A new world was breaking out around him, of salesmanship, of opportunism. Birds were flying everywhere with their beaks, greedy exotic birds, seeking for food with opportunistic instinct. His nest had been raided by the cuckoo, the bird of spring, the source of whose voice was invisible.
It was a world in which Celia might thrive.
He looked out at the snow. Maybe he should draw the curtains.
No, he told himself with a sudden burst of energy. I must not do that, I must watch, I must not hide. I shall watch it out to the end. I owe myself that. I owe myself a seat in the theatre of nature, however painful.
And when she leaves me I must endure that too.
It is the least that my special subject can give me.
The Dawn
I imagine this Israeli soldier in his olive-green uniform standing by himself on the Golan Heights. The battle has just finished. With half a dozen tanks the positions were held till the reserves were called up. These included David, Saul, Abraham and many other great Jews, for history is in the present as well as in the past. This Israeli soldier forms in front of his own eyes the history of his people, Joseph and his coloured coat, Abraham, Isaac, Moses and the general who actually entered the Promised Land. It was Joshua who aligned the guns and used the field glasses. The Syrians were in fact Philistines, Germans, Assyrians.
It is morning. The land is silent, the dew is falling gently on the grass. He can almost hear it falling. There is a spectral quality about the morning light. The tanks lie in the mist like stranded beasts.
God was with them again, history was with them again. God was in the concentration camps too. At one time he demanded sacrifices, now he demands morality, discipline. It is better to be ethical than to offer sacrifices in smoke and fire. God followed them however in symbolic fire and cloud. The concentration camps had meaning, even the children’s shoes lying on top of each other in the Holocaust Museum had meaning.
I fought for my country, for the True Land, thought the Israeli soldier. I am proud of what I have done. This is my predestined country. I have not let my people down, he thought in the spectral light. God is with us, who then can be against us? Even the long years in Babylon had meaning. The world blazes with the presence of God.
But the spectral light troubled him and the bodies of the enemy troubled him, especially of one of them who was young, and at whose breast a rose of blood faded. His face had a severe purity. It was like a face he had once seen in a painting.
The Israeli soldier turned away. The tanks were spectral in the light. The army had held out till help came. Everyone was involved in the common battle, with the historically dead and the living. He had seen Joshua waving them on. His face had flashed among the maps. They were invincible: even the Romans had learnt that when the Jews had killed each other at Masada rather than surrender.
His eyes returned to the Syrian whose proud dignified face troubled him. The boy was about his own age. It was as if he was looking at himself. Consider how free of ideological ardours a body is in the spectral light of dawn.
A thought struck him thunderously. If everything that happened was God, then God was the same as history. If the concentration camps and victories were the same in God’s sight, then God was only another name for history. If one praised the concentration camps, the exiles, then one was only praising history.
He stood there shivering in the gathering light. God . . . history. Then there was no need for God at all. He put his hands to his head. Where had the evil thought come from? Was it the work of the Devil? No, the light wasn’t getting stronger. The mist was was still swirling about the ground. And yet he could see a red sun through the mist, a raw red sun, the temporal face of God. If all events were important or unimportant God was only another name for Time, for History.
He shook in the suddenly cold morning.
We have been betrayed, he thought. The concentration camps happened. So did this victory. If we had lost, the event would still have been praised: it would still have been God’s holy work. History and defeat are the same in the ideological enigma that has always been propounded. Joy and sorrow are the same. If this victory is equal to defeat what follows? God therefore is archaic, a superfluous quantity.
The young dead swart face stared up at him. It was a flower like the flowers that surrounded it. If we had not committed suicide at Masada, if instead we had surrendered, that too would have been considered God’s will.
The electronic fence surrounds us. If the nose of a dog touches it, we know of it. The mines around our feet flower. Joseph lived in Egypt, became an Egyptian and saved his brothers. His dazzling robe was bright and terrible. It glowed with an infernal duplicity.
There they were together, the Israeli and the Palestinian soldiers. In death they did not seem so different. They seemed pure and inviolable. They were lying in all sorts of positions, some had one arm, some had one leg, some had torn breasts. There was no ideology here, only silence.
He looked down as if he was examining the pages of some holy book. But these pages yielded nothing. Questions and answers, they were all the same. The bodies did not suffer, they simply were.
The sun was reddening and reddening. It was no longer God’s head. It was simply the sun. It was not spiritual power, it was a combination of heat and gases. The land was not symbolic at all. It was simply grass and stone and flowers, tanks and dead bodies. It was history, event, it had no authority.
He passed his hand over his eyes. It was almost as if he was about to fall down, so dizzy he felt. He sat among the bodies and watched them. But they remained inflexibly as they were. The sun was solid in the sky and he felt heat on his shoulders. Time was itself and history. Ideology did not know of these shadows and these guns. He put his hand out and touched the face of the Syrian soldier. It was not as cold as he had thought it would be. Changed forever, he sat among the dead bodies, each different from each other, the more minutely he examined them. The mist had moved away from them and showed them exactly as they were, unique, dignified and devastatingly individual.
