A Long Way to Shiloh

by Lionel Davidson

  We went, too.

  At the hotel, the girl waited below while I went up and phoned Agrot. She was leafing moodily through a magazine in the lounge when I came down again. She looked up a bit nervously.

  ‘Have you made the – arrangements?’

  ‘Yes. Pick me up tomorrow morning about eight.’

  ‘Will we be coming back here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Will you want me next week?’

  ‘I don’t know that, either.’

  She got up slowly, and seemed to be trying to say something. I didn’t help her, and whatever it was, she didn’t say it.

  2

  It was raining in Jerusalem, too. The girl dropped me at the King David, and teetered about a bit while the porter got my bag and I went and signed in. I didn’t hurry and presently, a bit lost, she wandered over to the reception desk.

  ‘Is there anything you would like me to do?’

  ‘No.’ I was looking for a name in the telephone book.

  ‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ she blurted.

  ‘Nothing. You can push off now.’

  She hadn’t made any arrangements in Jerusalem, and was not due on her week-end till noon tomorrow, so this stymied her slightly.

  ‘You mean to Tel Aviv?’

  ‘Wherever you want. You can take the jeep.’

  ‘Well. Thanks,’ she said, flummoxed. ‘Do you want me to come back here on Sunday?’

  ‘I suppose you could.’

  She still hung about, and I looked up. ‘What’s the problem?’

  She said, gulping, ‘Caspar, I’m sorry if differences have occurred between us. What I’d like you to know is that I enjoy very much the work I’ve been doing, and I wish to continue, unless you have any fault to find with it.’

  ‘I see,’ I said neutrally.

  ‘So would you like me to telephone here on Saturday night?’

  ‘All right. I don’t know if I’ll be here.’

  ‘Would it be too much trouble for you to phone me, then?’

  ‘Okay. Leave the number.’

  She rapidly wrote it on a scrap of paper. ‘It’s a café, down below. I’ll wait in for it.’

  ‘No need for that. Your boy-friend’s coming up, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. He is,’ she said, smiling slightly.

  ‘Well, don’t waste an evening. I mightn’t even phone,’ I said, to wipe the smile off.

  It wiped off. She went, unhappily. I returned to the telephone book. Isaacs. Isaac. I didn’t want the number, only the address. It was there.

  *

  I walked up the Jaffa Road, raincoat up round my ears, found the old Turkish alley, and went briskly along it to the courtyard, holding my nose. The scent of sanitation and gefillte fish was, as ever, very strong. A maze of iron staircases led to a honeycomb of flats. I climbed up to the first floor and rang the bell. I heard him there presently, and he opened the door. The light was poor on the balcony and he stared hard.

  ‘Well, you bloody old bastard,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Ike.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Let me in and I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said.

  He was large and stout, and wearing at the moment his ginger moustache, pale blue underpants and a pair of chukka boots. The place was like a furnace inside.

  ‘Did I catch you in the bath?’

  ‘You must have smelled it, you frigging old ram. I’ve got crumpet here.’

  The crumpet, two separate portions of it, lay on the floor under his floodlamps, surrounded by oil heaters. The girls were even more simply dressed, in dark glasses.

  ‘Well, I’m –’ Ike said. ‘Here, girls – we’ve got the biggest fornicator in the English aristocracy. He’s their Olympics champion at it. They love a lord,’ he said, winking at me. Even his Hebrew had a broad Yorkshire accent, and he used it fairly racily without benefit of euphemism.

  The girls seemed used to his little ways and greeted me amiably enough without moving a fraction of an inch. They didn’t seem to understand English, but I persevered for a minute or two to make sure.

  ‘So what’s to do?’ Ike said, when he’d got me a drink.

  I told him, in English.

  ‘H’m. Himmelwasser. I know her.’

  He knew everybody. In the early fifties, he’d been perhaps the most accomplished camera artist in Europe. He’d given up his journalistic work in Israel, but as I’d found at Megiddo, had lost none of his accomplishment, or his nose for what was going on round him.

  ‘She’s good,’ he said.

  ‘Rigid.’

