Judith

by Lawrence Durrell

  “Certainly.”

  “Then that is all.” The dark figure turned and vanished, a door closed. The doctor turned to them smiling and said: “Well, I imagine nobody will want to bathe in the Jordan tonight...

  “On the contrary,” said Judith suddenly. “I would.”

  Two of the other girls after some hesitation also said they would, much to the doctor’s surprise. In the case of Judith it was pure superstition. She had a sudden idea that the river might cure the rash on her throat! The idea at any rate seemed to enliven them all, and the doctor, laughing, led them through the darkness of the groves to where they caught the murmur and flicker of the river. Here she dived into a shed and produced towels, before leading them down onto a wooden jetty where they began to undress. Only Judith and two of the others took the plunge into the water, groaning as the cold hit them. A thousand tree-frogs and water-tortoises slithered down from the banks, their eyes agleam in the light of the doctor’s torch. The fat woman washed her face and drank the legendary water in cupped hands. The doctor sat on the jetty, watching them and smoking.

  Then, when they were dry, she led them once more across the maze of interweaving paths among the dim houses to where a gaunt building stood. As they entered it, the lights suddenly flashed on and a subdued cheer rose from the half-dozen or so late-comers who were finishing their dinners. The girls glanced curiously about them, half-blinded by the sudden illumination. Fifteen or twenty tough-looking men, mostly blonde, were eating their evening meal. They were clad in the traditional blue pants which Judith was to come to recognize as the uniform of these workers. They talked in low voices and smiled a greeting (“Shalom”) at the newcomers. It was a typical kibbutz canteen and several trolleys full of food circulated, pushed by girls and boys, some of whom were of another cast of feature with the long sallow faces of Sephardic Jews and their great dark eyes. The doctor took charge of the party, explaining everything in her cool detached voice: they fell upon their food ravenously and earned her smiling approval by their appetites.

  Then the little party made its way outside. Judith stood still, inhaling the deep scents of the night and said to herself: “The stillness is the extraordinary thing.” The ordinary geography of the camp had now become much easier to comprehend, for with the restoration of the current the bulbs which lighted the curving intersecting pathways among the trees shone out clearly. A faint feeling of recognition came to the tired girls. The doctor led them to their quarters in a clean hut full of small single cubicles, each with a locker, a chair and a bed in it. She said good-night to the others and then, turning to Judith, said: “Would you care to come and see if Pete is back, or are you too tired?”

  “No, I’ll come. I’m curious to know what she wants of me.”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure.”

  The two women made their way back towards the tall dark ramparts of the Crusader fort; now, with the light, its outline became clearer. It was obviously used as an administrative block, the houses and offices built cunningly into the ceinture of the ancient wall. She remarked on this, and the doctor said, “Yes, the old walls are still thick enough to stop a bullet.” It sounded a somewhat ominous remark. This time, they climbed the long wooden staircase and walked along the row of closed doors until they came to the end one. The doctor threw it open and they walked in. The light was on but the room was empty. Its only furniture was an old desk, a table, some files and a small old-fashioned safe. There was no ornament in the room save a small silver-framed photograph on the desk. Judith found herself gazing at it with amazement, hardly able to believe her eyes. She walked closer and stared. No, there could not be any mistake. She started out of her dream as the doctor spoke. “Well, she’s obviously not here and I don’t think she’d want to keep you hanging about, so let’s go.”

  Without a word, Judith followed her along the landing and down once more into the courtyard, now feebly lit by a single electric bulb. She turned to the doctor and put an arm on her shoulder. “I can remember my way back to my billet,” she said with a smile. “You don’t need to show me. You must be sick of the sight of us all by now — and after all you’ve done too!” The doctor smiled and patted her elbow. “I admit to being tired, if you are sure you can find your way...

  “Of course.”

  “Then I’ll go back to my house; my husband will be there waiting for me, and probably a bit worried about the time.”

  “By all means,” said Judith, “by all means.”

  They said good-night and separated, and Judith was all at once glad to be alone. She walked, deep in thought, among the dark trees, slowing her pace to a saunter, while one half of her mind enjoyed the deep odours of the night, the smell of blossom. The sky was dark, but with a brilliant velvety darkness and the stars shone brightly. She turned off the track for a moment and sat down at the foot of a tree to savour it all for a few moments before she surrendered to sleep. She had been there for a few seconds only when she heard footsteps upon the pathway to her right and the sound of low voices. A man and a woman were approaching, in silhouette, with the feeble light behind them. Vaguely she recognized the outline of a man who looked something like Aaron; with him was a tall thin figure walking with a deliberate meditative slowness, dressed in some formless fashion which suggested a shawl, a mantilla or a cape. Yes, the man was Aaron. As they approached she heard him say in a sharp authoritative tone: “Pete, you listen to me and stop throwing your weight about. You may run the place as you please, but you are not running me.”

  “I’m not trying to,” said the deep hoarse voice which Judith recognized as belonging to the woman called Peterson. “Not at all. But you are not to take any decisions inside the perimeter without consulting me or I shall have the committee on your neck. Is that clear?”

