Ken Follett: Triple (1991)

It was a cold, bright morning. Pale sunshine washed the cream-colored stone of the city's old buildings. They walked in comfortable silence, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched against the biting November wind which whistled through the streets. Cortone kept muttering, "Dreaming spires. Fuck." There were very few people about, but after they had walked a mile or so Dickstein pointed across the road to a tall man with a college scarf wound around his neck. "Ibere's the Russian," he said. He called, "Hey Rostovl" The Russian looked up, waved, and crossed to their side of the street He had an army haircut, and was too long and thin for his mass-produced suit. Cortone was beginning to think everyone was thin in this country. Dickstein said, "Rostov's at Balliol, same college as me. David Rostov, meet Alan Cortone. Al and I were together in Italy for a while. Going to Ashford's house, Rostov?" The Russian nodded solemnly. "Anything for a free drink." Cortone said, "You interested in Hebrew Literature too?" Rostov said, "No, I'm here to study bourgeois economics." Dickstein laughed loudly. Cortone did not see the joke. Dickstein explained, "Rostov is from Smolensk. Hes a member of the CPSU-the Communist Party of the Soviet Union." Cortone still did not see the joke. "I thought nobody was allowed to leave Russia," Cortone said. Rostov went into a long and involved explanation which had to do with his father's having been a diplomat in Japan when the war broke out. He had an earnest expression which occasionally gave way to a sly smile. Although his English was imperfect, he managed to give Cortone the impression that he was condescending. Cortone turned off, and began to think about how you could love a man as if he was your own brother, fighting side by side with him, and then he could go off and study Hebrew Literature and you would realize you never really knew him at all. Eventually Rostov said to Dickstein, "Have you decided yet, about going to Palestine?" Cortone said, "Palestine? What for?" Dickstein looked troubled. "I haven't decided." "You should go," said Rostov. 'The Jewish National Home will help to break up the last remnants of the British Empire in the Middle EasIt ' "Is that the Party line?" Dickstein asked with a faint smile. "Yes," Rostov said seriously. "You're a socialist--" "Of sorts." "---and it is important that the new State should be socialist." Cortone was incredulous. "Tbe Arabs are murdering you people out there. Jeez, Nat, you only just escaped from the Germanst" "I haven't decided," Dickstein repeated. He shook his head irritably. "I don't know what to do." It seemed he did not want to talk about It. They were walking briskly. Cortone's face was freezing, but he was perspiring beneath his winter uniform. The other two began to discuss a scandal: a man called Mosley-the name meant nothing to Cortone--had been persuaded to enter Oxford in a van and make a speech at the Martyr's