  ‘It’s the nature of the work.’ He winked at me, and set about rearranging the girls while I told him the rest. Then he went behind his camera and took a couple of pictures.

  ‘I’ll tell you, Caspar,’ he said at length. ‘I wouldn’t want to run foul of Himmelwasser or the university. I do a bit for them, you know.’

  ‘You wouldn’t run foul of them. They wouldn’t know about it.’

  ‘What if I buggered it up?’

  ‘You could have a look at it, see what you think.’

  ‘All right. So what to-doings have you been up to meanwhile?’

  I gave him a brief run-down on Galilee and Ein Gedi.

  ‘Ein Gedi, eh?’ he said. ‘Find your way up to the Cave of Shulamit there?’

  ‘Yes. Very nice,’ I said.

  ‘Anybody I’d like?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You went up with a girl, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Is it obligatory?’

  Ike looked at me. ‘The cave with the water running down,’ he said, to get it right.

  ‘That’s the one. How are you supposed to get in?’

  Ike’s face went a little bit bent. ‘You take your clothes off, you silly bastard,’ he said. ‘That’s the whole idea. You mean you didn’t?’

  I looked at him with a faint sinking feeling.

  ‘Oh, Jesus God,’ he said. ‘She must have been overjoyed with you. Why, you poor old eunuch, you, we’d better get you back in shape. Come back tonight and I’ll keep these bints.’

  But I hardly heard him, remembering only the look on her face when I’d suggested we needed swimwear, and the way she’d lingered over her cigarette, and the silent journey down again.

  ‘I can’t tonight, Ike,’ I heard my voice saying. ‘I’m tied up tonight. Agrot’s running in for a chat.’

  ‘Chats, chats,’ Ike said severely. ‘You can do your chatting tomorrow. There’s serious to-doings here tonight. Get rid of him early.’

  *

  But I didn’t get rid of him early. Agrot ran in for his chat about ten. We were still chatting at two.

  *

  What with this, and the joint frustrations of the week, Dr Hilde Himmelwasser was due to sail into stormy weather next morning; which she did, at ten o’clock sharp. The problem was to edge her out without actually kicking her out, and though Agrot refused to do the job himself, he’d agreed to provide moral support and to approve my arguments if appealed to. He insisted that no reflections be cast on her work, but with this the only hold barred, I was off at the bell and within five minutes had her bouncing off the ropes distinctly cross-eyed.

  It was all done by kindness, and though the cow was on to me in a trice, and quickly dropped her zisses and zats to engage on level terms in Hebrew, she hadn’t the advantage, as I had, of having gone a few rounds with a class performer like Mrs Birkett.

  What it came down to, I said, was that she’d taken it as far as it could possibly go. There were limits to what an emulsion could do, and her techniques were the most advanced in the world. If she couldn’t do the job in the time available to me, then nobody could; and time was now of the essence. If I couldn’t have the words, then the physical handling of the skin was better than nothing, and this – with her approval – was what I now wanted.

  By half past ten, Agrot had symb
olically accepted her scrollery key, and she had symbolically taken herself off with a pot of emulsion.

  Agrot picked up the skin and looked at it sombrely.

  ‘What has survived for eighty generations,’ he said slowly after a while, ‘doesn’t just belong to our own.’

  ‘It isn’t much use to anybody at the moment, is it?’

  ‘Other generations might find ways of making it useful … The ink has oxidized right into the skin,’ he said, squinting at it sideways. ‘Apply chemical treatment and the whole lot could vanish. God knows how I’d justify myself if it did.’

  ‘Well – it’s not the only copy, you know.’

  ‘It’s the only one we’ve got.’

  ‘What do you want to do, then – leave the decision to me?’

  ‘No. It’s my decision,’ he said. But it took him a bit longer to make it. It was midday before I got to Ike’s; with the skin.

  *

  Agrot’s nervousness had made me nervous. Ike was nervous, too.

  He said, ‘Christ, it’s dodgy, isn’t it?’

  ‘There’s something there.’

  ‘Oh, there’s something.’

