Thieves in the Night: Chronicle of an Experiment

by Arthur Koestler

  “How are you, ya Walid?”

  “I am well, thank God.”

  “So you are well, ya Walid?”

  “I am very well, thank God.”

  “And your father is well too?”

  “He is very well, thank God.”

  “I am glad your father is well, ya Walid.”

  “My father is well, thank God.”

  “And how is your older brother, ya Walid?”

  And so on through the two younger brothers and the horse and the two mules and the cattle and the flock. The answer is always that all is well, even if the whole family is dying and the flock decimated by foot and mouth disease. It is a soothing, gentle ritual, of which the British lovely-day game is but a crude and simplified variation. When we got through with it, Walid, who had finished his cigarette and was chewing a halm of grass, said:

  “I have just remarked to your friend that your young trees look very beautiful.”

  “Walid likes trees,” Arieh said languidly, by way of explanation.

  “I think trees are beautiful,” said Walid.

  “Why don’t you plant some in your village?” I asked.

  “Tzz!” said Walid, tossing his head up as a sign of violent negation. “That is impossible.”

  “Why is it impossible?”

  “Tzz! The trees would not last.”

  “Why would they not last?”

  “You have a quarrel with your neighbour and he cuts your trees down.”

  “That is very bad,” I said. “Can you do nothing about it?”

  “Tzz!” he said. “No. We can’t grow trees.”

  We were quiet for a while, and just sat and watched the sheep and the clouds. Arieh offered cigarettes, but he had only two left, so he broke one into halves and he and I shared it. Walid twice politely refused to take the whole cigarette and accepted it the third time. After a while he said:

  “You are very poor.”

  “Not very,” I said. “And we have only just started.”

  “You have tractors and electricity but you have no cigarettes.”

  “We put all our money into tractors and machines, and later we shall be rich.”

  “No,” he said. “When you have more money you will buy more tractors.”

  For some reason this irritated me, and I said to tease him:

  “Well, you have no tractors and no cigarettes either.”

  “But I am free,” Walid said. “And you live like in prison.”

  “Walid thinks we work too hard,” Arieh explained.

  “Nobody tells us how much we are to work,” I said. “We do it because we like it.”

  “You start planting trees and then you have to go on tending them. You always start something new and then you have to finish it, and when it is finished you have to start again something new. You are like prisoners. I am free. If I like I can go tomorrow to Egypt or to America or to England.”

  “You need money for that,” Arieh remarked philosophically.

  “Ma lesh— that doesn’t matter,” said Walid. “I can go wherever I like. Egypt or America or India. I am free and you are prisoners.”

  “Everybody who has set himself a task becomes a prisoner,” I said. “But that doesn’t matter.

  “Ma lesh” “Ma lesh” Walid agreed.

  “Ma lesh” said Arieh, lying over on his back and pulling his fringed hat over his eyes….

  Thursday

  To-night I told Dina that I am going to marry Ellen. She said that she had expected it and made no further comment. We were standing together on the platform of the Tower, after dark.

  We stood for perhaps five minutes in silence. Several times I wanted to speak, but each time I felt my voice thicken in my throat, and gave it up. I knew that we were both thinking of the same scene: that first morning when she had slept on my arm in the first-aid tent and we had climbed up the Tower to watch the sun rise over the hills.

  Suddenly I had the wild idea that perhaps Dina’s trouble was just fuss and hypochondria, and that by taking her by surprise I could break down the barrier. I silently counted ten to myself and then turned towards her and grabbed her by the shoulders with a hard grip. She did not shrink back, it was almost as if she had expected it; in fact I am convinced that she had expected it. She did not resist as I drew her towards me, but her body grew taut and unyielding; and she trembled so violently that I could hear the faint grinding noise of her teeth as she locked her jaws to prevent herself from crying out. By then I was terrified but I wanted to go through with it and I knew that Dina wanted me to go through with it, in the same desperate hope. Against her will her rigid body strained away from me; and at the second when I pressed my mouth against her tight dry lips, hardened by the clenched teeth behind them, she flung me away with the uncontrollable violence of an explosion. While we both stood panting on the dark platform, she managed to say in a kind of hiss: “Sorry, Joseph—please go away—quick”; and before I could make up my mind she was sick over the parapet. I did not even dare to hold her head.

