Don't Look Now and Other Stories

  The street was dividing, and there were booths and shops on either side, and flights of steps to the right flanked by stalls piled with oranges, grapefruit, enormous cabbages, onions, and beans.

  "We're in the wrong souk," said Jim Foster impatiently. "Nothing but blasted foodstuffs here."

  Through an archway he espied a row of booths hung with belts and scarves, and next to it a stall where an old man was displaying cheap jewelry. "Here, this is more like it," he said, but a donkey loaded with melons barred his path, and a woman with a basket on her head tripped over his foot.

  "Let's go back," said Jill. "We're getting hopelessly lost."

  A young man sidled up to her, a sheaf of pamphlets in his hand.

  "You wish to visit Holyland Hill for superb panoramic view?" he inquired. "Also see the Artist Colony and Nightclub?"

  "Oh, please go away," said Jill. "I don't want to see any of them."

  She had let go of Foster's hand, and now he was the other side of the street, beckoning to her. This might be the moment to give him the slip and try to retrace her steps and find Bob, yet she was scared at the thought of being on her own in these narrow, bewildering streets.

  Jim Foster, standing by the booth selling jewelry, picked up one object after another and threw it down again. Complete junk. Nothing worth buying. Medallions with the Dome of the Rock, and headscarves printed all over with donkeys. Hardly do to buy one of those for Kate--she might think it was a joke in bad taste. He turned round to look for Jill, forgetting that he still held one of the despised medallions in his hand. He could just see her disappearing down the street. Bloody girl, what was the matter with her? He started to cross the road, when an angry voice shouted after him from the stall.

  "Three dollars for the medallion. You owe me three dollars!"

  He looked back over his shoulder. The vendor behind the stall was red with anger.

  "Here, take it, I don't want the damn thing," said Jim, and threw the medallion back onto the stall.

  "You pick it up, you buy," shouted the man, and he began jabbering to his neighbor, and the pair of them started shaking their fists, attracting the attention of other vendors in the market, and other purchasers. Jim hesitated a moment, then panicked. You never knew what might happen with a Middle East crowd. He walked quickly away, and as the uproar rose behind him, and heads turned, he quickened his pace and began to run, elbowing people aside, head down, and the crowds intent upon their shopping, or merely strolling, stepped back upon one another, causing more upheaval. "What is it? Is he a thief? Has he planted a bomb?"

  Murmurs were all behind him, and as Jim mounted a flight of steps he saw two Israeli policemen coming down, and he turned again, and tried to carve his way through the crowd below in the narrow street. His breath came quickly, there was a pain under his left rib like a knife, and the sensation of panic increased, for perhaps the Israeli policemen had questioned someone in the crowd and even now were pursuing him, believing him to be a thief, an anarchist, anything... How could he clear himself? How could he explain?

  He fought his way through the crowd, losing all control, all sense of direction, and came out into a broader street, and now there was no escape because the way was barred by a throng of pilgrims walking with linked arms, and he had to fall back against a wall. They seemed to be all men, wearing dark trousers and white shirts. They didn't look like pilgrims, for they were laughing and singing. He was borne along with them, like a piece of flotsam on the crest of a wave, unable to turn back, and he found himself in the center of a great open space, in the midst of which young men similarly dressed were dancing, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.

  The pain under his left rib was intense. He could move no further. If he could only sit down for one moment, but there was no space. If he could only lean against something... against that enormous, lemon-colored wall. He couldn't reach it, though, he could only stand and stare, for the way to it was barred by a line of black-hatted men with curling hair, who were bowing and praying and beating their breasts. They are all Jews, he thought, I am alien, I'm not one of them, and his sense of panic returned, of fear, of desolation, for what if the two Israeli policemen were even now close to him on the fringe of the crowd, and forced their way to his side, and instead of bowing and praying before the Wailing Wall the line of men turned and looked upon him in accusation, and a cry arose from the whole lot of them calling, "Thief... Thief..."?

