by Muriel Spark
The train carried her away to London, and all things considered, she decided she would never be able to convey to Miles the exceptional event, her love, that finally justified her abuse of his hospitality. Miles would have been afraid to listen, lest it upset the brotherly arrangement he had come to with his wife.
I know of thy doings, and find thee
neither cold nor hot.
It was after her return, in the new term, to the school where she had been teaching for six years, that her normal process of reasoning set in, and as her love took greater hold of her, so did she take hold of it. There was a deadlock. Their love letters became a vehicle for arguments that gruelled her in the new term and infuriated her, with their revelation of something absolutely undisplaceable in her nature, her Catholic faith.
They wrote the love letters of academic intellectuals, that is to say, they were not much as love letters. Her references to their love were light and frivolous, as if it were something that didn’t matter basically but was a mere luxury of civilization. She partly believed this. His were funnily crude. On the question of what was to be done about it she was serious and practical, assembling and setting forth arguments in sober order. The nature of their love-affair underwent a change in the course of this correspondence. Barbara’s letters at times resembled essays in theology. She gripped her fountain-pen with tight, tense fingers.
For in the first month of the new term, as she uneasily took up her old teaching life, she felt the relevance to the situation of her being a Catholic. As matters stood, she could not marry a divorced man and remain within the Church, unless his marriage was in fact invalidated by the Church. All this she wrote to Harry Clegg, with supporting theology, in the excessively rational terms employed by people with a secret panic or religious doubt. ‘The Church,’ she wrote, ‘is nothing if not logical. You, above all people, will understand, even if you cannot …’
He turned up at the school to see what the hell she was playing at. He, above all people, the third Saturday of term. She was standing at her sitting-room window using it as a looking-glass while she tied a scarf round her head. She was about to go down to the post office to send off a fat envelope, a letter to him, bulging with pregnant hopes and theological debate. She heard a scrape on the gravel as of a wild old motor-car, and saw, beyond her reflection, his quite tame Consul, a shining two-year-old, which he always drove so hard.
She ran down to meet him. She now realized quite clearly that she did not want Ricky to meet him; Ricky had become, over the past six years her closest woman friend. Ricky was Miss Rick-ward, the headmistress. They had frequently been abroad together. It had even been suggested by Ricky, and vaguely assented to by Barbara, that they would share a flat together on their retirement. Ricky was forty-two, a knowledgeable spinster. Somehow, at some time, an unspoken agreement had been arrived at, to the effect that they shared the same sense of humour and disregard of men. It was, in a way, understood that when they retired … How? Why had all this been understood? At what point in their talkative and confidential relationship had it become a difficult thing for Barbara to speak of a prospective husband, a lover? — leave out the question of a love-affair?
She ran down to meet Harry. They stood on the gravel path and kissed each other. She got into the car and made him drive out of school bounds, miles away, into a woodland clearing in the heart of Gloucestershire.
From her wall on Mount Tabor, she looked over to the kingdom of Jordan, in the hazy blue direction of the Dead Sea, where Harry, in his shabby old clothes, was probably peering at, and pronouncing a fake, a square inch of papyrus placed on a table. ‘They’ve already started to write new Dead Sea Scrolls,’ he had told her in a recent letter to England. Here, of course, the only letters she got from him were notes smuggled by friends. But since that Saturday afternoon, they had stopped arguing in their letters. It was he who had recognized the fact that the arguments, however unacceptable, stood for an immovable conviction, something similar to his dedication to his field of scholarship. He would not, for the love of Barbara or anyone else, attribute a date which he believed to be false to a manuscript or object of antiquity; not to fit any theory dear to his own heart, he wouldn’t. He recognized the same seam of hard rock in Barbara. He submitted to her idea of having the validity of his marriage examined by the ecclesiastical lawyers of Rome. There was a chance that the marriage could be invalidated, although it seemed to him on ludicrous grounds, by the fact that he had not, so far as he knew, been baptized. But he was obliged to prove this negative fact, and it was not so easy as it sounded. And even it was considered slim evidence towards an annulment.
Meanwhile, Barbara, searching her own motives like a murder squad, suspected that her refusal to marry him had been argued less from her fear of separation from the Church than from a fear of revealing to Ricky the existence of a man in her life. How? Why was Ricky’s astonishment to be feared? Ricky’s disappointment in her? It was too absurd. It was real.
Barbara dropped hints to Ricky throughout the rest of the year. ‘Dr Clegg,’ she said, ‘a brilliant archaeologist, a friend of mine —’
‘Extremely interesting,’ said Ricky, ‘but I wouldn’t,’ she said, ‘let it become a burden, this letter-writing. A correspondence like this is bound to interfere with your work in term time. Is he handsome?’
‘No,’ said Barbara, ‘not a bit.’
‘Perhaps he can’t find a woman,’ Ricky said, with an expression of genuine academic consideration of the matter. ‘Not handsome by vulgar standards,’ Barbara said.
