Mr. Mani

by A. B. Yehoshua

  —Thirty-one, sir. A scraggly, dark-haired chap. On the short side. But though he’s at most ten years older than me, he looks old enough to be my great-grandfather, with so many wrinkles you might think every one of his crooked thoughts had spilled out of his brain and over his face. Thirty-one, sir, but tough enough to be fifty, awfully earnest and not at all youthful. The morning he was caught he was wearing a peasant’s cloak and had three black goats in tow, which were a rather symbolic representation of the flock he was supposed to have. He headed straight up the hill to Sergeant McClane’s funk hole and woke him up from his sleep...

  —Quite so, sir. And there, in those foggy wee hours, he was asked for his certificate; and when he didn’t have it, he was taken aside until there was enough light to see what matter of man he was. But before a few minutes went by, sir, he tried escaping under cover of the last darkness; so that now he was taken, goats and all, and put in a little room; where he sat all day long as the rain turned to snow, refusing to eat and cursing darkly in Arabic while waiting for the Ulstermen to get so bloody sick of him that they would tell him to clear out. Which was not, I daresay, an unreasonable hope, especially since, huddled in his corner, he understood every word that they said, although he never opened his mouth to let on. And in fact, they would have packed him off soon enough, since the snowstorm kept them from bringing him to headquarters in Ramallah, if Sergeant McClane hadn’t laid down the law and insisted on waiting for the military police to look him over.

  —I should think you would be, sir; so was I. A fortnight ago, when we ran through with him what had happened prior to recommending him for promotion and a medal, I asked him what had aroused his suspicion. Shall I tell you what he said, sir? “Sure now, the goats didn’t like him. I know a thing or two about goats, and his didn’t like him one bit.” Tipped off that the man was a spy by three sulky goats, ha ha ... that’s what I call a keen eye! The next day a deputation came slogging through the snow from Jerusalem: two military policemen and an interpreter, Roger Evans, a Queen’s man from Oxford—one of our university Orientalists who know the Koran inside out but lose their tongues when they have to ask for the time of day in Arabic, because their dons, who have never been east of the Thames in their lives, forgot to tell them there were Arabs in the world and thought they were teaching a dead language like Latin or Sanskrit. Well, there they were, the two of them, old Evans ruddy cross at having been dragged out in the cold for some daft shepherd, and the shepherd sitting in his corner, all huddled up in his cloak with his head bowed...

  —Directly, sir. Picture him, if you can, huddled in a corner with that little Ulsterman sheepishly biting his nails; and old Evans jabbering away in his unspeakable Oxford Arabic; and the shepherd answering glumly; and the military policemen jotting it all down: a perfectly mad tale about some runaway goats whose tracks were washed out by the rain, and some village across the lines; and everyone ticked off at that obstinate Ulsterman who had raised the very devil for naught ... and in fact, old Evans was already getting up to go when something about that shepherd rang a bell—by now he’s told us about it a thousand times, because I had to put him up for a promotion and a medal too; so you see, sir, this episode has helped to advance more than one military career. Well, Evans asked for more light and told the Arab to stand; and then he removed his head cloth and looked him straight in the eye and told him to take off his cloak; and when the chap refused and began to protest, the soldiers stripped it from him; and dashed if he wasn’t wearing a dark suit underneath with a little striped necktie; and there was a book in the pocket of the jacket with all sorts of papers falling out of it; so that old Evans burst out laughing and said, this time in proper Oxford English, “Why, Mr. Mani, is it you?”

  —Mani, sir. That’s his name.

  —Joseph Mani. Sounds rather like money, but it doesn’t mean that at all. Or like manic, but it doesn’t mean that either.

  —As far as I know, it doesn’t mean anything, sir. It’s just one of your oriental Jewish names. Because you see, sir, the shepherd wasn’t a shepherd, and the Arab wasn’t an Arab but a Jew, who suddenly changed his tune and began to speak the king’s English in a Scots brogue so thick it could have been fished from a loch; and then, as if he had been simply playing a prank, threw his arms around Evans and began to walk out with him, because he too, sir, was an interpreter in His Majesty’s service.

