“Aaron — where are we going?”
“To the Professor.”
“But it’s late!” she cried, for she saw they were entering the dark doors of the Institute itself. Aaron took her arm.
“He said he would wait up all night by the telephone in his office.”
But the Professor had fallen asleep at his desk by the telephone, overcome by anxiety. They tiptoed into the room and watched him smilingly. Judith put a finger to her lips and, opening her briefcase, disposed the documents it contained quietly upon the broad desk before Professor Liebling. Then they sat down in chairs facing him and Aaron mimicked a cough and indicated with his hands that he was asking permission to wake him thus. Judith nodded and the cough was well and truly coughed. The Professor woke with a jolt and stared at them speechlessly; then he looked at the documents on his desk incredulously, and back at them.
“Well I’ll be damned!” he said querulously.
•
An account of her passage at arms with Donner made the old man almost incoherent with rage. He talked of going straight away to lodge a protest with the British authorities for this gross violation of common Mandate law. Then he grew thoughtful as Aaron said: “Let us not be hasty. Our own impression is that Donner was not acting officially but on his own account — illegally.”
“Mine too,” said Judith.
“And if he actually were trying to steal them on behalf of the British, you’d get small satisfaction anyway; they would muffle the news of the incident in the press and produce some excuse. Ben Adam knows Donner’s habits well. He takes bribes; someone may have offered him money for the plans.”
“But supposing he arrests Judith again?” said Liebling.
“Now the plans are safe he would get no satisfaction,” said Judith. “It was obviously the plans he wanted and not me.”
They discussed the matter in desultory fashion, and at last the Professor jumped up apologetically. “My goodness me, it is so late and here I am keeping you talking. Judith, I have your bedroom ready in my house. You will come and stay the rest of the night with us. My wife will be quite worried at the lateness of the hour. Come along.”
Aaron walked with them across the dark town and said good-night. “There’s been no time to talk,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Judith.”
He turned and disappeared down the dark street.
•
The next morning, Judith gave an exposition of her work on the plans to three serious young men and the Professor; heads bent over her work, they moved slowly up and down the long trestle tables in the drawing-office of the Institute. Outside, in the town, the noise of church bells floated in the clear air, and crowds passed and re-passed across the streets and the greensward of the University precincts. Jerusalem was celebrating the ending of the European war; but inside, the absorbed faces of the scientists were bent to the papers. They nodded and smoked and pondered. And Judith, with sharp, incisive gestures, completed her exposition. They hardly heard the bells or the buzzing of crowds in the historic city.
•
She had elected to return to Ras Shamir that afternoon, and they had hardly finished lunch at the Liebling house when she was called to the telephone. It was Aaron. “I have a surprise,” he said. “I hope it will be a pleasant one. I’ve been given permission to drive you back. It took some wangling as I’m attached to HQ here, but I’ve done it. When shall I call?”
So it was that she found herself sitting beside him in the late afternoon, as they rumbled down the curves and inclines away from Jerusalem. A newspaper lay on her knees and the empty briefcase at her feet. But her eyes were on the curves and tangles of the foothills they were negotiating. Aaron smoked silently, casting sideways glances at her from time to time. “Penny for your thoughts,” he said at last, with a hint of banter in his voice. She gazed at him for a moment, smiling absently. “You are miles away,” he said. She nodded. “I was thinking of Germany,” she said.
“Germany!”
She nodded again. “Now that the news has come, I suddenly feel that I am homeless in a new way.” He frowned but said nothing.
“I mean,” she said, “that even if Germany were ever to become her old self and welcome one back, it would be impossible to go. Something very vital has perished in all this train of horrors — a confidence, a trust.”
“But you wouldn’t think of going back,” he said sadly.
“No — I couldn’t.”
“Well, then.”
“But I see I shall have to go somewhere with a future for my sort of work, I don’t see myself being of any use here.”
“You shock me,” he said. “I thought by now you had begun to feel the place — the necessity for us founding an Israel here.”
“I think you are right, Aaron, but as yet I don’t feel anything. I am quite numb. I also see the difficulties. You may be obliged to use force.”
“Well then?”
“You may raise more devils than you can conquer.” Aaron groaned and was silent again. They were racing along in open country now; somewhere on the misty sea a warship’s gun was firing a salute. “So it’s London or New York for you, I suppose,” said Aaron. “I can’t blame you. You have a career ahead of you. But I am a sabra, and I’m going to stay here and watch a dream come true.”
With sudden penitence she turned and touched his shoulder. “Oh, Aaron, I’ve made you sad with my silly talk.”
He shook his head but his smile was unconvincing.
“I have. I’m sorry.”
“No. It’s simply that I felt sorry that you would not stay with us and share the dream — perhaps a crazy one. Things are going to get harder for a while — not easier. We shall be passing through the eye of the needle.”
“Damn,” she said. “Let’s stop a moment and have a cigarette.” Obediently he drew the car off the road under the olive trees and lit a cigarette for her. “Now,” she said, “I shall show you that I can still be of some use.” She took a piece of paper and began to draw a design on it, swiftly and fluently.
