School for Love

by Olivia Manning

  ‘But isn’t he very ill?’ Felix hesitated, unprepared to visit Mr Jewel so soon.

  ‘’Flu, and undernourishment,’ said the nurse. ‘He is in no danger.’

  Mr Jewel was sitting up in bed in a small ward. There were five other beds, but only two were occupied, both by young English policemen, who called Mr Jewel ‘dad’ or ‘granddad’.

  ‘Hello, young fella-me-lad,’ he shouted to Felix, ‘I was expecting you.’ He looked as though he had been enjoying himself. He was no longer the repressed, head-hanging Mr Jewel of the supper-table, but a gay old boy, a man popular among men. ‘I’m all right. You’ll have me back in no time.’

  ‘But do you want to come back?’

  ‘Can’t stay here for ever, y’know.’ He didn’t add ‘worse luck’, or ‘wish I could’. Felix was surprised, then, and at other times – for he started to drop into the hospital twice or three times a week – that there was in Mr Jewel no rancour against Miss Bohun. He had come to think everyone must be ungrateful to poor Miss Bohun, but now, when he secretly felt that there might be cause for ingratitude, he found none.

  On his way to the hospital he had supposed he would have to withstand some criticism of her. He could not, of course, stop Mr Jewel saying things against her, but he would say nothing himself, so Mr Jewel would understand that he was Miss Bohun’s friend. But the situation proved to be quite different. Indeed at the back of Felix’s mind there was a certain guilt as though Mr Jewel were championing Miss Bohun against a doubt in Felix’s own mind. The doubt, indeed, had spoken when Felix with surprise asked Mr Jewel if he wanted to go back. Mr Jewel laughed.

  ‘She’s an old skinflint,’ he said, ‘I’ll hand you that. She got the last piastre off of me. I had to think twice about putting me nose out of doors – not a penny in me pocket for a bit of baccy or tea, but she’s all right at bottom. She took me in. There I was in that place at Bethlehem. Ever been there? Proper Bedlam, it was. Looked like a prison and sounded like a looney-bin; all packed together, foreigners and all sorts; kids yelling, women squabbling – and the rows! One man got knifed; yes, he did. Well, foreigners, you know, they’re used to being pushed around; it happens all their lives; they know how to look after themselves; but if you’re British, you’re used to something different. That’s right, ain’t it? I’m not as young as I was; I felt I needed a bit of quiet; place of me own; no one touching me things. H.M. Government give you a cot and your grub, no more. Then Miss Bohun turned up and we hit it off and next time she came she offered me her attic. “Just what you can afford, Mr Jewel,” she said, but when I was inside it, it was: “What have you got, Mr Jewel? All right, that’ll do,”’ Mr Jewel laughed heartily at this. ‘I do a bit of painting, you know!’ He lowered his voice confidentially and Felix, restraining himself from answering: ‘I know,’ said: ‘Do you really, Mr Jewel?’ Mr Jewel assured him. ‘Used to paint at sea; helped to get the time in. The fellows said I’d quite a turn for it – but you need a table, a bit of space. Well, nothing like that here no more than at Bethlehem.’

  ‘After you moved in, did you go on being friends with Miss Bohun?’ asked Felix.

  ‘In a way. She talked, I listened. Everything all right at first. Trouble was, she didn’t like me picking up Frau Wagner.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Felix.

  ‘Ah!’ Mr Jewel gave him a significant nod. ‘You noticed that, too? Perhaps I oughtn’t to have brought her in, but the girl needed a change. Social life. I felt sorry for her. There was nothing more to it than that. I happened to meet her in the street. She’d got a basket of stuff; I said: “Give you a hand?” and we got talking. She’s all right; she just likes a bit of fun. Can’t blame her. I wasn’t much good to her without any cash. But, then again, you can’t blame Miss Bohun. Women aren’t made to get on together. She’s not got anyone else in the attic, has she?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah! She won’t get anyone. No one’d want it. She didn’t want me to go, y’know. She was just warning me.’

  That evening Felix in a mild, small voice asked Miss Bohun: ‘Did you tell Mr Jewel he couldn’t come back to the attic?’

  ‘No, but I told Sister Smart. I’ve left it for her to tell him when she thinks fit,’ Miss Bohun sighed. ‘Someone else must shoulder the responsibility now. I have done my share.’

  ‘But what will he do? Where will he go?’

  ‘Oh, they’ll keep him there for a bit,’ and as she made a movement that threw the idea of Mr Jewel off for ever, Felix knew he must not speak of him again.

  While Felix was worrying about Mr Jewel’s future, Miss Bohun apparently had her mind upon nearer matters. She said with slight melancholy: ‘I saw Mrs Ellis to-day. I wanted her to come in and meet you, but she’s off to Egypt on the night train. She’s getting some baggage there out of store. Dear me, she might have waited until after she’d moved in; so many little things to arrange. You ought to have met her before – for one thing, I’d like your opinion of her. This time I wasn’t sure I hadn’t been perhaps rather precipitate. . . . She has suffered, of course, but there’s something hard about her. And I’m not sure you’ll like her. I feel I owe it to you to have someone you’ll like.’

  Felix said not to worry. After all, Mrs Ellis was to be Miss Bohun’s friend: but Miss Bohun seemed worried despite his reassurance, and during the warm spring afternoons, when the windows were open, Felix in his room or in the garden could hear Miss Bohun telephoning likely acquaintances: ‘How strange, one is always hearing of people desperate for accommodation, but when one has the most charming room to offer, there is no one . . . Ah, yes . . . well, of course, I can’t wait till the summer. This girl means to come here with all this baggage straight from the station. She’s given up her hotel room, but if she had to, she’d find another all right. It means I must have someone who’ll move in at once: a fait accompli, if you get my meaning. . . . No, I’d have no objection to an officer. Yes, it’s nice getting things from the Naafi, but then one has to offer to pay for them. With that tinned stuff we might get a slightly richer diet, but I am sure it could not be more nourishing than I provide already.’

  To Felix she said: ‘Oh dear, oh dear, I’ve been so foolish – jumping at this young woman. But then, there was no knowing with Mr Jewel! I told her I was moving up to the attic; but I feel now I need my own room. I’m a pastor, Felix; I have to interview those that come unto me; I have to create my sermons. Congenial surroundings are all-important.’

  ‘Perhaps she wouldn’t mind,’ said Felix, ‘if you put her in the attic.’

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t do that. I agreed to let her have my room; but I thought if she were dropping in and out this week, I could show her the attic and just hint. After all, she might prefer it – it looks very nice now it’s finished: quite chintzy. The trouble is you can only see the sky. I had hoped with one thing and another I could suggest doing a swop. But now, she’ll walk straight in and expect to find my room ready for her.’

  ‘You could tell her you’d let it,’ suggested Felix.

  ‘My dear boy, that would be dishonest. Besides, I can’t afford to keep rooms empty.’

  Felix moved uncomfortably, feeling he ought to offer to move into the attic himself, but before he reached the point of doing so, Miss Bohun’s manner changed and she said brightly: ‘Well, we must make the best of it. Mrs Ellis arrives to-morrow and she must have the room she has been promised. That is only fair. The attic can be made quite cosy for the summer months – after that we shall see. Whatever happens, Felix, I am determined you won’t have to move. You need a properly lighted room for your studies.’

  That afternoon, when he went upstairs, he stood for a long time looking into the garden. The lawn was deep in the green of spring. Miniature leaves, buff-green, transparent and edged with brown, covered the mulberry tree like a glow. The summer was coming and somehow that made everything seem different. As he watched, Maria came out of her shed carrying a square wire cage in which something moved. He leant fr
om the window and called to her: ‘What have you got?’

  She shaded her eyes to see him and answered: ‘Rats. I catch them in my bedroom,’ she held up the cage so that he could see the dark-furred rats with their undulating bodies and their small, brilliant eyes. They did not look vicious or unfriendly.

