Judith

  His pen roughed out a rectangular lawn, sketching in some palm trees in profile and representing the layout of the tables by a series of circles.

  “You will be looking down from this point. This is the table. From your position you should get a good look at him. The rest is our affair.”

  “Yes,” said Grete, feeling her heart beat faster.

  The luck which had so far assisted their enterprise showed no signs of dwindling; that night they moved into Horvatz’ residence in the capital — a great rambling house, one half of which looked over the river and the other over the covered bazaars of Babalukhan. One frontage was along a narrow street which led directly to the Abu Sergeh Church. They would have to walk only about fifty yards before they turned into its courtyard. So it was that, the following afternoon, two Coptic ladies, well dressed in the Arab fashion, obviously of good Cairo families, slipped into the crowded street from the side gate of the house and made their way circumspectly along the street. They each held a small but richly bound prayer book, and each wore her yasmak, which allowed her to reveal no more than a pair of kohl-fringed eyes. They were accompanied by an elderly duenna, imposing and hideous, but she herself did not enter the church. Her duty was to wait for them in the courtyard.

  Everything went without a hitch; the old sacristan bowed low before them and accepted the customary pourboire with joy. They crossed the cold flags of the echoing church and climbed the musty creaking stairs which led to the womens’ gallery. They were quite alone here, and with a swift silent step Eva crossed to the screened window, beckoning Grete to follow suit. With a strange sensation of breathlessness, a choking feeling which made her lips tremble, Grete followed her guide and found herself looking down, almost through the fronds of a palm tree, on to a green lawn covered with tables. She recognized their disposition easily from the diagram Horvatz had drawn. He had not been wrong about the siting, for immediately under her sat a man wearing dark glasses. He was drinking tea with lemon and eating a cream cake. As Grete focussed her glance on him and stared, he removed his dark glasses and — as if deliberately to oblige — looked up at the window. It was almost as if he was looking into her eyes. Instinctively she shrank back, forgetting that the ornamental window was screening her. Panic seized her as she stared down into those grey lustreless eyes of her husband, with their familiar expression of apathy and arrogance. He had changed, yes. He was stouter. He was very much greyer. But there could be no mistaking him. The cicatrices on his cheeks, for example, he had not been able to disguise those — ancient duelling scars of which he had always been so proud and which had always reminded her of the mutilations that African tribes inflict on their youth as marks of ornament. She was terrified of him for a moment, and almost cried out; then her fear left her and was replaced by a cold and scientific hate. How familiar it was — the arrogant set of the head, the small sharp cocksure nose, the circumflex of moustache with its waxed ends.

  “Come,” she cried to Eva. “It is enough.”

  They walked down the staircase and across the courtyard again.

  “Please take my arm,” said Grete; she felt that she was reeling as she walked, drunkenly reeling down the street. But they reached the door without mishap, and climbed the stairs of the high balcony where the men waited for her. Behind them the sunny panorama of Cairo lay with the yellow-tawny line of the Makattam hills down into the desert sands. Traffic roared somewhere out of sight. The river curled green among the flame-touched foliage of the jacaranda. They did not speak, but stared at her in silence. She removed her yasmak and stood looking at them with a strange barbaric smile which was emphasized by the heavy kohl make-up around the lashes.

  “Well, is it?” asked David at last in a low voice.

  “Yes. Without a doubt.” She swayed as she spoke, but at once recovered herself.

  David heaved a great sigh of relief. “Good girl,” he said.

  But her eyes were full of tears a few moments later, as she wiped away the kohl in the great mirror which covered one whole wall of Eva’s bedroom.

  “I thought,” she said, “I would feel gladder than I do.”

  Eva smoked thoughtfully. She had changed back into European slacks and soft slippers. She said nothing, but kissed Grete’s cheek. There came a knock at the door. It was David.

  “Grete,” he said. “Your job is done. I am sending you back tonight. The rest is up to us. There may be a bit of an alert when we kidnap him and I want you out of the way. Horvatz is taking you down by car. I expect we’ll be back in a day or three — but we must contact Jerusalem for instructions.”

