’s me, this time) to secure the co-operation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the National Home.”

  “Den of lambs, then. But I still think it’s cuckoo. Trip up, bo, and you’ll get a bowler hat.”

  “Of course. And Palestine Headquarters know I wouldn’t complain. That’s why they have given me a free hand. I think I’d like Abu Tisein on this job.”

  “Not with me.”

  “Abu Tisein is a man of many crimes and virtues. Your Armande was only one of them. I know he’s a bloody gunrunner but he talks sense about this country. Abu Tisein and I want to build the National Home, and we both agree, at any rate, on how it should not be done.”

  “Hand washing,” said Prayle. “Like Pontius Pilate.”

  “At least he consulted the chief priests and elders.”

  “Have a heart, bo!” Prayle exclaimed. “Here’s Montagne nipping up through Trans-Jordan, dressed as an Egyptian with a packet of filthy postcards under his arm, and you want to tell the Jewish Agency what we know and ask for cooperation. It’s cuckoo!”

  “What’s he really carrying, Dion?”

  “Detonators? Machine-gun parts? Something small and valuable.”

  “They could steal whatever they want in that line from the dumps and ordnance depots without any trouble at all. I think he’s carrying money.”

  “Why not use the bank?”

  “Bank transfers can be traced. I also suspect that Montagne or his backers want to be quite sure it reaches the right hands—and so the personal visit.”

  “The Agency are lousy with money,” Prayle remarked.

  “Exactly. So it isn’t for them. And anyway Furney and Armande are quite certain that Montagne is working against the Agency. He’s obviously contracting the Stern people or the Irgun Zvai Leumi, and don’t ask me where one begins and the other ends. They took Italian money before the war, and they are taking it now from other Gentile sources. European Jewry is cut off and America hasn’t started to contribute, so far as we know. Gentile, Dion! Anybody who is really prepared to start trouble for the British Empire can always get money.”

  “But are they prepared?”

  “They have started assassinating police already. You come and see the Agency with me. They have a much better Intelligence Service than we have—when we’re allowed to use it.”

  “Politics, bo. Not what we’re paid for.”

  “God! I’d be bored to tears if I only did what I’m paid for.”

  Dion Prayle found it impossible to analyse his premonition. The business of shadowing and arresting Montagne was tricky, but it was unnecessary and undesirable to go stirring up any political mud. He had a mental picture of Laurence Fairfather trying to cut himself a lump of morass with some precise and delicate implement, and simply getting stuck.

  “I don’t like it, Laurence,” he said. “Stick to your hobby.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Coffee-housing with the King’s enemies.”

  “Ah, but I’m asked for action this time. They want to know where Montagne is going, and say he is not to be interfered with till he gets there. That’s not a police job. It’s pure army security. And the first thing to do is to see the Agency. I assume they know what I know and Montagne knows—that Irgun Zvai Leumi is their worst enemy. Whether they’ll help is another matter, but they will certainly keep their national mouths shut. You’d better come with me. Useful contacts, and they won’t eat you.”

  Prayle reluctantly agreed. His mind was not at all clear about the two wars which Furney long ago had mentioned, and he was sceptical when Laurence Fairfather pretended to accurate knowledge of the occasions for trusting and distrusting official Zionism.

  The Jewish Agency building was a government office in miniature. It was low, massive and dignified, suggesting a bank and a fort. Prayle had always passed it with mentally averted eyes; to him the activities inside seemed to reach a superhuman standard of intrigue and of faith. The interior, with its grey stone and panelling, was restful. Fairfather exchanged some chat with the clerk at the slitlike reception desk—beneath the counter of which Prayle felt sure would be a Tommy gun—and turned back with a grin as they went upstairs.

  “Ordinary chaps, just like you and me,” he said encouragingly. “You’re going to enjoy Josh.”

  Josh was dressed, with a proper degree of negligence, in light English tweed, and his face had a cultured diffidence which suggested an Oxford or Cambridge background. He was indistinguishable in type from one of the High Commissioner’s young officials. Prayle’s first reaction to such polish was suspicion—a suspicion entirely different from that which he had come prepared to feel. He reminded himself that this was the sort of man Armande would undoubtedly like, and that it was perfectly possible he had some brains.

