City of Gold

by Len Deighton

  As Marker reached the door, Ross said, ‘I thought you told me you didn’t play German music.’

  ‘Wagner. I said I wouldn’t play Wagner.’ Marker recognised this as another of Ross’s attempts to trap him into admitting he was a hypocrite. Although the two men had become friendly, Ross felt that his impersonation would be imperilled unless he showed that measure of disdain that all policemen have for lawyers.

  ‘What’s Mozart got that Wagner hasn’t got? They are both Germans, aren’t they?’

  Marker wet his lips and said, ‘It’s a musical decision, major. For a violinist, Wagner is not important. He didn’t write any great works for violin: no violin concertos, no chamber music, nothing that I would want to perform.’

  ‘I’d thought your Wagner embargo was a political decision,’ said Ross with a grin.

  ‘Wagner was a giant of twentieth-century music. But his music was a slave to the drama of the opera stage. He said so himself.’

  ‘I’m glad you cleared that up for me, Captain Marker. I hope you soon find another violin player.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. By the way, Bert.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps I’d better remind you that I am Jewish.’ He stood there in case this revelation caused a change of plan.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Ross. ‘That’s our trump card, isn’t it? That wretch Spaulding can’t top it.’

  Marker nodded and opened the door. The drill sergeant’s voice pierced the air. Marker said, ‘You’re right. Even Spaulding is likely to draw the line at getting himself circumcised.’

  18

  ‘Alice tells me you have been thinking of going to Palestine,’ said Captain Lionel Marker.

  Peggy West didn’t answer immediately. She looked at Alice and then back to Marker, wondering just how much Alice had told him. Then she took a black olive, shiny with oil, and bit pieces from it until only the pit remained. Delicately she put it on the edge of her plate and wiped her fingers. ‘I have thought about it from time to time,’ she admitted.

  Marker smiled at her. He understood her caution; he was a policeman. ‘There’s no law to prevent a British subject going to Palestine, Peggy.’

  ‘No? You’d think there was, if you were a female civilian trying to arrange it.’

  ‘We all suffer from the paper-shuffling brigade,’ said Marker. Marker had chosen this little Arab restaurant, hoping she’d like it. It was in a shadowy alley on the edge of the Muski district. The food and the decor were authentically Arab. Yet it was so near the places that tourists liked to go that surely no European would feel out of place. He’d ordered the sort of simple meal that almost everyone in Egypt ate, if they could afford it: tamia – chickpeas ground into a garlicky paste, flattened and fried – with red kidney beans, black olives, hummus, and raw onions. Best of all there was aish balady – peasant’s bread – large flat loaves, charred in places and swollen with hot air, that came straight from the primitive oven at the back of the dining room.

  ‘Yes, my husband is in Jerusalem. At least I think he’s still there. He’s been away for over two years.’

  ‘Is he a British subject?’ Marker tore a piece from the loaf and chewed it. He had resolved to reduce his weight, but tomorrow would be soon enough.

  ‘Canadian father and Italian mother,’ said Peggy. ‘He was born in Palestine.’

  ‘I mean, does he hold a British passport?’

  ‘Yes, he does now.’

  ‘He acquired it after marriage to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Peggy grimly. Put like that, it always sounded as if Karl had married her to get a British passport. Especially when someone used a word such as ‘acquired’. Such words put her on her guard. And yet Marker seemed a warm and friendly man. Perhaps she was being too defensive. Women on their own got like that; Karl said so. She took another olive and chewed it carefully.

  ‘So you’d be giving up your job at the hospital?’ Marker asked. He could see that neither of the women were enjoying the food he’d ordered. He waved to a passing waiter and ordered lamb kebabs. That was more ordinary and would be more to their taste.

  ‘I suppose so. I keep changing my mind. I worry about getting a job when I get to Jerusalem. People say it’s not so easy getting work there.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘In Egypt there is plenty of work for nursing sisters who specialise in surgery.’ She said it brutally. In her handbag she had a postcard from Jeannie MacGregor, who was now serving with one of the Advanced Surgical Centres near the front line. Lots of hard work here, Peggy, she’d written. This is real surgery – you can save a leg or an arm – sometimes save a life. I’ve never worked so hard but I love every minute. It made Peggy feel guilty at even talking about leaving her job.

