The Mandelbaum Gate (35 page)

‘Friends,
contacts, clients of my father,’ she said, ‘also employees for his night-clubs,
also at times, sub-agents for travel, insurance, et cetera, etcetera. Are you
married to a wife?’

‘No,’
Freddy said.

‘Have
you been married?’

On
imperceptible second thoughts Freddy said he hadn’t.

‘I
thought at first, you must be the lover of Barbara. But when I see you together
I know you are not lovers, I mean bed-lovers.’

‘We’re
getting into deep waters,’ Freddy said, reclining among the chintzes.

‘I can
swim,’ she said.

‘I dare
say.’ She was beside him on a large flowered and hilled divan which was
presumably her bed, but he was only partly aware of the girl’s outline since he
was looking particularly at her blue eyes and their setting between her brow
and cheek-bone. He said, ‘Abdul’s giving me lessons in Arabic, you know.’

She
laughed, short, clear, with a touch of general mockery. She was very like
Abdul. ‘I can give you lessons in Arabic,’ she said.

‘I dare
say.’

She
said, ‘Speak in Arabic what Abdul has taught you.’

He
repeated, in slow formal syllables, one of the exercises from the Arabic
grammar, ‘The affairs of our nation became secure after the murder of the
author of that harmful book.’

‘Abdul
is wasting your time. You do not need to speak these words except in Egypt and
Syria. Here we have not murdered the authors of books, I don’t think. We don’t
have authors of books much, though. Poets, a few. Sometimes the assistant in
the store can be a poet. The Prophet Mohammed was not favourable of poetry. I
think he was in the wrong for that, but I can’t say anything against the
Prophet out loud, naturally. The Arabs love poetry, and they ignore that the
Prophet was against it. When I say this, that, this, that, against the Prophet
and the religion, the people say it’s the reason no one has married me. Also because
I have lovers; they don’t know this exactly, but they know enough, and they
say, “No one will marry Suzi Ramdez. Why buy a goat when you can get two
pennies’ worth of milk.”‘

‘I
shouldn’t worry about them,’ Freddy said. ‘You should have your poetry and your
boy-friends.’

‘They
are lovers, not boys.’

‘I
write poetry,’ Freddy said.

‘Make
me a poem.’

‘All
right. When I go away I’ll write a poem to say thank you.’

‘Maybe
you wait and see how much you want to say thanks to me. What is your job for
the British Government besides poetry?’

‘Oh, it’s
nothing much,’ Freddy said.

‘You
handle all the intelligence and the top secrets of these treaties with the Arab
countries? Do you get wind of all the intrigues between Syria, Lebanon, Egypt,
Kuwait and so forth?’

Freddy
marvelled at this direct interrogation. ‘No, I’m not much more than a sort of
filing-clerk, actually.’

‘Filing-clerk
is best job for getting the secrets. When we seek for spies in our government
we look first for the filing-clerk. They know all.’

‘Well,
I don’t know all. None of us knows all, in fact. We’re a jolly incompetent
bunch. Always getting caught on the hop. It’s well known.’

‘But
what is not well known is the top secrets.’

He was
not sure how naïve she was. She was remarkably like Abdul. He said, ‘Where is
Barbara’s room?’

‘In
this wing of the house. Two doors to the left. Now I’m going to look at her. If
she sleeps, that’s good. By tomorrow there is no more infection, but she just
stays in bed.’

‘I’d be
most interested to see over the house before I leave.’

‘Oh,
no. The other parts are not mine. It’s forbidden to enter. Latifa, my father’s
first wife, is very old-fashioned.’

She
left the room and must have been away about half an hour, for Freddy dozed off
for a while, and she was still absent when he woke. He had at first intended to
spend the night in Jordan, crossing through the Gate on Monday morning. But
now, since he had seen Ruth Gardnor he was determined to wait an extra day, if
necessary to find what she was doing here and see if his suspicion about the
place had grounds. He could put up at a hotel in Jericho, no doubt. He wondered
if Suzi knew of Mrs Gardnor’s presence in the house, and if Suzi herself
intended to remain with Barbara in this house during her two weeks’
incarceration.

