The Mandelbaum Gate

by Muriel Spark

  ‘I don’t see what can be done, Joanna dear,’ said Freddy, so deeply conscious of his fault that he leant forward and rested his chin on his hand to try and be serious about Miss Vaughan’s difficulty. ‘She’s a devout R.C. and she naturally wants to visit all the shrines of the Holy Land. There’s really no difficulty.’

  ‘What about the man?’ Matt said.

  ‘Yes, what about the man?’ Joanna said.

  Matt said, ‘I take it that’s the whole point of her coming here.’

  ‘Oh no, she wants to visit the holy places.’

  ‘I’ll take her up to the Potter’s Field,’ Joanna said. ‘The guides won’t go near the Potter’s Field, they’re terrified.’

  ‘You keep away from the Potter’s Field,’ Matt said.

  ‘I shouldn’t go there too often, Joanna,’ Freddy said. The hill road to the Potter’s Field bordered on disputed territory, and wanderers in the area were likely to be shot at by the patrolmen of either country.

  Matt said, ‘This man that’s digging at the Dead Sea — why doesn’t he come up and look after her? He should go across to Israel and see her, instead of her coming here to see him.’

  ‘The scholars aren’t allowed to go back and forth. The Jordanian government won’t allow it,’ Freddy said. ‘Of course, the Israeli scholars get to know everything in time.’

  ‘He could leave Jordan by air and enter Israel by sea. He could easily get there if he wanted to,’ Matt said.

  ‘Well, she wants to come here for religious reasons.’

  ‘Let her come,’ Joanna said.

  Then Freddy, dismayed by a disastrous thought that had occurred to him, but proud since it proved he was taking Miss Vaughan’s difficulty seriously, said, ‘But look, young Ramdez over in Israel probably knows about her Jewish blood.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Joanna said.

  ‘Well, she’s been talking about it. Young Ramdez hears everything about everyone,’ Freddy said. ‘It’s part of his business.’

  ‘If young Ramdez knows, then old Ramdez will know,’ Matt said. ‘And what he knows the government gets to know. Tell her not to come.’

  They moved indoors since it had fallen dark. At dinner, Joanna said to Freddy, ‘You could make difficulties in Israel for young Ramdez, couldn’t you, if he made difficulties for your Miss Vaughan?’

  ‘Joanna!’ said Matt.

  ‘Well, I was only thinking in symbols. What would the Israelis do to him, Freddy, if they knew he spied for the Jordanians? Shoot him? Put him in prison?’

  ‘Mislead him,’ Freddy said.

  ‘You could threaten him,’ Joanna said.

  ‘Joanna!’ said Matt.

  ‘I’m thinking in symbols. I’m thinking of Freddy’s poor Miss Vaughan.’

  ‘She isn’t really, you know, my Miss Vaughan,’ Freddy said. ‘She’s only —’

  ‘Now Freddy, you know you’re involved whether you like it or —’

  ‘Joanna!’ said Matt. ‘Stop teasing Freddy.’

  ‘A very intense person,’ Freddy said. ‘Who? Me or Miss—?’

  ‘Joanna!’

  … at my friends the Cartwrights. Then after dinner this evening we had some amusement from Joanna Cartwright’s puppet theatre. (Do you recall, dearest Ma, that house in Lewes we used to visit, where they had some very grand puppets? — Joanna’s puppets are not quite so grand.) She is extremely agile at managing their movements. There is also an extraordinary series of gramophone records which, by clever timing, accompany the puppets’ movements perfectly. They seem to speak.

  By the way. earlier in the evening we were discussing Miss Vaughan about whom I have already told you — she is staying at my hotel. She may be coming over to Jordan, but much depends on whether we can assist her to resolve some difficulties that have arisen over her entry into the country. I think this will interest you, dearest Ma, since you enquire in your letter about ‘a teacher at Miss Rick-ward’s school in Gloucestershire, very near Elsie’s’. — Yes, that is Miss Vaughan! — Remember you asked me this question before. Benny will remember, I’m sure. I am glad to hear Elsie brought Miss Rickward to see you. She is decidedly the same Miss Rickward who is a close friend of Miss Vaughan out here. You were right in assuming that Miss Vaughan’s fiancé is an archaeologist who is working at present in the Dead Sea area where the Scrolls were discovered. Apparently there is some hitch about the proposed marriage, since he is divorced and she is R.C. Of course, it is quite absurd, in my opinion, when a couple of grown-up people …

  Freddy had filled most of the pages he had to fill, and it was time for bed.