  “Can’t I stay?” she asked.

  “No. It’s orders.”

  Suddenly, without a word, and quite unexpectedly, since neither of them had premeditated such a gesture, specially before Eva, they embraced passionately. Then, almost shyly, they looked at each other.

  “Remember,” she said, “that I want some time alone with him.”

  “I promise,” he said. “But he will have to go back and face the War Crimes Commission in the final analysis.”

  “Of course. David!”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  21

  Schiller’s End

  She walked into her office a couple of days before she was expected.

  “What is this?” cried the duty janitor. “Are you trying to curry favour with someone? You were supposed to be at the Dead Sea.”

  “I was. But it proved deader than dead. I began to pine for my little in-tray. Is the Major in this morning?”

  Yes, Lawton was in; but he looked somehow changed, diminished. Yet his face lit up when she walked into his office.

  “You are early,” he cried. “That is a piece of luck for me.” Then he added, with a new kind of lameness, a ruefulness, “Grete, I’ve been posted.”

  She stopped dead, as if she had been nailed to the ground.

  “When?” she asked in a low voice, full of concern.

  He made a grimace and said: “I’m posted to India to a military mission. Another fortnight should see me out. For that matter it might see us all out. We’ve been told to prepare evacuation plans in case the UNO vote goes against us.”

  “So soon?” she said sadly. It was like the end of a whole epoch; she could hardly envisage Palestine without the British. Lawton stood up.

  “I want to take you with me, Grete,” he said. “I know you cannot marry for the time being, but perhaps... later when you are free. Would you come, I wonder? Look at me.”

  She obeyed, looking sadly into his eyes with affection and regret.

  “No,” she said at last, “I can’t. I feel I must stay here. Too many threads still to tie up; too many loose ends.” Lawton took a slow walk up and down the room.

  “I know,” he said. “I know how you feel about that man... and the question of the child.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “But if everything should settle itself finally,” he went on with an air of quiet desperation, “would you at least consider the prospect? Time means nothing in such a matter; I would be there always.”

  “I can’t disappoint you for fear of wounding you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There is somebody else I care about.”

  She turned away from him and gazed out of the window, rather than see the misery on his face.

  “Very well,” he said at last.

  •

  A few days later, towards the end of the week, her phone rang and she heard the voice of David on the other end of the wire.

  “I have some news for you,” he said.

  Her nerves jumped. “Is everything alright?” she asked, anxiously, and was relieved when he chuckled and said:

  “As right as right.”

  “Come round as soon as you wish,” she said.

  David hesitated for a moment. “Are you going to be free tonight for your interview?”

  She felt her fingers squeeze the phone tightly
as she answered in a changed register.

  “Tonight? Yes... of course.” So the moment had come at last!

  “Then I’ll be round this evening,” said David, and rang off abruptly. He was rather later than she had anticipated; indeed, it was already nine when he at last put in an appearance. It had been a rainy evening. A freak thunderstorm had burst over Jerusalem. David wore a plastic raincoat and a tweed cap. He accepted a whisky.

  “It’s to be for eleven o’clock,” he said, looking at his watch. “I had some difficulty with the committee; I had to virtually tell them that, unless you could see him alone, you would refuse to sign any evidence against him.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” she cried, sharply. “They might take the law into their own hands!”

  David shrugged. “Frankly,” he said, “I wouldn’t mind much. He is not a very agreeable creature. And if he has done only half of what they say he has... well... Anyway, you will have your turn with him tonight. At the moment he is very cocksure and proud and protests that he is a Swiss citizen; he thinks that we cannot prove our suspicions true... When he sees you, however!” He sighed and drained his glass.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  “We have a small lock-up of our own — part of the old Turkish prison. By Ben Yahmi, you know the place...