  Marker looked at her. ‘Yes, that’s regrettably true.’ The tough interrogative attitude he’d adopted towards her when searching Solomon’s boat, and the way he’d taken her back to the Magnifico to get her passport, now militated against him.

  ‘What does your husband say? About your living there, I mean.’

  ‘Karl never was a letter writer.’

  ‘He’s not expecting you?’

  ‘If I wait for Karl to suggest it, I will never go. I don’t know where he is. He was in Iraq, but he’s now gone to Palestine. I have to find him. It’s my marriage, captain – Lionel, I mean. It’s important to me.’

  ‘Yes. Forget the captain: Lionel. In civvy street I was a solicitor. One day I’ll be a solicitor again. And that’s why I urge you to get advice before doing anything so drastic as giving up your job and your room at the hotel. What does your friend Solomon Marx say?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Peggy. ‘Of course; you know Solomon, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve met him once or twice. We have to check all the boats. What does he say about your husband?’

  ‘He’ll say don’t go, I know he will,’ said Peggy.

  ‘Why are you so sure about that?’

  Peggy realised that she was on the edge of discussing Solomon and the way he brought money for her. ‘I don’t know Solomon well enough to discuss it with him.’

  Marker offered the women the plate of hummus: they did it so well here. But neither wanted any. ‘I’m sorry, I thought you’d like Arab food,’ said Marker.

  ‘I do,’ said Alice.

  Peggy smiled. She hated Arab food. It was all right for Marker, who probably got unlimited varieties of English cooking in his officer’s mess. For people like Peggy, variations on this sort of food were a necessary part of eking out the budget. Over the years, she’d come to associate it with her lack of money. What wouldn’t she give right now for a slice of cold salmon with English garden tomatoes and a salad made from one of those soft green lettuces her parents used to grow. Just thinking about her parents made her sad. She missed them more and more as she grew older. And as she grew older she understood more about them, and the things they’d said to her.

  The kebabs came. They looked wonderful: charred and sizzling, straight from the charcoal fire. The waiter took a fork and removed the cooked lamb pieces from the skewers, releasing the juices of the meat and the smell of scorched cumin seeds.

  ‘Eat up,’ said Marker.

  Peggy was hungry, and the grilled lamb was excellent. She tore off a piece of bread and used it to pick up a piece of meat and eat it in the Arab way. ‘How clever of you to find this curious little place.’

  Marker nodded. The tiny room, with its smells of bread baking and charred meat, was filled with the smoke of the open grill. Fierce sunlight came in at a steep angle to make swirling bars of pearly light. The chairs and tables were of all shapes and sizes, and the plates and dishes were old and worn.

  Marker thought about it as he spread hummus on his bread. ‘Look here, Peggy. There is another way of doing this.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The department for which I work has a regular courier service that leaves here on a Tuesday morning. A lorry, or sometimes a car. It goes to Tel Aviv and up to Haifa, usually. Sometimes right o
n to Beirut, according to what has to be delivered. I dare say we could square it with the driver to take you to Jerusalem.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘A bottle of whisky for the driver would do it. You could stay there a week and return with the following courier.’

  Peggy looked at him suspiciously. She knew Marker was some sort of military policeman, or spy, or something mysterious in the army. Was he the sort of man who would offer such a spontaneous act of friendship without ulterior motive? ‘I’d still need papers to cross the border,’ she said.

  ‘No. The paper the courier carries gives him and the vehicle the right to go through the frontier without inspection. If you are on the manifest, you go through too. You’ll just have to show your passport to prove your identity.’

  Peggy brightened. ‘The Hoch would give me a week off, wouldn’t he, Alice?’

  It was a rhetorical question. Peggy knew the senior surgeon better than anyone: she worked with him every day. She was just looking for reassurance. ‘Of course he would,’ said Alice. ‘And I could rejig the schedule to give you an extra day or two if you needed it.’

  ‘You’re sweet,’ Peggy said softly and automatically, as her mind examined all the implications of it. Then she turned to face Marker. ‘You’ve made me feel a fool, captain – Lionel.’

