The Mandelbaum Gate (49 page)

That
evening they cornered a priest who was staying at the hotel, to confirm their
assumption that Harry’s previous marriage was now invalid. This was easy
enough.

‘Do
they accept photographed copies in Rome?’ said Barbara, ‘or do we send for the
original?’ The priest had to corner another priest for the answer. The other
priest was that Father Colin Ballantyne who had preached at the Holy Sepulchre
and brought his pilgrimage through the Gate with Barbara. ‘Yes, a copy is all
right, of course,’ he said. ‘One can never get parishes to part with the
originals.’ He looked at Barbara again. ‘Haven’t we met somewhere before?’

She
said. ‘I came through the Mandelbaum Gate with your party on Monday.’

‘Oh, is
that where it was …’ He still seemed puzzled, and they left him with the
mystery.

Abdul Ramdez and Mendel
Ephraim left Israel by way of Syria a few months later and managed to reach
Tangier, where they opened a café.

Suzi
married a lawyer in Athens.

Freddy
remembered Suzi gradually, and especially on that day in Kensington Gardens
when the red sun touched the skaters under the winter sky. He wondered, then,
whether she was alive.

‘You’ve
got Gardnor’s statement?’

‘Yes.
His wife’s got away to Cairo, we hear. The Ramdez girl was arrested, probably
shot. The police were keen to show willing.’

‘Oh,
well. At least you’ve got Gardnor.’

‘Old
Ramdez seems to have wriggled out of it. He’s still going about.’

‘Detestable
fellow,’ Freddy said.

And
when it came at last to his wondering whether Suzi was alive, he didn’t take
steps to inquire, and was reminded again of that story of the man who went away
for a holiday and left his dog chained up, and feared to return in case of what
he should find.

Barbara
and Harry were married and got along fairly well together ever after. They had
one child, a girl, whom they fussed over continually. They saw Suzi many times
in Athens and London. Her husband was not unlike Alexandros, but leaner and
less large in manner.

Before
he left Jordan Freddy bought the icon from Alexandros, who condoled with him formally,
in Lebanese French, over the death of his mother, and, in Arab English, assured
Freddy that there was no obligation for him to buy the icon.

‘I’m
afraid,’ said Freddy, ‘that I’m a little better off now.’

‘Yes,
the mother leaves to the son. The old must die. But she has had a life.’

Joanna
said, ‘Freddy, you simply aren’t fit to travel, let alone face all those tragic
details. There’s nothing you can do now. Let your sisters cope.’

‘I must
see about Benny,’ Freddy said. ‘I must go home and see to poor Benny. My
sisters will do nothing for Benny.’

‘There’s
the Welfare State, you know.’

‘I must
see about her. I can’t have her locked up in some lunatic asylum without seeing
the actual place, at least.’

Before
he left for Israel to collect his belongings and return home, Freddy walked
round Old Jerusalem, up the Via Dolorosa, past the Temple site and the Dome of
the Rock, locating the places of history that had become familiar to him, as
well as those he had neglected to look into. He followed the ancient walls of
the city and Temple, past the gates of historic meaning, sealed and barred
against Israel — the Zion Gate, Dung Gate, Jaffa Gate, New Gate. Then St
Stephen’s Gate opened within the Old City to another medieval maze of streets —
Damascus Gate, that gate of the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm
Sunday, and Herod’s Gate. He walked round the city until at last, fumbling in
his pocket for his diplomatic pass, he came to the Mandelbaum Gate, hardly a
gate at all, but a piece of street between Jerusalem and Jerusalem, flanked by
two huts, and called by that name because a house at the other end once
belonged to a Mr Mandelbaum.