  They set off to walk to their destination a little before eleven. As she did her hair in the mirror, Grete wondered to herself: “How will he see me after all this time?” She stared into her own face with eager anxiety. She would wear no make-up for this interview, she decided; but her thoughts were in a complete turmoil. Indeed, ideas tumbled and spilled about at the edge of her mind; she found herself muttering and whispering as she combed her hair and slipped into her black trench-coat.

  “What will he have to tell me about the child?” she asked herself, and her heart nearly stopped beating as the thought struck her. She gritted her teeth and drank a final glass of whisky before venturing into the street with David. During these hours of tense activity, they had both forgotten their own personal relationship completely — save for an unstated but ever-present sense of collaboration with no reserves. He sensed something of her anxiety, and out of tact began to talk about other things — about the UNO vote for example, which was expected any day, and which might at last enable Israel to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of past hopes and fears. His eyes flashed. But she listened abstractedly, hardly taking it in. She saw in her mind’s eye those greyish oyster eyes which had raised themselves to hers through the wooden screen of the Coptic Church for a moment. She shuddered and set her face.

  The rain had stopped. Though it was not unduly late, there were few people about in the streets; they made their way to a street with old-fashioned Arab houses, barred and shuttered. In a dark doorway David stopped and tapped; after a long time a Judas opened in the door with a soft click, and they knew that they were being carefully studied by invisible eyes. Then the door swung slowly open onto an empty hall. They heard diminishing footsteps. David led the way, after carefully bolting the door behind them. They went up a long cold staircase; on every landing a diamond-shaped window cast a lozenge of yellow light on the musty stones. Finally, on the third floor, David tapped at a door, and a little man shot out from behind it like a jack-in-the-box; hardly looking at them, he handed David a huge iron key and waved his hand.

  “Not more than an hour,” he said in a creaky voice.

  They crept along a corridor and confronted a stout door of oak barred with metal. David opened it and entered the prisoner’s cell — a narrow and rectangular room. A man sat playing patience at a table in the centre, smoking a cigarette in a bone cigarette holder. For a moment it did not look to her like the same man at all. His rumpled bed in the corner of the room was covered in daily papers. Grete, waiting in the shadows beyond the sill, saw David advance into the cell. The only light came from a single dusty bulb which threw an erratic circle of light on the table with its single occupant. The man wore no collar or tie; a metal stud gleamed in the neckband of his shirt. He looked up at the noise of the key turning in the lock, and then turned back to his game with an air of weary insolence.

  David said, “I have brought someone who thinks they may recognize you as Günther Schiller.”

  The prisoner’s face tied itself into a knot of nerves. A pure vexation ravaged him. He shouted:

  “I have told you, you are mistaken. Get me the Swiss consul. I am not Schiller, but Schmidt.” He repeated the name, making as if to bang the table with his fist, and quietly went on with his game.

  David stood for a moment contemplating him and then turned to the shadows.

  “You may come in,” he said. His voice sounded indifferent — as if this were to be another routine interrogation by yet another prosecutor. He himself passed Grete and she heard the heavy door clang behind her as he went out.

  Günther could as yet see nothing; he sat for a moment with eyes screwed up, staring at the darkness outside his little circle of light. Then he gave a grunt and returned to his game. He did not even look up when he heard her slow and hesitant footstep. Grete advanced towards the white circle of light with a strange feeling of confusion, of fear and hatred and disorientation. She walked with a slow, a fatal tread, like a sleepwalker, like an avenging fury — with a slow drugged tread towards the light. Then she felt the whiteness splash all over her features. The prisoner looked up briefly — and was suddenly riveted to his chair. His mouth fell open. Silver drops of sweat started up on his scalp along the white hair. He stared at the white-faced woman advancing towards him with this slow ineluctable tread; she might, for all he knew, be some ghost, some hallucination brought upon him by fatigue and fear. He stared at her and quickly glanced round the cell without moving his head, as if he were looking for an escape route. But his head stayed quite still on his shoulders. Only his little pig’s eyes darted about in his skull. Even when she passed out of his range of vision he did not turn round — so like a phantom did she seem. She described a slow circle about him, without for a moment taking her eyes off his face. He licked his lips and stayed rooted to his chair; all his jauntiness, all his bluster had leaked away now, and left him sitting there like some object washed down to the mouth of a river by floods. At last he breathed her name in a whisper — “Grete,” and in the same moment she turned aside like a bird in mid-flight and swooped softly down upon the table. She placed her hands on the rough surface and stared into those expressionless oyster eyes. He put out a hand and touched her, as if to verify that she was not a ghost.

