"If you promise to get back quickly," he grumbled. "I can let you have a few men to go with you."
"One - a driver - will be enough..."
He did not wait to hear, but hurried to the door and called to one of the tire-repairers, who raced over to the armory and came back with five rifles. Outside, the command car's engine was already running and five soldiers jumped in over the sides as it crossed the courtyard slowly. The supervisor beckoned the driver down to him, then whispered something into his ear. When I jumped into the front seat the driver was back in his place, smiling and ready with his foot on the pedal.
"Hold tight," he shouted and sped out into the road.
Just like the last time I had gone with soldiers to the house of a local inhabitant, passersby followed us with suspicious eyes. I was tense, even worried. Everything was happening too quickly, and I was teetering on the edge of control. Some of the soldiers began to sing a song they had picked up from the radio, others whooped with joy and made inviting gestures at women and girls. Men brandished their fists in response. Children yelled curses.
I recognized the opening of the alley into which the old man and the blind girl had entered. We drove in. The driver maneuvered the car along yellow walls between which washing, dripping with tepid water, had been hung. Sewage water flowed along a narrow channel. The old man was sitting beside a wide open cellar door, like a mouse hole, near the base of a house. The driver stopped. The windows all opened at once. The old man hastily dragged his stool into the cellar. He tottered down the stairs, the nape of his neck stiff with the effort.
"What are you hiding in there?" the driver shouted at him. The soldiers jumped out of the vehicle.
"Call them back," I ordered. They laughed.
We went down three wide, generous stairs. The old man was standing on the threshold, his lined face staring at us. Suddenly he bowed deeply, almost mockingly. The soldiers hesitated for a moment and I used the opportunity to give him my hand. He took it absently, as if it were some superfluous object. His skin was dry and his clothes stank. The space in front of him was dark and emitted the terrible stench of rooms never aired. The soldiers backed away to the door.
"Good morning," I said, "may the blessing of Allah be upon you..."
The old man smiled. "T'fadal," he croaked, "and may the blessing of Allah be upon you too." A strong beam of white light struck his face, suddenly giving it the terrified look of a trapped bat. Somewhere behind the source of light were the voices of the soldiers.
"Put the light out," I ordered. They diverted the beam to the ceiling, illuminating the whole cellar, which was small and sealed like a seashell.
But the old man leaped after the beam of light and began to jump up and down, casting a theatre of shadows onto the walls. For a moment I thought he had been gripped by madness or the mischievousness of old people. But then the beam moved at random and everything became clear: he wanted to distract our attention from the girl.
Close up, she seemed more human. She was lying on a mattress in a corner, propped up against a mound of cushions and covered with a fringed blanket, possibly a carpet. Her eyes were wide open.
The old man hobbled over to her head. I advanced as well. Her large body radiated heat and a surprisingly pleasant smell of young flesh.
"Can you hear me?" I asked gently. With astonishing vitality, the girl nodded her head. Her unseeing eyes did not have that cloudiness one usually finds in blind people. The thought of some knowledge hidden behind them was a logical and likely possibility.
"The doctor," I began, "Dr. Khamis..."
"Allah yerahmo," she said in a soft voice, "May Allah have mercy on him." Her white hand was on top of the blanket. Did the doctor usually hold it in his? Behind my back, the soldiers were getting restless. One went outside, another poked around in a niche in the wall, among a pile of rags. The three who were left came forward.
Someone said, "I bet she's lying on a mountain of money. They always get women to guard their money."
"Go away," the old man screamed in fright, "go away."
"Go outside," I requested, "wait for me outside."
"You can't give us orders," a soldier shouted from the niche, "and anyway, what did we come for?" I could hear his voice as the girl might, rough and echoing. I could guess what would happen next. The mild serenity there had been on her face changed into the first tiny wrinkles of distress. Her neck reddened and distended, her jaw dropped, her mouth opened and a long, high-pitched sound issued forth.
