by Colin Smith
But the boy merely gave an almost imperceptible nod and fled. The guard shrugged. ‘He thinks you want to make music with him,’ he grinned.
‘Then he has a mind like that bucket,’ said Maeltzer.
‘Wait until you’ve been here a year,’ said the guard – not unkindly, for he thought that any hint of a future, however bleak, was bound to cheer. ‘Your friends the English started their bombardment off Gaza this morning. Their attack is coming and we shall throw them back as we did before. We’ll chase them all the way to Cairo.’
‘I hope you do,’ said Maeltzer. ‘They’re not my friends.’ Even as he said it he thought he was no longer sure who his friends were.
The journalist sat on his bed for a while staring at the bread and goat’s cheese Ibrahim had delivered on a metal plate. A tin mug was lying next to it. He hobbled over and saw that it contained milk.
He tasted it and shuddered: cow’s milk, practically unobtainable outside military circles, and hardly diluted at that. He feared these little treats for he was never certain what they were leading up to. Was he, for instance, being given the best wartime Jerusalem could manage by way of the condemned man’s hearty breakfast?
Maeltzer sat back on the bed and found himself caught up in a spasm of yawns. The last thing he wanted was to sleep in the day and spend another night awake. He quickly got up and began shuffling around the cell. He made himself eat some of the bread, regretting that he had finished the milk because his mouth was so dry and he found swallowing difficult. He also attempted a little of the goat’s cheese but it was much older than the bread, and he had always been deterred by its faintly uric aroma.
Maeltzer yawned again. He tried to concentrate on Weidinger and what he would say to him if he came. If he could convince the young Uhlan that his old friend was innocent there might be hope yet. Maeltzer tried to think of the kind of message that would most entice him to visit him. Perhaps the Swiss consul would persuade Weidinger to come, but first it would be necessary to have some sort of communication with the consul, and as yet none had been forthcoming.
Maeltzer had expected to see him at the military court which sentenced him, but had been told by the young and unknown officer ordered to play defence counsel that he was away in Beirut. He had told himself so often that the Turks would never dare execute a neutral Swiss that it had become a kind of litany, but now he began to give in to a nagging fear that the Germans would persuade their allies that he was not a neutral at all but a treacherous citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and that by the time the diplomat returned his fellow-citizen would be beyond mortal assistance.
Yet there was some evidence that the Turks resented the way the Germans had taken over something they felt by rights was theirs. One of the people tending to confirm this was the major from Damascus who, in between the beatings he so scrupulously administered, was fond of saying things like ‘By the time this is finished you’ll wish I had allowed the Germans to hang you straight away.’
The major from Damascus had arrived the day after the trial, which had lasted a day and a half. It took place in the headquarters rooms at Fast’s where Maeltzer had been brought, manacled, from the Citadel.
Three officers had presided – Kress, and two others he was not familiar with. One was an Austro-Hungarian hussar with a Slav-sounding name and the other was a Turk. Maeltzer had started out well, looked them in the eye, spoke with the mocking indignation of a man who could still hardly believe that things had gone as far as they had.
‘As for this unfortunate habit of mine of leaving large spaces between paragraphs,’ he had told them. ‘This dates from my early days in journalism, when sub-editors used to demand these gaps so they could write in printing instructions and the occasional cross-head. Nowadays, of course, it would be typed by a secretary at head office before being sent to the printers.’
‘And would this secretary have kindly passed on the original copy to a gentleman who called from the British consulate in Zürich?’ Krag wanted to know.
Maeltzer had even had managed a kind of chuckle at that, trying to visualise the plump little Calvinist lady who attended to these tasks at head office having any assignations at all. Of his three judges only the Turkish officer admired his display, thinking such insouciance in the face of death rather admirable.
The reality was that Maeltzer was still quite sure that he was within minutes, if not seconds, of convincing Krag that it had all been a dreadful mistake: that he would soon be given a slap on the back and be walking back towards his hotel with their profuse apologies ringing in his ears and an invitation for dinner. All those hopes collapsed when the dam burst, the truth came flooding in and he heard his own shrill, lunatic-sounding protests.
