Thieves in the Night: Chronicle of an Experiment

by Arthur Koestler

  At last Kamel Effendi arrived, red-faced, buoyant, elegant, and carrying a bunch of roses for the hostess. He greeted the Shenkins with effusive heartiness though they had met only once, eight years ago at an official garden-party. There were more drinks. Matthews had a huge whisky and soda, Kamel Effendi an arrack which he sipped rather daintily with his little finger sticking out, while the Professor nursed a glass of sweet, sticky local vermouth. Watching him, Joyce remembered with a shudder the one dinner-party at the Glicksteins’ which she had been forced to attend, and where they gave you sweet Carmel wine in liqueur glasses with your fish.

  At last the party moved into the dining-room. A slight odour in the air informed Joyce that the Arab cook had once again burnt the pilaff—he always did it when there were Jewish guests, though how he knew beforehand remained a mystery. However, she felt too fed-up with all of them to care.

  Kamel Effendi was holding the stage. Prompted by a question of Matthews, he had launched into Arab politics:

  “Ah, the Mufti, the Mufti!” he cried. “He and his family are the ruin of the country. How often have we warned our English friends against the machinations of the Husseini clan! We told them how the Mufti used his position and the religious funds entrusted to him to finance his terrorist gangsters. In each little village he had his agents. In each mosque the mullah preached hatred and murder by his orders. Alas—you did not believe us… He turned to the A.Ch.C. with a waggishly accusing finger. “No, you did not believe us, so you supported Hadj Amin until he betrayed you and the country was flowing with blood. And then you let him escape under your nose to Syria from where he continues to make trouble with Italian money.”

  The A.Ch.C., smiling, applied himself to the burnt pilaff. He looked like a tolerant schoolmaster at a picnic whose pupils have got slightly out of hand, pretending not to notice it.

  “Is it true that he escaped from the Omar Mosque in women’s clothes?” asked Mrs. Shenkin’s piping little voice.

  “Bbah!” cried Kamel Effendi. “I care not how he escaped. I care that his paid bandits have killed my cousin Mussa Effendi, and Fakhri Bey Nashashibi, and Sheikh Abdul Khatib the great preacher of the Omar Mosque. Hadj Amin is a curse. All the Husseini family and their National Party are a curse. They kill and blackmail everybody opposed to them and drive us to bloodshed.”

  The arrack and the heavy burgundy-type wine from Rishon le Zion were beginning to tell on Kamel Effendi. His face had grown even redder and he spoke in a rather loud voice.

  “You talk almost like a Zionist, Kamel Effendi,” said the A.Ch.C., who was having his quiet fun.

  “A Zionist—bbah!” said Kamel Effendi. “We don’t need the Husseinis to fight Zionism. All Arabs are united against the Zionist danger.” Suddenly remembering the Shenkins, he turned with a broad smile to the Professor. “It is not personal,” he said affably. “Friends remain friends. We are talking about principles.”

  The Professor, who had tucked his napkin under his grey goatee, smiled back eagerly.

  “We each have our extremists and trouble-makers to cope with in our own camp,” he said unctuously. “You have your Mufti and his followers, and we have our young fanatics. Without them, Arabs and Jews could live as happily together as they did a thousand years ago in Spain.”

  “Quite so,” said the A.Ch.C. “The question is of course on what terms,” he added innocently.

  “Terms—bbah!” cried Kamel Effendi, and he unexpectedly turned to his hostess who sat in a cramped erect position in her chair, waiting for that faint tide of pain to return. “If you, madame, honour me with an invitation to your house, do I ask you for terms? And enjoying the privilege of your hospitality, do I ask to be master of the house? No, madame, I do not. It is the same with our Jewish friends. They enjoy our hospitality. —ahlan w’sahlan, you are welcome. We will be like brothers. We will receive you with open arms as our guests….”

  “Yeah—paying guests,” murmured Matthews, but fortunately Kamel Effendi did not hear him. The A.Ch.C., who did hear, helped himself to more pilaff.

  “… like brothers,” concluded Kamel Effendi. “Just as in the glorious days of the Spanish Caliphate, as our friend the Professor said. But terms—bbah! If they want our house-never!”