It was unlike a scream I had ever heard, a monotonous scraping in complete contrast with the gentle voice in which she had spoken beforehand. The soldiers recoiled. One of them swore, while others grimaced in revulsion. All eyes turned to the old man, whose anxious look had turned to amused indifference.
The girl continued shrieking incessantly, inhaling in a way that enabled her to continue. From outside came the sound of feet and voices. Another soldier rushed in and locked the door behind him.
"What's happening?" he asked. "Half the street's outside already..."
Someone from outside tried to open the door. There was a momentary lull, then a hail of pounding and another lull, while those outside consulted. The next round of thumping focused on the weak point near the lock.
Those were the last moments before it all began to happen. I was to regret my hope of yesterday that something would happen. The doctor's fate was forgotten. Amazingly, it was something of Vincent which came to life within me, enabling me to stay cool in the face of the screeching girl, the growing crowd outside the door, the old man, the soldiers and, principally, my own nerves. All my energy, all my consciousness and memories concentrated on the idea that there had to be a way out of any situation, provided one did not lose one's head.
The door gave way. A throng stood outside, stopped by an invisible line stretching across the threshold. The people at the back pushed them in and craned their necks. Slowly, inch by inch, the cellar was conquered by a creature without a body or a face, only one enormous mouth and innumerable legs and arms which moved forward in a terrifying wave.
'Play for time,' I heard a distant voice in my mind.
Aloud I said to the soldiers, "Stay close together and don't provoke them."
They disregarded my orders. One touched his gun and clattered the slide as a warning signal. The mob was too excited to be afraid. They responded by advancing almost to the middle of the room. One young man in a white T-shirt held a crowbar, and another, wearing a bathrobe, shouted to the girl, "They won't do anything to you. We're here."
A man in a peaked cap shouted at me, "Go to your whores in Tel Aviv," and a woman dressed in black cried: "Kill them, like they killed my husband."
The soldiers backed away, spitting out curses and complaining loudly, not yet charged with the fear that the situation called for. Behind them the blind girl continued her screeching. In front of the crowd a small square of concrete became no man's land. One soldier aimed his rifle at the belly of the young man with the crowbar.
"Don't shoot!" I yelled and stepped into the square.
There was no need. The soldiers had by now realized that firepower was inferior to inflamed minds.
"Don't leave us here!" they implored me from behind.
I turned to face the crowd in front of me, held my hand up, filled my lungs with air and emptied them out, "Uskut!!! Quiet!!!"
They responded with a roar. The man in the dressing-gown spat in my face. The young man brandished the crowbar. The widow in black clasped her hands and began moaning out loud about a misfortune. Someone came in from the outside, bent at my feet and, with a deft movement, threw me forward. The blind girl's screeching suddenly stopped, but the widow's voice grew louder and I realized that she had not been mourning but was rather rejoicing over my ruin.
I curled over, pushing my head between my legs, leaving my back exposed. A shoe kicked me in the ribs. A hand pulled at my hair.
The light from the torch that struck my cl
osed eyelids melted the last band of defense. Whatever was still there of my cool composure came to a full stop. Fear filled my chest, dulling my senses with drops of rage. What a way to go; a fortuitous and stupid accident. Where the hell were all the soldiers? Why were they letting this happen?
I realized then that quiet had returned.
I did not yet dare to do more than peer cautiously through the shelter of my arms. The attackers were shuffling to the side, leaving a narrow path. The priest appeared, his arms spread out, spreading his blessing and making his way through the murmurs and sighs. He stopped, facing me. His gray jaw was clenched, his eyes dark and cool.
"What do you seek here?"
I stood unsteadily. His wide body stood between me and the door.
"What do you seek here?" he asked again. He squinted over my shoulder. The young man with the crowbar said excitedly:
"One of them already had his trousers off and the others were touching her."
"You're not going to believe that."
"Why not?"
The crowd replied with murmurs of assent. "Kill them," the widow burst out again, "like my husband..."
I looked at him closely, feeling all his human aspects in him, his smell, the roots of his hair, the pores of his skin.
"You wouldn't let it happen."