From the start the tribunal had been dominated by Krag, who seemed to have taken on the roles of both prosecutor and chief witness. Maeltzer could still hear the intelligence officer’s sneer when he denied that he had written the secret message between the paragraphs of his article. Every now and then Krag would get up and wave the offending page like some bloody dagger. Even to himself his denials, delivered in a weak and uncertain-sounding voice over which he apparently had no control, sounded feeble.
‘This message, this secret writing, is not mine,’ he insisted. ‘It’s either a fake or the real Daniel has somehow managed to intercept my despatch, knowing that this would be picked up by a contact in Switzerland.’
‘And how could that be, Herr Maeltzer?’ Kress had asked in a gentle voice. ‘Have you not said yourself that you send your work back by a different courier on almost every occasion? Surely it would be impossible to intercept these despatches on a regular basis?’
Maeltzer had had nothing to say as he knew he would have nothing to say, for he had asked himself that same question a thousand times and never received a satisfactory reply. He had been asking it ever since Krag had first waved his wretched proof before him and the guards had held him back as the intelligence officer, in that obdurate, thin-lipped way of his, declined to believe that he knew nothing of it.
He began to ask it again the moment he sat down beside his aloof young ‘defence counsel’ while Krag was allowed to continue with his calumnies. How could it be, when he didn’t even know who was going to carry them back to Constantinople or Vienna until he let it be known that he was looking for somebody who was boarding the next train?
He had to conclude that it was only this particular despatch that had been doctored. And in whose hands had it been apart from his own? The nursing sister’s and Krag’s. Why would either of them want to harm him? It was inconceivable that the sister would have heard of Daniel and lost British documents, let alone produced a phial of concentrated lemon juice and scratched away exactly the words guaranteed to do most damage.
Krag, of course, would know exactly what to write. And there and then, in the first hour of his trial, the enormity of what was being done to him had burst in on Maeltzer. It was Krag. It had to be. The misanthropic bastard had incriminated him, was willing to murder him even, for the kudos of being the man who had unmasked a British spy. As far as Krag was concerned he was expendable. He was happy to see him to the gallows, and in the process not only eclipse Weidinger’s little moment of glory but expose him as a garrulous young fool.
‘This tribunal will see,’ Krag had said, ‘that the accused has lied about almost everything of importance. He is a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not a Swiss; he is a Jew, not a Christian; he eavesdrops on the conversation of senior officers but denied it until confronted by the irrefutable evidence. Then he admits that he has taken the trouble to acquire a pass by which he can enter a restricted area – where he just happened to be strolling one evening and brought his ear to a handy opening “out of curiosity”.’
Maeltzer had been up on his feet then. ‘Damn you, Krag! It’s you! I know it’s you. I’m no more Daniel than you are.’
Several Anatolian infantrymen had pulled him back to his seat and managed to give h
im a few jabs around his kidneys as they did so. ‘A novel defence,’ Krag had said. ‘If the tribunal wishes me to stand down while they question the accused on this matter . . .’
But, of course, they did not. Then Krag had brought Weidinger before the court and the Oberleutnant had testified, shame-faced, that it was true that he had shown the journalist the captured British documents, and that Maeltzer had indeed examined them at length during the train ride they shared back to Jerusalem from Beersheba. Maeltzer had tried to catch his eye but when at last he did was rewarded with the kind of look the Uhlan normally reserved for people who disliked horses. That had been the last time Maeltzer had seen Weidinger.
He sat on his bed, trying to stifle his yawns again. His mind went back to that last night in his room at the Grand New. How he had put the jug and bowl with its used water outside his door as he always did, so that the morning chambermaid could refill it with fresh water. Then came a few minutes with his diary before bed. When he had finished with the day’s entry he usually flicked through the previous pages. He had written almost three pages on his trip to the Beersheba sector and had intended to finish it in the morning.
