Fortunes of War

by Olivia Manning

  ‘No. If we come, where can I find him?’

  ‘He’s at the same bunkhouse as I am, the YMCA. I see a lot of him but he doesn’t approve of poor old Lister. Thinks I’m fast or something. Look me up, won’t you? We’ll have a blow-out. Must go. Must go.’ Shifting about and squirming, he managed to rise from his chair then, with a wave of his stick, he plodded on, his desert boots sinking into the sand, his trousers splitting over his big buttocks.

  Jerusalem, Harriet decided, was the place for her. With the help of Aidan and Lister, she would be able to find work in a government office. Imagining all her problems were solved, she hurried back to the pension and found Angela, too, preparing to set out for Jerusalem. Castlebar had been sent to buy steak sandwiches and, soon after midday, they had left behind them the flowers and meadows of Galilee. Angela drove up on to the central ridge of hills to reach Nazareth where Castlebar thought they might stop for a drink. Angela said: ‘Not here. Dim little place. We’ll go on to Nablous.’

  Nablous did not look much better but there was a pool, a large tank, where boys were splashing about and making a lot of noise.

  ‘Now this is fun,’ Angela said, ‘we’ll stop here.’ When they had eaten their steak sandwiches, she wandered down and spoke to the boys in Arabic. She asked how they had come by the pool and the boys told her that a rich man had presented it to the town.

  She asked when did the girls have their turn in the water?

  The girls? The boys looked confounded until one, older than the others, as though talking to someone simple-minded, told her the girls did not come to the pool. The girls had to stay at home and help their mothers.

  Angela came back to the car in a rage and said: ‘This is a one-sex town. Let’s push on to civilization.’

  As they reached the end of the ridge, they glimpsed distant towers and spires but it was not till they overlooked the valley of Latrun that they saw the Holy City complete and radiant on its hills. It seemed to float on a basin of mist and within its crenellated walls, the golden dome of the Mosque of Omar radiated the evening sunlight.

  There was a downdrop of hairpin bends. ‘The Seven Sisters,’ Castlebar told the women. ‘Notorious place for accidents, designed by the silly Turks. This is where the horses would smell the stables and make a dash and take the whole caboose over the edge. I hope our old moke doesn’t smell a garage.’

  Angela smiled indulgently on him. ‘You awful idiot,’ she said and bending to kiss him, nearly took the Alvis over the edge.

  They drove down into olive groves then, rising again, reached the outskirts of the city and came on to the Jaffa Road.

  ‘Here we are,’ Angela said and stopped the car outside the King David Hotel.

  Seventeen

  The Jerusalem weather was still unsettled. Heavy showers came and went, leaving on the air the scent of rosemary, but the rains were nearly over. The sun, when it appeared, had the pleasant heat of an English summer.

  Settling down to their old routine, Harriet, Angela and Castlebar would sit before dinner in the hotel garden and watch the mist clear over the Jordan valley and the mountains of Moab appear, purple-brown and wrinkled like prunes.

  On the first evening, Angela was so pleased by her surroundings that she said: ‘We might spend the summer here,’ and Harriet, hoping soon to find work and pay her way, said she could think of no more agreeable place.

  ‘What about you, loved one?’ Angela turned to Castlebar and Castlebar, as usual, agreed with Angela.

  But at dinner, her enthusiasm waned at the sight of the strange, dark meat on her plate. She called their waiter, an Armenian, and said: ‘What on earth is it?’

  The waiter was not sure. He said it could be mutton or it could be camel.

  ‘Mutton? Camel?’ Angela cried out indignantly, attracting the attention of the other diners: ‘No one eats mutton these days. As for camel!’

  ‘Here, madam, we must be glad for what we can get.’ The waiter explained that the different communities conserved their food for their own people. The Arabs fed the Arabs, the Jews the Jews, but the British, having no one to provide for them, were always half-starved and the hotels had to take what they could get. He, an Armenian, was not much better off than the British so he was lucky to work where food was provided. His manner, modest and considerate, disarmed Angela who smiled into his old, sad, wrinkled face and said with humorous resignation: ‘There’s always a something, isn’t there? And I suppose you’re going to tell me there’s no Scotch whisky.’