  “You are still alive,” he said in a low voice, and gave a small harsh chuckle. “I wondered.”

  “Do you know why I am here?” she said, and her voice trembled as she spoke. He looked at her and a small bitter smile played about his lips. His composure was coming back and, with it, anger. A pulse had begun to beat in his temple. The cigarette smoke curled slowly up between them, hanging in whorls in the white light. Somewhere a mosquito droned.

  “To trick me,” he said. “To revenge yourself.”

  “No,” she cried sharply, stung into fury by his expression and even more by such obtuseness — for he could not imagine for a moment the force of her central obsession. She clenched her fingers tightly and said:

  “Günther, where is Otto? Where is he?” For a moment the poignant entreaty of her huge eyes seemed to afflict him — they were so deep and blue — so full of long-endured chagrin and despair. He looked hastily away, as if to recover his poise, and when once more he stared at her it was with a bitterly curled lip, a grimness, an obduracy of heart which was quite frightening to behold.

  “Otto!” he said with contempt, and made as if to spit on the floor beside the table. “Why should I tell you where he is?”

  “So he is still alive?” With a frenzied gesture she leaned forward and shook him, grabbing at his shirt. “You must tell me please, Günther. He is all I have to live for now.” With an indignant thrust of his shoulder
and a sweeping backhanded blow, he shook himself free and drove her reeling back against the wall. He shouted suddenly:

  “Why should I tell you anything? Otto! You will never see him again — that I promise you.” He stood panting, with the muscles flickering over his face. He stared at her with contempt. Then, with an untrembling hand, he picked up his cigarette holder and placed it between his teeth as he sat down. She stayed quite still, leaning against the wall and watching him with a strange mixture of disgust and hatred.

  “Günther,” she said. “Günther.”

  He withdrew his cigarette holder and said crisply:

  “You have simply come here to gloat over me and to persuade your Jewish compatriots to put me to death. Well, I am not afraid; you will not have that last satisfaction, Grete. I am not afraid.” The last words were uttered in a penetrating whisper which was blood-chilling. Suddenly her reserve broke down; extending her arms and almost sinking to a kneeling posture on the floor, she began to whine and plead with him, almost like an Arab. Her voice had become sweet and shrill.

  “Surely you understand; it is not you, it is Otto I am talking about. Günther, you must tell me where he is. I will do anything. For the love of God, can’t you understand what it is to have a child, to have a son?”

  “A Jew,” he said.

  “A child, a child,” she almost howled, shaking her impotent fists in the air. Then, as so often in the past, the old sense of uselessness welled up in her. She covered her face with her hands and pressed her cold forehead to the wall, breathing deeply, trying to think.

  She opened her eyes wide, staring as if into the very stones of the prison wall; slowly her composure returned and her eyes grew dreamy, speculative, thoughtful; she turned slowly and once more confronted the figure which sat upright over its cards, setting them out with small precise insect-like gestures. His forehead was still pearled with drops of sweat; but his expression was set and grim — the two lines running down from the corners of his mouth framing its obdurate mood. She moved slowly towards him again, but this time her face was calm and abstracted, her voice more curious than forceful. It was as if she were now repeating a formula without being sure whether it would work or not. Yet the words were fraught with a new kind of significance to him; he did not look up at her, but he did raise his head and ponder briefly as he stared at the edge of the table, beyond the coloured line of court cards. Her words, spoken with a puzzled slowness, were: