Lawrence Durrell - Judith

“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.”

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.