  Jill Smith had only one thought in mind, and that was to put as great a distance as possible between herself and Jim Foster. She didn't want to have anything more to do with him. She would have to be polite, of course, as long as they were all together, but they were due to leave Jerusalem later in the day, and once they were on board ship again none of them need have any close contact. Thank heaven she and Bob were going to live several miles from Little Bletford.

  She walked quickly back along the narrow crowded street, away from the market quarter and the shops, passing tourists, sightseers, pilgrims, priests, but still no sign of Bob, nor of any of their party. There were signposts everywhere to the Holy Sepulchre, but she ignored them. She didn't want to go inside the Holy Sepulchre. It didn't seem right. It didn't seem, well, clean. It would be hypocritical and false to go among all those people praying. She wanted to find some place where she could sit and think and be alone. The walls of the Old City seemed to be closing in upon her, and perhaps if she continued walking she would be free of them, find more air, and there would be less noise, less hustle.

  Then she saw a gate in the distance, at the far end, but it was not St. Stephen's Gate, by which they had entered earlier. The letters said "Shechem," and another sign read "Damascus." It did not matter to her what it was called, as long as it led her out of the city.

  She passed under the great archway, and there were cars and buses parked in rows outside, just as there had been at St. Stephen's Gate, and more tourists than ever coming down across the broad thoroughfare into the city. And there, standing in the midst of them, looking as lost and bewildered as she probably did herself, was Kate Foster. Too late to turn back--Kate had seen her. Reluctantly Jill went towards her.

  "Have you seen Jim?" asked Kate.

  "No," she replied. "I lost him in all those narrow streets. I'm looking for Bob."

  "Well, you'll never find him," said Kate. "I've never met with such total disorganization. The crowds are absolute murder. None of our party has kept together. Lady Althea has gone back to the hotel practically having a nervous breakdown. She's lost her teeth."

  "She's what?" asked Jill.

  "Lost her front teeth. They came out on a piece of bread. She looks an absolute fright."

  "Oh dear, how dreadful for her, I am sorry," said Jill.

  A car was hooting at them and they moved to the side of the street, walking out of the stream of traffic but in no particular direction.

  "The friends who were with her kept talking about finding a dentist, but how do you know where to get hold of one in such a place of turmoil? Then luckily we ran into the Colonel near St. Stephen's Gate, and he took over."

  "What did he do?"

  "Found a taxi at once and bundled her into it. She was nearly in tears, but he sent her friends packing and got in beside her, and if you ask me, though she usually spends her time snubbing him, she was never more relieved to see anyone in her life. I wish I could find Jim. What was he doing when you saw him last?"

  "I'm not sure," faltered Jill. "I think he wanted to buy you a present."

  "I know Jim's presents," said Kate. "I always get one when he has a guilty conscience. God! I could do with a cup of tea. Or at least somewhere to sit where I could take the weight off my feet."

  They went on walking, looking aimlessly about them, and came to a sign with the words "Garden of the Resurrection" upon it.

  "I don't suppose," said Jill, "we could get a cup of tea there?"

  "You never know," replied Kate. "All these tourist centers carry ridiculous names. It's lik
e Stratford-on-Avon. Everything is either Shakespeare or Ann Hathaway. Here it's Jesus Christ."

  They found themselves descending into an enclosure surrounded by rock, with paved ways all about it, and an official in the center handed them a pamphlet. It said something about the Garden of Joseph of Arimathea.

  "No tea here," said Kate. "No, thank you, we don't want a guide."

  "We can at least," murmured Jill, "sit down on that little wall. They surely won't make us pay for that."

  The official moved away, shrugging his shoulders. The garden would soon be full of pilgrims showing greater interest. Kate was studying the pamphlet.

  "It's a rival site to the Holy Sepulchre," she said. "I suppose they like to spread the tourists around. That curious little tumbledown place built against the rock must be the tomb."

  They walked across and peered into the opening in the wall.

  "It's empty," said Jill.

  "Well, it would be, wouldn't it?" answered Kate.