  —Yes, sir, a genuine Scots brogue. You’ll hear it yourself tomorrow when he enters his plea. He picked it up as a boy at St. Joseph’s in Jerusalem, back at the end of the last century, from a Scottish priest who hammered it into him until there’s no getting it out again. His father and mother were both British subjects, sir, which makes him one too, even though he’s never been to England. That’s why the prosecution will have to ask for the death penalty, since he’s a national who has betrayed his country ... which is why I’ve come to you, Colonel, to ask your advice before the trial begins.

  —Of course, sir. Pardon me.

  —Quite, sir, quite, it was my mistake to jump ahead. I simply didn’t want to bore you with all kinds of details that I myself find endlessly fascinating.

  —Utterly fascinating, sir. And I’ll be delighted to. Well, there he was in that room, minus his cloak and in his frayed suit, with all sorts of papers sticking out of his pockets. Straightways he began telling some cock-and-bull story about a woman behind Turkish lines, a totally garbled, outrageous yarn; but our stubborn Ulsterman, now triumphantly vindicated, snatched the papers away from him and discovered a bundle of maps of Palestine, as well as some proclamations in Arabic, which he didn’t need to read in order to know that they were not precisely what one brought one’s ladylove; and so off he went to fetch a rope, tied up his prisoner, and—not trusting the policemen or the interpreter—set out with him for headquarters in Ramallah, from where Mr. Mani was taken to Jerusalem. I remember the night of his arrival. It was still quite parky, although the snow had begun melting in the narrow streets, and a few of us officers were sitting in the club and warming ourselves by the hearth when the police duty officer entered and informed us that a spy had been caught near Ramallah and was now under interrogation. Quite naturally there was a great to-do, and you know, sir, it strikes me that we British make rather a fuss over espionage, no doubt because we are taught from childhood on to be so trusting...

  —Yes, sir, I do think so, sir. Who of us does not have his own private spy fantasy in which he singlehandedly brings some hidden bounder to justice? And so there was this police officer in the middle of the room with rain still trickling down his greatcoat, guardedly telling us what he could while we stood around him in a circle, until I stepped up to him—I remember it quite clearly—and asked, “But who is it? An Arab, I’ll wager.” It was obvious to me that no one else would spy on the British Empire. “Not at all,” says he, his blue eyes twinkling, “it’s one of our side.” Well, there was general consternation at that—but he, sir, he just looked me straight in the eye and said, it was too much for him to resist: “I mean, not exactly one of our side; he’s one of those Jews who’ve leeched onto us...” He knew very well who I was—he even threw me a cheeky, half-jesting smile—and I recall feeling, sir, if I may say so, thoroughly in a funk, not because of the anti-Semitic remark, which means nothing to me and is something I can shrug off quite coolly, but because of the quite maddening coincidence. Here was Major Clark about to leave the next day and finally give me a shot at trying a major case—and who should it involve but a Jewish spy in Jerusalem, a fact that an uncalled-for delicacy might regard as reason...

  —Quite right, sir.

  —Quite right, sir.

  —To spare me the discomfort...

  —Indeed, sir. You know what we military advocates generally have to deal with: desertions, brawls, petty thefts, drunkenness, insubordination—in a word, thirty- and sixty-day sentences and one-guinea fines. And here was a real investigation, something to get to the bottom of, where possibly lurked a man’s dea
th. I was so beside myself that I left the club directly and went straight to the divisional guardhouse by Jaffa Gate, under the assumption that that’s where this Mani was being held. Of course, I had no idea at the time what his name was, but I was determined not to be elbowed aside, and soon I found myself standing out in the cold night across from the place called David’s Tower, which is a sort of miniature version of the Tower of London, with my mind racing ahead. Just then I noticed a Jew dressed in black, hanging back by a little lane that ran into the empty square—and I knew directly that he was connected to the spy and had come to see what was being done with him; which meant that word had already reached the concerned parties in Jerusalem, who had sent a first scout to reconnoiter; and a most clandestine-looking, eternal-looking, metaphysical-looking scout he was ... only later did I discover that he was not the least bit different from his scoutmasters...

  —I’m sorry, sir, there I go again getting ahead of myself.