He savoured these memories for a few seconds, rolling them about his mind for taste like a child might suck on a sweet. After a little while he put his hands behind his head, spread the blanket over the length of him, and allowed himself to stretch out. The early morning sunlight was filtering through the bars in three dust-specked shafts. It was much warmer now. Perhaps he could permit himself half an hour’s sleep? He started to stretch, screwing up his eyes as he did so in an effort to wring the mind blank.
Then suddenly Maeltzer sat bolt upright on the bed, the straw beneath him crackling like fire. The diary. Of course, that was it. The diary. Where was it? Did the soldiers steal it when they went through his possessions after his arrest? He had witnessed the beginning of the looting, seen the sergeant in charge casually pocket his watch and fob from the bedside table, then the squabbling that ensued over his clothes as he sat there waiting to be led away, bruised and dazed with the handcuffs already chafing his wrists.
He couldn’t believe that the soldiers had taken it. It was hardly the sort of keepsake that would catch the eye of the average illiterate Anatolian private. So it must either still be in his room or Krag had it. And the more he thought about it the more the latter seemed sure to be the case. How else had he been able to fabricate such circumstantial evidence? How else would he have been so positive that Weidinger told him about his captured documents on the train back from Beersheba, for instance? If he could retrieve the diary he could surely prove his innocence. That notebook was full of names, places, what people had told him, thoughts, impressions. No spy ever kept a journal like that. Maeltzer levered himself up off the palliasse and did his best to pace the cell on his crippled feet. After a while, this became too painful and he went back to his bed.
***
‘There is a German officer coming to see you,’ whispered Ibrahim when he woke him at midday bearing bread and a grey-coloured soup with an archipelago of yellow fat floating in it.
‘How do you know?’ asked Maeltzer, already trying to resign himself to the fact that the boy had probably got muddled. Hope was hard to bear.
‘He telephoned the office when I was bringing them coffee. I heard them talk about it afterwards.’
‘When?’
‘Soon – perhaps one hour.’
An hour was too small a unit to measure by his ration of sunlight at that time of day. He dunked some of the bread into the soup and tried to eat it, counting the number of chews it took to render it digestible. Twenty-three. He could not manage a second mouthful.
Maeltzer began his shuffle across the cell again, telling himself that he always knew that Weidinger would come in the end. When he had done this three times he agreed that well over an hour had passed and he had been quite right in thinking that the stupid little pervert had been muddled or simply made something up to please him. Weidinger was not coming. It was obvious.
In order to encourage a decent fatalism he lay down on the palliasse. Hardly had he done so when he began to consider the notion that, in fact, barely ten minutes had elapsed since Ibrahim gave him the news. He got up and started to pace again.
No, how wrong could it be? If anything the cell was gloomier, the sun a sight less powerful. There was even a faint chill. He was a fool if he thought any less than an hour had passed. Then he noticed the soup on the table. He walked over and stuck his fingers in the bowl. The liquid was still quite warm. It was possible that it had left the kitchen no more than thirty minutes before. Unless, that was, it had been scalding hot when it was brought in. He was debating this while licking his fingers dry when he heard the footsteps and voices coming down the corridor and then the rattle of keys outside.
But when the door opened it was not Weidinger whom the guard ushered in but von Papen. The major introduced himself.
‘Yes, I know who you are,’ said Maeltzer, breathing hard, hardly able to conceal his disappointment.
‘I wish to ask some questions,’ said von Papen, stiffly.
‘I doubt whether you’ll believe the answers. Won’t you sit down?’ Maeltzer motioned towards the table. ‘I’ll ask the guard to take the bucket away.’
The guard carried the bucket as far as the corridor and called for Ibrahim. A chair was brought in for von Papen and Maeltzer took the stool.
‘Well, Major?’
‘I thought perhaps you might care to clear some things up,’ he said.
‘Oh, I would care to very much,’ said Maeltzer. ‘But I don’t think I know what you think I know.’
14
Jerusalem: 28 October 1917
***
‘A woman who wishes to see you,’ whispered Ibrahim. ‘She give them big baksheesh, I think.’
‘What sort of woman?’