  It showed as a faint iridescence against the surrounding blackness. He was holding the skin in a slanting light under an arc.

  ‘What has she done, do you know?’

  ‘I suppose everything bar treating the skin itself. I’ve brought you a few of her prints,’ I said.

  He had a look at the prints.

  ‘Why didn’t she treat the skin itself?’ he said.

  ‘She wouldn’t. Also, she had no authority to.’

  ‘Does that mean I haven’t got authority to?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t mean that. If it’s necessary, you can.’

  ‘Who said so?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Do I get it in writing, or what?’

  ‘You just take my word for it.’

  He had a look at me. Then he had a look at the prints and at the skin.

  He said, ‘I’m not actually too barmy about this, Caspar.’

  ‘I guarantee nobody will know about you.’

  ‘So what if the frigging thing just disintegrates?’

  ‘I disintegrated it.’

  ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘Look, is it possible for any words to come up off there?’

  He said, ‘Yes, I think it’s possible. I’m not saying what would happen to the skin. You’d have to photograph it fast before the lot went … I’m almost frightened to touch it.’

  ‘Do it for me, Ike.’

  ‘I’ll see.’

  ‘I’ll call you this evening.’

  ‘I won’t have anything by this evening!’

  ‘I’ll still call you. And Ike – have you got a safe here?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got a safe.’

  ‘Any time it’s not in your hand, see it’s in the safe.’

  Then I went back to the university, more nervous than ever.

  *

  I didn’t have any lunch. I had a few cups of black coffee. Agrot had black coffee, too. We spent the afternoon in the scrollery. There was still plenty to do on the notes there, and after a while I managed to focus on something that had been bothering me all along. I got out the relevant prints, and then the relevant notes. There were several alternative readings. I sat down and worked out my own, all the same.

  No one has told me, my version went, that our acts are [known to?] Northern Command. I cannot in my soul — — that this Command [authority?] in our acts. The young officer himself – not possible [to say?]

  I hadn’t been wrong. There was a tone of surprise, consternation, shock here. Why? Which other Command did he expect to know about his ‘acts’? He was operating in Galilee, the area of Northern Command. If any Command was going to know, it would be this Command. Or was he simply upset that the military should be involved at all in what was a secret Temple operation? I didn’t think that. He’d been too keen to set down that it was specifically Northern Command.

  Agrot studied my notes. ‘I don’t like your reading,’ he said. ‘It’s too emphatic. The thing is a matter of nuance.’

  ‘Doesn’t he sound surprised to you?’

  ‘He was a priest, of a legalistic turn of mind. He’s concerned to set things down exactly. All through his report he is punctilious to apportion blame – or to absolve people of it. Here he suspects a hi-jacking operation, and he is setting down as clearly as he can that it was officially authorized by Northern Command. At the same time, in case it should turn out to be quite kosher, he’s clearing himself of any charge of obstruction – nobody told him. You’ll notice he’s very careful to absolve the young officer of any blame or dereliction of duty. The search for him, when he ran away, was properly conducted, etc. It’s all of a piece.’

  ‘But he’s surprised it should be Northern Command. He’s implying they have no business to be there.’

  ‘In your reading, not in mine,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘I came across several similar things in the Bar Kochbah work. The style is often declamatory and repetitive. It’s a tricky nuance. I shouldn’t waste time with it.’

  This is always something that has to be allowed for with Israeli scholars, of course; the feeling that it’s faintly ridiculous or even slightly improper for any Gentile to challenge their reading of the lashon kodesh, the holy tongue, particularly on matters of nuance or shades of meaning. All very tiresome; but I persevered.

  Later, he said, ‘What time are you calling Isaacs?’

  ‘After dinner. Do you want to get back to Barot?’

  ‘No. Good God. I can’t rest.’

  ‘He might be all week-end, you know.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay all week-end.’

  This didn’t make me feel any better, either.

  *

  We ate a gloomy dinner together, and afterwards I telephoned Ike.

  He said, ‘I told you, I won’t have anything tonight.’

  But I could hear something in his voice. I said, ‘What have you done so far?’