  After a while she got better and we climbed down the ladder. Again I did not dare to help her. In the faint light which came through the open door of the dining-hut she said good-night, contriving a kind of smile.

  I walked out into the fields and threw myself down on the soft dewy earth. I closed my eyes and went into a day-dream about what I would do to the fellows who had done this to Dina if I could lay my hands on them. It was the first time in my life that a fantasy of this kind got hold of me, and when I pulled myself out of it I was all sweaty in my clothes and trembling. But sobering up was almost unbearable, so I began once more to dig my nails into the damp earth which became transformed into the liquid eye-sockets of Dina’s torturer. When I sobered the second time, the attack was over.

  Even now, in my full senses, I would accept the opportunity of physical revenge. This is against my reasoning and my convictions. But reasoning cannot satisfy either hunger or rut, and to-night I have learned that the thirst for revenge may become physiological reality. It would not help Dina, but it would help me.

  I know a story of a Sicilian peasant who had spent five years in prison for the attempted murder of his wife’s seducer and who, the day he was released, went straight to the seducer’s house, killed him, and went contentedly back to prison for the rest of his life. The Italian Communist who told me the story, said that after ten years in prison the peasant seemed perfectly happy and knew no regret. At the time I could not believe this; now I understand that under certain circumstances a life-sentence or the gallows may appear as a reasonable price to pay for regaining one’s peace of mind.

  The Arabs seem to know this. And some of Bauman’s youngsters too, like that boy Benjosef who went on singing the anthem until the cord choked his voice. That isn’t so easy as it sounds. The climate, or the contact with this earth riddled with ancestors’ caves, seems to reopen certain taps in the pipe which had better remain sealed.

  Now that I have written it down I have exorcised the headless Joshua. Articulateness is the death of instinct. But have I not said before that the trouble with us is that we have become too articulate? …

  Friday

  Ran into Dina first thing in the morning outside the shower-baths, and walked with her to the dining-hut for breakfast. Her hair was still damp from the shower and faintly steaming in the cold morning air. The contrast of the fresh cold-water-gloss on her face and the blue shadows under her eyes made her look more attractive than ever. At breakfast she chattered with unforced gaiety. She seemed to have forgotten all about yesterday, and after the first plate of porridge I too felt much better.

  Anyway, yesterday has settled it: Ellen is moving into my room to-morrow.

  Sunday

  Simeon has been transferred from the “infectious” ward, so yesterday at last I could go and see him in the Hadassah Hospital in Haifa.

  With his face flat on the pillow he looked more than ever like a sick falcon. His black eyes fastened on me
as soon as I entered the ward and seemed to pull and steer me on my way round the other beds to his side. His face is emaciated and so are his long, loose-fingered, nicotine-stained hands. The blanket on his bed was neatly tucked in and his pyjamas buttoned up to the neck; there was nothing undressed about Simeon in bed. The blanket, bedside locker and even the pillow were littered with papers and newspaper cuttings.

  I sat down on a chair by the bed, and grabbed his hand which lay flat on the blanket.

  “One shouldn’t touch me—I may still be infectious,” he said, but I could see that he was pleased. “Well, how are things on our ivory tower?”

  “I am to marry Ellen and to be made treasurer for outside work,” I blurted out.

  “No!” he exclaimed in frank and naïve amazement. He seemed excited by my news like a schoolboy being told what had been going on in the class during his absence. Simeon did after all look more human in bed.

  “You don’t say….” He laughed, but after one or two chuckles started to cough. “By God, Reuben has got his dialectics right…. But it is a good thing,” he continued. “You are the best person for the job. And otherwise you would have quitted—sooner or later.”

