The waiter, dressed in a white jacket whose sleeves were too short for him, lifted his shoulders. “But please—it is written on the bottle: Chablis.”
“It is muck,” said Matthews. “Taste it.”
“But please: here it is written on the bottle. Perhaps it should be sweet—I don’t know. I have been a teacher before in Kovno, Lithuania.”
“Taste it,” said Matthews.
“But I don’t drink—ulcers, sir, please.”
“Then take this away and get me some beer.”
“We have no beer, please, only wine.”
“Then call the manager.”
“But the manager is busy.”
“Listen,” said Matthews. “How would you like it if I bashed this bottle on your head?”
The waiter looked at him doubtfully, lifted his shoulders, and carried the bottle away. A minute later he returned with two jugs of iced beer, smiling all over his crumpled face.
“Well, how do you like Tel Aviv?” asked Joseph.
Matthews took a deep draught and put his glass down, sighing with contentment. “Swell,” he said. “If you were allowed to punch somebody’s nose once a day, it would be the swellest city with the swellest people in the world.”
“Particularly the waiters,” said Joseph.
“Maybe the poor guy was really a teacher in Kovno, Lithuania, and got his ulcers in a concentration camp.”
Joseph looked round the terrace and sighed. The khamsin lay on people’s faces like a spasm. The women were plump, heavy-chested, badly and expensively dressed. The men sat with sloping shoulders and hollow chests, thinking of their ulcers. Each couple looked as if they were carrying on a quarrel under cover of the “Merry Widow”.
“I can’t blame the gentiles if they dislike us,” he said.
“That proves you are a patriot,” said Matthews. “Since the days of your prophets, self-hatred has been the Jewish form of patriotism.”
Joseph wiped his face. The khamsin was telling on him. He felt sick of it all: Judaism, Hebraism, the whole cramped effort to make something revive which had been dead for two thousand years.
“It is all very well for you to talk as a benevolent outsider,” he said. “The fact is, we are a sick race. Tradition, form, style, have all gone overboard. We are a people with a history but no background…. Look around you, and you’ll see the heritage of the ghetto. It is there in the wheedling lilt of the women’s voices, and in the way the men hold themselves, with that frozen shrug about their shoulders.”
“I guess that shrug was their only defence. Otherwise the whole race would have gone crackers.”
“I know. That’s what I keep repeating to myself. But sometimes one gets fed-up and wants to run away to a country with a moderate climate and moderate people, who don’t live in absolutes. Here even the sky conforms to the all-or-nothing law: nine months of scorching sun without a drop of rain, and three months of deluge….”
He leant back and drank some beer. “This is nice.” he said. “Reminds me of a certain country pub back home. It was dim and smoky and the men said one word each in half an hour.”
“It’s always the same story,” said Matthews. “If you are a dumb ox you want to be a chatty parrot. If you are a parrot, you wish you were a dignified ox. Drink your beer and take it easy with your Dostoevski.”
Joseph drained his glass, smiling. “Of course,” he said, “the crowd at a dog race at home isn’t a much prettier sight than this one. But the flaws in other races are diluted, while with us you get them in concentration. It’s the long inbreeding, I suppose. They called us the salt of the earth—but if you heap all the salt on one plate it doesn’t make a palatable dish. Sometimes I think that the Dead Sea is the perfect symbol for us. It is the only big inland lake under sea level, stagnant, with no outlet, much denser than normal water with its concentrated minerals and biting alkaloids; over-salted, over-spiced, saturated …”
“They extract a lot of useful chemicals from it,” said Matthews.
“Oh—quite. Marx and Freud and Einstein and so on. They are the crystallised products of the brine. But for all that the water doesn’t get more palatable….”
“How about some grub?” said Matthews. “Waiter! The guy won’t listen. I guess this one was an opera conductor in Danzig.”
“The trouble with this town is,” Joseph went on, “that ten years ago the immigrants were mainly volunteers with an ideal in their head, and now they are mainly expatriates with a kick in their pants. Oh, you should have seen it ten years ago! Now it has become a town of refugees—the saltiest stratum of the Dead Sea.”