  At eleven o’clock on Saturday morning Freddy took Joanna and Matt to Alexandros’s shop to show them the icon. Joanna, sitting at the back of the car with quantities of shopping, waved to everyone whom she recognized, including Joe Ramdez, who stood in the street outside his business premises, wearing a red fez, talking to another Arab.

  ‘He hasn’t set off for Amman yet,’ Freddy said.

  ‘They’re going to Amman in the symbolic sense,’ said Matt.

  ‘He’s waiting to pounce on Miss Vaughan,’ Joanna said, for the subject of Miss Vaughan and her difficulties had by now taken a fantastic turn among them, from so much talking it over. First thing in the morning Joanna had declared she had thought about Miss Vaughan far into the night. She regretted talking to Ramdez about Miss Vaughan’s impending visit. But she was used to dealing with other people’s predicaments, even when she had helped to induce them, and in fact could not easily adapt herself to the idea that anyone outside her immediate acquaintance had no problems to be sorted out. Her imagination clung to the intricate danger attached to Miss Vaughan’s story, and she had managed, in the course of the morning, by batting the shuttlecock of Miss Vaughan’s name back and forth between herself and the two men, to infect even them with a kind of irrational excitement over the ways and means by which Miss Vaughan could be trapped by her Jewish blood, could be arrested as an Israeli spy far beyond the assistance of the British Foreign Office, on her arrival in Jordan.

  Freddy had begun to feel a little frightened. He certainly did not want to be involved in an international incident. And for Miss Vaughan’s own sake, he really must, he had decided, somehow prevent her from visiting Jordan. He had a strange difficulty now, in remembering what she looked like; he had in his mind only the outline of a frail, sharp, nervy, dark woman, fearfully indiscreet.

  Matt himself said to Freddy, as they drove into the Old City:

  ‘Can’t you do something at the office to prevent her from coming over — take away her passport, or something?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Freddy said. ‘Anyway, she’s nothing to do with us. ‘He did not like the sound of his words as they were the sort of words that always, to the outsider, suggested Pontius Pilate washing his hands of a potential source of embarrassment; none the less, Freddy felt sympathy for Pontius Pilate, a government officer, and for all those subordinates of Pilate who, like himself, no doubt, had been officially dim, dutiful, and absolutely against intervention between individuals and their doom. Freddy said, ‘If she gets into trouble we can make a protest afterwards.’ His reflections had been unusual in the form they had taken, and he felt they were quite absurd; it was only because Matt had now parked the car and they were emerging from it to face the narrow Via Dolorosa within sight of the Ecce Homo Arch, the place from where, by erroneous tradition, Pontius Pilate had addressed the crowd. The real Judgement Palace of Pilate had newly been excavated, and was some yards distant from the Via Dolorosa, and some feet deeper. Miss Vaughan herself, of course, was the sort of person who somehow induced one to think in terms of religion if one thought about her at all.

  Most of the way to Alexandros’s shop Joanna kept referring with genuine concern to Miss Vaughan’s predicament, hushing her voice considerably in due acknowledgement that any mention of Jewish blood was inflammatory in these parts. The Arabs generally, when they were obliged to talk about Jews, did not permit themselv
es to utter the word Jew; instead, they quaintly spoke of ‘ex-Jews’ and of Israel as ‘Israel, so-called’.

  Matt said, ‘It could happen by accident,’ in reply to Joanna’s inquiry as to what means of execution was used against Israeli spies.

  ‘It could happen by accident.’ Freddy believed the liquidation of spies and suspects had nearly always taken place, as it were, by accident, unless there was some political reason for holding a trial. And now Freddy was grateful for the company of his friends. Joanna’s serious sense of Miss Vaughan’s impending danger and Matt’s urgent appeals to Freddy as to what should be done, gave him a sense of being with responsible people, whose safe conduct he could rely on. For it had begun to gnaw at Freddy’s mind that, for all he knew, Miss Vaughan might be an Israeli spy; he knew nothing of Miss Vaughan’s identity but what she had told him. Of course, he could not mention this suspicion to the Cartwrights; he would have to make official inquiries first.