  Aaron sighed with exasperation. “I am responsible,” he said angrily, “for the defence of this valley. My decisions are going to be respected and my orders carried out.”

  “Not unless they meet with the approval of the committee.”

  “Damn the committee.”

  “I would be heartily glad to. But I can’t.”

  Aaron stopped and took her roughly by the arm. “Listen, Pete,” he said angrily, “if we get this new stuff we shall have to improve the instruction for the settlement. This is automatic stuff, not bolt-action rifles and rusty muzzle-loaders. And everything will depend on it. I have made up my mind to find an extra hour a day for it. I know that everyone is dead-beat in the evening, but what else is to be done? We must turn them into efficient francs-tireurs as soon as possible. What’s more, I propose to start tomorrow if the stuff arrives.”

  “I shall tell the committee. You will have my answer tomorrow.”

  “Stop crossing me, Pete.”

  “You stop crossing me, Aaron. I know how serious your military considerations are, but so are the crops. We must find a way round both difficulties. But you are not ordering me around, do you see? Not as long as I’m organizing secretary here.”

  He bit his lip. They glared at each other like angry dogs. “Look,” he said at last, “if we get the stuff, I propose to start tomorrow night with a general demonstration... if the committee agrees.”

  “That’s better,” she said grimly.

  “And if it doesn’t, I shall know who to blame and who is responsible — and I shan’t forget it, Pete. On my word.”

  “Good-night,” she said gruffly, and turned on her heel. Aaron stood in perplexity, looking after the diminishing figure. Then he shook his head and made off in another direction, banging his leg with a switch.

  Judith was once more alone. She moved circumspectly across the path now towards the little hut from which a chorus of healthy snores resounded. The door of her room was ajar. She entered in darkness and undressed quietly before slipping into the hard but not uncomfortable bed. She turned on her side, put one arm under her head and was instantly asleep — a deeper, dreamless sleep this time which carried with it a hint of reassurance and
even of a fugitive contentment. In her mind she heard the ripple of the Jordan river and felt its cold waters sliding across her breasts and flanks.

  4

  Pete

  She awoke with a start, and found herself gazing into a pair of enormous black eyes, set deeply under arched brows in the long pointed features of an ancient Greek queen, or a witch. They were eyes with a deep sadness in them and yet at the same time with a hint of something like mischief. The face was oval, the forehead high, the lips thin and aristocratic. It was so close to her own that she had the sudden illusion that it was magnified to twice its normal size, as if seen through a lens. The figure was wearing not a mantilla but a dark shawl which was drawn up over her head in the fashion of a peasant-woman. The dark hair was liberally streaked with grey, though it was thick and curly. It was a head of striking beauty, with its long slender nose aimed justly to compensate for the hardness of the chiselled lips. The hands too, which had been softly touching the girl’s forehead in the darkness, were resolute and strong, and ringless. All this Judith took in with a single glance. It was clearly Miss Peterson, and she was kneeling beside the bed with a small candle alight in a saucer. They stared at each other for a long moment, neither pair of eyes so much as blinking. Miss Peterson’s, enormous and the colour almost of tar, were focussed on Judith with concentration and a certain air of greedy assessment. But, seeing herself observed now, she allowed a smile to overflow into them though her lips did not copy it. She put her finger to her lips and said, “Sorry I missed you.” Even her low whisper sounded hoarse and strong and peasant-like. Judith propped herself up and said:

  “What is my father’s photograph doing on your desk?”

  “Ah, you noticed it?”

  “Yes.”

  Miss Peterson depressed her cheeks in a smile which hovered on the edge of mischief, before turning to a kind of sadness. She said: “I was his mistress for many years. You could have been my child. That is why I was curious to see you. I only once caught a glimpse of you when you were small.”

  “I heard he was in love with a woman called Peter.”

  “I am Peter.”

  “But she went away. I don’t know why.”

  “There were several reasons. It was for his sake...

  “But, Miss Peterson...

  “Call me Pete if you wish; everyone does.”

  “Pete. And you brought me here?”

  “Well, not me entirely. I knew they were going to try and get you out and I asked for you here; but I don’t expect you’ll stay long. I imagine that Professor Liebling will want you in Jerusalem.”

  “The physicist?”

  “Yes — he arranged it all. It has something to do with your father’s work.”

  “I see!” Judith lifted her head from the pillow.

  Pete stood up now, very thin and tall; even in the rosy candlelight her pallor was striking, giving her a witch-like cast. She whispered: “I’ll go now and get some sleep. Good-night, Judith.” As she turned to go, Judith put out her arm and drew her face down towards her own. They kissed briefly and smiled. “See you in the morning.”