  ‘How have I done that?’

  ‘I am sitting here, talking to you as if I had no will of my own. You’re asking me what my husband thinks, you’re asking me what Solomon thinks. It’s my life, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course it is.’

  ‘I want to go. If my marriage is finished, it’s better that I know it now.’

  Marker was pleased to hear that her marriage was at the heart of it. He glanced across at Alice, but she didn’t meet his eyes. She was watching her friend Peggy. He tried to think of an appropriate response to Peggy’s cri de coeur but decided to occupy himself with the food for a moment or two.

  ‘Have you ever been to Jerusalem, Peggy?’ Alice asked her.

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘It’s unique. My father took us all one year. There is so much to see. Daddy said every Christian should make a pilgrimage there at least once.’

  ‘My father was a Jew,’ said Peggy.

  ‘Jerusalem has even more significance for Jews,’ said Marker hurriedly.

  ‘Yes, it does,’ said Peggy. And Alice was grateful to Marker for saving her from what she felt had been a foolish gaffe.

  ‘I’m not religious,’ said Peggy. ‘My mother sent me to the local Catholic school. It was nearby: only at the end of the road. The girl next door went there, and she got a scholarship to Oxford. My father had doubts, but he said going to school with Catholics would be better than being with pagans in a Protestant school.’

  She paused to remember it. Alice shot a glance at Marker, but he was sprinkling salt on his bread.

  ‘My first day was a nightmare. I’d never seen a life-size crucifix before: the tormented Christ and his gaping wounds, shiny red and dribbling blood. I was terrified; I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Then the other girls said they had to eat the body of Christ and that I would have to do the same. I ran all the way home crying.’ Peggy smiled as she remembered it, but the smile was a bleak one. ‘Now, for me, all religion is just a lot of mumbo-jumbo. Just a ritualised way of dumping all the hard work onto women, while the men spend all day praying.’

  Marker hadn’t expected such a confession. And now he was pleased at a chance to chuckle at her joke.

  Alice said, ‘All religions are dedicated to male supremacy, Peggy. The men spend all their time thinking about complex theological problems, while the women sweep the floor for them, cook their food and have their babies.’

  ‘Are you two ribbing me?’ said Marker.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Alice. Peggy grinned at her.

  There was a change of mood, thought Marker. Whatever might have caused it, Peggy had become more relaxed with him. He could see it in the way she started eating her lamb kebabs.

  ‘Ummm, this tastes good,’ said Peggy. ‘Yes, I would appreciate it if you could arrange for me to go to Jerusalem. I’ll arrange time off and then get back to you.’

  ‘Good,’ said Marker.

  ‘I’ll tell the Hoch,’ said Peggy. ‘I daresay the hospital can manage without me for a week or two. Especially now, with Rommel brought to a standstill in the desert. Thank you. Thank you very much.’

  ‘I’ll arrange it,’ said Marker. ‘Thank Alice. It was her idea to get us together.’

  When Captain Marker got back to his office, Ponsonby was as near to being excited as he ever became. ‘Bull’s-eye, Captain Marker!’ He said it again. ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Start at the beginning, Ponsonby. I’ve left my crystal ball in my other suit.’

  Ponsonby gave a brief smile to acknowledge the little joke. ‘You asked the Field Security office in Tel Aviv if they had any records on a Karl West.’

  ‘That was rather a long time ago.’

  ‘They don’t hurry themselves,’ said Ponsonby. ‘You know what Records are like.’ And then seeing an almost-missed opportunity, he added, ‘I sent them reminders from time to time, of course. Lots of them, and phone calls too.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Ponsonby riffed through the battered file that had arrived from Palestine the night before. ‘So you’ve seen the file already?’

  ‘I was here last night when it arrived.’

  ‘And you were right, sir. He’s one of these revolutionary people. Karl West, or Wieland, or Weiss: he’s used a lot of names. He’s wanted for all kinds of crimes. He’s been working for the Haganah for ages.’ He flicked through the papers expertly. ‘Twice he’s been arrested, and each time he’s escaped. There is a warrant outstanding. If you know where he is, we can pick him up.’