  So Simeon too had noticed how much adrift I had been. They all seem to have noticed it—except myself.

  It was visiting hour, and each of the four patients in the room had one or two relatives sitting at his bedside. They were all absorbed in their own conversation and created a neutral, relaxed atmosphere in which each bed with its locker, chair and screen formed a little island of privacy. Simeon lay on his back, his eyes gazing at the ceiling. “Tell me more about our ivory tower,” he said.

  “Gaby is marrying the Egyptian and Moshe has twins—but this you probably know already.”

  He nodded. “What else?”

  “We bought a mare from Ein Hashofeth for twenty pounds.”

  “How old?”

  “Three years. Ash-coloured. Rather nice, but showing too much rib.”

  “What is she going to be called?”

  “Alliyah”

  He gave a short, bitter chuckle. “Immigration,” he repeated. “Symbols, symbols and nothing behind it.”

  An old fat nurse waddled past carrying a bedpan. Despite her neat uniform she looked more like the wife of a rabbi disguised as a nurse.

  Simeon was silent for a while, then he cleared his throat and asked in a casual voice:

  “And the saplings?”

  “Judith is looking after them. Since the rains they have grown almost an inch.”

  “Any duds?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “The last row towards the corner of the veg-garden needs some extra watering.”

  “I’ll tell Judith.”

  He gazed at the ceiling and gave a shrug. “What’s the difference, anyway….”

  “When will they let you out?” I asked.

  “In about a week.”

  “You’ll have to share a room with Mendl and the Dr. Phil.”

  “I won’t.”

  “It will be difficult to find another arrangement. We are expecting a new graft in a fortnight.”

  Simeon said nothing, and after a while I asked:

  “They’ll send you first for convalescence to Sichron?”

  “I expect so.”

  “And when will you be back home?”

  “Never.”

  I stared at him and he looked at the ceiling, then slowly turned his head to me.

  “It doesn’t really surprise you, does it?”

  My heart was thumping.

  “Habibi,” I said at last. “No. No, I won’t believe it.”

  He smiled. “The funny thing is, I can’t yet really make myself believe it either.”

  More than anything that he could have said, this convinced me that arguing was useless. Without Simeon the image of the Place in my mind’s eye had suddenly become a shade darker and greyer—like a scene on the stage with the lights gradually being shut off. It was perhaps even worse than if we lost Dina. A Commune is not simply a crowd—it is a pattern, a mosaic figure, and if a piece breaks loose it leaves a gap for ever.

  “But why, Simeon?” I asked.

  His smile became ironical. “Ask yourself and you will find the answer.”

  I kept silent, for Simeon made me feel not only miserable, but guilty—just as during our last talk in the tree-nursery. I had avoided him ever since and, to tell the truth, his illness had been rather a godsend to me. But there it was now—and I could no longer escape it; just as I could not escape that other question centred round Ellen.

  It is no good running away from things—they move slower and steadier, and in the end they always catch up with one.

  Simeon had propped himself up on his elbow, searching among his papers. He was very weak, and his thin neck with the skinny Adam’s apple trembled slightly with the effort. The fat nurse waddled excitedly towards us. “I told you you are not allowed to sit up,” she cackled.

  “Go to hell,” said Simeon quietly. She gaped at him but he went on searching among his papers, ignoring her completely, and after a few seconds she turned on her heel and walked off, with a red face, and without another word.

  “Read these,” said Simeon, thrusting the bundle of newspaper cuttings into my hand and letting himself fall back on the pillow. The cuttings were neatly labelled and held together by a clip. I read:

  “According to a statement issued by the Government of Northern Rhodesia, the elected members of the Legislative Council have unanimously opposed any immigration of Jewish Refugees. The acting Governor, therefore, felt unable to advise the Secretary of State that the matter would be proceeded with further at the present time….”

  “It is stated that mass immigration into Portuguese colonies is strictly forbidden….”