  —The twenty-eighth of February, sir. The next day was a tense but quiet one at the advocate-general’s office. Everyone knew about the investigation in the Tower of David, and the brigadier was beating the bushes for Major Clark, who had been absent from work for several days because he was busy packing and buying gifts—oriental baubles, silk scarves, and little rugs for the British gentry waiting for him impatiently, I daresay irately, in England. And now this spy had fallen on us out of the blue, and the major was terrified of having his leave canceled and being made to take up the investigation while his little bun was growing daily in its oven, which was something the whole British army couldn’t have done anything about. He kept running from the tailor’s and the jeweler’s to the interrogation cell and the brigadier, and from there back to the advocates’ office for a look at the lawbooks—and never a word to me, sir, not a hint that I might take the case upon myself, although he knew I would have given my right arm to do it. Wherever he went his hip flask went with him, and he had the squinty look of a beaten dog...

  —I don’t believe, sir, that he’s partial to anything in particular, whatever’s available will do ... Well, that evening the first sergeant relayed an order for us four advocates to remain after work, and after a while Major Clark appeared, all bleary-eyed from drink and the day’s intrigues; his little squint was gone, and he was wearing his dress uniform with the brass all polished and the decorations agleam. I could see at once that he had vanquished the brigadier and received leave to attend his own wedding, and I knew he would never be back in the Orient, since his future father-in-law had landed him a plum on the general staff to make sure he didn’t fly the nest again now that it was properly feathered. And so he sat the four of us down with the Handbook of Wartime Jurisprudence and the secret file in front of him, speaking to all of us but looking only at me, because he knew his man and realized that for the past twenty-four hours I had been preparing myself for the case. First he told us about his adventures that day and about his tilt with the brigadier, and then he said to me: “And you, my dear Ikey, shall make this Jew your business, just don’t forget whose side you’re on; I want a proper investigation, and a proper indictment, and death, because that’s what the law calls for and what divisional headquarters expects, seeing that this blighter is responsible for the loss of lives and artillery across the Jordan. You’re the very man to do the job quickly and smoothly, since who could deny satisfaction to a Jew asking for another Jew’s head? By Jove, it should be a special treat...”

  —Yes, sir. Those were his words A special treat.

  —That’s just his manner, sir. I’ve never taken it to heart, sir. I’ve served with Major Clark for over a year now, first in France and then here, and there isn’t a more likable, decent chap anywhere, even if he has a sharp tongue. And his anti-Semitism is the most natural thing in the world; I mean, it’s all a parcel with his views on women and horses, which are very solid indeed and have survived their encounter with the facts with hardly a scratch. But he wouldn’t harm a fly and in fact there’s no greater gentleman ... Well, sir, we all drank to his health and went our ways, and I went mine firmly gripping the file as though it were a most wonderful book that I was about both to read and to write. I couldn’t wait to talk to the prisoner, who was mine now, all mine’... I knew he was still putting up a brave front and admitting nothing, and no sooner had Major Clark left the room than I was out in the wet, lonely night, heading for the guardhouse. It was nearly midnight; the melting snow was trickling underfoot; a huge moon buzzed down above the city walls as if it were being hauled in on a kite string; and suddenly, as I was crossing the walled city in utter silence from the Damascus to the Jaffa Gate, I heard a snuffling and a tinkling of bells; and a shepherdless flock of black goats came charging out of a lane in such a dark frenzy that they might have been a pack of devils looking for the Archfiend himself, and vanished down another lane and were swallowed up by the cobblestones. The church bells were ringing away, and there was a smell of freshly baked bread, and I was actually trembling with desire to begin, already haunted by the momentous feeling that has gripped me, waking and sleeping, for the past five weeks ... and which, Colonel, is the reason I’m here now, tiring you without getting to the point, because the story keeps coming between us, and I’m afraid I may already have tried your patience too far...