  It was peaceful, anyway. They could sit down beside it and rest. The garden was practically empty, and Kate supposed it was still too early in the day for the usual hordes to stamp all over it. She glanced sideways at her companion, who looked tired and strained. Perhaps she had misjudged her after all. It was probably Jim who had made the running the night before.

  "If you take my advice," she said shortly, "you'll start your family right away. We waited, with the result we've had no children. Oh yes, I tried everything. Opening the fallopian tubes, the lot. It didn't work. The doctors told me they thought Jim was probably sterile, but he wouldn't take a test. Now, of course, it's all too late. I'm plumb in the middle of change of life."

  Jill did not know what to say. Everything Kate Foster told her made her feel more guilty.

  "I'm so sorry," she said.

  "No use being sorry. I've got to put up with it. Be thankful you're young, and have all your life before you. Sometimes I feel there's absolutely nothing left, and that Jim wouldn't give a damn if I died tomorrow."

  To Kate's dismay, Jill Smith suddenly burst into tears.

  "What on earth's wrong?" Kate asked.

  Jill shook her head. She couldn't speak. How could she explain the wave of guilt, of remorse, that was sweeping over her?

  "Please forgive me," she said. "The thing is, I don't feel very well. I've been tired and out of sorts all day."

  "Got the curse?"

  "No... No... It's just that sometimes I wonder if Bob really loves me, if we're suited. Nothing seems to go right with us."

  Oh, what was she saying, and as if Kate Foster could possibly care anyway?

  "You probably married too young," said her companion. "I did too. Everyone marries too young. I often think single women have a far better time."

  What was the use, though? She had been married to Jim for over twenty years, and despite all the anxiety and stress he caused her she could never consider parting from him. She loved him, he depended upon her. If he became ill he would look to her before anyone else.

  "I hope he's all right," she said suddenly.

  Jill looked up from blowing her nose. Did she mean Bob, or Jim?

  "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "Jim hates crowds, always has done, that's why as soon as I saw the mob of pilgrims in that narrow street I wanted him to come with me to the Mosque area, where I knew it would be quieter, but he would go tearing off with you in the opposite direction. Jim panics in crowds. Gets claustrophobia."

  "I didn't realize," said Jill, "he never said..."

  Perhaps Bob also panicked in crowds. Perhaps Bob, and Jim too, were at this moment trying to fight their way out of that terrible mass of people, those clamoring street vendors, those chanting pilgrims.

  She looked around her at the silent garden, at the scattered shrubs somebody had planted, at the dreary little empty tomb. Even the official had moved out of sight, leaving them alone.

  "It's no use staying here," she said. "They'll never come."

  "I know," said Kate, "but what are we to do? Where can we go?"

  The thought of plunging back into the hated city was appalling, but there was no alternative. On, on, searching the faces of the passers-by for their husbands and never finding them, always coming upon strangers, people who did not know, did not care.

  Miss Dean waited until the stream of visitors to the church of St. Anne and to the Pool of Bethesda had cleared, and then she walked very slowly towards the entrance to the Pool and the flight of steps descending to it. A strange and rather wonderful idea had come into her head. She had been hurt, deeply hurt, by what she had overheard the night before. A thorn in the flesh. Jill Smith had told Mr. Foster that Father had said to her mother that she, Mary Dean, was a thorn in his flesh. Had pursued him for years. It was a lie, of course. Father would never say such a thing. Mrs. Smith had told a deliberate lie. Nevertheless, the fact that such a thing could be said, that possibly stories were told about her all over Little Bletford, had given her so much pain and distress that she had hardly slept. And to have overheard this above the Garden of Gethsemane of all places...