  ‘What are you going to do with them?’ he called, but she did not understand and merely waved her hand in reply and went off round the side of the house. He tried to settle down to work, but for some reason he was worried by the memory of the rats turning about in the small cage, their muzzles twitching as much with interest as with suspicion. Uneasy because he did not know what was being done with them, he felt forced at last to go downstairs and ask Maria again. Frau Leszno was in the sitting-room putting the tea-things ready on the table. She turned her back to him. The door into the courtyard lay open and Felix went to it, oddly apprehensive. The cage stood on the ground and the rats within it were darting about in terror, their fur on fire. Maria stood watching them with the kerosene can still in her hand. The smoke that arose filled the air with an acrid stench of burning fur.

  Felix shouted at Maria: ‘What are you doing? How could you do it? Stop it. Stop it at once.’

  She lifted a bewildered and simple face: ‘Good to kill them,’ she said.

  ‘But not like that. How beastly, how cruel! We must stop it.’ He ran to the kitchen to get water, but Maria caught his arm.

  ‘See, already dead. Very quick, this.’

  It was true the rats had toppled over, dead or overcome by smoke. They lay motionless, letting the fire consume them. Felix, in a panic of disgust and horror, wrenched his arm free and ran back into the room. He demanded, breathless with indignation: ‘Where is Miss Bohun?’

  Frau Leszno turned slowly and regarded him with a sullen distaste: ‘Must I be addressed so? Such manners I never have.’

  ‘Please, where is Miss Bohun?’

  Frau Leszno looked at him from head to foot and back again, then, turning away, said frigidly: ‘She prepares the room.’

  ‘Which room?’

  ‘The room. The room.’

  He realised and ran upstairs; without knocking, he burst into the front bedroom that was, as he had seen it before, severely tidy and severely cold. The only difference was that there was a smell of burning from the yard. Some cleaning materials lay by the door. Miss Bohun was kneeling in prayer before the bible on the little yellow-wood desk. Hearing Felix enter she raised a sleepy face, then, when she saw him, she gave her exasperated frown. He was too distracted to apologise:

  ‘Oh, Miss Bohun, such a beastly thing – Maria put paraffin on the rats and set them alight. Please tell her she mustn’t do it again. Please, Miss Bohun. . . .’

  Miss Bohun got slowly to her feet. His state apparently gave her patience with him, for she said: ‘Really, Felix, you must control yourself. It’s nothing to get excited about. Arabs always kill animals that way. They do it even if they want to destroy cats and dogs. . . .’

  ‘Cats and dogs!’

  ‘Yes, it’s nothing to get excited about. I’m sure such a death is just as quick and painless as drowning.’

  ‘But it can’t be,’ Felix broke in, his voice raised. ‘They were so terrified. . . .’

  Miss Bohun was cool and sensible. ‘It’s the way the Arabs do it and you can’t stop them, so don’t be silly. And don’t burst in here like that. This room is strictly private.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Felix went off, the smell of burning fur still in his nostrils. It seemed to him he could smell it all over the house. In his room he picked up Faro, who was asleep in the sunlight, and whispered: ‘Never leave me. Never. If anyone tries to hurt you, I’ll murder them.’

  Faro, unaware she existed in a world of enemies, stretched out her paws and yawned luxuriously in his face.

  Frau Leszno was due to leave at the end of the month. Miss Bohun told Felix that she had found a very nice job in a Tel-Aviv hotel and had nothing to grumble about at all.

  ‘She’s to have a considerable salary, very considerable. Twenty pounds a month or more. I don’t know what she has to do for it, but dear me, I wish I could earn money so easily. I think when she discovered how much she could earn, she began to see things differently. Anyway, she’s very pleased with herself, but I’ve had scarcely a word of gratitude. Heigh-ho, such is life.’

  ‘And Nikky’s staying?’

  Miss Bohun nodded: ‘He’s useful in small ways – and it’s nice to feel he wants to stay. The last of our little family circle! Dead or dispersed.’

  This puzzled Felix for a while until, after reflection, he supposed she referred to Herr Leszno dead and Frau Leszno dispersed.

  ‘And she’s leaving the furniture?’ he said in a way that implied congratulation, but Miss Bohun seemed to see it differently.

  She clicked her tongue slightly and said: ‘Yes, indeed. I’ve had to agree to store it for her – but I’ll never know when she’ll be disorganising the whole house by asking for it.’