The Red Coffin
Sometimes she believed that her son was simply lying, at other times she was not so sure. He didn’t look like a liar, there was nothing furtive about him when he was telling his stories, but he did seem to dream a great deal. It was as if he wasn’t quite of the common earth. Perhaps that was why he was called the Lark by the other boys; they had seized on this unworldliness and his flights of fancy. His latest story however was rather odd. He had come in and asked her casually whether there had been a funeral that day.
‘No’, she said, though her own dress looked funereal enough.
‘That’s funny,’ he said.
‘Why should it be funny?’ she asked. Her hands were white with the flour she had been using for baking.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘There is,’ she said, ‘or you wouldn’t have asked.’ Was this another lie, another flight? These lies, if they were lies, worried her for she had been brought up to tell the direct truth.
Sometimes however he didn’t want to tell her and she had to force what she thought was the truth out of him. Already it seemed as if he regretted his question. But she wouldn’t rest.
‘Well, what is it then? Why do you think there might have been a funeral?’ She would get to the bottom of this, she wouldn’t leave it alone.
‘It was just . . . ’ he said,
‘Just what?’
‘I thought I saw . . . what looked like a funeral. Only it couldn’t have been a funeral.’
‘Why not?’
‘They weren’t wearing black.’
‘Who?’
‘The people.’
‘What people?’
‘The people carrying the . . . ’
‘Coffin, you mean.’
There was a pause.
‘Do they always wear black, mother?’
‘Of course they always wear black,’ she said. ‘What would you expect them to wear?�
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‘Yes, only they . . . ’
‘Only they what?’
‘They were wearing sort of tunics.’
‘Tunics?’
‘Yes, like . . . You see them in books. They were red and green. And they were wearing pointed hats. Yellow.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘That’s what they were wearing,’ he insisted stubbornly.
‘Who?’
‘The people at the funeral. And the . . . coffin was red.’
‘What on earth? Where did you see this?’
‘At the brae. They were close as . . . just next to me. They never looked.’
‘It was your imagination. Who ever heard of a red coffin? And people wearing pointed hats at funerals. It’s all these books you read. You must have seen it in a book.’
‘They were just next to me. I knew one of them.’
‘Who?’
‘I knew Calum Mor. And I think it was Angusan.’
‘What a liar you are,’ she said.
‘I’m not, I’m not,’ he screamed.
‘Or you dreamed it then. Perhaps you fell asleep and dreamed it.’
‘I didn’t dream it.’
But she was relentless.
‘Well, then it couldn’t have been a funeral. It must have been something else. Maybe you saw a circus.’ And she laughed.
‘There was a coffin,’ he said. ‘And it was red. And they were all wearing these clothes.’
‘A red coffin,’ she said. ‘Who ever heard of a red coffin?’
‘I saw it,’ he said. ‘I did see it.’
She looked deep into his eyes which were candid and clear. Something strange stirred within her. Something uncomfortable, eerie. Her own child appeared strange to her. Perhaps he had the second sight. But even if he had, who had ever heard of a red coffin?
She looked down at her hands which were white with flour. This puzzling boy who always seemed to be dreaming.
She tried to imagine a red coffin and couldn’t.
‘There was something else,’ he said.
‘What was that?’ she said absentmindedly.
‘There was a picture on the coffin.’
What was this? A Catholic funeral. Was that what he had seen?
‘Of the man in the coffin, maybe. He was wearing the same kind of clothes as the others. He was winking at me. He looked like . . . ’
‘Like who?’
‘Like Calum Macrae.’
‘It couldn’t be Calum Macrae.’ Calum Macrae was an elder of the church. He would never wink at anyone, never. He was a big heavy man and looked solemn and important . . . ‘No, it couldn’t have been Calum Macrae.’
This was really the height of nonsense. Why should she be listening to this?
‘Hadn’t you better go and bring in some peats,’ she said.
‘Right,’ he said. He was always very obedient. After a while he came in with the pail and stood in the door again, the sun behind him. And suddenly she saw it, that extraordinary picture. He was wearing a tunic, red and blue, perpendicular colours. And on his head was a pointed hat. And he was laughing hilariously. She made as if to walk towards him in her black dress but he kept moving on and she followed him out into the sunlight. There he was, a good distance from her, and he was waving to her and she was following him. It was so strange, she seemed to be dancing, and he was dancing as well. And there were flowers all round them, red and white and yellow. How extraordinary.
And in his hand he was carrying a little red box, a beautiful red box like a jewellery box which she had once seen and never had.
And the sun poured down reflecting back from the box while he danced away with it. And she felt so happy, never, never had she felt so happy.
And when she looked down at her dress, it was no longer black but green. And his eyes were candid like water. And in them she saw a picture of herself. And the two of them danced onwards together.
The Bridge
My wife and I met them in Israel. They were considerably younger than us and newly married. They came from Devon and they had a farm which they often talked about. For some reason they took a fancy to us, and were with us a fair amount of the time, sometimes on coach trips, sometimes at dinner in the evenings. They were called Mark and Elaine.