  ‘Christ! Won’t you be told? Nothing.’

  ‘Are you optimistic?’

  ‘So-so,’ he said.

  I smiled and felt my toes uncurling. He’d got something. He wanted to hit me with it all in one go.

  ‘How’s the skin?’

  ‘Why don’t you go and exercise yours?’

  ‘All right. I’ll call you in the morning.’

  ‘Don’t call. Come round. About eleven.’

  ‘What – you really think –’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ike said. ‘And – off!’

  I went back and told Argot. We had a couple of brandies on it.

  *

  It was still raining next morning, and I shot round there in a taxi. I’d been up at six, sleepless, and had gone for a walk in the rain with Agrot, also sleepless. I went briskly up the alley, holding my nose.

  I was early, and Ike didn’t answer the door himself. A little fellow in a white lab coat did.

  ‘Mr Isaacs in?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s Dr Laing? I’m his assistant. He’s through there, working. He’s expecting you, Doctor. Go in.’

  He shut the street door behind me as I went in.

  I said, ‘Well, you bastard – hit me with it!’

  He did. Somebody did. Somebody hit me with something. My head seemed to explode and shatter in fragments. Just as I fell I had a glimpse, as if through a prism, of the little assistant, peering carefully, solicitously almost, into my face.

  7 A Horrible Thing in the House

  Israel is defiled. [Hosea 6.10]

  1

  I was lying under the car on the A.6 and Paula was being sick again. This wouldn’t do, of course. I detached and deep-breathed, as advised, and it did the trick. No A.6. No sweaty nightmare blankets, either, though. Just mustiness, carpet mustiness. I’d passed out, then. Only where? And who was being sick? Somebody was being sick. Was it me being sick?

  N
o, it was Ike being sick, poor old bastard. In his pyjamas, too. I seemed to be up on one elbow looking at him. He was being sick the wrong colour. He was lying on his side. It was all down the front of his pyjamas, and underneath him. My head was a long way away and icy cold. Wherever the hell it was, it was hurting. Then it returned, and we associated, and I said, ‘Oh, Christ,’ and tried to get up.

  ‘It’s all right,’ somebody said, clicking his tongue. ‘Stay still. You’ll be fine in a minute.’

  ‘What the hell is happening?’ I said. My lips seemed to be numb, and I said it in Arabic, no doubt because he’d spoken Arabic, too.

  He didn’t say anything, just went on clicking. It was the little alleged assistant, and he had an ice-bag on my head. He was cleaning up my face, which seemed to be wet. Two others were there, heavy darkish men, moustached. They were sitting smoking, keep a casual eye on me, and on Ike. Ike was lying under the lamps, where the crumpet had lain. He was lying in a quite relaxed way, except for a subdued twitch every now and again as he vomited. His face was sideways on the carpet, in a pool of it, eyes open like a fish and looking at me. It was not an apprehensive or an urgent look, just thoughtful, absorbed almost, as if he were metering the flow that gushed rhythmically from his mouth. I was suddenly vomiting with him, horribly.

  I seemed to be in the bathroom then, and one of the men was holding me while the alleged assistant quick as a cat, dabbed at my face with a little face flannel.

  ‘It’s all right, you’ll be fine, there’s nothing to worry about,’ he said, worried. ‘You just need a hat. Give him a hat,’ he said.

  One of the men took his hat off and put it on me.

  ‘That’s fine. You look quite well. It’s only to the car,’ the assistant said.

  I was weaving about, horribly shocked, mumbling. ‘What are you doing? What have you done to Ike? What do you want here?’

  I knew, of course – in some remote, though acceptable way – what they’d done to Ike and also what they were doing here. Knowing it didn’t make it any less surrealist or improbable. It seemed important as I reeled about in my hat, to assimilate every detail of what was going on here. These characters were going to kidnap me. They were going to kidnap me in broad daylight! They had to be stopped, for God’s sake. They had to be hoodwinked, outwitted, frightened off in some way. In what way, for God’s sake? And by whom, for God’s sake? There were two big powerful men here, and one alert little spry one, all quite plainly on top of the job.