Judith

by Lawrence Durrell

  “Don’t you want me?” she whispered at last, gazing at him, with a bemused and repentant glance. He nodded grimly.

  “But not out of gratitude,” he said, and his cold harsh tone cut across her indecision like a knife.

  “Gratitude,” she said, genuinely aggrieved.

  “Yes, or perhaps boredom,” he said grimly.

  “My God, what a prig you are.”

  “Perhaps I love you Grete, and I would be mad with happiness if I thought you could love me. But can you? I don’t know. Can’t you see that anything less would be an insult to someone who loves you?”

  She groaned and made a little sketch with her hands of someone tearing out her hair in a pantomime of exasperation.

  “Why do men complicate everything?” she cried out, suddenly falling back on the cushions with a wail of despair. “Oh why? You are like all the others.”

  “Good-night,” said Lawton. He leaned forward and suddenly took her in his arms, hungrily, angrily. He kissed her until she was breathless. It was truly like an act of aggression, as if he were trying to prevent her breathing. And after each bout of kisses he stared at her with his crooked grin. Then, without another word, he smacked her across the face and the white light splintered into a thousand stars.

  “Some people can think of nothing but themselves,” he said from the door and she heard his feet run lightly down the stairs. The front door closed behind him with a faint jar, and she heard the distant sound of his hurried footbeats in the silent street.

  She rose weeping, and staggered across the room to put on the light. Then she examined her own face in the tall steep glass of the bedroom. Her reflection disgusted her and she turned aside to the kitchen, where she unearthed a glass and a bottle of gin. She poured herself a dose of the spirit and filled up her glass with soda. Then she turned off the lights and took herself back to her dark sofa once more; here she lay, drinking, thinking deeply, and from time to time muttering aloud.

  The next day she woke with a heavy sense of gloom and despondency; she was late for the office, and she wore dark glasses to disguise the havoc which sleeplessness and tears had wrought with her complexion. She was overcome with remorse, and at the same time with exasperation, at Lawton’s determination to complicate matters, to make feelings explicit. After an hour of hesitation she walked along to his office to find Carstairs in possession of his desk.

  “Hello,” he said gaily, “are you looking for the Major? Didn’t he tell you he was going on leave today? How strange. He didn’t tell me either. He phoned just after breakfast to say he was flying out to Egypt for a week’s leave; by now he must be over the Canal.”

  Grete sighed heavily.

  “Come. Come,” said Carstairs. “This is no way to take it; besides he spoke words of winged wisdom unto me and said that if I was to invite you to dinner he would not be sorry. Nay, he would be glad knowing you were in such safe hands. Will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  “Dine and dance with three waggish second lieutenants at the King David tonight? Please say yes.”

  “Very well,” she said, “though I’m not in the mood.”

  “We will cheer you up with our polished banter,” promised Carstairs: “Besides, we all dance well.”

  By the time the evening came, she was glad that she had accepted the invitation, for the thought of spending a long solitary evening in her flat was oppressive. Besides, Carstairs’ promise of good company was amply fulfilled. The three young subalterns went out of their way to amuse and divert her — and all three of them danced well. Once, as she was leaving the floor after a dance, her eye caught sight of a familiar figure — or so she thought — standing at the bar and watching her. But before she could verify this first impression, the crowd had closed in on her. She made her way as quickly as possible to the bar but the figure — it had seemed to her to be that of David — had disappeared. She shrugged away the impression and continued to dance until long after midnight. All three of her hosts saw her home in the command car, and she was in a happy and self-confident mood as she closed the door on their smiling faces.

  She walked into the dark flat and was instantly aware that there was somebody there, waiting for her in the darkness. She paused, every nerve alert, her finger on the switch. Opposite, on the dark couch by the lighted window, she could see the outline of a figure.

  “Who is it?” she said in a low voice. The answer, in David’s deep quiet tone, came back across the silence.

  “A friend. Don’t be scared.”

  She switched on the light with a click and confronted him.

  “Scared?” she said. “What have I to be scared of?” David laughed softly. “Nothing,” he said shortly. “I thought I was being followed, hence my rather theatrical entry. I apologize.”

  Grete gazed at him curiously. “So it was you at the Hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so.”

  David got to his feet and said: “You were not supposed to see me. I was rather clumsy; but I had dinner there before coming on here to...

  “To what?”

  “To see you. To talk to you. May I have a cigarette?”

  “Yes. Will you have a drink?”

  “Thank you.”

  She poured him a whisky and he lit a cigarette with none too steady a hand. They both felt confused, ill at ease. She sat down opposite him and said sharply:

  “If you have come to ask me to return to Ras Shamir...

  “I haven’t,” he said shortly. “This is business.”

  “How business?” she said.

  David inhaled deeply and expelled a long column of blue smoke which hung in the air between them.

  “Haganah business,” he said. “I was ordered here to Jerusalem by the resistance. The build-up of arms is almost complete. It won’t be long before the balloon goes up...

  “Balloon?”

  “Well, we’ll have to take our case to UNO, since the British do not seem to want to pay attention to it. We are planning a few demonstrations in order to reach the headlines.”