He did not react. His facial nerves spoke of the oppressiveness of the room, the impermeability of the walls and the crowd of people which was surging forward again.
"Tell them to stop."
His look was dark, remote, detached. But something deep within him seemed aware of what was happening and responded faintly. His eyebrows, cheeks and forehead were still furrowed but a certain relaxation was noticeable in his lips. Slowly, gradually, my confidence returned. Rescue was now a question of time. He was making an internal inventory, a balance of punishment and forgiveness. I could see words being chosen carefully, with difficulty, eventually becoming an ironic, bitter, thin smile. He turned round and slowly held his hand up. His people watched him hypnotized. They stared at the tips of the long fingers, the large ring, the burning red stone, the fist, which was clenched and then released. A calming sign.
Released from the spell, they took on normal expression. The crowd began to stream outside. The old man bobbed up at the entrance, responding to greetings and sympathetic looks. The blind girl turned her face to the wall and wept.
The last out were the soldiers, who climbed unobtrusively into the command car. I laid my hand on the priest's arm, the one which had stood in the breach.
"Thanks."
He did not reply, merely turned silently to the entrance. Our man, torn between loyalties? A village priest whose tolerance had been put to the test by a sudden occupation? His behavior indicated neither one nor the other. Were other possibilities likely? A split agent, a former agent, a double or triple agent? My relief led me to pursue the notion further. It might even be possible to benefit from the contretemps.
"We must talk..." I said.
He stopped. The bitter smile returned to his lips.
"Well?" I asked. "When?"
"Why not today?" he said and disappeared into the bright light outside.
***
By the afternoon the embarrassment had found its way into normalcy. The street facing the gate to the Athenaeum was lined with passersby, faces to the garden wall, arms and legs spread. The mechanics gave them body searches, raiding their bodies with heavy taps. Other soldiers went through pockets, questioning each one about his whereabouts that morning. In the garage courtyard were a few more mechanics along with the supervisor of the shop, who handed me a stapled sheet of paper.
Scheckler's convoluted handwriting lunged at me like a host of insects:
"I'M SENDING YOU THIS LETTER WITH A DRIVER BECAUSE ALL KINDS OF THINGS ARE HAPPENING AND I HAVE TO STAY ON LONGER. I ASKED ABOUT THE DOCTOR WITH NO RESULT. I ASKED SOMEONE VERY HIGH-UP. HE SAID THAT WE MUST HAVE MADE A MISTAKE IN THE NAME, THE DATE, THE NUMBER OF THE TELEGRAM OR SOMETHING. THAT SEEMS TO EXPLAIN IT."
Beneath his long signature was another sentence:
"P.S. THE HIGH-UP WAS SURPRISED TO HEAR THAT YOU WERE WITH US. HE'S NEVER HEARD OF YOU. THAT'S THE WAY IT GOES IN WAR, A MESS."
I crumpled the piece of paper. The shop supervisor reached out for it.
"He'll want to file it when he gets back..."
"I'll file it," I turned toward the street. "You'd better calm down your men..."
Creases appeared in his forehead, as though he had difficulty understanding. Slowly he chewed a thick fingernail.
"They're angry with you about what happened this morning..."
"You insisted that they go with me."
He examined his fingernail, which had been torn off too near the flesh. A small bubble of blood welled up around it.
"How could I know? This place was quiet..."
"It still is."
"After you came everything got complicated. It would be easier if I knew what to expect, if I knew why you're here..."
"You don't expect me to give you the reasons..." I put all the determination I could muster into my voice, but this merely served to stiffen the uncooperative look on his face. And in Scheckler's absence he was my only acceptable ally. I found myself appealing to his morality, his thinning, greying hair, the weary expression he'd acquired in dozens of army garages. "From you of all people I would have expected help..."
He was flattered but cautious. "How can I help?"
"There are various problems here associated with Intelligence," I held on to the magic word which became more convincing the more obscure the circumstances, "and I need a vehicle..."
His openness outweighed his other qualities. "If it turns out that you're really someone," he murmured as he fumbled in his pockets, "you won't be able to say that I didn't help..."