Meanwhile she had been reconciled to the Church, in a frigid sort of way, as one might acknowledge, unsmiling, the victor in battle, in whose presence one is signing a peace treaty. She was obliged to repent. What of — the love-affair? No, adultery, to be precise. Yes, but to be precise, it was impossible to distinguish the formal expression of her love from the emotion. ‘Go and repent,’ said the priest, worn-out with this involved honesty. ‘It was a love-affair,’ Barbara explained. ‘Yes, well, don’t pretend it was the Beatific Vision.’ Barbara went so far as to repent that she could not repent of the forbidden lovemaking, and’ as is the plain expectation of all Christians she got the benefit of the doubt on the understanding that she put an end to the sex part of it.
By summer-time she was standing on Mount Tabor and looked out towards the Dead Sea where Harry Clegg was working. That morning, a letter from him had been thrust under her door, having been smuggled through the Gate in the American embassy-bag from Amman.
Latest bulletin from the Holy Romans — they’ll take at least another month to decide. But for goodness’ sake, come over. You can’t spend your whole summer holidays over there without seeing what’s going on here, let alone seeing me. I shall not attempt any of that rotten nasty sex stuff, in fact I wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole, if I had one. Hurry up, Barbara, there’s some interesting stuff to see here.
She looked towards the Dead Sea and thought of his thick-featured, dark face utterly intent on the work in front of it, and forgot, in her tenderness, that she was a spinster of no fixed identity. She was aware only of the vulnerability peculiar to his detachment, and of a desire to protect him in the practical aspects of his life where he was too absorbed to protect himself. She suddenly felt to be insignificant the business of being a Gentile and a Jewess, both and neither, and that of being a wolf in spinster’s clothing, and the business of the letter she would have to write to Ricky. She was thinking of the red-brick genius whose accent her cousin Miles had mimicked with such perfect exaggeration, Harry Clegg, the sweet scholar from an address, now extinguished by the war, in Coventry. He would have been, to her grandmother at Bells Sands, ‘a rather common little man’ for her to take up with, to her grandfather at Golders Green a non-Jewish disappointment for her to take up with. To the Jews a stumbling-block, a folly to the Greeks. But it did not matter. Even the fact that the academic world recognized his true value and standing was irrelevant. The point
was, he was entirely lovable to her, this lover from last summer’s Roman remains.
‘Go and repent….’
Goe and catch a falling starre,
Get with child a mandrake roote.
It is impossible to repent of love. The sin of love does not exist. Over at the Dead Sea, she thought, just over there, he is ferreting about in the sand or maybe he has discovered an inkwell used by the Essene scribes, or something.
To the east, from the top of Tabor, was the valley of Jordan and the very blue waters of Galilee with the mountains of Syria, a different blue, on the far side. On the west, far across Palestine, the Carmel range rose from the Mediterranean. There seemed no mental difficulty about the miracles, here on the spot. They seemed to be very historic and factual, considered from this standpoint. This feeling might be due to the mountain-top sensation. But was it any less valid than the sea-level sensation? Scientifically speaking?
A coach-load of organized pilgrims arrived at the Basilica. Barbara returned to her tree-shadowed wall. They were led by a Catholic priest. One of the Franciscan custodians of the shrine came out to meet them. The priest-guide assembled his flock outside the church and explained to them that this was the place where Christ was transfigured.
Only probably, said Barbara’s mind; there’s a rival claim for Mount Hermon, over in the distance.
In the presence of his disciples, Peter, James, and John, said the priest. His garments white and dazzling.
Wherever it did take place, she thought, I believe it did take place all right. Transfigured, and in a radiant time of metamorphosis, was seen white and dazzling, to converse with Moses and Elias.
‘Do you remember what he was conversing about?’ said the priest to his twenty-odd faithful.
The death he was to die.
‘His forthcoming death in Jerusalem,’ said the priest. ‘It’s described in Mark and Luke.’
He read the chapters, while the Franciscan monk waited with folded hands to escort them into the shrine.
… There came a cloud and overshadowed
them. And they were afraid when they entered
into the cloud.
And a voice came out of the cloud, saying,
‘This is my beloved Son. Hear him.’
“This is also the place,’ said the priest, dosing his book, ‘where Deborah of the Old Testament collected an army against Sisera. You get it in the Book of Judges, and her song of triumph, remember. Mount Tabor is the place mentioned. A good spot, strategically, as you can see. They all camped up here. It’s only 843 feet. Looks higher from below.’
The crowd disappeared into the church. Barbara walked out of hiding and breathed the miraculous air. It was after receiving Harry’s letter that she had hired the car that morning. Harry was … Her mind once more took refuge in the anxious memory of the scene she had made with Freddy Hamilton the previous evening. She duly felt bad about it. People should definitely not quote the Scriptures at one.
If the Ecclesiastical Courts were going to take at least another month to give their verdict on the validity of his marriage, by then she would have returned to school and started a new term. She had almost decided that morning, in the same mental gesture as she had decided to hire a car, not to return to school at all. She must write to Ricky soon. She would write to Michael first.