  “Demonstrations?”

  “I was using the politest word I could find. There will be quite some trouble here.”

  “David,” she said. “This sounds mad.”

  “It may,” he said setting his jaw in a stubborn jut.

  “But if you get rid of the British you will be facing the Arabs without their help. They will march in.”

  “They must be faced too. Israel must become a reality, a sovereign state, not a rest camp where the victims of anti-semitism can live on the sympathetic handouts of the world. A place of our own is what we want, we must have.”

  “But the British were prime movers in this business. You will have your sovereign state; but must you have it this weekend?”

  “They are hesitating, placating Arab opinion.”

  “They have to; think of the oil. In the long run this will concern you also, no?”

  “Israel must be born,” he said obstinately.

  She sipped her drink. “You men are all the same,” she said at last.

  David stubbed out his cigarette and smiled wryly. “Did you come here to give me a political lecture?” she asked.

  “No. I’m sorry,” he said. “I came here on behalf of the Haganah to ask you to — co-operate.”

  “In what sense?”

  “Provide us with information. You are admirably placed to do so, in fact at the heart of the cobweb — British military intelligence. I was asked if you would keep us informed of everything you hear and see.”

  “Of course not,” she said equably.

  “You don’t care,” he said.

  “I care,” she said, “but I think you will get what you want in the long run thanks to the British; why jump the gun?”

  “You don’t believe in Israel.”

  “I don’t believe in fanatics,” she said. “The last experience I had of the jackboot brought me here; I don’t want to see us Jews inherit the f
anaticism from which we have been trying to escape.”

  He drained his drink and stood up. “I see,” he said coldly.

  “I wonder if you really do.”

  “I think I do,” he said sadly. “I wish it weren’t mixed up with my own feelings for you — but it is. It is the old difference, of course. I am a sabra, was born here, belong here, will die rather than be thrown out of here. This is my land, not only in the religious and historical sense but in the sense of contemporary politics. But you, like so many others, are only here to evade persecution; you want to hide; but you don’t want to throw off the whole complex of Jewishness to escape from your past, to start a new world. At the first opportunity you would be off to Germany again.”

  “Only for one reason,” she said. “If there were a chance of my child being alive still, yes, I would go. I care more for that than for all these windy theories. You will end by sickening your British friends and being abandoned by them to the Arabs. That is not a pretty prospect.”

  “But that is precisely what we are preparing for,” said David. “I like the British as much as you do. It hurts me to go against their wishes. But we must. Our policy dictates it, and it is right.”

  “I think now,” she said, “I’ve had enough.”

  He sighed heavily. “I am sorry,” he said again. “It turned out so completely different from my original idea of it, this conversation; you know how one plans conversations in one’s mind — the questions and answers fit so beautifully. But this time we are all at odds. Nothing I say matches anything you think.” He looked at her intently, sorrowfully, for a long moment. Then he took a step forward and clasped his hands, pressing them together until the knuckles stood out white against the sunburn.

  “I’m so deeply sorry,” he said in a low voice full of emotion. “I had so much to say to you and now it is all unsayable. I feel that I’ve lost you forever, Grete.”

  He walked slowly to the door and she heard his weary steps on the stairway outside. It was only when she heard the front door bang shut that she suddenly cried “David,” like someone wakening from a bad dream. She ran lightly down the staircase, but by the time she reached the front door it swung back to reveal an empty street.

  14

  A Visitant

  The visitations of Donner always occasioned the sinking feeling which Bovril was invented to prevent — for, during some years before he reached the dizzy eminence of his present post, he had been in charge of the arms raids; these enabled him to pay off any number of petty scores or imagined slights, purely in terms of the destruction of kibbutz property. Consequently, his appearance at Ras Shamir early one morning came as something of a surprise, as he had not been seen for some months anywhere north of Galilee.

  Pete saw the self-assured figure from the roof parapet, where she was busy discussing a deal with the two settlements at the end of the line — the ones they called “Glasgow” and “Brisbane” because of the nationalities of the overwhelming mass of their inhabitants. She went down to meet him, muttering “Here’s a bird of ill omen. I hope it isn’t a raid.” But Donner was alone, walking with an air of preoccupied nonchalance and tapping his knee with his swagger-stick. He was even disposed to be waggish in his earthbound way, spreading out his hands as he saw her and saying: “This time I come in peace, Miss Peterson. Honour bound. Cross my heart.” He crossed his heart and cast his eyes up to heaven like some grotesque doll. Then, nonchalantly, as if to assert his official power by a calculated rudeness, he picked himself a fine rose. She watched him stonily. “I am glad to hear it,” she said. And truthfully she was, for recently they had received quite a lot of automatic weapons and some boxes of industrial dynamite, out of which Aaron had plans to build... “I am very glad.” The last time Donner and his party, with a lot of infantry, had spent four hours going over the settlement with a fine-tooth comb in a hunt for arms, they found nothing; but it was really a miracle that they did not. Old Karam had put their hand-grenades under the chickens in their boxes; now he claimed that the hens had tried so hard to hatch them they had become neurotic. With these thoughts turning over in her mind, she shook hands gravely with the policeman.