  “Well, Professor?” said Matthews with a heavy wink of his eyes. “It’s your turn now.”

  Shenkin was stroking his goatee.

  “Of course,” he said. “Personally I see our friend’s point. I was always opposed to this provocative talk about a Hebrew State which only upsets our Arab friends. For me, Zion is a symbol. A state! What is a state? A selfish, old-fashioned prejudice….”

  “Aywah!” nodded Kamel Effendi. “This is very true.”

  “Our young fanatics,” the Professor went on, “want a Jewish majority. What is this talk? A provocation. What are numbers? What are quantities? It is the spirit which counts. We must come in a spirit of friendship and understanding to our Arab friends. The Jews abhor violence. It is our historical mission …”

  “Boloney,” Matthews said suddenly and audibly. They all looked at him, but he was absorbed in his pilaff.

  “Won’t you have some more?” Joyce asked with a ringing voice through the silence. “Though I’m afraid it’s rather …”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Shenkin earnestly, “it is burnt. Our cook also does it. It is because of the Primus stoves.”

  “Yes—aren’t they awful?” Joyce said icily.

  “Look,” said Matthews, having swallowed the last bite on his plate, and turning to the Professor. “Have you people come to build a country or just another ghetto?”

  “I came,” said Professor Shenkin who was squirming on his seat, “I came to teach at the Hebrew University.”

  “Damn your University,” said Matthews. “People must have security first, and some income, and some leisure, before they can think of a university. You do everything the wrong way round.”

  “This is a matter of opinion,” said Shenkin.

  “It isn’t,” said Matthews, emptying his glass. “You people drive me crazy. One wants to help you and you make it so hellish difficult.”

  Kamel Effendi chuckled. “That is a very true remark, Mr. Matthews. We are in the same position. We want to help these poor people, and how do they thank us? They want to take our house away.”

  “Aw, chuck that talk about your house,” said Matthews. “For the last five hundred years it wasn’t yours but the Turks’.”

  Kamel Effendi went red again, while Shenkin relaxed in his chair, dabbing his head with his napkin.

  “The majority of the population has always been Arab,” cried Kamel Effendi. “Take myself. My family is descended directly from Walid el Shallabi, Muhammed’s conquering General. We are the most ancient family in Palestine…. The Husseinis and Nashashibis are mere parvenus,” he could not refrain from adding.

  “My father is a Cohen,” Mrs. Shenkin piped suddenly. “And the Cohens are the descendants of the Kohanim, the priests in the old days.”

  “Shall we go?” Joyce said to her, rising rather abruptly. She had been impatiently waiting for Matthews to finish his last spoonful of ice-cream and now felt that she wouldn’t be able to stick it a minute longer. Seeing the Shenkin woman’s bewilderment and ignorance of English custom, she explained: “The gentlemen will join us later for coffee.” And with a contrite smile she sailed out of the room, followed by the short, waddling Mrs. Shenkin, a queen with inadequate suite.

  The four men stood for a second, and as they sat down again the A.Ch.C. said, to turn the conversation:

  “There seems to be a khamsin in the air. My wife usually feels it twenty-four hours in advance.”

  “That’s your local variety of the sirocco?” asked Matthews.

  “Yes—only more pernicious.”

  “Ah—the khamsin!” cried Kamel Effendi. “In a real khamsin everybody goes crazy.”

  “Then this country must be living in a permanent khamsin,” said Matthews.

/>   Kamel Effendi laughed stertorously. The Professor stroked his beard.

  “When the east wind breathes, the pastures of the shepherds mourn and the head of Carmel withers,” he quoted from somewhere in the Bible.

  “Quite,” said the A.Ch.C. “But the same scorching east wind is also called ‘the breath of the Lord’. So if we are all mad, it’s holy madness, you see.”

  “I reckon,” said Matthews, “that God Almighty has less to do with it than your Colonial Office.”

  “Aywah,” said Kamel Effendi. “And your Lord Balfour.”

  “There we go again,” said the A.Ch.C. “Who would like some port or liqueur?”

  They all refused except Matthews, who took a balloon-glass of brandy. “What was wrong with old Balfour?” he asked, thrusting his big untidy head towards Kamel Effendi.

  “He gave our house away,” said Kamel Effendi, who liked to stick to the same metaphor.