Matthews had at last succeeded in getting hold of the waiter and gave his orders. He seemed bored with the discussion.
“Stop worrying about your Dead Sea,” he said. “These shipwrecked folk don’t matter. What matters is your new native generation and they’re O.K.”
“Yes—but they are on the other extreme. No salt at all. No intellectual passion, no sensitivity.”
“Christ—you can’t have it both ways. Maybe for fifty years you’ll have to stop producing Einsteins and give other people a chance.”
“You know,” Joseph said, smiling, “you are the best Hebrew propagandist I’ve seen. The gentiles always are. Ours are all like Glickstein.”
“Yeah,” said Matthews. “An Arab gent accused me the other day of being paid by him. The fact is I’ve seen your Maccabi team beat the English Police three to one at soccer, and when they had to carry off the referee on a stretcher I became a Zionist. Here, let’s buy a paper.”
A newsboy had entered the terrace, shouting out the early afternoon editions. Matthews bought all of them and pushed them across the table to Joseph.
“They’re all printed the wrong way round,” he said. “Tell us the news about Mr. Hitler’s latest doings.”
Joseph unfolded Davar, the Labour daily, and after a glance at the headlines automatically turned to the back-page column with the local news from the Settlements in small print. His face suddenly turned ashen.
“What’s the matter?” said Matthews. “Has Chamberlain done a Munich on the French?”
“No,” said Joseph. “They have only killed Dina.”
12
“There is only one chair, so you must sit on the bed,” said Simeon.
His room, in the old Florentine quarter of Tel Aviv, looked more like a prison cell. It contained a narrow camp-bed, a table with a Primus cooker on it and one rickety chair. Instead of a wardrobe or chest there was a cardboard box under the bed which contained all Simeon’s belongings. Nevertheless the room looked clean and tidy.
He took the Primus cooker from the table and put it carefully in a corner of the floor where a dark rim on the stone tiles indicated its usual place.
“As I can only go out when it is dark,” he explained, “I have to cook for myself. The flat belongs to an old man who keeps a second-hand bookstall and is out all day.”
Joseph sat down on the creaking bed which sagged under him until he almost sat on the floor. Simeon sat upright in the chair, facing him.
“You’d better tell me all the details,” he said.
“There isn’t much to tell,” said Joseph. “The doctor says there were at least two at her. She must have put up a strong fight for her finger-nails were broken and there was blood and bits of skin under them, and there was also blood and bits of skin between her teeth. They counted twenty-seven stabs on her, none of which could have caused instantaneous death. Her nose was broken and some of her hair torn out with shreds of scalp. That is all. They also stole Salome.”
He spoke in a flat voice as if giving an account to the weekly meeting in Ezra’s Tower.
“And the Police?” asked Simeon.
“The Police came next morning. They brought bloodhounds. The Major did all he could. There were two separate scents which both met at the quarry behind Kfar Tabiyeh. Underneath the quarry there is a pool and there they lost the scent. Then one dog led on to th
e Mukhtar’s house. They questioned the Mukhtar and some of the villagers, who all knew nothing.”
“And so that’s that?” said Simeon.
“As far as the Police is concerned, more or less. There is hardly a villager who hasn’t been to the Mukhtar’s house at one time or another.”
They were silent for a little while. Joseph lit a cigarette and offered one to Simeon. By the way Simeon inhaled the smoke Joseph could see that he had not been able to afford cigarettes for some time.
“What about Reuben and the others?” Simeon asked.
“When we got back from the funeral I argued with Reuben and Moshe half through the night. I reminded them that this was the fifth case and that; the Police never found anything and never will find anything. They said they were prepared to retaliate if they could find out who did it, but refused to take life for life indiscriminately….” He paused. “I hope you don’t want me to repeat the argument,” he added.
“No,” said Simeon. “I know it by heart: self-restraint, ethics and the purity of the cause—the whole menu…. What came of it in the end?”
“I told them that I was through with arguing and was going to quit. They were quite decent about it and gave me a month’s leave to think it over.”