  ‘Oh, madam, there is whisky. Many kinds. You like whisky, madam?’ He asked as one asking a child if it liked chocolate. Angela threw back her head and laughed, then said to all the interested diners: ‘Isn’t he sweet!’ She told him he was her favourite waiter, her favourite of all the waiters she had ever known and he smiled at her with gentle, adoring eyes.

  The Holy City was protected by a town planner. The city was built of grey, local stone, and new buildings had to conform, but opposite the hotel there was a red, stark structure that had somehow evaded regulations. It was fronted by the small, neat rosemary hedges that scented the air in wet weather. Harriet thought it was a block of municipal offices but found it was the YMCA.

  When Angela and Castlebar were settled in the bar, she crossed the road to enquire for Aidan Pratt.

  The porter told her: ‘Captain Pratt gone away.’

  ‘And not coming back?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, coming back. We keep his room. He come when he come. When? Any time now, I think.’

  Harriet, eager to start work, left with a sense of hope deferred. Outside on the steps, she met Lister who gave her a riotous welcome: ‘Here she is, my lovely girl. Come to find her old Lister.’

  ‘Well, not exactly. To tell you the truth, I was looking for Aidan Pratt but he’s away.’

  ‘That one is always away. He thinks the War Office sent him out on a joy-ride. Do you want him for anything special?’

  ‘Only to see him. It’s just that he’s a friend of Guy.’

  ‘Aren’t we all? Everyone’s a friend of Guy.’

  ‘When do you think Aidan will be back?’

  ‘I don’t know but I could find out. Why worry about him when you’ve got your old Lister to show you round. How long will you be in Jerusalem?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ There was, Harriet realized, a flaw in her plan to live and work here. Guy had friends in the city and sooner or later, one of them would tell him where she was. She had been prepared to take Aidan into her confidence but Lister was another matter. She could not trust him to keep her presence secret.

  He said: ‘Come over to the bar and have a drink.’

  Having no reason to refuse, Harriet went with him to the hotel, discomforted by the thought that Angela did not want to see him again. But Angela seemed to be amused by the sight of him and when he pressed his damp moustache ardently against the back of her hand, she asked: ‘And how’s the little bum tonight?’

  ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ Lister shook all over and on the strength of their previous acquaintance, sat down and helped himself from the whisky bottle. His hand was shaky. It was obvious he had already reached the talkative stage of inebriation but he said: ‘First today.’ Then: ‘Just met this girl looking for that actor fellow Pratt. She said he was a friend of Guy. “Aren’t we all?” I said: “Aren’t we all?” Eh, eh? Not surprising, eh?’ He eulogized Guy’s good fellowship, his gift of making people feel wanted, his readiness to help anyone who needed help and so on. While he talked, his eyes slid loosely in their sockets and several times looked to Harriet for confirmation of what he said, expecting her to be gratified.

  And, in a way, she was. Guy deserved this praise, she could even feel proud of his deserving but the fact remained, she had not been included in this widely bestowed generosity.

  Angela listened but said nothing. Castlebar smiled and gave Harriet a sly glance. Lister, catching the glance, shouted: ‘Eh, you poetaster? What do you think? Do you agree or disagree?�
��

  ‘I agree, of course.’

  ‘Ever hear that story about the two men on the desert island? Neither knew the other but they both knew Guy Pringle?’

  ‘Oh, y-y-yes, frequently.’

  ‘There you are, then! The man’s a legend. Isn’t he a legend, eh?’

  ‘Y-y-yes. Very lively legend, though.’

  Mollified, Lister subsided: ‘Glad you’ve turned up. Nice to have someone who talks one’s own language. You’ll be here most nights, I expect. Nowhere else to go, is there?’

  Lister helped himself again from the bottle and in return for hospitality, set out on a survey of Palestine as it looked to him.

  ‘Ideal climate this, never too hot, but awful place, everyone hating everyone else. The Polish Jews hate the German Jews, and the Russians hate the Polish and the German. They’re all in small communities, each one trying to corner everything for themselves: jobs, food, flats, houses. Then there’s the Orthodox Jews — they got here first and want to control the show. The sophisticated western Jews hate the Old City types with their fur hats and kaftans and bugger-grips. See them going round on the Sabbath trying the shop doors to make sure no one’s opened up on the quiet. All they do is pray and bump their heads against the Wailing Wall. Their wives have to keep them. Then all the Jews combine in hating the Arabs and the Arabs and Jews combine in hating the British police, and the police hate the government officials who look down on them and won’t let them join the Club. What a place! God knows who’ll get it in the end but whoever it is, I don’t envy them.’

