Lawrence Durrell - Judith

“What about America?”

With an incoherent gesture he indicated the papers on his desk. “Now where shall I begin?” he said. “Let us be logical. First of all the patents are out on your father’s ‘toy’. We can consider going into prototype now — offers are coming in from every side for production. Just what it’s going to mean to Israel’s oil future one can’t say yet — but it is going to be important — very important!”

“So much the better.” She smiled, sitting down.

“ Aber — but that is not all. Here are invitations from almost every learned society, every foundation, every university… You will have to go and address them, travel about, perhaps stay a couple of years and work.”

“Go to America ?” The idea came as something of a surprise; she had not formulated a future plan for herself, though of course some such vague thoughts might have floated around in her mind. Princeton, for example, had always wanted her back.

“America… she repeated like someone half asleep. The Professor grew impatient. “Of course, wretched girl!” he cried. “You owe it to your father, to yourself, and lastly, but perhaps most important, you owe it to Israel. You must see this invention through prototype and trial stages and into production; meanwhile you will also travel and lecture and work. How pleased your father would have been! Really, you owe it to his memory.”

“Yes,” she said doubtfully, hesitantly. And then fell silent. She looked at her hands in her lap. “I hadn’t thought of any such thing, at least — for a while yet. Ras Shamir…

“Ach! that damn kibbutz!” said Liebling with high scorn. “Have they bewitched you? That damned old Peter! Are you going to spend the rest of your life letting a committee decide what you have for lunch? Come — wake up, Judith. Everyone is calling you, everything is calling you — Gott in Himmel! Israel not least. After all — you are a Jew and here is something you can do for us all. It was we who dragged you out of Germany — remember?”

“I know,” she said quietly, “I know.” She lit a cigarette and smoked thoughtfully. Liebling looked at her with hardly concealed impatience; he stood on one leg and then on the other. He held the side of his face and swayed from side to side as if with toothache. “Ach, Judith,” he said, bursting out at last. “You are half asleep, girl. Doesn’t this make you happy?”

“Yes,” she said sadly. “But I must have time to think — time to decide. It’s a decision that needs thought.”

“You what?”

“I need a little time — that is all…

“I don’t understand,” said Liebling. “After all, you have nobody here, nothing to keep you here. And your work — your career — it isn’t even as if you were a sabra!”

The word struck her like a smack in the face. She stood up and said: “Very well. I will think about it and let you know soon, quite soon.”

She embraced the old man and left him staring after her in reproachful amazement.

That afternoon she set off for Ras Shamir again in a state of doubt and confusion. How familiar the landscape seemed now, how intimate! It was as if her trials and tribulations in it had, as well as seasoning her, made her part of it. Who was it, she wondered, who once wrote that places where we are unhappy are always dearer to us than those where we were happiest? She had been both at Ras Shamir. Finally, too, she must see Aaron again before any decision could be taken. That was perhaps the crux of the matter. The Professor himself was driving her; he planned to drop her at the settlement and go on to Safad, where he had some business to attend to. “On my return journey tomorrow,” he said, “I’ll come back and see if you have decided anything. Perhaps you will see everything clearly and be ready for me. I feel sure you will.”

It was strange to walk the paths of the settlement again; to pass the schoolroom where the children were buzzing with laughter and reciting tables. In the main office Peterson sat in a characteristic mannish attitude, dictating a letter about apples. Judith climbed the staircase and poked her head in. “Ah!” said Pete. “Come in — come in! Why are you looking so sad?”

“Because they want me to go away,” said Judith, and explained all that had taken place at the Professor’s office in Jerusalem. Peterson struck her knee and cried: “Marvellous! Judith — of course you must go. Anyway, it was foreseen long ago, wasn’t it? A girl with your gifts can’t stay on and moulder away in Ras Shamir. Good Lord — what has got into you?”

“Something,” she said. “Where is Aaron?”

“He came back. Probably in the mountains again.” She paused expectantly.

“I wish to goodness I knew why I feel so confused,” Judith burst out. “Anyway, why should I trouble you with all these personal problems? It seems to be the eternal fate of us Jews in this generation to be chased from pillar to post. I envy you your life here!”

“Well,” said Pete with a laugh, “in my case — and by the way, it is a secret — you know that I am not a Jew at all, at least by race. I’m a Jew by choice, which perhaps makes me more Jewish than the Jews. I really think that you should go for your father’s sake, as well as Israel’s. Old Liebling is right.”

“Very well,” said Judith with a sigh, “but first I must see Aaron and ask him what he thinks.”

“Beware!” said Pete with a grin. Strangely enough that day Aaron was not to be found anywhere in the kibbutz. Nobody had seen him. That night Judith slept restlessly, turning and tossing. She had actually packed her exiguous belongings in a little suitcase — just in case (she told herself) the morning brought her a decision. In which case she could simply climb aboard the Professor’s car when it appeared and leave for Jerusalem. If there was to be a break with Ras Shamir, it must be a sudden and definitive one; Judith loathed protracted farewells, long-drawn-out partings. Yet somehow she could not decide definitively without seeing Aaron. The next morning she met the Professor; she had had an idea. “Will you drive me along the high road to the ninth milestone?” she said. “There may be someone there I need to see.” Liebling looked quizzical but said nothing. They drove in silence to the final curve of the high road into the hills and here she descended and took a footpath among the olives. She was going to see if Aaron was by any chance at his so-called “country house”. He was — he was in fact working in the garden, digging away. He gave a shout when he saw her and ran towards her, towards the breathless embrace which she had been imagining for so long. Somehow everything came back with it — her confidence, her self-possession. “I’ve been tidying up the garden.” He grinned at last. “I had a sudden sort of wave of energy; it’s as if for the first time the blasted place did seem to belong to me. Look… Already some semblance of order was beginning to re-emerge from the tangle. “Oh Aaron,” she cried, “I so much needed to see you. I hunted for you yesterday, everywhere.”

“I was here.”

“They want me to go to the States.” She suddenly blurted out the whole story, wringing her hands as she spoke, or softly banging her fists together in fearful indecision. He gazed at her keenly with sparkling eyes. “Of course you shall go,” he said. “Of course you must.”

She looked at him uncomprehendingly; suddenly she realized why she had been feeling such indecision, such a momentous upset. It had nothing to do with either Israel or her father or the invention or the USA. It was quite plainly and unequivocally a decision which depended, as she herself did now, very much on Aaron. He did not understand the expression on her face and tried now, despite his own feelings, to seem excited, warm-hearted, congratulatory about the whole matter. Inside he felt quite hollow and sick, but he was determined that nothing should stand in the way of Judith’s future.