The Mandelbaum Gate Read Free Page A

Wogs or the
Commies, and everyone knew what one meant.
    He now
noticed the Jewishness of her appearance, something dark and intense beyond her
actual shape and colouring. Freddy felt worse. It was a diplomatic as well as a
social error, here in this country. This was the first year of the Eichmann
trial. Freddy felt like a wanted man who had been found hiding in a dark
cupboard. He felt an urge to explain that he was not a mass-butcher and that he
had never desired to become a Sturmbannführer, Obersturmbannführer,
Superobersturmbannführer. He said, ‘I like your young guide. How did you
come by him?’
    She
said, ‘He’s a friend of a friend of mine, another archaeologist who’s working
on the stuff at Qumran just now.’ Plainly, she was embarrassed by his
embarrassment.
    Freddy
clutched at the subject of the Dead Sea scrolls as at a slice of melon in the
Sahara. He said: ‘That must be enormously exciting. I want to visit the place
myself some time soon.’
    But she
was occupied with her reaction to Freddy’s distress. She began to speak, with
furious exasperation, about the Israeli, a former Czech, who had been allotted
to her as a guide to the holy places. He had been overbearing. He had been
obstructive. He had taken her on a trip to Nazareth and had wanted her to whizz
through the whole scene in half an hour, whereas she had insisted on spending
the day there. He was a fanatical Christian-hater who had wanted to show her
the cement factories and pipelines of Israel instead of the shrines, and had
been reluctant to drive her to the top of Mount Tabor, the probable scene of
the Transfiguration, and she had not insisted because this in-sufferable man …
It emerged that she herself was a Roman Catholic.
    Anxious
about the extremity and urgency of her tone, Freddy looked round for the
waiter. He said to her: ‘Let’s try the white wine.’ He ordered two glasses, and
called after the waiter, ‘But it should be chilled.’ He said to Miss Vaughan, ‘They
are inclined to serve it warm.’
    The
waiter appeared with two glasses of local white wine. In them were floating two
chips of ice, rapidly melting from their original cubic form. Freddy and Miss
Vaughan were silent until the waiter had gone. The ice melted entirely in the
hot evening air. Freddy smiled at the two glasses on the table. Eventually,
they even sipped the lukewarm mixture. ‘They simply don’t understand about wine
at most of these hotels,’ Freddy said. Well, it was a relief, at least, that
they could have an English giggle about something.
     
    Freddy now wondered if it
was his long walk through the Orthodox quarter in the afternoon heat that had
put him on edge. He felt decidedly afraid of Miss Vaughan. She fidgeted with
the ring on her engagement finger. She looked very strained. Perhaps she, too,
was feeling the heat. However, he was resolved to be agreeable in view of his
blunder last week.
    She
said, ‘Your geraniums are flourishing.’
    He had
given her two of his pots of geraniums before leaving for Jordan last week.
They were special geraniums. He had smuggled them across from Joanna’s prize
collection.
    He said
‘Good. I was hoping Dr Ephraim would look in. I want to consult him about a
Hebrew teacher.’
    ‘He had
to return to his wife and family.’
    ‘Oh
yes, quite.’
    ‘He
might give you Hebrew lessons himself. They don’t get well paid at the
University here.’
    Well, I
was sort of hoping that.’
    She
said: ‘Before I go to Jordan we must arrange a meeting.’
    ‘When
are you going?’ he said.
    ‘I don’t
know yet.’
    It was
a puzzle to him that she had not already gone to Jordan. She kept saying she
was ‘waiting to go to Jordan’. He wondered if she waited for a visa. If they
suspected her Jewish blood she would not get a visa. But, on the other hand, if
she had a certificate of baptism and kept quiet it should be easy.
    He saw
that she was pulling at a fraying piece of wicker on the arm of her