  “I came,” said Donner, “more or less to say goodbye, Miss Peterson, as I am going for a soldier shortly — a Syrian posting. You won’t see my ugly face around here any more.”

  “I am glad,” said Pete absently, “of course I mean sorry.”

  Donner gave an awkward laugh, rather louder than it should have been, and not as self-assured as he would have liked it to sound.

  “You must have your little joke,” he said.

  She nodded. They walked side by side back to the office where, dismissing the supernumeraries working there, she placed a chair for Donner and settled behind her desk with the air of one who awaits the oracle. But the oracle did not know quite how to begin; it was difficult, like trying to pick up a crab. He cleared his throat and said:

  “And there was one little routine matter I wanted to ask you about. Have you a girl here called Judith Roth? I think you have.”

  Pete did not quite know whether to bluff or tell the truth. She hesitated and then said:

  “Yes, of course we have.”

  “Do you think I could have a quiet word with her?” asked Donner with an air of humble sincerity, tapping his knee with the rose. Pete got up and said:

  “Yes, let me see the roster.” She consulted a wall-sheet full of names. “She’s not on duty now. She must be in her room unless... If Judith were at the river, her papers would not be in the safe. She swung the heavy door and peered inside. No, there were the yellow folders and the writing-case. Judith must be in camp somewhere.

  “If you will wait a moment,” said Pete, “I’ll go and find her and send her up here to you.”

  Donner had not missed the slightest move in this little ritual of looking in the safe. But of course! Where else would one keep valuable documents in a kibbutz? There was no privacy in the huts — he knew that only too well from his frequent arms hunts. If plans there were, they must be in there.

  Pete left the room, closing the door behind her; for some reason or other she did not lock the safe again, contenting herself with pushing the door shut. Donner rubbed his chin thoughtfully and then fingered his nose as he thought deeply. Then with an agility unusual for a man of his build, he tiptoed across the room and looked inside. There was a stack of purely administrative papers on the top, and on the bottom the folders with the words “Liebling: Physics Dept. U. of J.” printed on them. A large yellow envelope, the fatness of which promised well, was marked with the initials “J.R.”. Donner gave a low whistle. What luck! On the other hand, was it luck? And if it was, what should he do to turn it to profit? He could not risk a direct theft — that would be obvious. Still pondering, he examined the lock. It was a primitive little safe with an ordinary type of lock turned by key. He took out the little ring of skeleton keys from his breast pocket and soon found one to fit it. He had hardly replaced them and regained his seat when the door opened and a dark good-looking girl came into the room. She was, he repeated to himself, a good-looker all right.

  “Miss Roth?”

  Judith nodded and shook hands. “You wanted to see me?”

  Donner put on a false heartiness of manner, swaying about like an avuncular clergyman and saying:

  “I did, yes, to be sure I did.” They sat down and Donner cleared his throat, smiling at her in his most seductive fashion. “I wanted to ask you if you had a pleasant journey?”

  “I don’t understand,” said the girl.

  Donner wagged a playful rose at her and said:

  “I suppose you wouldn’t be another illegal, would you? I know plenty of young ladies who are.”

  Judith coldly recited the cover-story which had been invented for her and which she had been told to memorize. Donner waved this away and said:

  “My dear little lady, of course, of course. I don’t doubt a word of it.”

  Judith sai
d: “Then what do you want?”

  Donner leaned forward suddenly and allowed his moustache to bristle, in a minatory fashion.

  “I’m not saying I don’t believe you,” he said, “but of course you know the penalties for forging identity cards, don’t you?”

  “Am I under arrest?” said Judith. Donner protested at once.

  “Of course not. Of course not.”

  “Then you have no right to talk to me like that. My papers are perfectly in order.”

  “Now don’t get angry,” said Donner plaintively. “I didn’t come to make any charge. I simply came to...

  “To what?”

  “I came to help you, to offer my services... He sounded positively hurt at being so misjudged.

  “How?”

  Donner drew a deep breath and took the plunge.

  “These papers, these plans... he mumbled vaguely, watching her face carefully. Judith’s face cleared and she smiled.

  “You mean my father’s plans?”

  “That’s it,” he said, much relieved.

  “I see. The British Government wants to buy them? But I’m sorry, you will have to talk to Professor Liebling about that. I’m only doing the mathematical work on them.”

  “Liebling?”

  “Yes. As soon as my work is finished I shall deliver them to him. But that won’t be for a month yet.”

  Donner looked confused and uncertain.

  “I thought,” he mumbled, “that you might like them locked up for you under official seal. This is not a very safe place...

  “Thank you, no.”

  Donner laid his flower on the table, extracted a cigarette case and offered her one which she refused. He lit up and smoked in a laboured fashion.

  “I know a good many people of influence,” he said at last, with clumsy amiability, “who have nothing to do with the British Government...

  But she let the hint pass without comment.

  “You may address any of your questions to Professor Liebling,” she said sharply. “Is there anything further you wish of me?”