  ‘No, I don’t know where he is. I’m not even sure I know where he’s going to be.’

  ‘He was in Baghdad during the Rashid Ali rumpus. Tel Aviv think he was there to contact the Germans.’

  Marker could not resist a smug smile. It was not often that a routine enquiry like the one he’d lodged after searching the Solomon boat came up with such a startling result. ‘We’d better put this man Solomon under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Tell that police inspector – Khalil – to find a couple of bright lads for me. He knows what we want. Make sure he understands: twenty-four hours. Solomon isn’t the type who goes to bed when it gets dark.’

  ‘I’ll get on to it, sir.’

  ‘Can you drive, Ponsonby?’

  ‘No, sir. Might I ask why?’

  ‘We have a regular courier service leaving every Tuesday. It takes secret papers to Haifa. Next week, when it makes a side trip to Jerusalem, a civilian passenger will go along.’

  ‘A courier service? Do we? I’ve never heard of it, sir.’

  ‘Of course you haven’t. I’ve just decided to start it. I’ll need a reliable man who can drive … By the way do we have anyone reliable in Jerusalem?’

  ‘Of course. We have –’

  ‘Let me rephrase that. I want someone who looks like a native and can sit in the dirt in the street and watch what’s happening without attracting attention. Someone who can wear a dirty galabiya, and speak all the local languages.’

  ‘What are the local languages?’

  Marker leaned forward and whispered, ‘Arabic, Yiddish, Hebrew, and German.’

  ‘I’ll find someone,’ said Ponsonby.

  ‘And Russian too. To watch a woman. I wonder if we could find a female agent to do that.’

  ‘To watch what woman?’

  ‘His wife. She’ll lead us to him, Ponsonby. You mark my words. She’ll track him down wherever he might be hidden.’

  ‘Will she, sir?’

  ‘That’s the one thing I discovered in my law practice,’ said Marker reflectively. ‘A woman doesn’t need any detectives to help her find her husband.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Well, I’ll find som
eone to watch her, sir.’

  At that moment Jimmy Ross arrived. His face was tense, and he was biting his lips as he did sometimes when anxious.

  ‘Are you all right, major?’ Marker asked. Ponsonby gathered up his papers, opened the filing cabinet and began putting them away very slowly, as he did when he wanted to eavesdrop.

  ‘I’ve just come from Grey Pillars. The brigadier and the provost marshal were there.’

  Marker said nothing. His major was apt to pause between sentences, and he was not pleased if anyone butted in.

  ‘That MP detachment guarding those guns at the Siwa Oasis got into a shooting match. Arabs arrived brandishing bits of paper from GHQ. They wanted to collect those damned Berettas.’

  ‘But GHQ rescinded that order.’ Marker said, ‘Mrs Smythson – Colonel Smythson’s wife – phoned me. She was in a bit of a state about it. It wasn’t properly authorised or something.’

  They both looked at Ponsonby who was continuing to file his papers as if he’d not heard the conversation. ‘What do you know about that, Sergeant Ponsonby?’ said Ross.

  ‘I did make a few enquiries about it,’ admitted Ponsonby. ‘But it’s not our pigeon.’ Ross looked at Marker, who gave an almost imperceptible grin. Mrs Smythson had made the fatal mistake of reprimanding Sergeant Ponsonby, a founding member of that secret society of senior NCOs who held Cairo’s military activities in an iron grip. So Ponsonby had shifted responsibility elsewhere; he seemed to have a sixth sense about trouble.

  Ross said, ‘The Arabs went out there to get the guns and wouldn’t take no for an answer. When their documents weren’t accepted they tried to help themselves to what they came for.’

  ‘And?’ said Marker.

  Ross hung his cap on the peg. ‘Those boys have been out there too long. They were trigger-happy, I suspect.’

  ‘Is that all we know?’

  ‘GHQ only just heard about it,’ said Ross. ‘It’s nasty. Six dead and eight injured. A couple of our people wounded.’

  ‘Gyppos or desert Arabs?’

  ‘Gyppos,’ said Ross. ‘Egyptians, all of them.’