  “More boloney,” said Matthews, tasting the brandy and finding that it was good. “There never was a house here. There was a desert and a stinking swamp and pox-ridden fellaheen. You were the pariahs of the Levant and to-day you are the richest of the Arab countries. Your population was on the decrease for centuries because half your babes were dying from filth in their cradles, and since the Jews came it has doubled. They haven’t robbed you of an inch of your land, but they have robbed you of your malaria and your trachoma and your septic childbeds and your poverty….”

  “Come, come, Mr. Matthews,” the A.Ch.C. said, putting on his harassed air, though secretly he was enjoying himself. “This is rather strong language, and a bit unfair too.”

  Kamel Effendi had jumped up from his seat. He was gasping for words.

  “Bbah!” he brought out at last. “Now we know where we are. You come here as our guest, saying you are a journalist from America—but you are just one of those people whom they …” He made a frantic gesture of rubbing his index against his thumb, and his face underwent a rather unpleasant change.

  “Yeah,” Matthews said calmly. “I am one of the Elders of Zion—huh?”

  “I think it is time we joined the ladies,” said the A.Ch.C., and the Professor obediently got to his feet, but Kamel paid no attention to him.

  “I care not who you are,” he shouted. “You come here as our guest and then you abuse us. This is what we receive for our hospitality….”

  “Come off it, Mr. Kamel,” said Matthews. “I am not your guest, I am paying my keep, and I haven’t asked your permission.”

  “I care not whether you pay,” cried Kamel Effendi. “And I care not for their hospitals and their schools. This is our country, you understand? We want no foreign benefactors. We want not to be patronised. We want to be left alone, you understand! We want to live our own way and we want no foreign teachers and no foreign money and no foreign habits and no smiles of condescension and no pat on the shoulder and no arrogance and no shameless women with wriggling buttocks in our holy places. We want not their honey and we want not their sting, you understand? Neither their honey nor their sting. This you can tell them in your America. If they are thrown out in other countries—very bad, very sorry. Very, very sorry—but not our business. If they want to come here—a few of them, maybe thousand, maybe two thousand— t’ faddal, welcome. But then know you are guests and know how to behave. Otherwise—to the devil. Into the sea—and hallass, finished. This is plain language. You tell them.”

  There was a painful silence while Kamel Effendi wiped his forehead and the A.Ch.C. stood hovering over the group like an unhappy flamingo. Then Matthews said unexpectedly:

  “Yeah—I see your point, Mr. Kamel. I guess you are wrong, but wrong in your own right.”

  The A.Ch.C. gave him a curious little stare with his two-coloured eyes; he seemed on the point of making a remark, and on second thoughts didn’t. But Kamel Effendi laughed stertorously and without transition.

  “Ho!—ho!” he shouted. “Wrong within your own rights. It is a profound saying, my friend—very profound.” He appreciatively clicked his tongue, and spontaneously grasped Matthews’ hand, pumping it. “No offence, Mr. Matthews,” he said. “Here we all get a little heated sometimes. It is our climate, you know—the khamsin.”

  And so they all repaired to join the ladies in a fairly jolly mood—except for the Professor who slunk along the corridor with his head on one side and trailing his finger along the wall.

  5

  The Shenkins soon left—they had to visit a daughter-in-law who had just given birth to her third child in the maternity clinic of the Hadassah; Kamel Effendi followed a few minutes later. Matthews, having asked the A.Ch.C. for a quarter of an hour’s off-the-record talk, stayed on. Joyce retired to lie down in her room; the khamsin was getting worse and so were her nerves.

  “Cigar?” the A.Ch.C. asked when they were alone. He sank into his favourite armchair and let the harassed look slowly fade from his face. “Well, Mr. Matthews,” he said, “to-day you had a taste of the peculiar atmosphere of this little country. And they were both moderates, mind you….”

  “The Professor sure was,” said Matthews. “I reckon the matching of the teams was pretty unfair.”

  The A.Ch.C. smiled. “Possibly,” he said. “But you can’t expect me to invite for fairness’ sake a Hebrew terrorist. Mind you, I would enjoy it, but my wife is rather fond of her furniture.”