  Castlebar said: ‘I s-s-suppose things’ll settle down when the Jews feel more secure?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Lister had said his piece and had now started to droop. ‘Hatred,’ he muttered. ‘Terrible thing: hatred! My nurse used to hate me, never knew why. She used the brush on me. Bristle side. Used to pull down m’little knickers . . .’

  ‘Not that little bum again,’ Angela interrupted sharply and Lister gave her a hurt look, then sank forward on his stick. A tear trickled down his cheek.

  ‘No sympathy. No understanding . . .’

  ‘Come on,’ Angela ordered Castlebar who protested: ‘But the bottle’s still a quarter full.’

  ‘Let him have it. You drink too much, anyway. How about you, Harriet?’

  ‘I’m coming.’ Looking back, Harriet saw Lister abstractedly refilling his glass. She expected a reprimand from Angela but Angela said only: ‘I suppose we’ll have him every night,’ and sighed as she went into the lift.

  Lister was, as she had feared, a nightly visitor to the bar but he also escorted Harriet on sight-seeing trips while Angela and Castlebar spent the afternoons in their room. Angela lent Lister the car and he drove Harriet to Bethlehem to see the Church of the Nativity and a cave made gaudy with velvets, brocades, ikons, holy pictures and bejewelled gewgaws that claimed to be the manger where Christ was born. They went westward down through the orange groves to Jaffa and eastward through the desert to Jericho and the Dead Sea. All these trips were described in the evening to Angela who was content to listen and see nothing, but there was one event that roused her interest. The Armenian waiter had told her about the great ceremony of the Greek church, the Ceremony of the Holy Fire.

  Lister eagerly agreed: ‘Mustn’t miss it, even if you have to camp in the church all night.’ He said nothing more but a few days later he arrived with an air of smiling complacency that had in it a slight hauteur. Even his limp had acquired majesty. Bowing first to Angela, then to Harriet and to Castlebar, he said: ‘I have done the impossible. I have obtained tickets for the Holy Fire; and ask you to honour me by coming as my guests.’

  Gratified by their grateful acceptance, he went to the bar and bought drinks for everyone. ‘This year,’ he explained in a somewhat lofty fashion, ‘the police are going to control the show. There will be no fighting to get in, no violence or people getting killed. Admission will be by invitation only.’

  ‘But won’t that spoil things?’ Angela said.

  ‘Not a bit. The hoi-polloi will simply have to wait till the ticket holders are seated then they’ll be admitted in an orderly manner. There’ll be a special entrance for distinguished visitors, among whom will be . . .’ he lifted Angela’s hand, then Harriet’s, and having kissed them both, simpered at them: ‘ . . . will be these two lovely ladies.’

  Harriet asked: ‘How did you get the tickets?’

  ‘Never mind. There are ways and means, if one has influence.’ Lister maintained his dignity for the rest of the evening, leaving the bar while still reasonably sober and making no further mention of his little bum. He refused to disclose how he had obtained the tickets but Angela learnt from her friend, the Armenian waiter, that batches of invitations had been sent out to the different orders of Jerusalem society: the government officials, the military and the religious sects — the Greeks, the Roman Catholics, the Copts, the Armenians and even the lowly Abyssinians who were so poor, they had been pushed out of the interior of the church but had managed to keep a foothold on the roof.

  ‘The roof of what?’ Angela asked.

  ‘Why, madam, the roof of the church. The Holy Sepulchre.’

  Lister, when tackled by Angela, admitted he had applied for four of the military allotment and had been granted them. ‘Quite an achievement, eh? Getting all four?’ He produced the tickets and allowed his guests to examine them then, with the air of a munificent host, put them back in his wallet. He impressed on them the need to make an early start. Though the onlookers would be organized, nothing could organize the Greek patriarch.

  ‘The show begins when the old boy chooses to turn up, and that could be any time. Want to get in at the start, don’t we? It’ll be a great occasion, a great occasion.’