  5

  The Kibbutz

  Next day dawned fine and brilliant, and Judith made her way to the gaunt dining-room for her breakfast, walking rapturously through the green groves of fruit-trees on grass made springy and verdant by frequent watering. Everywhere there were sprinklers at work, spouting a fine hazy parabola of water. She began to accustom herself to the geography of the place, and found her way back to Miss Peterson’s office without much trouble. Here everything was bustle and activity. A couple of typewriters chattered; everywhere lay files and rosters and maps in coloured chalk overscribbled with engineers’ mathematical computations. Pete greeted her and detached herself from the melée after giving a few orders. “You had better come on deck with me,” she said. “From there you will see the whole layout of the settlement as well as most of the others.” The “deck” turned out to be the flat roof of the tower which they climbed by a wooden staircase. Emerging into the brilliant sunshine, Judith saw the whole valley laid out around them, narrowing and edging into a slot as it entered the single great defile in the mountains, out of which the river flowed, to broaden immediately into a wide, smoothly running stream which watered the broad pastures and meadows on either side. “In fact,” said Pete, “our valley sticks out like a very sore thumb into enemy territory. It’s roughly a triangle contained between these two mountain ranges — Lebanon this one, and Syria that.”

  “And the border?”

  “Approximately the ranges mark it, but it’s never completely closed and there is quite a lot of marauding and smuggling. Up there you can see the patches of the seven settlements along the escarpment. They are actually on the border.” She named them slowly as she pointed, but each time as she mentioned the Hebrew name, she added, as a sort of pseudonym, the name of a town or a country which characterized the inhabitants. It appeared that these settlements were called respectively, Brisbane, Brooklyn, Odessa, Lubeck.

  “No, it’s not code,” said Peterson. “It’s simply that the inhabitants come from those places. Talk about a tower of Babel. But then you see that Israel consists of sixty nations. A patchwork quilt.”

  “It looks so peaceful.”

  “Most of the time it is. Sometimes not. See the bullet holes in that wall. Arab fire last year, one night, without warning.”

  “But don’t the British keep the peace?”

  “When it suits them. I think they would be rather glad if their Arab friends wiped out the kibbutzim; we are an embarrassment to them. On the Lebanon side we are well protected because we control the crown of the mountain and the settlements are spread out along it — good defensive positions with steep cliffs the other side. On this side, alas, it is not so good because the Syrians are astride the crown and we are down in the valley. They could lob stuff down at us quite easily and we couldn’t hit back with our weapons. Luckily, up to now, they don’t seem to have anything heavier than machine guns.”

  At one end of the long terrace there stood an old-fashioned heliograph manned by a couple of girls, one of whom was the taciturn Anna. Seeing Judith’s curious eyes on the machine as it winked away, eliciting a similar star of light from the second of the settlements, Pete said: “We’ve no telephones, alas; heliograph by day and torch signalling by night is what we have to do.”

  One of the girls, scribbling on a signals pad, looked up and said: “Pete — there was some sniping in Amir last night; nobody hurt. They say they want more apples against apricots weight for weight.”

  Pete snorted. “The last lot of apricots were weary, tell them. Moreover, tell them from me that they are just a bunch of Glasgow Jews thriving on the sharp practice they picked up from the Scots. Tell them, moreover, that we honest lowland Jews from Poland, Latvia, Russia and Brooklyn hold them in massive contempt.” Chuckling, the girls spelled the message while Pete took a turn or two upon the deck, looking indeed as business-like as an admiral on his flagship. “You see,” she said to Judith, “we have a perimeter round the camp but we’ve long since overflowed it and put the whole valley under cultivation. It took thirty years and about two hundred lives to drain what was stinking marshland and turn it into the richest valley in Palestine. The Arabs never did anything with it, and were glad to sell it off bit by bit — now, of course, they would like it back. So you see, we have our problems.”

  One of the signallers turned her head and giggled as she said: “They’ve replied, Pete.”

  “What do they say?”

  “They say: ‘Tell Pete to stuff it!’ ”

  Pete grunted and turned aside, smiling. “Today,” she said, taking Judith’s arm, “I’m not going to attach you: just wander around and have a look at everything — orchards, vegetable plots, chickens. We even have a flock of sheep. Do you see where the river turns out of the mountain and gets broad? Those white things are the sheep at pasture. It’s the very edge, though; the border star
ts inside the ravine and if you go too close you are likely to get a bullet through your hat.”

  Judith took her at her word and spent the whole morning inspecting the settlement. The spring flowers were in their first glory — carpets of scarlet and blue anemones, hollyhock, cyclamen, lupin, rose. She gathered herself enough for a bowl as she sauntered.

  At lunchtime she managed to borrow a small pottery jar for her bouquet of flowers and she put them on the window-sill of her tiny room. Looking around her at its primitive simplicity, and its view onto the beds of carefully tended flowers, she suddenly felt an absurd disposition to cry; and cry she did a little for relief, telling herself that it was “just a reaction”, though she could not have defined the word with any precision. She felt rather like a snake about to shed its skin, to slough off the misery of the past and take on the bright hues of a present in this lovely place. Yet, from time to time, the past came back and almost choked one: rounding a hedge by the vegetable gardens she had suddenly come upon a row of smoking incinerators burning garbage — old turnip-ends, newspapers, kitchen refuse, rotten pumpkins. The incinerator was being fed by a bunch of Poles and Americans whom the smoke had turned black as demons. Her memory turned a double somersault and scattered all her self-possession. The incinerators! It was all she could do not to be violently sick.

  6

  The Long Arm of Chance