The Mandelbaum Gate

  Before leaving the house he had called his wife a dumb animal, whereupon she had lit a cigarette and blown smoke contemptuously across the teacups. He had come to a point where he longed for a new wife and regretted having committed himself so far to modern progress. He repeated to himself, while opening up the office:

  Let him who believes in God and in the supreme Day harm his neighbour; let him treat women well. She was made from Adam’s rib; and it is the upper part of the rib that is the most curved. If you try to straighten it you will break it, and if you let it alone, it will stay bent. Let man therefore treat women well.

  Joe’s father had been adept in applying these words to every situation that concerned a woman, and Joe was now thinking of them with a stress on the curved rib: his second wife was a bent creature in her heart, and would never be straight. He was in a mood to place his curse upon the emancipation from the old tradition and, in general, the course he had permitted his family life to take with the result that now he had only old enemies and no old comforts.

  Then had walked in that sturdy portion of English rib, Miss Rickward, presenting him with her exceedingly interesting inquiry for the whereabouts of Miss Vaughan.

  ‘Be seated, Madam,’ said Joe, ‘and I shall send for coffee.’ Immediately a rustle in the back quarters preceded a young boy who passed through the front office and out of the door as silent as a beam of light. By the time he returned, Joe had gone a long way to measuring Miss Rickward’s substance, and with the experience he had long acquired of the Englishwoman on her travels, calculated that her cheap, shapeless, pink-and-red cotton dress, broad brown sandals, large old dark-brown leather shoulder bag, unvarnished fingernails, short dark curly hair, weather-pink face, a touch of lipstick, eyes the colour, near-grey, of western spiritual compromise, and her yellowish, much-filled teeth, added up to a woman of some authority and wealth.

  Sipping the thick coffee, she let fall the words ‘Oh, how distressed I am!’ and also a tear. Joe Ramdez was moved, he was delighted to find that she was as vulnerable about her friend as any high-class Arab woman would be about her most important friend or enemy in the harem. Joe was delighted to find Miss Rickward was vulnerable at all. Moreover, she did not look like a ferret, as so many Englishwomen did. She said, ‘I mustn’t trouble you with my personal difficulties. But I would so much appreciate any help you can give me in tracing this lady.’

  ‘You have my help,’ Joe said. ‘We’ll get her.’

  Ricky said, ‘She can’t be far off. Possibly she has gone to the Dead Sea, and if so, I must follow her there. She has got herself entangled with a man who is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls team, and she threatens to marry him. Only Miss Vaughan doesn’t know, as I know, the type of person he is, the type of background and so on. I’ve found out a lot about his personal history —’

  Those scholars at the Dead Sea are a gang of ruffians,’ Joe said, thinking of the one he had fallen foul of over a deal, the first year that the scrolls were discovered and the forgeries began.

  ‘You’re extremely sympathetic,’ Miss Rickward said. Her voice was still shaky with distress. ‘You Arabs are gifted with sympathy and a sense of brotherhood. I’ve read quite a lot about Islam.’

  Joe said, ‘I work for the renewal of the people’s hopes and the completion of their happiness.’

  ‘I admire Islam,’ she said. ‘Barbara Vaughan is a Catholic. Catholicism, I’m sorry, I can’t admire.’

  Joe Ramdez laid his large hand on hers and inquired closely about Barbara Vaughan.

  After she had taken Freddy to his room and left him there Suzi went on a tour of the house. She was sorry to have to leave Freddy to cool off just when he had warmed up, but there were certain duties to be performed before she could settle down for the night with the easy mind she needed for that purpose.

  First, she went to Barbara’s room and opened the door to hear if the patient was sleeping. Barbara stirred, ‘Suzi?’

  ‘All right? Don’t wake up if you’re all right.’

  Barbara put on the bed-light and leaned up on her elbow. ‘What’s the time?’ Her face was still flushed.

  ‘Do you want water?’

  ‘Yes, a good idea.’ Barbara poured a glass of water from the jug at her side.

  Suzi came in and closed the door.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  Barbara was taking her own temperature. Eventually she said, ‘A hundred. That’s not bad.’