“Perhaps this will interest you,” she said. He looked at it curiously. “It’s a map of the Arab dispositions opposite Ras Shamir,” she went on.
“Good God, how did you get that?”
She drew a breath and said: “You know those two imps of Karam’s? In spite of his beatings they can’t be stopped from crossing the border. They spend half their time up there playing around, and Yehudi says he has found three paths on the cliffs which are unguarded. I drew this from his description. The crescent of tents there is the British Mission camp; here to the right the Prince and his entourage.”
He laughed. “Well I’m damned.”
She said very seriously: “I thought you might like to send up some of our people and cut all their throats.”
He jumped. “My God!” he said, looking at her with wide eyes. “Cut poor Daud’s throat? What next! He is a childhood friend of mine. I’ve known him since I was ten.” He seemed absolutely amazed at her tone, opening his mouth to speak, and then closing it again. He put one hand to his head and gave a hopeless laugh. Then he became very serious. Joining his hands together in supplication he said: “You must let me explain something to you; you must understand, Judith.” She stared at him with surprise ever so faintly tinged with contempt. He rose and walked a few paces away to another olive tree and laid his face against its trunk for a moment — then he turned and came back, starting to talk, his hands spread out. “You see, the overwhelming problem for us is the question of our legal right to be here, to found a place we can call our own; this is not simply another D.P. camp for us. We want it to justify itself as a permanent reality. But never can this be achieved by force of arms. What we want is for the world, which has made the half-hearted gesture of letting us settle here, to confirm our existence, to ratify our sovereignty. That is why we are trying to bounce the unwilling British into UNO; we believe that we could win our right to exist peacefully and no
t by force. We believe that our case and our cause are such that the right of Israel to exist as a State will be granted to us. We do not want to take it by force. You must stop thinking of this land in terms of an expiation for the guilt of past persecutions; it is not an expiation — it is a world commitment. We Jews have seventy nations represented here already.”
He paused and stared at her. “I know what you are going to say,” she said. “I feel it coming.”
“I was going to say that you do not understand because...
“I am not a sabra.”
“I knew it.”
She got up furiously and walked up and down. “And what of the Arabs?” she said harshly. “They will torpedo your vote. You know they will. Who is going to sacrifice good oil to their displeasure?”
“The risk is there — we must take it. It is the only way.”
“It will end with a massacre.”
“That we can face up to as the worst extremity; but we sabras are not going to stretch out our little white throats to the Arab’s knife. But we know that in the longest run we must live with them, cooperate with them. At the moment British oil interests won’t let us. That’s the point.”
They returned to the car and resumed their journey in silence. What followed immediately gave some point to his words, and also made him regret fleetingly that he had chosen, for his own pleasure, the longest way round to reach the kibbutz, for the road ahead suddenly seethed with infantry and command cars. It was a checkpost. They were searched and re-searched. As they stood under interrogation with arms raised, he grinned at her and said: “You see?”
She looked at him seriously and said: “I’m glad you didn’t bring your pistol on this trip.”
Once cleared, he drove on but downcast. “Is anything wrong?” she asked at last, almost timidly.
He sighed. “Tales of murder and sabotage,” he said. “The situation has become black for the British. It is a matter of time before they throw in the sponge and hide behind the Arab vote.” She sighed. “But isn’t that part of the plan, to make it black?” He nodded. “I’ve lost two of my oldest friends. They were killed in a raid last night.” She said: “I see.” They drove down the winding roads towards the sea in silence.
Once they reached the coast road he said: “I apologize for my gloom. Look, let’s have a glass of wine, shall we? And then a few minutes’ rest. We shan’t get back before midnight anyway with these checkposts. What do you say?” “If you wish,” she replied. “Good,” he said with false heartiness, and turned down a curving dusty road among the dunes. In the little Roman harbour there was a small restaurant with a dance-floor. They sat under a vine and he ordered wine. With the first glass she felt its warmth. The soft Levantine jazz mixed with the sounds of the sea.
“Come, let us dance once — we don’t get much of this at the kibbutz or at training camps.” She was undecided.
“Dancing?” she said, “It belongs to the old world, the past. I think I have forgotten how.” He smiled. “I’ll remind you,” he said. He took her softly in his arms and they danced awhile without speaking. Back at their table once more she sipped her wine and said, “Good Lord!” “What?” She laughed. “It’s going to my head.” He gazed at her with a sorrowful grin. “So you can actually smile,” he said. “How marvellous. Thank you.” He stood up and once more they danced. Then abruptly he took her hand and led her down to the beach among the dunes. “There are such lovely shells on this beach,” he said. “I must gather some for the children.”
There was a little Arab cemetery, long since abandoned; she sat among the tombs and smoked while he wandered about for a while. At last he came back and said: “You know what?” “What?” “The sea is as warm as milk.” She lay back, gazing up at the dark sky. Suddenly he sat down beside her and took her elbows in his strong hands, pinioning her, and began to kiss her. She tried to resist and turn her face away, but it was no good. She felt his hands on her body, fumbling with her clothes, opening them. “Aaron,” she said, but he had covered her body with his own now, and all she could see were his dark eyes staring into her own. A thin misty drizzle had begun to fall. She lay as if doped, and when at last he raised himself on his elbow to look at her, he saw that her eyes were full of tears. She turned her face away with a groan. “Oh, can’t you see,” she cried, “that I’m exhausted — finished!” He shook his head. “No, you’ll come awake. It’s only shock and fatigue — and probably mathematics.”