Among
all the factors that filled Freddy with an exaggerated sense of his
irresponsibility, when he came to remember these forgotten days, was his
treatment of Barbara. He was amazed, when it all came back to him. That he
could have contrived the scheme at all, dressing her up like that, and so
exposing her to far more suspicion, had she been caught, than if she had been
going round undisguised — permitting her to travel with scarlet fever — allowing
it to go probably unreported — then leaving her in the hands of total strangers
in Jordan, with a promise, never fulfilled, to arrange for an announcement in
the Israeli papers that she was still in Israel — and then, the subsequent
upset, with Barbara’s relations pressing for news, and the embassies and Arab
authorities all at odds…. When he tried to convey this to Barbara later on,
she replied, genuinely surprised, ‘Irresponsible? No, you were splendid,
Freddy. You were never responsible for me; I’m responsible for myself. I knew
what I was doing. I’m grown-up.’

In Suzi’s
sitting-room he had faith in his plan, he was beyond questioning the success of
Barbara’s pilgrimage. One who can move mountains does not stop to doubt the
success of Barbara’s pilgrimage, and the scarlet fever was to him only a slight
set-back which, by happy chance, had led him to Nasser’s Post Office here. Suzi
had not yet returned; he withdrew again into a half-doze and was once more on
that afternoon’s journey from Jerusalem, through the steep craggy wilderness of
Judaea and the oppressive plains, to the heavy Dead Sea with its saline content
bearing no breath of life.

He was still in his second
doze when Suzi returned. She sat and watched him, amused and quiet, as later
her brother Abdul would watch him, that day in the following week when he would
call at Freddy’s hotel in Israel to give him his Arabic lessons, smell the
moth-balls of Freddy’s winter suit, and wait, idly reading Freddy’s letters,
till Freddy should wake from his tired sleep.

Suzi
watched him and decided to put him up overnight and take him back to Jerusalem
the next morning. She had spoken to Barbara, who was now cool and lucid.
Barbara was very happy about her scarlet fever since it would keep her out of
the way of her English enemy, Ricky. Suzi had very quickly understood, when
Barbara told her about the headmistress of the school who was pursuing her out
of love and hatred, and who would like to stop Barbara’s marriage to her lover,
Harry. It seemed perfectly understandable to Suzi, and she had only interrupted
Barbara’s explanation to say ‘We have also these things of oppression among our
Arab women,’ and ‘I wouldn’t have thought that the English have also these
affairs where the woman pursues the woman to stop the business of lovers, and
makes hell.’

‘Oh,
you’d be surprised,’ Barbara had said. ‘And what’s more…’ And when Barbara
next explained that the headmistress was that very one who had tried to speak
to her at the Holy Sepulchre, they had both laughed with very much hysteria;
Suzi had fallen limp upon Barbara in her laughter, and Barbara had said, ‘Don’t.
You’ll catch my scarlet fever.’

‘I’ve
had it already. My stepmother just told me.’

Then
they started all over again until the laughing was spent out and Barbara closed
her eyes with a weak, final, convulsive gasp.

Presently
Suzi had said, ‘Freddy will put that piece in the newspaper of the Jews, and
then I shall see that it is made known to this English mistress. If she goes
round asking, “Where is my friend?” and, “Has Miss Vaughan been here?” — this
will be easy to get done. Soon she gets the reply that you never came.’

‘I’d
rather be taken into custody by the Jordanian police,’ Barbara said, ‘than be
caught by her.’

‘This I
can well understand. The police want always the body but not the soul.’

‘Not in
every country.’

‘No.
This is an Arab virtue. The Arabs don’t intend to interfere with a person’s
soul except when women are jealous, or a father is furious, and then they’re
crazy of course.’

‘The
western people do it all the time. They do it more and more.’

There’s
an Englishwoman staying in this house. She’ll be here for ten days or so; very
kind. So when I must go tomorrow to Jerusalem, she’ll take care of you. I have
to come back here, Wednesday, and I can come again at the week-end.’

‘You’re
taking a lot of trouble….’

‘I do
this anyway. I come here very frequent. Alexandros has asked me to take care of
you. So I do a couple of extra journeys maybe back and forth, for Alexandros
and for you, until you’re well.’

“Who’s
the Englishwoman?’

