Judith

  By midnight they were lying in Coral’s cheap bed in the southern end of the town, talking in maudlin fashion about partings and forgetfulness and love; Donner, who was pretty drunk now, promised to spend all his leaves with her. Coral appeared both grateful and befittingly tearful. She stroked his paps with her little hand and told him that he would be always in her heart. And it was now that Donner could not resist a little boasting about his virtues as a policeman. The apropos was that Coral herself was not going to be the only person to feel the weight of his absence. No. The Police would never get over it either. What would they do without him? Nobody else was capable of swift thought and action. He would give her a typical example. This morning, the Secret Service asked him to trace a woman called Judith Roth. Within a few hours he knew where she was! Coral dipped into the bedside contrivance which housed the tin pisspot, detached from it a typist’s pad covered in doodles and graffiti and noted down the name. She did this with such charming naturalness that Donner noticed nothing. The pad contained fragments of several conversations both with him and with other men, policemen, pimps and patriots, which it was Coral’s duty to jot down. Twice a week she visited the Old Quarter of Jerusalem, where a smooth young man, dark and slim with melting black eyes and an Oxford accent, gratefully took jottings. Yes, she sat with her scribbles on her knee and recounted all she had heard, reconstructing partly from notes and partly from memory. This was the only way, as Coral had no means of evaluating her findings, or discriminating between worthless rubbish and real intelligence data. The young man smoked Abdullas and was called Ali. He reminded Coral of the “sheik” of romance and, indeed, he was one and never too proud to stoop and enjoy her on the sofa in the other room. But business first. The note about Judith Roth interested him very much, though he said nothing. Later, as he kissed Coral he told her that she was a clever little puss and she replied, “Oh Ali, you know I’d do anything for the Arabs!”

  So it was that Donner found himself bidden to cocktails at the Long Bar of the Hadrian Hotel and to a meeting with Ali which threw a little more light on the question of Judith Roth and sharpened his cupidity quite considerably. Ali was very suave and soft-voiced; he spoke perfect English of great refinement, which suggested an English upbringing. But he had the long yellowish face of a shark with small unwinking black eyes set deeply in it — eyes which regarded Donner steadily and a trifle contemptuously. His cigarette smouldered in a long bone holder. Nor did he beat about the bush. “I know that you are a frank man and I want to be frank with you,” he said with an air of pious sincerity. “I know that you do a number of unorthodox things for a policeman, Mr. Donner.” Donner jumped, as if he had been pricked with a pin. He looked uncomfortably at his interlocutor. “I don’t know what you are getting at,” he said hoarsely. “I do my duty.”

  “Of course you do. We all do. But sometimes you do more than your duty.”

  Donner got angry. “Look here,” he said, “I don’t know who you are and what you are getting at. But if you think...

  “I don’t think anything — I know,” said Ali, unperturbed. “And I want to make you a perfectly firm business offer — that is all. As a sensible man I feel sure you will accept it. After all, who today could afford to turn down a sum like... He smiled and named a large sum of money. “Just for a few bits of information?”

  “Go on,” said Donner with an expressionless face.

  “There is a girl,” said Ali with a sigh, and proceeded to tell Donner all that was at present known about Judith Roth. Donner listened, with his head on one side like a fox-terrier. Had he seen the Secret Service file? It was possible. Donner’s mind worked furiously. Was it a trap, perhaps? He sucked his teeth and said: “What is it all about?”

  “We would like to know where she is, and if she is in possession of some papers; if she is, we would like to offer a large sum of money for a look at them.”

  “War secrets,” said Donner, staring into his glass. He sat as still as a stone. “More bloody war secrets.”

  “No,” said Ali. “These are oil secrets. Nothing to do with the war. I would not mention them if they were. I would not ask you to sell your country, Donner.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Donner piously.

  “Certainly not,” repeated Ali, spreading his hands. “I represent some very large oil interests, that is all. Set your mind at rest.”