  At Alexandros’s shop, the first person Freddy saw was Barbara Vaughan. She said, ‘Oh, hallo, Mr Hamilton.’ He stared at her stupidly, as if at a complete stranger. Then, just as she began to look puzzled Freddy pulled himself together and said, ‘Miss Vaughan! What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m looking at some stuff,’ she said. The crib-figures, which Alexandros had evidently failed to sell to his customer of yesterday, were spread about on the glass top of a display cabinet. Alexandros said, ‘This lady likes the crib. She knows it’s good. Mr Hamilton, tell your friend to take this crib and not let it go.’ And he said to Barbara Vaughan, ‘It is for the family — they will say in the future, “This crib was when the Mama went to the Holy Land,” and that is why you should take it.’

  Barbara Vaughan laughed. Joanna had murmured to Freddy, ‘Is that her?’ and Freddy had nodded. He introduced Miss Vaughan to the Cartwrights. She looked plumper than the image he had held in his mind, and it was part of the unexpectedness of the encounter that he noticed she spoke in a natural tone pitch and moved without furtiveness or strain.

  Freddy had recovered his senses so far as to remember what he had brought the Cartwrights here for. They, in their well-mannered way, gave no indication that Miss Vaughan had been the subject of their speculations all morning and most of the night before. Everyone looked at, and admired, the icon. Barbara Vaughan gave out, as a guess, that it was done in the early sixteenth century, not earlier, because the Madonna was not done full length. She thought it unlikely that any departure from the formal Byzantine mode, such as this half-figure depiction of the Madonna, would have occurred at an earlier date.

  Plainly, the jeopardized Miss Vaughan they had been discussing was a different person from the Miss Vaughan who stood, pointing out, in an ordinary English way, her judgement of the date of a painting, and who then listened with untroubled interest while Alexandros debated the question, citing a few rare icons of an earlier date that had passed through his hands.

  In the end, Miss Vaughan declined the crib, but bought an antique silver fish on a chain, which she put round her neck there and then. Joanna, who had immediately adapted herself to the real Miss Vaughan, expressed admiration. Matt also added some words of approval. Alexandros explained that the fish, to which three small curious coins were attached, was of Turkish origin. ‘It’s a Christian symbol,’ said Miss Vaughan. ‘That is correct,’ Alexandros said, ‘and the coins are Turkish charms, attached by the Turkish convert in case Christianity should not be true. He was fully covered, as they say in regard to policies for the insurance of life.’

  They left the shop in a united wavelet of amusement, and Freddy said immediately to Miss Vaughan, ‘When did you come?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ she said.

  ‘How did you come?’

  ‘Through the Mandelbaum Gate.’

  ‘Any difficulty? Speak low.’

  ‘No. I’ve got an extra passport, you know, that doesn’t show the Israeli visa. And my baptismal certificate. A guard came and met me and said, “Welcome to Jordan!”‘

  ‘Did they ask any questions? Speak low.’

  ‘Yes, they asked where I’d come from. It was awfully funny, because they could see perfectly well where I’d come from. But as long as you don’t mention Israel, it’s all right. The formal answer in my case is “From England”, and that’s what I said. Then they asked what I’d come for. I said, a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. They had a look at my passport and said, “Enjoy your visit”. That was all.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Jolly good,’ said Matt.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ Joanna said. They had started winding up the narrow crowded street, Joanna walking ahead with Barbara and the two men more or less behind them.

  ‘The guest-house at St Helena’s Convent. It’s quite comfortable.’

  ‘You’ll be safe there,’ Joanna said.

  ‘Oh goodness, yes. I’m the safe type.’

  Joanna laughed, and Matt, who had taken both women by the arm to guide them through the crowds, laughed too. The Cartwrights responded to any excuse for laughter. Freddy felt very relieved. The whole question of Miss Vaughan was suddenly normal, as if it had never been otherwise.

  They took her home to lunch, treating her as rather more than a new acquaintance, not only because she was Freddy’s friend, but because one always did, in foreign parts, become friendly with one’s fellow-countrymen more quickly than one did at home.

