Adam Thirlwell - The Escape

Benjamin threw a wasabi pea up into the air and, to his profound satisfaction, caught it in the maw of his mouth.

Haffner ignored him.

It turned out, however, that in the eyes of the British war cabinet the crazies were Haffner's people. All members of the Jewish faith, commissioned or uncommisioned, were to leave the battalion in Palestine and travel to Cairo in the next forty-eight hours. This was the order. And yes, Haffner would concede, if discussing the matter with a benign historian, at that time the Jewish underground was conducting tactics not dissimilar to those of the IRA — but the order utterly devastated him. He had been with his battalion for nearly five years and fought through the Battle of Anzio, the only battle — he would remind this now less benign historian — in the World War which, like the Great War, had been fought in the trenches, and here he was to be kicked out because of his faith. He wouldn't stand for it. His faith, not his race. This was the important distinction. Even if Haffner still had a faith at all, which was doubtful.

Haffner was the senior Jewish member of the battalion, so he called all ranks together: about thirty of them. All felt as Haffner did, with one exception. Whose name now eluded him. Haffner went to see the CO, who took him that evening to see the divisional commander in his HQ at Mount Carmel overlooking Haifa. He was a Canadian, who afterwards became Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

At this point in the story, Haffner would put on an accent which he assumed was Canadian (it was not).

— Well, Haffner, I'm a Canadian, and if I were asked to fire on my boys in Montreal, I'd refuse.

— But, Haffner replied, in his own voice, I do not regard the Jews here as my boys. I'm an Englishman and my faith is Jewish.

Benji continued to scan the empty restaurant for a waiter to bring the beef: crispy, shredded. Or the approximation to crispy shredded beef which Benjamin had hoped to see in the fried ripped beef offered to him by the menu's translation: in haphazard italics, and assorted brackets.

— It's a good story, said Benjamin.

— The divisional commander, said Haffner.

— You should do the clubs, said Benji, grinning. I'm amazed you haven't.

The divisional commander, said Haffner, gave him permission to go and see the C.-in-C., Middle East Forces, in Cairo. So Haffner went with his driver, Private Holmes. They travelled 600 miles in twenty-four hours. Across the only little metal road in the desert to Cairo. Put up in a hotel to wait the pleasure. Etc. His driver had sunstroke and went into hospital. But the C.-in-C. had been sent to deal with the Communist threat in Greece. So Haffner was seen by his deputy, who sympathised, but there was nothing he could do. It was a cabinet decision.

A cabinet decision, emphasised Haffner. This was in about November 1945. In June, the war in Europe had come to an end. It was now three years since he had last seen his wife, just after their wedding. For the early married life of Haffner and Livia was an absence: a hiatus. And here he was being questioned about his Jewish loyalty: his Eastern heritage.

— No really, like Lenny Bruce, said Benjamin.

Haffner's East!

Looking back on Haffner, he was so clear to himself — it was like he was made of the most transparent glass. He had always wanted to mean something: to reach the grandeur of the world-historical. Like all the characters in the grand novels: the American novels which Esther used to give as Christmas presents to Haffner, to further his education. But the problem wasn't Haffner, he was discovering: the problem was the world-historical. Not even the world-historical was world-historical. The instances of everything, Haffner thought, had turned out to be so much smaller than one expected. The magnificence was so much more minute than one expected.

He had gone to school with the man who later married the Prime Minister. He remembered her, from the days watching her son play cricket. Once, in the 1970s, before she became the party leader, he danced with her at a dinner at the Criterion. She was really very brilliant.

Haffner emptied his glass of its pale beer. He felt a little blurred, a little faded — a faded Haffner which dissolved even further as the tape in the restaurant came round to one of his favourite songs, in one of his favourite incarnations.

— You know this song? cried Haffner.

— No, said Benjamin.

— Then listen! said Haffner.

And Haffner floated away: forwards, into the past.

For when they began the beguine — according to Cole Porter, as sung by Ella Fitzgerald, as listened to by Haffner as he tried to educate his grandson — the sound of that beguine brought back the sound of music so tender; it brought back the night of tropical splendour; it brought back a memory evergreen. And then Ella's voice went higher. She was with him once more under the stars, and down by the shore an orchestra was playing, and even the palms seemed to be swaying when they began the beguine.

He had heard this song with Livia, sung by Ella, in Ronnie Scott's on Frith Street: and the shadow of the double bass's scroll on the white backing screen was a seahorse behind the Lady. She was in a gold lame dress.

But you couldn't go back. This was the meaning of the song. But precisely because one couldn't go back, thought Haffner, was why one wanted to go back. Precisely because one had lost everything.

Yes, weakened, exhausted, melancholy, Haffner was beginning to revise his ideas of sin. It was so hard, he was finding, not to regret certain aspects of one's life, now that one considered one's life carefully.

And so the reason why Haffner so loved this song now, here in a Chinese and Slavic restaurant, was that it allowed you the romance of resurrection, of recuperation. It allowed you the dream.

For, against all expectation, the rhythm moved into a different beat; so that, as Ella's voice rose, she changed her rhythm against the beat — as she begged them not to begin the beguine; as she begged the orchestra to let the love which was once a fire remain an ember. And then again, in a contradiction which Haffner had always cherished (-Listen to this! he cried to Benji. Listen to this!), Ella with as much sad abandon contradicted herself, with the same push against the beat, the same refusal to give in to the obvious rhythm: that yes, let them begin the beguine, make them play till the stars that were there before return above them, till whoever it was who she loved might whisper to her once more, darling, that he loved her — and the song softened. And they would suddenly know, as she quietened down, what heaven they were in — she quietened to a becalmed softness — when they began the beguine.

— Yeah, it's cool, said Benjamin.

Haffner didn't know what to say. He was lost, in contemplation of his past.

Finally, Haffner spoke.

— You finished? he asked Benjamin. You full?

— I don't finish when I feel full, said Benjamin proudly. What kind of person finishes when they're full? Me, I finish when I hate myself. That's the treasured moment.

And as Benjamin said this, more dishes arrived: chicken in a black bean sauce; chicken with lemon. Then finally another porcelain plate, chased with fake Chinese scenes: on which cubes of beef were shivering. Then two more decanters of beer.

In a reverent silence, Benji's mind considered Haffner's ideas of loyalty. Oh Benji wanted so much to lose his loyalty! He wanted so much to leave his religion behind. He imagined himself in the backstreets of Paris, the docks of Marseilles, and it entranced him. But he found this subject difficult. The guilt distressed him. So, in defence against himself, Benji tried to talk himself out of his new temptations.