  “Well, what is it then?” said Donner with a touch of impatience. “I must say you’ve come to me rather late in the day.”

  “I know. You are being posted to Syria.”

  “You seem to know everything.”

  “Not everything. That is why I am here. I want some general information about where the girl is; and then, if you can find a way of supplementing it and finding out if she has any such papers... After all, as a policeman you could raid the place and impound what you found; all we would ask is a photographic copy. You see my line of reasoning.”

  Donner laughed morosely. “I’ve raided Ras Shamir more than once,” he said. “If you want the papers to disappear there is no better way. They’re cunning. We never find anything. No, that’s no way to start.”

  “So she is at Ras Shamir?”

  “So I believe.”

  “Is there any way you could go up there and... find out with a little more certainty?”

  “I could try, but there’s precious little time left.”

  “But the money is good, Donner.”

  “Yes, the money is good,” said Donner soberly and sucked his teeth. He stood up and thought deeply for a moment.

  7

  The Professor

  One day Professor Liebling materialized before Judith’s eyes at the lunch table. He looked like a benign little silver gnome in his shabby dark clothes covered with cigar ash. He carried a mackintosh over his arm and a long leather briefcase. His curly hair was quite white; he looked more like a musician than a physicist. He sat himself down with a self-deprecating smile and said: “As an old professional friend and colleague of your father’s, I am going to call you Judith.”

  Judith smiled into the gentle world-weary eyes and said, “I believe I must have seen you, but I don’t remember.”

  “Time is very wicked,” said the Professor. “You must have seen an earnest middle-aged man with a beard. And I must have caught a glimpse of you. But... I must be truthful and not gallant. I do not remember.”

  They talked for a little while as the meal progressed; Peterson and the little woman doctor were at a table close beside them. “Now Pete I do remember,” said the Professor. “We are old friends.”

  It was at the end of lunch that he asked permission to light one of his tall cigars and to talk shop. Judith made a characteristic little gesture of acceptance and took a cigarette from a battered packet in the pocket of his coat.

  “I know what you are going to ask me,” she said. “And I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you. By bad luck I was not working on this device of my father’s. I was away lecturing in Oxford and Princeton for some time while he was busy on it. I know what it is — what sort of thing it is — because he talked to me about it. It was a new theory of propulsion based on an electro-magnetic field. But I didn’t work on it. His assistant, a man called Kalman, had all the data.”

  “I know,” said Professor Liebling quietly.

  “Well, it was pretty far advanced because my father actually published a paper on it — and he never did that unless he had the whole thing finished. In fact, they were about to go into prototype and build this new kind of turbine when... he died.”

  “And a new world was born.”

  “A new world was born. When I got back, Kalman had disappeared with all the materials, and all I knew about it was what my father himself had told me, early on in the experiments. Oh dear!”

  “Why do you say ‘Oh dear!’?”

  “I am sorry not to be of more use. And yet, in a way, it was perhaps lucky. The Nazis had wind of this and were most anxious to find
out about it. It was impossible to convince them that I knew nothing about it. They sent me to a camp to punish me and then let me out, thinking I knew where the papers were hidden and would lead them to them.”

  “Everyone thought that — everyone feared that.”

  “Alas. But luckily I was kidnapped and managed to escape. But as for the papers... I have never seen them!”

  Professor Liebling exhaled a violet stream of smoke and considered her gravely for a long moment. Judith stubbed out her cigarette and pondered before continuing. “As far as I remember from what my father said, he came upon some equations by Gauss in the Collected Papers. They had been completely discarded and set aside. He saw a connection with other work he was doing on electro-magnetic fields and began to turn them to use. The idea of this thing, device, grew out of his studies. But just what the data were I cannot say.”

  “Could you identify the equations again?”

  “I might. Why do you ask?”

  Professor Liebling sighed and rubbed his chin.