  Then that dear little Robin, who seemed to be the only one in the party who ever read his Gospel, had explained to her that she was standing close to the Pool of Bethesda itself, and that a child had already been carried down to the Pool to be cured of some disease. Well, perhaps the cure was not instantaneous, perhaps it would take some hours, or even days, for the miracle to show. Miss Dean had no disease, she was perfectly healthy, and strong. But if she could fill her small eau de cologne bottle with some of the water from the Pool, and take it back with her to Little Bletford, and give it to Father to put in the holy water stoup in the entrance of the church, he would be overcome by her thought, by her gesture of faith. She could picture his expression when she handed the bottle to him. "Father, I have brought you water from the Pool of Bethesda." "Oh, Miss Dean, what a tender, wonderful thing to have done!"

  The trouble was, it might be forbidden by the authorities to take water from the Pool, whoever the authorities were, but the man standing near the entrance doubtless represented them. Therefore--and it was in a good cause, a holy cause--she would wait until he had moved away, and would then descend the steps and fill the little bottle with water. Deceitful, perhaps, but deceitful in the name of the Lord.

  Miss Dean bided her time, and presently--and the Lord must have been on her side--the man moved a short distance away towards a group of people who were obviously questioning him about some excavations further on. This must be her chance.

  She moved gingerly towards the steps, placed her hand carefully on the handrail and began to descend. Robin was right in a sense. It did look rather like a drain, but there was plenty of water, and it was in a deep sort of chasm, and after what the Rev. Babcock had told them about everything being underground then there was no doubt about this being the genuine place. She felt truly inspired. Nobody descending to the Pool but herself. She reached the slab at the bottom of the steps, and glancing above her, to make quite sure nobody had followed and she was not observed, she took out her handkerchief, knelt upon it, and emptied the eau de cologne onto the stone beside her. It seemed rather a waste, but in a way it was a kind of offering.

  She leaned over the Pool and allowed the water to flow into the bottle. Then she stood up and replaced the cork, but as she did so her foot slipped on the damp stone slab, and the bottle fell out of her hand into the water. She gave a little cry of dismay and tried to retrieve it, but already it was out of reach, and she herself was falling, falling, into the dank, deep waters of the Pool.

  "Oh, dear Lord," she called. "Oh, dear Lord, help me!"

  Thrusting outwards with her arms she tried to reach the slippery wet slab on which she had stood, but the water was entering her open mouth, was choking her, and there was nothing and no one around her but the stagnant water, and the great high walls, and the patch of blue sky above her head.

  The Rev. Babcock had been almost as mo
ved by the pavement floor below the Ecce Homo Convent as the Colonel, although his reason was less personal. He too saw a man being scourged, guarded by soldiers, but it was happening two thousand years ago, and the man who was suffering was God. It made him feel utterly unworthy, and at the same time privileged, to have stood on hallowed ground. He wished he could in some way prove himself, and leaving the Praetorium, and watching the stream of pilgrims proceed slowly up the Via Dolorosa, halting at successive Stations of the Cross, he knew that no gesture of his, now or in the future, could atone for what had happened in that First Century A.D. He could only bow his head and follow, with equal humility, those pilgrims who went before.

  "Oh Lord," he prayed, "let me drink the cup that you have drunk, let me share your suffering."

  He felt someone pluck him by the arm. It was the Colonel. "Will you carry on?" he asked. "I'm going to take my wife back to the hotel. She's had a slight accident."

  Babcock expressed concern.

  "No, it's nothing really," the Colonel reassured him. "An unfortunate mishap to her front teeth. She's rather upset, and I want to get her away from the crowds."

  "Of course. Please express my sympathy. Where are the others?"

  The Colonel looked over his shoulder. "I can only see two of them, our Robin and young Bob Smith. I've told them not to lose sight of you."

  He turned back towards St. Stephen's Gate and disappeared.

  Babcock resumed his slow progress towards Calvary, hemmed in on either side by the devout. We're really a cross section of the Christian world, he thought, every nationality, men, women, children, all walking where our Master walked before. And in His day, too, the curious stared, pausing about their daily business to watch the condemned pass by. In His day, too, the traders and shopkeepers sold their wares, women brushed past, or halted in doorways with baskets on their heads, youths shouted from stalls, dogs chased cats under benches, old men argued, children cried.