  “President Vargas of Brazil has issued a decree … fixing the annual quota of immigration at two per cent of the total number of immigrants of the same nationality during the last fifty years….”

  “A memorandum urging the prohibition of foreign immigrants into Cyprus has been submitted to the Municipal Council by local professional corporations….”

  “Refugees from European countries will not be encouraged to emigrate to New Zealand, according to a statement made last week by Mr. Nash, the Minister of Finance….”

  “It is understood that the Government of South Africa is unwilling to contemplate any modification in the stringent provisions of the Aliens Act, which makes Jewish immigration virtually impossible….”

  “It is reported that the Uruguay Government has instructed its Consuls to refuse visas to Jews who are emigrating for racial or political reasons …”

  Simeon looked at me with his bitterly hypnotic eyes. There was a fluid poison in them and I understood why the fat nurse had not answered back.

  “Observe,” he said, “that these are cuttings taken from one English newspaper only, and that they all appeared during the last three months. I have the decrees of about twenty more countries on my list—decrees prohibiting admittance of the lepers with the yellow spot. And now read this….”

  “It is reported from reliable sources in Germany whose origin cannot be disclosed, that for some time experiments have been carried out in state orphanages for the painless physical liquidation of children incurably crippled, insane, or of undesirable racial heredity. The methods applied are phenol injections into the aorta, intravenous air injections to cause thrombosis, and lethal chambers filled with carbon monoxide gas.”

  Simeon watched me. “It may be exaggerated,” I said after a while.

  “You think so? No, you don’t. It’s the Englishman inside you trying to close the shutters. And now read this.”

  It was the previous day’s paper, which had not reached us yet in Ezra’s Tower. I read:

  “LONDON, December 8.—The Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, Colonial Under Secretary, appreciated the moving appeal for the admission to Palestine of 10,000 Jewish children wh
ose parents had become victims of persecution in Germany, but pointed out that His Majesty’s Government was unable to accede as they must consider the danger of prejudicing the Round Table Conference on Palestine which is shortly to assemble in the capital.

  … It was further pointed out during the debate in the House of Lords that the Government’s decision to turn down the Palestine Hebrew Community’s offer to receive the children was equivalent to robbing them of the prospect of escape.”

  I handed the cuttings back. “What are you collecting this stuff for?”

  “I have been asked to edit a pamphlet.”

  “By whom?”

  He paused, then said, looking at me with an ironic smile:

  “By the Bauman Group—and those connected with it. Don’t pretend again that you are surprised.”

  “No,” I said. Then I added:

  “So that’s why you are going to leave us.”

  Simeon wiped the sweat from his face, unfolding a neatly pressed handkerchief.

  “Is that all your comment?” he said. “I thought you were going to call me a fascist, a killer, an outcast and whatnot.”

  “No,” I said. “I won’t.”

  For a while none of us spoke, but all the time Simeon was watching me and I knew that every expression on my face would be stored away in his memory as if on photographic records. Then he said:

  “Things are moving quickly now. In a few months or weeks our group will have to go underground. The Government will start arresting and deporting us. Then we will start to shoot—and believe me, we’ll do it more efficiently than the Arabs. We have a few technical surprises ready for them.”

  He spoke with the self-assurance of a man with an army behind him.

  “Where will the stuff come from?” I asked.

  “The arms? We have plenty, and there is more coming.”

  “Where from?”

  “From abroad. You will hear about that in due time. You will hear a lot more to surprise you.”

  I said nothing. Everything Simeon said sounded boastful and fantastic—everything except the way he said it. The lure was in his self-assurance. It sapped the resistance of my judgment. His contact always acted on me in the way of communicating vessels: it emptied my critical faculties and filled me up with faith. It was an immensely comforting sensation. All that was needed was to take the plunge and one would be rid of all doubts and filled with inner certainty and the boons of blind obedience—like on the first night when I was shooting under Reuben’s orders.