  Josh welcomed him unaffectedly and charmingly. He evidently knew something of Prayle’s general duties along the frontier, and offered him the hospitality of any of the Jewish colonies from Dan to the Dead Sea; his face had a weary strength, while he talked, which showed him to be neither so young nor so conventional as he had appeared at first sight. Prayle guessed that this perfect facade of Anglicism must be extraordinarily useful to the Jewish Agency; the brigadiers would be impressed and cordial. Yet one could not say the manner was assumed. Whatever his opinions, this official was a whole and a fine whole.

  “Coffee?” Josh asked, coming to business.

  “We’d love some,” Fairfather replied.

  “Did you just bring Captain Prayle round to introduce him, or is there anything special?”

  “Both. It’s a long story, Josh. There’s a gentleman called Montagne whom you will doubtless remember.”

  “Not my department, Laurence.”

  “I know. I’m not going to bring that up.”

  “He escaped in ’42, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is now known as Makrisi.”

  “Makrisi!” Josh exclaimed.

  “I thought you might be interested. Makrisi is travelling up through Trans-Jordan, pretending with great success to be an Egyptian peddler. He’s watched all the way, but he doesn’t know it. Imperialist secret police, Josh.”

  “They want some help as usual, I suppose?”

  “They do. Makrisi is carrying what I believe to be money.”

  “It is money.”

  “Elders of Zion at it again, I see.”

  “Exactly, Laurence.”

  “Any infornation on the source of the cash?”

  “I am not sure. Certainly Gentile.”

  Dion Prayle observed the friendship, the sad friendship between the two men. This hard-drawn Josh made Laurence Fairfather seem a little flatulent. Yet each had his own mannerisms for attack and defence. Fairfather’s pose of bold irresponsibility was frequently productive.

  “Where’s Makrisi going, Josh?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Give me credit for some intelligence! I know he isn’t working for the Agency.”

  “Thank God for that!” said Josh sardonically.

  “All right. More cards on the table. Dion Prayle has watched—well, facilitated his journey as far as Deraa. From Deraa and over the Palestine roads we shall watch him together. But if he plays hide-and-seek with us in a town we shall lose him. Our men haven’t the experience. The police could possibly trace him right to his destination, but we rather want to keep this affair in the family. And so, Josh,” he added sternly, “do you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t want a n
ice, open airing of the Montagne-Herne business. Who were those troops who collected Wadiah’s arms, Josh?”

  “It does seem a case where I could be allowed to cooperate.”

  “Come off it! You damn well know it is.”

  “What do you want?” Josh asked.

  “I want Makrisi to deliver the money, and then I want the whole lot detained by the Hagana, and Makrisi handed over to me.”

  “Utterly impossible, Laurence. You know I can’t use the Hagana against the Irgun Zvai Leumi.”

  “Appeasement,” said Prayle.

  “That is true,” Josh admitted, giving him a swift glance. “But we hope that we can control them, and we know that you can’t.”

  “Can you control them?” asked Fairfather.

  “At any rate we are prepared to try,” answered Josh non-committally. “But the point is this. We have given you some help already, and what happened? The first time the Palestine police interrogated the Irgun about the Hagana. The second time they let their leaders escape from internment. If you police the country with a lot of inefficient anti-Semites, what do you expect? I wouldn’t mind if they were efficient anti-Semites. At least we should have stability.”

  “But you wouldn’t be working with the police. You’d be working with the army.”

  “I can’t help it, Laurence.”

  “Well if I mayn’t have some hot numbers from the Hagana, can I have Abu Tisein?”

  “Why don’t you arrest Makrisi now?” Josh asked.

  “Because we have no case against him till he delivers that money. If we arrest him now, he is sure to produce a good story to account for it.”

  “I see. Well, you’d better ask Abu Tisein. He’s in his office downstairs. I wouldn’t mind so long as you both keep out of trouble.”

  Josh rang a bell and spoke in Hebrew to the clerk who entered. Dion Prayle drank his coffee and tried to settle his face to a cold politeness. Why on earth hadn’t the Arabs bumped off Abu Tisein in the rebellion? But Abu Tisein himself supplied the answer. There was his mild, cordial, inquiring face poking round the door. No one with pleasant manners need ever die at the hands of Arabs.