  ‘A mild attack,’ Suzi said, sitting on the edge of her bed. ‘Speak quiet. I wish you could have been well enough to sleep with Freddy.’

  ‘I don’t want to sleep with Freddy.’

  ‘Don’t you think Freddy’s attractive?’

  ‘Yes, more than he was when I met him in Israel. There’s a curious change come over Freddy.’

  ‘You wouldn’t sleep with him?’

  ‘No, I’ve got the other man.’

  ‘I’m the secret lover of Alexandros, but the more I sleep with Alexandros the more I can sleep with another man. I love Alexandros so much. He gives me the idea of love.’

  ‘Have you ever defrosted an old refrigerator?’ Barbara said.

  ‘Yes, we have old refrigerators.’

  ‘Well, you know how it goes drip, drip, drip, very slowly. I’m like that; only just beginning to defrost, drip, drip, drip.’

  ‘Have you ever opened someone else’s combination safe?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither, but I know how it’s done. Sleeping with Freddy would be like that. One must find the right combination and one has to play around, try this way, try that way, gentle, and listen with the careful ear.’

  Barbara smiled. She took a small mirror from her handbag and looked at herself in it. ‘I’m the scarlet woman,’ she said. She giggled feebly and settled down to sleep.

  ‘It’s God’s blame. Ring the little bell by your side if you feel ill at all, but don’t go out of your room, as the servants are inquisitive about you.’

  Suzi next visited the girls’ quarters in the north-east wing of the house; this was joined by a corridor to the south-west wing which Latifa occupied so that it should be easy for her to supervise the girls.

  The girls had been brought in to train for night-club life and its lenient ramifications; they were one of Joe Ramdez’s business enterprises; they came from Morocco, Marseilles, Lebanon, Syria, and other surrounding countries, although once a girl was brought in who had somehow originated in Vladivostok and two others who had been from Liverpool. There were usually four or five girls in the house at any one time. Joe Ramdez found them useful for his special tourists. Foreign civil servants and diplomats who had become more than usually involved with one of Joe’s pretty prostitutes instead of taking a more sensible interest in his stable of Arab horses at Amman, were usually persuaded, after a while, to join his Middle East Visitors’ Union Life Trust, from which, one way or another, Joe had derived a good annual income for many years.

  No sounds came from the girls’ wing except heavy breathing from behind the doors; Suzi despised females who breathed noisily in sleep, she felt it was indelicate and a sign of carelessness, for women should blow their noses and sleep in seemly tranquillity. In general Suzi loathed the girls, not troubling to separate them fairly from the deeper object of her antipathy, the whole business operation in which they were involved. She had tried to persuade her father to give them up for a more profitable and more tasteful, possibly more subtle, form of corruption. There were many ways of tempting foreigners into a vulnerable situation, besides these insufferable girls. Joe had replied that he was well aware of the alternatives to girls; one of them was boys, and as far as he was concerned he was not going to encourage the vile foreigner in his despicable habit of coming to the Arab countries for boys. It was his duty to the honour of his country to provide girls. Suzi said, very often, that the girls were not even good performers in the night-clubs. But Joe barked back at her, louder than his bite, that they were too good for the fore
igners. Suzi had realized she was up against the amorphous mixture of honour and revenge that brewed within her father’s heart, and continued to exhale vapours of resentment towards the girls from her own obscure heart’s brew. Her aim at the moment was to prevent the girls from contact with Freddy and to preserve him from any hint of contact with them. She went to find her stepmother. Latifa.

  She found her playing gin rummy with Ruth Gardnor, who lit up at the sight of Suzi. She was evidently bored, for Latifa was slow. Latifa said, ‘Yusif is coming.’ Her eyes remained on the cards. Latifa always called Joe by his Arab name, Yusif. Suzi was uncertain whether Latifa was making one of her mysterious prophecies or whether she had received definite word from her father that he was coming to the house.

  She said, ‘When? How soon?’