  Matthews filled up his half-empty brandy glass with soda. “Christ,” he said. “Your khamsin takes it out of a guy.” He emptied the glass and put it down on the inlaid table with a slight clank. “And now tell me straight, Mr. Chief Commissioner,” he said, shifting his heavy body forward in the chair, “why are you selling out on them?”

  “I am afraid …”

  “Aw, come off it. Don’t be afraid. This will be strictly off the record, Mr. Chief Commissioner.”

  “Assistant,” corrected the A.Ch.C. Though he kept smiling politely, the difference in colour between his two eyes became accentuated, a sign that he was angry. “May I ask what exactly you mean by ‘selling out’?”

  “Aw, come off it,” Matthews repeated, drawing out each wowel into a lingering flourish. It was as if a massive bull deliberately tried to excite the slender matador. “You have read the League of Nations reports. They say plainly that you have been inciting the Arabs against the Hebrews so that you should have an excuse to let Zionism down.”

  The A.Ch.C. tipped the ash from his cigar with the circumspection of a clinical operation. It occurred to him that he couldn’t go to see Jimmy in the hospital on Sunday as he had promised to open a Horticultural Exhibition in Tel Aviv.

  “My dear sir,” he said, “I am a sincere admirer of the Jews. They are the most admirable salesmen in the world, regardless of whether they sell carpets, Marxism, psychoanalysis or their own pogromed infants. It is child’s-play for them to get around well-meaning people such as Professor Rappard and other members of the Geneva Mandates Commission— or members of both our Houses if it comes to that. If those fantastic accusations were true, how would you explain the fact that we had two hundred British soldiers killed fighting the Arab revolt? Don’t you think the fact that they were defending Jewish life and property deserves to be mentioned when certain rash criticisms are made?”

  “That’s so much sob-talk,” said Matthews, filling up his glass uninvited.—I’ll drive this smug guy mad, even if he calls his Ahmed or Mahmed to throw me out, he thought. “A year back,” he went on, “when I was here the first time, I saw a gang of your Mufti’s Arab cut-throats throwing stones at a couple of old Jews and yelling at the top of their voices: ‘Eddaula Ma’na,’ ‘The Government is with us.’ Will you deny that, Mr. Chief Commissioner?”

  “Assistant,” the A.Ch.C. corrected. “I shall certainly not deny it. The trouble-makers make the crowd believe it, just as they make them believe that Jews are throwing dead pigs into the Mosque of Omar. But it would be a bit unfair to make us responsible for each rumour in the shuks, wouldn’t it?” />
  “No, you won’t get away with that,” said Matthews. “The Arabs believed that you welcomed the killing of Jews because your whole attitude encouraged them to believe it. You backed the Mufti during twenty years though you knew about his doings. I have read your Royal Commission’s Report, all the four hundred pages of it, which accuses your local administration of condoning Arab terrorism. This isn’t Jewish sales-talk— it’s printed in your Majesty’s Stationery Office. I know one of your Intelligence guys who toured in his car the Arab villages near Nazareth, telling them not to sell land to the Jews because your Government is against it. I know of others who smuggled arms to the Syrian rebels. I know this isn’t your personal responsibility, but you should have raised hell to stop those romantic young pansies from your universities being let loose to chase about in Beduin dress and stir up trouble. I have met a few of these hush-hush guys, and if I had a say in your Government I would spank their arses and send them back to college. Aw, let’s talk straight, Mr. Chief Commissioner. You’ve been asking for trouble and you’ve got it, and now you complain because English soldiers are killed. You had to crush the Arab gangs, not for the sake of the Jews but for your own sake, because this country is the strategic centre of your Empire, and you need it. Even so, you did bloody little to defend the Hebrew settlers who were left to look after themselves and sent to jail for possessing rifles with which to defend themselves and their women-folk….” He pulled a dog-eared notebook from his pocket. “Here, your Royal Commission’s Report, page 201: ‘To-day it is evident that the elementary duty of providing public security has not been discharged. If there is one grievance which the Jews have undoubted right to prefer it is the absence of security.’ … No, Mr. Chief Commissioner, you won’t get away with it so easy. Your gratitude-talk may go down with your phony professor and his like, but it won’t go down with an impartial observer.”