  They had coffee brought out into the garden after lunch. As swiftly as water finds its own level, they had already formed a small island of mutual Englishness; their intimacy had ripened under the alien sun to the extent that the two women were addressing each other by their first names; and when Joanna said to Barbara Vaughan, ‘I expect you’re looking forward to seeing your fiancé again?’ it was possible for Barbara to reply in a confiding manner which, at home, ought to have taken some years to mature: ‘Well, d’you know, I don’t at all want to see him. I’ve been waiting and waiting to hear about an annulment’ verdict from Rome — for as a Catholic I can’t marry him unless his previous marriage is annulled. Then I’ve been in a state of conflict for weeks, whether or not to come over to Jordan and see him. One way and another, my emotions are exhausted. I simply don’t feel anything for him any more. In fact, I’ve gone off him.’

  ‘It’s perfectly understandable in the circumstances,’ Joanna said in her practised way, ‘that you should go numb. But it’s only temporary. Your feelings will come back.’

  Freddy found himself hoping not. This Miss Vaughan who claimed so emphatically to have gone off her fiancé was decidedly more agreeable and relaxed than the febrile Miss Vaughan in love.

  ‘He’s probably the wrong chap for you,’ he said in an avuncular manner which came easily to him at that moment, seeing that Miss Vaughan had just declared herself unattached.

  Matt, anxious to take some sort of possession too, said, ‘Get him up to Jerusalem. Bring him along here. Maybe we can sort things out.’

  Barbara smiled. ‘But I’ve gone off him,’ she said. She seemed to be amused at herself in a sophisticated way, and was pretty-looking as she leaned back in the garden chair, holding her coffee cup.

  ‘Who is the fellow, anyway?’ Freddy said. He knew the man’s name, Harry Clegg, and also that he was a distinguished archaeologist.

  Barbara said, ‘Harry Clegg’s his name. He’s well known in archaeology.’

  ‘I’ve heard of Clegg,’ Matt said.

  ‘Yes, but who are the Cleggs?’ Freddy said. ‘That’s all I mean.’ Joanna said, ‘Freddy, if you’re trying to undermine him with Barbara, she’ll get her feelings back, and go and marry him tomorrow. That’s what I’d do.’

  Freddy said apologetically to Barbara; ‘I only wondered if you knew anything much about his family.’

  Well, he doesn’t seem to know much, himself, about the family,’ Barbara said, ‘and he doesn’t care. He can’t even trace his birth certificate. Really, he’s a charming person; it’s only that
I don’t feel—’

  ‘Good God!’ Freddy said. ‘You should be careful who you take up with.’

  An Arab servant had appeared with a fresh pot of coffee, and they kept silence until he had receded like a wave of the sea that had lapped against the garden wall. Barbara got up, meanwhile, to examine the labels on Joanna’s wild flowers of the Holy Land, and to deflect attention from herself, as the social moment offered and required.

  ‘Cotyledon,’ Barbara murmured, examining a plant which grew about ten inches high. It was not in flower, but it had, near its base, a group of curious circular leaves, sunk in their centres, like flowers themselves. Freddy had frequently tried to place this plant from memory, for he had seen it before. It stood in the clump marked Bethlehem. ‘I got it on a hillside near the Shepherds’ Field,’ Joanna said. ‘I daresay the same plant has been growing there since the time of Christ. What’s the name of it, did you say?’

  ‘It’s called pennywort, commonly. The botanical name is Cotyledon umbilicus. I wonder how it got to this country.’

  Joanna took this in good part. ‘I thought it was indigenous, ‘she said.

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Barbara. But she did not sound convinced. She said, ‘I’d have to look it up.’

  ‘Some sort of flowers must have been blooming here at the time of Christ,’ Joanna said. ‘They can’t all be British imports.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘I had a cousin used to take wild-flower seeds to India and scatter them there,’ Freddy said.

  Barbara said, ‘I do that from time to time when I go abroad. To tell the truth, I smuggled a few Anthyllis seeds — that’s Lady’s Fingers — into Israel and scattered them on Mount Carmel on the sea verge. They grow well by the sea. Lovely yellow flowers. It was wildly against the regulations, but I couldn’t resist it. I never can. It’s a habit.’

  Freddy felt happy, and was struck by the thought that Miss Vaughan was remarkably well informed. He felt it proper that she should have scattered Lady’s Fingers in some corner of a foreign field.