Memorial. Mosley was a Fascist, he gathered a moment later. Rostov was arguing that the incident proved how social democracy was closer to Fascism than Communism. Dickstein claimed the undergraduates who organized the event were just trying to be "shocking." Cortone listened and watched the two men. They were an odd couple: tall Rostov, hisscarf like a striped bandage, takIng long strides, Ids too-short trousers flapping like flags; and diminutive Dickstein with big eyes and round spectacles, wearing a demob suit, looking like a skeleton in a hurry. Cortone was no academic, but he figured he could smell out bullshit in any language, and he knew that neither of them was saying what he believed: Rostov was parroting some kind of official dogma, and Dickstein's brittle unconcem masked a different, deeper attitude. When Dickstein laughed about Mosley, he sounded like a child laughing after a nightmare. They both argued cleverly but without emotion: it was like a fencing match with blunted swords. Eventually Dickstein seemed to realize that Cortone was being left out of the discussion and began to talk about theirhost. "Stephen Ashford Is a bit eccentric, but a remarkable man," be said. "He spent most of his life in the Middle East. Made a small fortune and lost it, by all accounts. He used to do. crazy things, like crossing the Arabian Desert on a go camel. "That might be the least crazy way to cross it," Cortone said. Rostov said, "Ashford has a Lebanese wife." Cortone looked at Dickstein. "She's--o' "Shea younger than he is," Dickstein said hastily. "He brought her back to England just before the war and became Professor of Semitic Literature here. If he gives you Marsala Instead of sherry it means you've overstayed your welcome." "People know the differencer, Cortone said. 'This is his house." Cortone was half expecting a Moorish villa, but the Ashford home was imitation Tudor, painted white with green woodwork. The garden in front was a jungle of shrubs. The three young men walked up a brick pathway to the house. The front door was open. They entered a small, square hall. Somewhere in the house several people laughed: the party had started. A pair of double doors opened and the most beautiful woman in the world came out. . Cortone was transfted. He stood and stared as she came across the carpet to welcome them. He heard Dickstein say, 'This is my friend Alan Cortone," and suddenly he was touching her long brown hand, warm and dry and fine-boned, and he never wanted to let go. She turned away and led them into the drawing room. Dickstein touched Cortone's arm and grinned: he had known what was going on in his friend's mind. Cortone recovered his composure sufficiently to say, -WOW." Small glasses of sherry were lined up with military precision. on a little table. She handed one to Cortone, smiled, and said, -rm Eila Ashford, by the way." Cortone took in the details as she handed out the drinks. She was completely unadorned: there was no make-up on her astonishing face, her black hair was straight, and she wore a white dress and sandals--yet the effect was almost like nakedness, and Cortone was embarrassed at the animal thoughts that rushed through his mind as he looked at her. He forced himself to turn away and study his surroundings. The room had the unfinished elegance of a place where people are living slightly beyond their means. The rich Persian carpet was bordered by a strip of peeling gray linoleum; someone had been mending the radio, and its innards all over a kidney table; there were a couple of bright rectangles on the wallpaper where pictures had been taken down; and some of the sherry glasses did not quite match the set. There were about a dozen people in the room. An Arab wearing a beautiful pearl-gray Western suit was standing at the fireplace, looking at a wooden carving on the mantelpiece. Eila Ashford called him over. "I want you to meet Yasif Hassan, a friend of my family from home," she said. "He's at Worcester College." Hassan said, "I know Dickstein." He shook hands all around. Cortone thought he was fairly handsome, for a nigger, and haughty, the way they were when they made some money and got invited to white homes. Rostov asked him, "You're from Lebanon "Palestine."

"Ah!" Rostov became animated. "And what do you think of the United Nations partition plan?" "Irrelevant," the Arab said languidly. 'The British must leave, and my country will have a democratic. government." "But then the Jews will be in a minority," Rostov argued. 'They are in a minority in England. Should they be given Surrey as a national homeT' "Surrey has never been theirs. Palestine was, once." Hassan shrugged elegantly. "It was-when the Welsh had England, the English had Germany, and the Norman French lived in Scandinavia." He turned to Dickstein. "You have a sense of justice-what do you think?" Dickstein took off his glasses. "Never mind justice. I want a place to call my own." "Even if you have to steal mine?" Hassan said. "You can have the rest of the Middle East" "I don't want it." Rostov said, "This discussion proves the necessity for partition." Eila Ashford offered a box of cigarettes. Cortone took one, and lit hers. While the others argued about Palestine, Eila asked Cortone, "Have you known Dickstein long?" "We met in 1943," Cortone said. He watched her brown fins close around the cigarette. She even smoked beautifully. Delicately, she picked a fragment of tobacco from the tip of her tongue. "I'm terribly curious about him," she said. "Everyone is. He's only a boy, and yet he seems so oU Then again, he's obviously a Cockney, but he's not in the least intimidated by all these upper-class Englishmen. But hell talk about anything except himself." Cortone nodded. "Im finding out that I don!t really know him, either." "My husband says hes a brilliant student." "He saved my life." "Good Lord." She looked at him more closely, as if she were wondering whether he was just being melodramatic. She seemed to decide in his favor. "I'd like to hear about it." A middle-aged man in baggy corduroy trousers touched her shoulder and said, "How is everything, my dear?"