But why don’t I go down to Jerusalem, Barbara thought, and pass through the Mandelbaum Gate? Why is it that I’m not on my way, now, from Jerusalem, across the plains of Sodom and Gomorrah to the Dead Sea? Why don’t I go over and see him?
Because I’m a pilgrim to the Holy Land and one shouldn’t abuse hospitality.
Because I’ve got to have time to think.
Because I don’t really want to sleep with him in the present state of affairs.
But why don’t I go?
Because it’s dangerous there for someone of Jewish blood.
But no one could possibly find out.
Barbara had a separate passport issued by the Foreign Office in London, for the purpose of entering Jordan from Israel. She had the required certificate of baptism signed by a priest:
I declare that Miss Barbara Vaughan is a member of the Roman Catholic Church and has been known to me for some years.
No one could possibly guess that I’m a half-Jew.
Then why?
Because I’m a spinster that’s taken a religious turn. A Gentile Jewess, neither one thing nor another, caught up in a crackpot mystique. I declare that Miss Barbara Vaughan is a member of the Roman Catholic Church and has been known to me for some years. Life is passing.
Then why do I not go down to the Dead Sea?
Because the time hasn’t yet come for me to go down to the Dead Sea. When the time comes, I’ll go down to the Dead Sea.
I go on, she thought, with questions and answers in the old Hebraic mode, chanting away to myself.
She thought, then, that it might be a pleasant gesture on her part to ask Freddy Hamilton, as a favour, if he would get a letter across to Harry Clegg in Jordan for her. It would save the delay of sending it by post through Cyprus. Freddy Hamilton was the sort of person who would take it as a good gesture, the asking of a favour.
I know of thy doings, and find thee
neither cold nor hot …
Well, it makes me hot and cold to think of what I said, she thought. People should definitely not quote the Scriptures at each other.
And she recalled, without reason, that Freddy had said to her only last week, ‘Most of the Christian shrines are over in Jordan, of course. You really must go over and meet these friends of mine. They love having visitors, and there’s a delightful English atmosphere.’
She smiled cheerfully and got back into her hired car.
3. A Delightful English Atmosphere
Freddy was over in Jordan for the week-end. He sat on a wooden bench, writing a letter, in a part of the garden that Joanna Cartwright had planted with numerous wild flowers and herbs of the Holy Land that she picked up on her rambles. Most of them were recognizable to Freddy as belonging to the same botanical tribes as the wild flowers of the English fields and hedgerows of his schooldays before everything had been changed. Indeed, some of Joanna’s finds were no different at all, so far as he could see, from those pointed out to him, on walks, before he was sent to school, by that governess whose name Freddy had understandably forgotten. Joanna’s flowers were not even a larger species.
Freddy’s writing-pad rested on his knee. ‘Dearest Ma …
… but I hope you are not serious. Surely Benny intends to remain with you at Harrogate! Dearest Ma, there must be very little for her to do. I quite fail to see how it can be too much for her. The hotel staff seems to do most of the doing, and all Benny has to do is be. I think, quite honestly, she has too little to occupy her time, and that is mainly what is making her irritable. I wish I could be more helpful, dearest Ma, but you must realize that things have changed and one has to put up with much, nowadays, that would have been unthinkable in the past. Indeed, you are fortunate in having Benny. She would not be easy — perhaps impossible — to replace!
Only a few of Joanna’s wild plants were still in bloom. A young Arab boy in his teens, with skinny, deformed legs, wearing only shorts, had come out of the house with a watering-can and was drenching the precious clumps in their dark, shady corner; he had an air of special concentration, plainly having been instructed in the seriousness of the job. A few yards away, on the long green that led to the house, the lawn-spray made a whispering splash under the sun while the Arab’s watering-can in Freddy’s cool corner splashed intermittently. The small tickets that Joanna had stuck into the ground to mark her plants showed up in their black capital letters under the wash of water. Joanna had categorized them by their place of origin. Partly from familiar memory and partly by his immediate eyesight Freddy could read the tickets from where he sat; Gethsemane, Mount of Olives, Valley of Jehosophat, Siloam, Jericho, Bethlehem.
Last spring,
when he had begun to visit the Cartwrights at week-ends, these garden beds had been in full bloom. To Freddy, although he was no botanist, they had always looked very English, set here in the garden above Jerusalem; they looked decidedly different, at all events, from what they had looked all over Palestine in the prolific spring. And now, ambling about in the far associations of his thoughts, Freddy contemplated the neatly printed labels of each clump blossoming under the watering-can, and recalled another bold, amateur-handed script, poker-worked into the wood by his great-aunt herself, and how the letters had started up from her little skew-wired tickets. She had been a wild-flower gatherer who had planted a patch of her garden in dumps, labelled according to country names: Bird’s-foot Trefoil, Lady’s Finger, Tufted Vetch, Hair Tare, Viper’s Bugloss, Forget-me-not, Ling, Small-Flowered Crowfoot….