  —That’s very kind of you, sir. And so I climbed the stairs of the tower that the Jews call the Tower of David and the Arabs el-Kal’a; and I woke the sergeants and the duty officer and showed them the file and my authorization to conduct the investigation, which from now on I was to be in sole charge of; and I instructed them to let no one near the prisoner except by my express permission. Then I was taken to the cell block, past four hundred years of Turkish rule to a dungeon, a sort of round pit encircled by a walkway, in which our prisoner, the defendant, had been put like some sort of dangerous snake or panther, although in fact, in his black suit he looked more like a buzzard. He was seated on an army cot and reading a book by candlelight, a hard look on his gaunt, lined face; reading as though reluctantly, with the book half-pushed away from him. It was a Bible with both Testaments that an evangelical old officer of the guards, thinking him as good as hung already, had given him for his soul. He was so absorbed in his defiant, his recalcitrant reading that he didn’t notice me looking down on him from above—not even when, like an actor on stage, he let the book drop, blew out the candle, cast himself down on the cot, curled up like a baby buzzard, and shut his eyes. My first thought was to let him be until morning while I studied the file and planned my attack; but the more I looked at him, the more something told me that unless I pressed ahead that very night, I would never get a confession out of him; no, the more time I let pass, the more tightly he would weave the tissue of lies he had cocooned himself in. And so I asked for a room and a pot of coffee and sat down to read the file and put my thoughts in order, and at 2 A.M. I returned to him. It was very cold down there. I removed his blanket and touched him; and he opened his eyes, which were so big and pure and young-looking that you could see they hadn’t been made by whoever had made the rest of him; and I started speaking quickly and gently right into his dreams, casting a fine net to trap the fish of truth in its muddy swamp; while he, confused and tired though he was, in fact, thoroughly dejected, did his best in that clear Scots brogue you’ll hear tomorrow to get a grip on himself and swim clear, carrying on once more about some woman of his behind Turkish lines, as if we were talking, not about villages of fanatically ignorant Mohammedans whose females go veiled and barefoot, but about some town along the Loire in a story by de Maupassant, with pretty young mademoiselles in embroidered aprons waiting for their lovers. And he too, he insisted, had “a ladylove,” although you could tell at a glance that he wasn’t a ladies’ man but a man of words who couldn’t picture the figment of his own imagination; so that had I asked him what the color of his lady’s eyes was, he would have marveled that they had any color at all, let alone that he was expected to know it. It was a lie I w
asn’t having any part of. And yet the less I would hear of it, the more he clung to it, telling me about this woman he had been trysting with for a month, adding embellishments to his own ridiculous yarn that he clearly didn’t believe a word of, as if it had taken hold of him and made him its master instead of the other way around; until at last he fell silent, shivering from the cold, and let his ladylove recede back into the mind that had concocted her. At that point, I took him up to the office; I let him warm himself there, made him a cup of hot tea, and introduced myself. “What will it take to make you trust me?” I asked him. He answered that he had a little son whom he hadn’t seen for three days and missed terribly; and so I woke three soldiers of the guard, and at 3 A.M. we set out for one of those new quarters outside the walled city, Abraham’s Vineyard was its name, and knocked on a door there. A middle-aged woman in a clean frock, with a rather nice, pleasant face, opened directly, as if she had been waiting for us. When she saw the soldiers she cried a bit; and the man touched her gently and murmured something in Hebrew and hurried up some stairs to a second story; and soon he came back down with a four-year-old child in his arms, a handsome blond boy who looked out of sorts, or perhaps a bit soft in the head. You’ll see him in court, sir, tomorrow; I’ve granted him permission to attend the opening session, because I know that if the defendant had counsel, he would use the child as grounds for clemency...

  —Directly, sir.

  —Yes, sir.

  —No, sir.

  —Quite so, sir.

  —The point is, sir, that while he was kissing his son I ordered the soldiers to search the house and make sure to go through every drawer and collect every scrap of paper that they found. We sat without a word in the kitchen, the two of us with the boy on his lap, until they finished and came back with a large basket full of papers, after which I told them to sit in the drawing room and had them served tea. Meanwhile, there was already a first purple glow outside, and a few lights came on in the neighborhood, because news had spread of the police. And yet that was the only sign of life there was in that utter, predawn silence. The woman put the boy back to sleep and went to bed herself; and we sat there, the two of us; and I said, “Look, why don’t you tell me about it from the beginning, or if you like, from even before that: just who are you?” By then we were both so horribly fagged that only the truth could keep us awake, and that’s what he began to tell me while I sat there listening, that was the opening through which I fished his confession. Afterward it was merely a question of dotting the “i’s” and crossing the “t’s.”