  Latifa did not reply. Suzi concluded that Latifa was indulging her gift for second sight. At some time in her middle age this first wife of Joe Ramdez had been struck by an illness which left her with a facial twitch, a diminished pace of thought, and some extra intuition. Latifa’s prophecies were not infallible, but they often came alarmingly true.

  Suzi did not want her father in the house at this moment; not by any means.

  She said to Ruth, ‘Listen, I don’t want my father to have anything to do with the sick girl.’

  That’s all right. Leave it to me,’ Ruth said, warmly. Suzi was very attached to Ruth Gardnor. She had found her to have a good heart, and to be particularly understanding and helpful in her affair with Alexandros. She admired Ruth’s elegant figure, and felt she brought tone to the house.

  Ruth said, ‘I doubt if your father will be coming here if you’re not expecting him. Latifa said earlier that she felt he was on his way to the house; he hasn’t come yet.’

  Latifa waited for the game to proceed. She never intruded on Suzi’s affairs, but did merely what was required by her husband, and obliged Suzi if paid to do it.

  Suzi said, ‘Ruth, there is my other guest. I think you shouldn’t let him see you, as you are maybe known to him.’

  ‘Who? Alexandros?’

  ‘No, it is not Alexandros. It’s an Englishman.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Just keep yourself concealed. He’ll be leaving tomorrow.’

  Ruth looked very worried. She said, ‘Well, I’m going to bed. Good night, Latifa. Good night.’

  Latifa, a large woman, sat in her fine draperies staring at the cards. Suzi kissed her, and followed Ruth to her room.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Ruth said. ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘Mr Hamilton of the British Government office in Israel.’

  ‘Freddy Hamilton!’

  ‘Yes. You know him?’

  ‘My God! Why did you bring him here?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Suzi. ‘It’s all right, my dear.’ She was sure it was all right. She said, ‘He’s not here on any business.’

  ‘I’ll have to leave right away.’ Ruth walked round the room, looking carefully. ‘Has he seen me? Does he know where my room is?’

  ‘No, no, of course not. Anyway, I tell you, Ruth, he has no brains for this job. He’s not much in your government.’

  ‘They don’t need too much. They only need to be in the office.’ She went to the wardrobe and looked inside. She said, ‘Has he had any opportunity to snoop?’

  Suzi laughed, and Ruth tried to laugh with her. Presently it emerged that Suzi thought ‘snoop’ was a sex term and that Ruth had been referring to the possibility of Freddy’s meeting the girls. Ruth continued to laugh harshly at this mistake, and explained in a strange tone of voice that she had meant ‘pry’. She displayed a special anxiety to be patient and calm with Suzi, and was obviously concealing a deeper anxiety about her business. This made Suzi feel like a stupid little Arab girl in the other’s estimation, and she wanted to explain her personal view, unorthodox as it was to the Arab spy-trade, that the best way to avoid suspicion was to go about everything as naturally as possible. She had already tried to convince Ruth Gardnor that her business, whatever it was, could best be conducted by hand, by word-of-mouth, and by bribery. ‘Let a man come to the door,’ Suzi had said. ‘Let him repeat his message, or let him hand a letter. Let him take his money and go.’ But no, Ruth had devised, among other methods, one by which she collected code-messages from the bark of the palm-tree and deposited messages in the same place. Ruth had argued that the messenger, if he could be bribed to contact her, could be further bribed to describe her appearance. By no means, Ruth said, must she be seen; and anyway, those were her instructions. She would not be brought to understand that Suzi’s father had influence with the Arab contacts; it was unthinkable that they could be bribed against Joe’s honour and survive. But Ruth showed no confidence in the unspoken laws that had so far kept the Ramdez house inviolable. Suzi had wondered for a moment if her father’s enemies were perhaps more powerful than she believed, but she put the tepid thought aside and insisted that Ruth was crazy in making all those intricate arrangements, and in bringing a radio transmitter into the house, when the Arab rumour-system was so much safer.

  ‘I’ve hardly used it,’ Ruth said. She was lifting the transmitter out of her wardrobe. ‘Where can I hide this?’ She got out a suitcase and started to put things away in it.