‘Syrian.’ The Bedu spat out the word in a way that made it plainly synonymous with whore.
‘I don’t know any Syrian women,’ said Maeltzer and he wondered whether this was some trick of von Papen’s or the Albanian major’s or whether, to Ibrahim’s warped gaze, Mrs Vester might look Syrian. Mrs Vester was just the sort of person who would come and visit a condemned English spy – as if she didn’t have enough troubles.
But, of course, he did know a Syrian woman. It was just that he had always regarded the Widow Shemsi as Turkish.
She came into his cell wearing a tight, olive green hobble skirt with a white blouse, silk stockings and shoes with little straps and buckles, and carrying a furled green parasol in a gloved hand. A guard held the door open for her. The width of her felt hat made her entry through the narrow frame the kind of careful triumph achieved by a deep-sea liner negotiating its way into a humble and unaccustomed port.
As soon as she was inside she drew a white handkerchief from a glove and held it just under her nose. For a moment Maeltzer thought he might be hallucinating but then he realised he could smell the eau de cologne from six feet away. A guard pulled up a stool and sat on the corridor side of the open door, smoking cigarettes and half asleep.
‘Good afternoon, Madame,’ said Maeltzer, levering himself off his palliasse. ‘This is an unexpected honour. I’m sorry if the air down here is not as fragrant as it might be.’
‘Oh, Herr Maeltzer,’ she said. ‘It’s distressing to see you like this. I brought you some oranges but they said they would give them to you later. I’m afraid they’ve opened them up. I really don’t know why.’
‘In case you somehow concealed poison in them so that I could cheat the hangman. Well, just as long as it wasn’t lemons.’
‘I see you haven’t lost your sense of humour – may I sit down?’
Maeltzer nodded towards the table and then, to his horror, saw that his awful bucket was next to the chair she was about to sit on. He managed to shuffle over and move it to a position by the door while at the same time holding her chair back for her.
&nb
sp; ‘Have you hurt your feet?’ she asked, noticing for the first time the unshod and swollen lumps of mottled flesh he walked on.
‘The bastinado,’ he said simply.
‘Oh my God! How barbaric.’ She wondered whether her brother’s feet had looked like that before Major Shemsi got him out of jail.
‘They’re not quite as bad as they look,’ he said. ‘Not quite.’
‘Herr Maeltzer,’ she said, composing herself by fiddling with a dagger-sized hatpin, ‘I felt I had to come and see you before I leave Jerusalem.’
‘Leaving? Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to Jaffa for a few weeks. I have rooms at Hardegg’s.’ This was the hotel where almost every wealthy European or American pilgrim used to spend their first night in the Holy Land. (‘Good sanitation. Cook’s coupons.’) ‘Von Kressenstein has moved his headquarters down to Etline you see and – but I shouldn’t be telling you military secrets!’
She sat with her hand at her mouth as if she might somehow force the words back in.
‘Rest assured, Madame,’ said Maeltzer with great gravity, ‘your secret is safe with me.’
‘Herr Maeltzer, you must not make fun of me. You know I shouldn’t have told you. Why, if Major Krag found out –’
‘My dear Madame Shemsi,’ sighed Maeltzer. ‘Even if I was the dangerous spy people say I am how would I communicate this startling information?
‘Herr Maeltzer, I have something to tell you,’ she said, playing with the hatpin again. ‘I have a confession to make.’
‘Ah confessions, Madame,’ said Maeltzer. ‘They’re all the rage around here. Unfortunately I am unable to oblige although my feet would wish it otherwise. But they persevere. They seem to want to be able to hang me with a clear conscience. But what’s this confession?’
‘Herr Maeltzer, I feel responsible for . . . your present predicament. You see, I was the one . . . well, as you know, I have a certain friendship. I was the one who drew Major Krag’s attention to your lemons. Not out of malice I assure you, Herr Maeltzer, but because I was amused by your juggling with your expensive fruit. Of course, now I know why you were prepared to pay so much for them. Not that I bear any moral judgement. I’m sure you did it out of conviction and not for money.’