  Lister, in his state of expansive authority, remained as near sober as he ever was. The only thing troubling him was his gout.

  Eighteen

  Edwina had announced her engagement to Tony Brody but she still had doubts about the marriage. Creeping her hand towards Guy and gently touching his arm, she sighed and said: ‘Guy darling, what do you think? Should I marry Tony?’

  ‘Don’t you want to marry him?’

  ‘I wish I knew. I’m fond of him, of course, but he’s so stingy about money. I told him I wanted a big wedding in the cathedral and an arch of swords but he won’t hear of it. He says a simple ceremony at the Consulate will do for him. Isn’t that mean? I’ve always wanted an arch of swords but he refuses to speak to his colonel. Just think of it! A simple ceremony at the Consulate! We might as well not be married at all. What was your wedding like, Guy?’

  ‘Very simple. We went to a registry office.’

  ‘Oh yes, people did that in England with the war coming. But next time you’d want something better than that.’

  ‘There won’t be a next time.’

  ‘Oh Guy, really!’ The evening in the fish restaurant had faded into the past and Edwina again considered Guy as a likely match: ‘You’re too young to be on your own. I keep thinking how silly it would be if I married Tony and then you changed your mind and started looking . . . well, you know what I mean!’

  Guy smiled: ‘I won’t change my mind. I’m not the marrying kind.’

  ‘You married Harriet.’

  ‘Harriet was different.’

  ‘How horrid you are!’ Edwina, growing pink, shook her hair down to hide her face and said in a small voice: ‘Well, Harriet’s gone, now. Poor Harriet! You weren’t all that nice to her when she was alive. She must have spent a good many nights alone here just as I do when Tony’s on duty. I know how beastly it is.’

  Guy rose without speaking and went to his room to sort his books. Dobson said to Edwina: ‘That was cruel and uncalled for, Edwina.’

  ‘I don’t think it was uncalled for. Why is Guy so rude and horrid these days? He used to be sweet but now you never know what he’ll say.’

  ‘Then don’t provoke him. If you’ve settled for Tony Brody, you must put Guy
out of your mind.’

  ‘You don’t care what happens to me, do you? It’s miserable being engaged. Nobody takes me out now except Tony.’

  ‘You mean there’s loyalty among men even in these lean times?’

  ‘No, it’s not that. All the best men have gone to Tunisia.’

  ‘If you’re marrying Tony simply because there’s no one else, you’d be wise to wait. There are always better fish in the sea.’

  ‘Oh, but we can’t wait because we’re going to Assuan. I’ve always wanted to stay at the Cataract and it’ll soon be too hot.’

  Marrying in haste, Edwina went around in taxis, shopping for her trousseau, buying evening dresses at Cicurel and having fittings for her bridal gown. She occasionally looked in at her office because she had decided to keep her job. It was, in its way, war work and, in a less enthusiastic mood, she admitted Tony had said the money would be useful. As she was still arguing and pleading for a cathedral wedding and a reception at the Semiramis, Tony had to tell her that he was a divorced man. Though there might be no ban by the cathedral authorities, he felt that a quiet civil ceremony would be more fitting for a second marriage. Edwina, stunned by this disclosure, was left with nothing but the honeymoon at the Cataract; and Upper Egypt was already uncomfortably hot.

  ‘Poor girl,’ Dobson said to Guy: ‘I’ll have to do something for her. We could have a little reception here. It won’t be very grand but it will be better than nothing.’

  Offered a party of thirty guests with Cyprus champagne and a cake from Groppi’s, Edwina was moved to tears: ‘Oh, Dobbie, what a darling you are! What a darling you’ve always been to me! Guy, too.’ She dabbed at her eyes and both men felt the pathos of lost hopes. All her lavish plans had gone down in disappointment. She had hoped to marry Peter Lisdoonvarna and have a title, even if only an Irish one, and she had ended with a major past his first youth who already had one wife to keep.

  Meanwhile Dobson had decided to write his memoirs. ‘With the war out of the way, one has to do something,’ he said and at the breakfast table, while Edwina was trying to discuss the details of her reception, he would call on Guy to approve some theory about empire or advise on some anecdote or other. He kept a collection of used envelopes on which he made notes.