"Thanks," I took the keys, which smelled of oiled metal and stuffed pockets.
"...It's a shame you're not... very sociable," he added. "We could meet in the evening, to talk. The other guys don't understand life..."
I left him watching me as I went into the courtyard. Two soldiers were sitting on the side of the command car, smoking. As I drew near they jumped down and walked away, turning their backs to me. At the entrance to the kitchen a sad-faced boy was peeling potatoes, his legs stretched out in front on either side of the pot. I hooted, but he did not move. I maneuvered carefully to the gate. The guard released the chain with obvious hostility. In the mirror I could see him make an insulting gesture at me.
I did not much like myself either. I drove forward slowly, through a river of battered cars and newly-arrived refugees. The huge sycamore that grew in Anton Khamis' yard appeared and disappeared among the rooftops of the houses as I made my way. The loneliness within me, the sadness, the disintegration of discipline, made me think that god or some ancient forefather would have preferred the doctor to return to his patients, his wife and his son, his books and his friend, the priest, and me to leave.
***
In the pine wood surrounding the house of the priest the heat of the day had not yet dispersed. The scent of molten resin floated in the sobbing of violins. A tenor lamented in a minor key, infinitely sorrowful. The green Morris was parked in the courtyard, as usual. The light I had noticed in the window on my previous visit was not to be seen.
The music stopped as I walked along the path. The front door opened before I knocked on it. The priest leaned against it impatiently, as though he had been interrupted in the middle of something important. He seemed less grim than I remembered and there was a certain vitality in his eyes which belied the tension in his face.
We did not exchange greetings, or even shake hands. We just nodded silently, and I walked across the cool floor into a world of whitewashed walls and cool isolation. The soft light radiated through the windows. A table, three chairs and an iron bed covered with a blanket gave the aura of a niggardly homeliness. The priest went into the other room carrying an object he had been hold
ing, a kind of primitive bellows, either a vacuum cleaner or a spray-pump. He returned with a bowl of apples and a damp cloth, with which he wiped away a circle of green paint, the imprint left by a tin, from the tabletop. Then he put the bowl down and indicated to me to sit.
"You wanted to talk," he began in the tone of someone holding all the cards.
The purposefulness in his voice and the fact that he was ignoring the morning's incident in the cellar aroused in me once more the certainty of a connection between him and us.
"We have a common interest, " I said.
He assented with a nod of his head.
"We have delayed for too long."
His face, the way he was holding himself, his hands on the table - all signified agreement.
"How shall we begin?"
"With you bringing him back." It took me a while to realize that he was referring to the doctor.
"I don't deal with that."
"You arrested him." He took an apple and sank a row of white teeth into the hard flesh.
To avoid losing the little goodwill I thought I had perceived in him previously, I tried to put things straight.
"There's nothing to be done except wait until the investigation is finished."
"And what will happen if it does not finish?" he persisted intensely. "A lot of time has passed, too much, even... What if you arrested him by mistake and now you're trying to cover up? Or maybe you've forgotten him in some remote prison, or killed him and gotten rid of the body...?"
"That sort of thing doesn't happen with us. People aren't arrested without a reason and don't disappear afterwards..." I hesitated for a moment before adding, "You must know that..."
He did not respond to the hint. "Prove it," he said earnestly, "bring him back or at least give some sign of him." Strength exuded from him, from his penetrating eyes, from his dark skin and the thick, vigorous hair on his scalp and mustache. I was no longer sure of anything. The circumstances indicated a connection, but his behavior only touched on hostility. I thought about other agents I had known, about all the hands in which I had placed money or its equivalent in return for documents left in places from where they could be collected, for films dropped into post-boxes, for rumors whispered into the right ears. For a moment my memory became a hotchpotch of traitors and collaborators; those who loved money or feared poverty, idealists and others who would sell their mothers. Where did this man, who combined craftiness with rural honesty, practicality with the sacred anger of a mountain prophet, belong?
The Rainy Day Man: Contemporary Romance Page 9