She struck him wildly across the face and he sat up, nursing his cheek, but without anger. He considered her for a moment, then, taking her hand, pressed it to his cheek. “I am going to swim,” he said. In a flash he had disappeared into the glimmer of the beach. She rose in a fury and found her way back to the car. In a little while he came, his mop of wet hair standing upright. He had unearthed a towel from somewhere and wore it round his neck. He entered the car and turned to her.
“Judith, darling,” he said in a low voice full of self-reproach, but she turned on him and shouted: “Oh, if you are now going to be apologetic and penitential I’ll hit you — I can’t stand stupidity as well as mawkishness.” He bit his lip but said nothing. “Well?” she cried, “What are we waiting for?” He started the engine and switched on the lights. They drove in silence down the bumpy tracks to the main road and turned northwards for Haifa. At night the checkposting was even more elaborate and infuriating. They submitted with expressionless faces. Only after Nazareth, where the hills started to climb away northwards, did things begin to thin out a little.
The mountain air was good and keen. Aaron drove in thoughtful silence, gazing at her from time to time, darting little enquiring glances from under his dark eyebrows. But she felt weary and upset and her whole body trembled with nervous fatigue; the sudden sexual intimacy had burned up inside her like a torch, irradiating not only her body but her bruised mind. All the old melancholy phantoms she had been fighting throughout these long months of lonely reflection and hard work rose up from the dark recesses into which she had driven them. How could he not understand that she was still not free from the dreadful shock and melancholia of the death camp? In the shadow of her memories she felt old, used-up, exhausted. She leaned her head on the sidescreen of the car and slept as they rumbled through the night together.
As they reached the head of the pass he slowed up a little and studied the dark contours of the valley below them, bathed in its violet mist. Here and there faint lights shone. But the two great escarpments to the north and south of Ras Shamir were pricked out by the tiny star-clusters of light which marked the settlements lining the dark border: “Brisbane”, “Brooklyn”, “Cape Town”, “Soho”, “Naples”, “Odessa”. He repeated their nicknames, smiling to himself at their old familiarity, and remembering scraps of banter passed backwards and forwards through the old heliograph.
At last they came to the camp perimeter and were challenged by a sleepy figure with a torch who grunted his recognition as he examined their faces, before pulling back the gate and letting them drive in. The car rumbled slowly along the tree-lined darkness of the road and drew up at last near the first faintly etched shadow of a house. She was awake now; as soon as he had turned off the engine, the silence had nudged her fully awake. He went round to her side and opened the door. He seemed to be disposed to say something, though what it was she could not imagine. For that matter, neither could he, he simply could not formulate a phrase to express the mixture of ruefulness and concern which he felt. “Judith,” he said at last, but she was fastening up the old briefcase and smoothing down her crumpled frock. Then she said “Good-night” and turned on her heel to walk slowly away from him down the feebly-lit path.
He stood and watched her, sighing and rubbing his chin. The tall slender figure was slowly swallowed by the velvety darkness. He could hear her footsteps still as he turned downcast to the car. Then they stopped — the footsteps — and he heard her call his name suddenly, with a note of urgency.
“Aaron!”
Instantly he strode towards her and plunged into the dark with arms outspread, for he could see nothing. Suddenly he felt her arms around him and her warm mouth searching for his. It was as if all her reserves and terrors had been shed like a cloak, freeing her body and her mind for just such an embrace. “I am sorry I have been such a bitch,” she said incoherently, “But I am still all tangled up inside.” Aaron’s kisses prevented any further analysis of her feelings. She subsided slowly and luxuriously into the deep soft grass under the trees, feeling his arms tighten around her body. “I have come awake,” she told herself with joy, “I have come awake.”
Much later, at the door of her little cabin, Aaron said good-night with the traditional reluctance of the lover. But his parting was made much less sad for the news he had to give her. “In three months I’ll be back here at Ras Shamir.” Three months only, instead of that fearsome year!
16
Lawton and the Ambassador
Lawton returned from Egypt at the end of his leave. Grete looked up from her desk and found him standing before her one morning, gazing down on her as if uncertain of his welcome.
“I came to say I was sorry,” he said.
She sprang up in ready sympathy and gave him her hands. “Let us rub it all out — forget it all,” she said.
And his face broke into a smile. “God bless you,” he said. “You have no idea how much I missed you. It ruined my leave. I tried hard not to think about you, but it was useless. I climbed all the pyramids and went to all the night clubs but whenever I was near a telephone the temptation to ring you was almost irresistible.”
“I missed you too,” she said truthfully.
“And as ill luck will have it, I can’t dine with you tonight, I have to go to Government House.”
“Never mind. There will be time.”
“All the time in the world.”
Back in his office once more, Lawton set about expelling Carstairs and his files.
Judith Page 19