‘Very
nice girl; very kind. She can be trusted; she won’t ask questions if you do not
ask questions of her.’

‘What’s
she doing here?’

‘You
should not ask this question; then she won’t say of you, “What does she do
here?”‘

‘Where’s
Freddy?’ said Barbara.

‘In my
sitting-room. Perhaps I keep him here for tonight and take him back tomorrow
morning. Do you think he’ll propose to sleep with me?’

‘Six to
one against,’ Barbara said.

Freddy opened his eyes,
and saw Suzi lolling on the divan, watching him. He said, ‘Oh, halo, what’s
going on?’

‘Barbara
is much better. Like Dr Russeifa prescribed, it is a mild attack.’

‘You
mean, as he diagnosed.’

‘Yes.’

‘What
he prescribed was the treatment.’

‘She’ll
be through with the treatment tomorrow. Afterwards, it’s only stay in bed.’

‘Was I
asleep?’ said Freddy.

‘Yes, I
was watching you.’

‘What
were you thinking?’

‘I
was thinking that life is love.’

‘Very
profound. And love is life.’

‘Very
true and very apt,’ she said.

Their dinner was conducted
in intimate style, a candlelight affair. Freddy found himself envying
Alexandros, the usual guest of honour who, Suzi told him, stopped here
frequently on his way to Madaba where he purchased coins and other antiquities
from a coin-dealer there. The coin-dealer, she explained, employed a team of
small boys over a large area round Jericho, where excavators were busy; and
these boys were permitted by the diggers to pick up a few small oddments, such
as coins, and even when they were not permitted to do so, the boys got a lot of
findings. These were turned over to the central dealer at Madaba, an Orthodox
priest, who often came by quite rare things that way. Alexandros was one of his
best customers, Suzi said, and this made for many trips, many occasions to stop
the night at Jericho, where she herself was obliged to come also to the house
on business.

Freddy
envied rich-voiced Alexandros in this room. He reflected that life was love,
and that he had been living all his life in a half-dream, as if he had been a
somnambulist or an amnesiac. One had rehearsed the motions, not minding what
they were all about. Clough, dead and famously lamented a hundred years ago,
had located the virus:

One has bowed and talked, till

little by little,

All the natural heat has escaped of the

chivalrous spirit.

Only
one small skip of flame, Freddy thought, and I see by its light all the other
ashes cooling off in the fireplace.

‘Don’t
be sad,’ Suzi said. ‘I wish Abdul was here. What are you miserable for, Freddy?
You sit and look down through the meat on your plate, right through the plate,
and through the tablecloth….’

It was
lamb on a skewer. The tablecloth had a lace edge. ‘I’m not miserable, my dear,’
Freddy said, with a smile.

‘Nor
happy neither.’

Neither
hot nor cold. ‘Make me happy, then,’ he said. ‘You’re the hostess.’

She
plunged into the job. ‘You have a lovely smile. Abdul should be here. I’m sad
for Abdul that he’s nothing and I have all the position with my father. He
could be here, we could have got papers for him, but he won’t be the son of his
father and be in his influence. When we were children Abdul used to discover
finds in the ruins when the archaeologists came to dig at Jericho and Jerash
and Madaba. My father was not rich, only a teacher, at that time when we were
little. But Abdul didn’t give his little things of the ruins to his father to
sell to the dealer and help for his education. Some, Abdul gave to me, and
others he gave away to the most wealthy of the foreign tourists who came to the
place. They said, “What a sweet little boy!” and Abdul would laugh so much at
that. Because he would take no money for his presents. Sometimes I see them try
to give it back and I hear them say to him, “Sorry — no baksheesh” and he would
run away leaving them with the ancient coins, ornaments, whatever, in their
hands. He plays tricks today, the same. My older sister, who is helping now in
our travel bureau, says Abdul has a mad devil inside him. But my father’s first
wife, Latifa, who lives in this house, always took Abdul’s part. She said he
was a good child to give presents to the rich visitors as that’s what our Arab
tent-men did in the old days. She said a speech to Abdul’s defence: Everyone
gives to the poor; they try to save their souls by it. But if a poor man gives
to the rich, his soul is already with God, and the souls of the rich are
mysteriously moved and relieved of a burden.’