  “Here’s a strange part of the story. Kalman’s papers (I suppose they are your father’s) actually did get out here to Palestine, though we have never heard what happened to him. As a matter of fact, I have brought them with me today. We can’t make very much of them; the drawings don’t match the schema. I have had two of our most brilliant young men working on them. I was wondering if you would care to have a look and see whether you can unravel the whole thing. There may be whole chunks missing from the materials. It looks like a new sort of turbine.”

  “It was. Oil, he had in mind.”

  “Oil is what we have in mind,” said the Professor. “It is also what the Nazis had in mind; they had plans for the Rumanian oil-fields which would have been helped by this idea. By the same token, the British, Americans and Arabs would all be profoundly interested. Do you understand? Meanwhile, the data we have all seems pure gibberish. I came here to ask you if you would work a while on it and try and reduce it to some sort of shape. Look.”

  Judith watched him zip back the briefcase and extract a couple of stout folders. He put them down and said: “There. Have a riffle.” She turned the papers over slowly, and read them like a musician thoughtfully reading a score. Then she sighed. “I can’t do it all at once of course. I should need time to really study them.”

  “You have all the time in the world. Months if necessary. I only wanted to ask you for your help. In fact, you could come up to Jerusalem if you wished, and work there at the Institute. Why not do that?”

  She was silent for a moment. “I mean,” said the Professor, “there at least you have a library and reference works to look up, but perhaps there is a special reason? Perhaps...

  “May I be frank?” said Judith at last. “I am still rather shaken and upset by the last few months — indeed longer than that.” She smiled. “Look, Professor.” She held out a hand in which a newly-lit cigarette smoked. It trembled like a leaf. Suddenly the Professor caught it in his own small hand and kissed it. “Of course,” he said, “of course.”

  “I would like a little time to collect myself; of course I will look over these materials in my spare time, and tell you if there is anything that can be done with them — and perhaps you could send me a few books if I gave you a list? Or would that pose problems?”

  “Of course not. And I perfectly understand.”

  “I like it here so much — what I have seen of it — it is really most interesting as a community venture, and somewhat unlike the last community in which I found myself!”

  “Yes, the kibbutz is an odd form of voluntary organization. We have every type, you know, collective, cooperative and so on, and then when you think that there are seventy nations babbling on this strip of land you get quite dazed! Yes, I should stay if I were you, and work here. Take your time. Besides, things are not going to be very pleasant up there.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I know it. We Jews are going to make a supreme attempt to bounce the British out of Palestine and into the United Nations — if we have to drag them there by the scruff of their thick necks. I think there is a very slim chance that we might emerge from such an affair with a mandate to create and run our own state — a new state — Israel! But of course you can judge what the Arab reaction would be. Egged on by the British, of course, as always. Yes, we are planning extensive operations shortly. Stay here. Yes, give me your list and stay here a while.”

  He chattered on amiably for some time, and they were again joined at the long table by Miss Peterson and the doctor, both, it seemed, old friends, if one could judge by the fact that they teased him unmercifully about his shabby clothes and the amount of cigar-ash which covered them. Professor Liebling took all this in good part. “Well,” he said, “I came to kidnap Miss Roth, but she has decided to stay on awhile here, though she will be working on something... Pete, you know about it. Make the girl a little leisure time for study, will you?”

  Judith said, “I want to do my full share — no special favours.”

  Miss Peterson shook her head and said: “There’s no time for that here; but we’ll see. Between teaching the children and digging potatoes...

  Liebling made a protesting sound and spread his hands wide. “Now listen, Pete, be reasonable.”

  “Leave it to me,” said the decisive Miss Peterson, and the doctor wrinkled her nose and smiled.

  “Don’t fear, Herr Professor!”

  The old man pretended to register a resigned exasperation. “Well, give me my book list, and I’ll go.”

  He lent Judith his fountain-pen and she made a thoughtful list of books, tables and instruments. Then they all walked out to see him to his car across the meadows. Judith still held the briefcase as she took his arm.