He was crouching on the bed, yellow and shrivelled like a sick monkey.
“So that is how matters stand now with you,” said Simeon reflectively. After a while he asked:
“Supposing you decide to leave, what about Ellen?”
“She will get over it. And to the child it won’t make any difference….”
He made a pause, then suddenly jumped up.
“The only question for me is,” he said vehemently, “whether your crowd is willing and able to settle this, or not. Everything else doesn’t matter.”
Simeon gave him a cool look and said carefully:
“I have to report the matter to Bauman and he has to take it up with the Command.”
“I want to speak to Bauman myself,” said Joseph.
“That can probably be arranged. But it will take some time.”
Joseph sat down again, as if the effort had exhausted him. He leant back against the wall and looked vacantly at the ceiling through his yellow sick-monkey eyes. There was a faint but insistent whistling from the street.
“Somebody to see me,” said Simeon. “You must go now. Come and see me the day after to-morrow at the same time. I may have news for you by then.”
Joseph obediently rose and walked to the door. As he opened it, he felt Simeon’s grip on his arm.
“Pull yourself together,” said Simeon. “In parenthesis, I was also once in love with Dina. But that isn’t the point. The point is that these things are happening to our kin in Europe hour by hour.”
“I don’t care,” said Joseph.
“Then go and drown yourself,” said Simeon, giving him a hard push out onto the landing and banging the door after him.
Joseph reeled against the banister, stood limply for a few seconds, then wiped his eyes and began slowly to descend the narrow stairs.
13
A week after Dina’s last excursion to the Ancestor’s Cave, around midnight a heavy car jolted up the dirt track to the sleeping village of Kfar Tabiyeh. It halted at the Hamdan Mukhtar’s house and two men in Beduin dress got out of it and walked up the outside flight of stairs leading to the balcony. It was new moon and from the balcony they saw the searchlight of Ezra’s Tower slowly milling round the dark hills. The door from the balcony to the Mukhtar’s room stood open; across the doorstep a servant lay on a mat, asleep. They shook him gently by the shoulder and the servant sat up with a jerk.
“Marhaba,” one of the men said in a throaty dialect. “We have been sent to talk to the Mukhtar.”
“Welcome twice. Who sent you?” the servant asked, startled.
“One whose name should only be mentioned in a whisper….” The two men pushed their way into the room, followed by the dazed servant. From a corner of the room they heard the Mukhtar’s snore, then the snoring suddenly ceased. “Who is there?” he asked in a wakeful, imperious voice.
The servant lit the oil-lamp on the floor, under Mr. Chamberlain’s portrait with the blue beads against the Evil Eye. The two men touched with their finger-tips forehead and heart. “Marhaba,” said the one with the throaty voice. He was small, dark and wiry, with a sparse beard along the edge of his jaws and a tuft on the point of the chin. “We have been sent to fetch you, ya Mukhtar. We have come in a motor-car.”
“Who sent you?” asked the Mukhtar. He was sitting up on his bed in his blue-and-yellow striped pyjamas. The centre button over his stomach was open, disclosing a fluff of black hair. The dark little man looked meaningly in the direction of the servant. “Go,” said the Mukhtar, whose face had grown dark. The servant withdrew.
“Fawzi el Din is back in the hills, ya Mukhtar. He sent us for you. Get dressed, ya Mukhtar.”
The Mukhtar looked from one to the other with a flicker in his eyes.
“They said Fawzi had surrendered to the English.”
“They say many things. Get ready, ya Mukhtar, we have little time.”
The Mukhtar looked at them without budging. “Where is he?” he asked.
“You shall know when you get there. Fawzi likes not to be kept waiting.”
“I shall send Issa to him, as before.”
“He sent us for you, not for Issa. Get dressed, ya Mukhtar.”
The Mukhtar looked at him, then at the other man. They both stared at him hard, and the flicker in the Mukhtar’s eye became more pronounced. “Ya Mahmud!” he called. The servant appeared. “Get my clothes.”
While the Mukhtar dressed, the two men waited outside on the balcony with their backs to the open door of the room. They did not speak to each other. In the distance, the thin beam of light from Ezra’s Tower slowly circled the night.