I didn’t like Israel as much as I had expected I would. I read the Jerusalem Post regularly, and was disturbed by some of the stories I found there, though the paper itself was liberal enough. There were accounts of the beatings of Palestinians, and pictures of Israeli soldiers who looked like Nazis.
Certainly it was interesting to see Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Garden of Gethsemane, and they reminded me of the security of my childhood: but at the same time seemed physically tatty, and without romance. Also we were often followed, especially in Jerusalem, by Arab schoolchildren who tried to sell us postcards: the schools were in fact shut by official order.
Though this was the first time Mark and Elaine were abroad they were brighter than us with regard to money. Mark had a gift for finding out the best time for exchanging sterling and was, I thought, rather mean. Sometimes we had coffee in a foursome during the day or at night, and he would pull his purse out very carefully and count out the money: he never gave a tip. He was also very careful about buying for us exactly what we had bought for him on a previous occasion. On the other hand he bought his wife fairly expensive rings which she flourished expansively. They walked hand in hand. They were both tall and looked very handsome.
One day the coach took us to the Golan Heights. There were red flowers growing there, and some abandoned tanks were lying in a glade. The guide, who was a Jew originally from Iraq, told us that a few tanks had held off the attacks till the reservists had been called up. ‘They can be called up very quickly,’ he said. It was very peaceful, looking across the valley to the other side but there were notices about unexploded mines.
Often we met young boys and girls on the buses. They hitched rides from place to place in their olive-green uniforms. They were of the age of schoolboys and schoolgirls. One morning on a bus I heard a girl listening to a pop song on a radio that she carried with her. It seemed very poignant and sad.
I used to talk quite a lot about articles I had read in the Jerusalem Post, which was my Bible because it was the only paper written in English. But neither Mark nor Elaine read much, not even the fat blockbusters that passengers on the coach sometimes carried with them. They told us a great deal about their farm, and what hard work it was. Then there was also a lot of paper work, including VAT. They were very fond of each other, and, as I have said, often walked hand in hand. He was very handsome: she was pretty enough in a healthy sort of way.
We were told by the guide a great deal about the history of Israel, about the Assyrians, about the Crusaders, about the Philistines. I especially remember a beautiful little simple Catholic church above Jerusalem. Then in Jerusalem we were shown the Via Dolorosa. At intervals along the route, young Jewish soldiers with guns were posted. ‘Here is where Christ’s hand rested,’ said the guide, pointing to the wall. He himself had emigrated to Israel from Iraq. ‘They took everything from us, even our clothes,’ he said; ‘for years we lived in a tent.’ He had served in the paratroopers and was still liable for call-up.
We saw Masada, which was very impressive. Here the Jews had committed suicide en masse rather than surrender to the Romans. At one time the Israeli soldiers had been initiated into the army at a ceremony held at Masada, but that had been discontinued because of its passive associations. Thoughts of suicide were not useful against the Arabs.
I found it difficult to talk to the young couple about farming since I didn’t know much about it. My wife, however, who had been brought up on a farm, chattered away about sheep, cattle, and hay. For myself I was more interested in the information I was getting from the Jerusalem Post. For instance, an American rabbi had said that the reason for the stone-throwing which had started was that the cinemas at Tel Aviv had been o
pened on a Saturday night.
We often saw Orthodox Jews wearing black hats, and beards. They sometimes read books while they were walking along the street. Also we saw many of them chanting at the Wailing Wall, where the men were separated from the women. My wife wrote a message and left it in the Wall as if it were a secret assignation. There was one comic touch: some of the Orthodox Jews covered their hats with polythene if it was raining, as the hats were very expensive.
I read diligently in the Jerusalem Post. Apparently in the past there has been stone-throwing against Jews. This was in mediaeval times and when they were living in Arab countries. But though Jews complained nothing was done about it. It was considered a reasonable sport.
My wife often used to wonder why Mark and Elaine had picked us for friends since they were so much younger. Did we look cosmopolitan, seasoned travellers, or did they simply like us? Sometimes Elaine talked to my wife as if she were talking to her mother. I found it hard to talk to Mark when the women were in the shops. He often spoke about money, I noticed, and was very exact with it. I sometimes thought that it was he who looked like the seasoned traveller, since he was always totally at ease and was excellent with maps.
The two of them didn’t take so many coach trips as we did. Often they went away on their own, and we only met them in the evening.
They didn’t go to the Holocaust Museum with us the day we went there. The place was very quiet apart from some French schoolchildren who scampered about. My wife hissed at them to be quiet, but they only grinned insolently. There were piles of children’s shoes on the floor: these had been worn by victims of the Holocaust. There were many photographs, and a film that ran all the time.
There was also a room which was in complete darkness apart from thousands of candles reflected from a range of mirrors, so that it seemed that we were under a sky of stars. A voice repeated over and over again the names of the children who had been killed. The Jews had suffered terribly, but were now in turn inflicting terror themselves.
The Black Halo Page 67