  “I shall send you the materials as soon as may be, and if and when you see the light please let me know. Either come up to Jerusalem or signal me and I’ll come down. But don’t lose the stuff, will you?”

  “You can keep it in the safe in the office,” said Pete, and Judith nodded.

  They paused for a moment by the car, and the Professor peered around him at the brilliant sunlit landscape.

  “Hm,” he said, “it’s a good place to be living; when Israel is free one day I’ll come here and retire for good. Eh, Pete?”

  “You’d have to work.”

  “Ach, work!” He made a vague gesture at the sky and stepped into the car after a final handshake. “Well, good luck and good industry,” he added as the clutch was let in and the car slid off down the dusty road.

  Judith walked thoughtfully back to her room and took a preliminary look at the documents before going over to the office and surrendering them to Miss Peterson, who put them in the safe with the other archives of the kibbutz. Then she walked for a while by the river, watching the children swimming. How purposeful everything seemed, how industrious! There was a contagious happiness in the air. Happiness! The word had an old-fashioned ring. She sat down on the bank and was deep in thought, when a thin woman with grey eyes came along and called her by her name. “I’m Rose Fox. I’ve come to ask if you need Hebrew lessons? No? Good. Then can you shoot?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll put you down for the course then tomorrow.”

  Judith looked wryly at her hands — she could not visualize them holding anything as unacademic as a rifle. And yet, why not?

  “Lastly,” said the girl, “will you do a turn tomorrow night on duty at the children’s house — ten o’clock to six?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I’m on with you, so I’ll call and get you after dinner. You know where it is — right in the centre of the grove by the schoolroom. Never mind, I’ll fetch you anyway.”

  “Thank you.”

  8

  Daily Bread

  She carried her reflections upon the Liebling visit as far as Peterson’s office, feeling a little guilty that she should so much want to stay on in this valley, rather than risk the distra
ctions of town life. But Pete was delighted.

  “It’s exactly what you need,” she said, “a few months here before you decide what you want to do. Besides, you could quite well do your share of the kibbutz work and still have the mornings free for your own. Look — why don’t you take your papers and go out with the shepherds? There are lovely quiet spots where you could sit and work with nothing to disturb you except the gossip of old Karam and an occasional tune on his flute; and those two imps of his could easily carry you a cushion.” It was an idea worth thinking about.

  “From tomorrow,” she agreed, “I’ll try it, Pete.”

  In the evening Rose Fox came for her after dinner and the two women sauntered in the darkness across to the childrens’ rooms where they were to take over from those who had put the children to bed. They traversed the little gardens where the future farmers of the settlement were making their first humble experiments with flowers and vegetables. They entered the great dormitory, with its soft buds of night-lights and heard the gentle susurrus of the sleepers, each building and rebuilding in fantasy their private worlds of happiness or terror. Rose said in a whisper: “A lot of them belong to us — their parents are here — but very many we have inherited as orphans: you can guess why. A lot are fearfully disturbed. We try to mix the healthy ones in amongst them, to help them get their balance again.” Slowly they made a tour of the beds and the girl gave a brief sketch of each child; and in the silences the sleeping whisper welled up around the words. Here was Anita who woke imploring “Don’t! Don’t!” in the voice of a seagull; there Dov whose tears all but strangled him; Martin who shivered at the sound of boots marching about in his dreams; Abe whose fingers picked at each other or wove elaborate and invisible tapestries all night; and Solomon who wet his bed, and poured with sweat and never said a word. Judith listened, deeply moved. She remembered the three visits of the old scientist to her father. The first time, her father saw him to the door and came back into the room saying: “The man’s a crackpot”; the second time he was silent and thoughtful; the third time he said, “I did him an injustice. This man Freud has something of genius in him.” She scraped about in her mind to remember as much as she could of the lore of psychology, in order to give her sympathy and emotion a tool, a weapon that might help her to aid the sleepers.