  Ruth had panicked. Suzi was amazed; she had never seen the kindly woman in this mood before. Presently, Ruth seemed to become aware of Suzi’s bewilderment. She said, ‘Suzi, if you knew how serious it would be for me if Hamilton got on to anything….’

  ‘You take a cigarette and sit down,’ Suzi said. ‘There’s no need for him to see you if you keep in this end of the house. Why should he suspect? A matter of fact, the last place he would suspect espionage would be this place, since I have brought him here. This throws them off-scent. Now I tell you that Alexandros is a friend of Freddy, and I do all this for Alexandros. Freddy is not looking for spies, he’s looking for fun, this trip.’

  Ruth said, ‘You don’t know that type of Englishman as I do.’

  She went to the door, opened it, peered out and closed it again.

  Then she sat down and lit a cigarette. She looked at her watch.

  She said, ‘The messenger should be here between half past one and two. It’s one now. I wonder if my note’s safe till he comes.’

  ‘In the tree?’

  ‘Yes, I’d better go and have a look.’

  That is crazy. You lose your nerve.’

  ‘I’m going to have a look. I wish we’d never got mixed up in this business. But once you’re in it, you’re in it. I must send word to my husband that Hamilton’s here. I’m going to —’

  ‘Freddy might see you. Don’t go out.’

  ‘He can’t see in the dark. At least, he can’t do that.’

  ‘Better you remain indoors,’ Suzi said, ‘as he might bump into you at the door or something. I’ll go and look. How far up the tree is it?’

  ‘About five feet.’ Ruth stopped packing. She said, ‘I can’t leave the house. I’ve got to wait and meet a contact this week or next at the latest. It’s very important. What shall I do? That message in the tree — go and see if it’s all right. It’s not important in itself, but I can’t be too careful. Come back at once and tell me if it’s still there.’

  Suzi started to go. ‘In fact, bring it back to me — Suzi dear — do you mind?’

  Suzi left, but Ruth was at the door, whispering her back. ‘No — leave it. Don’t bring it. The man will get it between one-thirty and two. Just make sure it’s still … Come back and —’Suzi was on her way. Outside she walked softly round the house. The light was still on in Freddy’s room. She crossed to the tree and began feeling up the bark. Five feet … no. Up the bark, and all round it, tuft after tuft, feeling sure she was missing the one small pocket where the folded paper would be. Up the tree and round it again, as far as she could reach. It must be higher, too high for her. Ruth was taller than she was, and probably … No, she couldn’t reach, couldn’t find the thin
g. The man had probably been to fetch it.

  She returned to Ruth, earnest about keeping her friendship. ‘It’s there,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Ruth produced a new anxiety. ‘What has this sick girl to do with Freddy Hamilton?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. She stayed in the same hotel as him in Israel, and she’s on a pilgrimage. I brought them together in the car. Just tourists. You don’t ask questions about this woman, Ruth, and we don’t ask questions from you, like I told you.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I understand.’ Ruth looked strained and shaken. ‘I’ll keep my side of the bargain.’

  ‘You have a drink. You go to bed.’ Suzi wanted to see Freddy again before he went to sleep. She felt jittery, too, and said, ‘I’ll go to keep Freddy company. You don’t think of him any more. He won’t go near your tree or nothing.’

  Ruth relaxed a little, and said, ‘Goodness, are you having an affair with Freddy Hamilton?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Suzi.

  ‘Well, I only wish you’d gone somewhere else to have it.’

  ‘It’s my father’s house,’ Suzi said. But she added, like a saleswoman, ‘and it’s the most discreet house in the kingdom of Jordan.’

  ‘Good night,’ Ruth said. ‘And keep your eye on Hamilton, for my sake.’

  Suzi started to make her way back along the dark corridor to her own part of the house, but turning towards the door that enclosed it, she decided instead to take another puzzled look at the tree.

  This time she found the note easily. It was tucked firmly into a tuft of bark well within her reach. She wondered if Freddy was in his room, and if she could be seen in the moonlight.