The Mukhtar emerged from the room, fully dressed, followed by the servant. His white head-cloth floated majestically to his shoulders, held by the coil of spun silver threads. He was a head taller than the little bearded man. The other man was of medium height, dumpy, and of lighter colour.
“I wish to take Issa with me,” said the Mukhtar.
“We have been told to bring you alone,” said the little man.
On the top of the stairs the Mukhtar hesitated for an imperceptible moment. The two men stood behind him. “I shall be back in the morning,” said the Mukhtar over his shoulder to the servant. “There is no need to talk.”
The servant bowed at the Mukhtar’s back. “Peace with you, ya Mukhtar.”
They got into the car; the Mukhtar and the man with the beard sat in the back, the other man took the wheel. They drove in silence down the bumpy dirt track. As they approached the bottom of the hill, the Mukhtar asked:
“From what country do you hail?”
He could not make out the dialect the little man spoke. His Arabic was throaty and pure, but foreign. At first he had thought he recognised the accents of some of the poorer tribes of Sinai, but it wasn’t quite that.
“From Hadramaut.”
So he was a Yemenite. That’s why he had not recognised the dialect, the Mukhtar thought. He had never met a Yemenite before—except a Yemenite Jew from whom he had once bought a silver arm-ring in the shuks of Jerusalem. He remembered that he had been surprised at the pure Arabic that dark, wiry little Jew had spoken to him…. A sudden deadly suspicion flashed through the Mukhtar’s mind. He bent forward to the driver, who had so far not spoken a word. “And you?” he asked.
“From Beyrout, ya Mukhtar.”
Of course, he was a typical Syrian mongrel. They had all shapes and shades there—God alone knew the ancestry of a Syrian from Beyrout. But the Sephardi Jews in Beyrout were mongrels too, and many of them went to Arab schools….
Bbah—donkey thoughts, the Mukhtar reassured himself. Was he a son of death, to think of such absurdities? It was only because the sudden return of Fawzi had shaken hi
m. He had hoped to be rid for good of the Patriots. And then there was that matter with that Bastard, Issa. He would after all have to send him away, to Beyrout, to be on the safe side. Issa had not told him, but the Mukhtar had seen the scratches on his face and the deep gash on his hand, as though from a dog-bite. He had fallen from the horse, Issa had said, but the Mukhtar knew; and he also knew about the others, Auni and Aref. However, she had been asking for it, the shameless bitch, riding a horse alone at night with naked arms and legs….”
The car had reached the entrance to the wadi at its smooth end. Somewhere just round here must be the place where it had happened. Once more that shrill suspicion flared up in his brain, more insistent this time. The car stopped near a heap of boulders in the dry stream-bed.
“From here on we must walk, ya Mukhtar,” said the Yemenite.
“Where to?” asked the Mukhtar, without budging from his seat.
“You will see, ya Mukhtar.”
The driver switched the headlights off. He got out and stood at the door on the Mukhtar’s side of the car. The Mukhtar looked from one to the other, but he could not make out in the darkness the look in their eyes. Puffing and mock-clumsily to indicate that he felt perfectly at ease, the Mukhtar climbed out of the car.
“Walk straight ahead, ya Mukhtar,” said the Yemenite. The Mukhtar got slowly going, and the two men followed behind. His white head-cloth shone in the night three steps ahead of them, and by the curve of his shoulders they could tell that his right hand was clasped on the knife in his belt. They turned round a sharp bend in the wadi; at some distance to the left they saw the soft curved silhouette of two twin hills, the “Giant’s Buttocks”.
“Stop,” said the Yemenite. “Stand still and drop that knife, ya Mukhtar. We have arrived.”
The Mukhtar swerved round with an alacrity they had not expected from his heavy bulk. The two automatics were pointed from a distance of three yards straight at his stomach. He hesitated, then let the knife drop; it fell with a sharp clink on a stone. “How much money do you want?” he asked in a thick voice.
Thieves in the Night: Chronicle of an Experiment Page 27