  5

  Frau Wagner’s promise that Felix would enjoy the Palestine spring was fulfilled. He had known springs in Iraq, of course, but there the season was so brief that one was likely to miss it. A shower of rain would fall over desert country and flowers would form suddenly as a mirage, but their lives were as brief as the mirage. By the time someone, having crossed the desert at the right moment, came into town exclaiming, it was all over. Here the rains, following one another at intervals through the winter, carpeted the naked spring earth with a green as vivid as light. Later the grasses were enriched by the intricate leaves of trefoils, ranunculuses, anemones and vetches, and the spears of the bulb and tuber plants. Shortly before Mr Jewel was taken ill Felix saw the green cyclamen buds open, each dropping a screw of petals like a wrung-out cloth. In a day these had become flowers, alert and delicate as the ears of a gazelle. Suddenly Felix became very excited about the flowers. To his mother flowers had been something to help decorate a room and Felix had seen them, like her embroideries or her perfumes, as a part of her which he did not analyse. But now he saw them quite separate from her – growing from the earth, budding and flowering. When the anemones started to appear everywhere – mostly scarlet, but some mauve or white, and others, transplanted into Jerusalem gardens from remote parts of Palestine, deep purple or the colour of biscuits – he was carried away by them. The first February anemones opening in the grass, satin-surfaced and flawless, looked to him like jewels. He planned to list all the flowers in Palestine and describe them minutely. Each morning he went round the garden in a business-like way to see what new flowers had appeared. The morning Mrs Ellis was due, she was put out of his mind by the discovery of the garden’s first irises. They were almost lost in the grass, stalkless, gauzy things, two of them silver-white and the other a saffron yellow, all sheened so that they seemed radiant. He had expected to find nothing in this corner, and as he came upon them he was startled a moment, then felt – amazingly – as happy as he had been before his mother died. Holding Faro safe on his shoulder, he bent over the irises, wondering that they were there, as complete, as carefully hidden, as a nest of young birds.

  He heard the sitting-room door open and glanced up. As he looked across the lawn and through the cage-shaped branches of the mulberry tree clouded with their sheen of leaves, he realised that the season had changed. The cold had gone. The air was softer than silk. There was an extraordinary delicacy about everything. Here was a quality he had seen before only as a sort of effusion of his mother – and now, seeing it apart from her, he was amazed by the beauty of the visible world.

  Miss Bohun’s voice rang through the air as she stepped into the garden. She looked back and pointed dramatically, excitedly, at an old, striped rug that lay just inside the door.

  ‘I do hate this rug. I bought it out of kindness for a pound. But, oh, how thankful I have been to have it.’

  She crossed the grass with a movement that was almost a waltz; her face was lit by an
eager and happy expression that made it seem – what? Felix could only think of the word ‘generous’. She called out: ‘Feel-ix. Come and meet Mrs Ellis.’

  Then Mrs Ellis stepped into the garden. Felix stood where he was, watching her. Miss Bohun had spoken of her as ‘young’, but he had not expected anyone really young. He had heard quite old women of thirty or forty called ‘young’. But Mrs Ellis was young. She was wearing a navy-blue jersey and trousers, and her hair was cut off. She was very slender. She would have looked like a boy of Felix’s own age had it not been for the jewellery and the red on her lips and finger-nails. That made her a young lady – a grown-up, a sophisticated person. For some reason, Felix suddenly blushed to the roots of his hair and he pretended to be absorbed again by the irises.

  ‘There he is,’ sang Miss Bohun, no trace of her usual irritation in her voice. It was as though she, too, had felt the spring and, with it, wonder and excitement. ‘What’s the matter with the boy? Is he deaf? F-e-e-l-iks!’

  Felix raised his hot pink face and saw Miss Bohun aglitter, with Mrs Ellis behind her. Mrs Ellis was sauntering casually across the grass. To Felix she would have been the picture of self-sufficient indifference to himself and everything else had she not as she approached lifted her right hand with a rattle of bracelets and touched the corner of her mouth. Despite the magnificence of its scarlet, spiked finger-nails, and its great square topaz ring, her hand was trembling.

  When Miss Bohun introduced them, Mrs Ellis said a casual ‘Hello.’ Felix tried to say ‘Hello’ in reply, but his mouth was dry and he found it difficult to speak.