Thieves in the Night Read online

  “Why not in motor-cars?” said Lady Joyce. “A Ford for a simple murder and a Rolls for a dignitary.”

  “You can’t take anything seriously,” complained Cyril. “Have you got no feeling for tradition and all that?”

  “I am hungry,” said Lady Joyce.

  They had arrived at the open space which divided the domains of the two Mukhtars, and the procession came to a halt. Tubashi bustled round, arranging them all into groups. The Hamdan family was lined up in a row, the guests stood in clusters a little distance away. The stick with the murderer’s kefiyeh was planted in the earth. Meanwhile from the other end of the space the Abu Shaouish were advancing towards them in single file. They looked poorer than the Hamdans, except for their Mukhtar who led the procession. He was a tall, bony man with one eye conspicuously missing.

  “That’s the real stuff,” Cyril whispered. “He looks like a brigand.”

  There was a great silence while the Abu Shaouish formed themselves into a row facing the Hamdans. “Looks as if they were going to sing an opera chorus,” Lady Joyce said.

  Henderson took his pipe from between his teeth. “Usually they don’t make this fuss,” he remarked. “Tubashi arranged it to show off to us.”

  “What’s he declaiming?” asked Lady Joyce—for Tubashi, standing between the two rows and next to the white flag, had started on a speech.

  “It’s about peace and forgiveness and the common cause,” said Henderson.

  It was hot, and the afternoon breeze wafted the delicious smell of shashlik across the space. Presently Tubashi stopped. There was faint and dignified clapping, then silence. Suddenly the Abu Shaouish Mukhtar shouted something in a raucous voice which sounded like an insult, and there was clapping again, and Tubashi hurriedly untied one of the knots on the murderer’s kefiyeh.

  “What’s that mean?” asked Lady Joyce.

  “The victim’s clan has just announed that in honour of the King they are reducing the blood-money by ten pounds.”

  The man standing next to the Abu Shaouish Mukhtar in turn shouted something, and there was more clapping and another knot untied.

  “That’s for King Farouk of Egypt,” said Henderson.

  “I thought the sum was agreed beforehand?”

  “It is. And so are the remittances.”

  Another announcement was made and another knot untied. “Ten pounds for Mr. Chamberlain,” Henderson translated. “Ten for President Roosevelt. Ten for His Excellency the High Commissioner. Ten for the District Commissioner. Ten for myself.”

  “You?” said Lady Joyce. “What about little me?”

  “Women don’t come in.—Ten for the Sheikh. Ten for Tubashi. That’s the lot.”

  “They have given away a fortune,” said Lady Joyce.

  “Theoretically. It makes the sum look more important,” said Henderson.

  The Hamdan Mukhtar advanced and, wetting his thumb, counted a wad of notes into Tubashi’s hands who, amid more clapping, handed them over to the Abu Shaouish Mukhtar. The remaining knots were untied on the murderer’s kefiyeh which unfolded in the breeze.

  There was a tense silence, while all eyes were turned on the murderer. Presently he detached himself from the Hamdan row and, humbly bent in his hood, advanced across the space which separated the two clans. When he arrived in front of the tall Abu Shaouish Mukhtar he stood still for a second, then lifted the Mukhtar’s hand to his lips and kissed it. The Mukhtar drew the murderer up to him and kissed him on both cheeks. There was renewed clapping while Abu Arkub moved along the Abu Shaouish row, kissing each man’s hands and being kissed on his cheeks. Then he righted himself and seemed to have suddenly grown a head taller. There was more clapping.

  The murderer now having obtained formal forgiveness, it was the turn of the other members of his family to get reconciled. The first to advance was the Hamdan Mukhtar, leading his blind father by the arm. When the old man stood in front of the Abu Shaouish Mukhtar whose father he had killed, there was a last moment of tension. Then the Hamdan Mukhtar guided the blind man’s two hands toward his enemy’s right which hung limply by his side; but at the moment when their hands touched, the Abu Shaouish Mukhtar threw his arms round the old man’s shoulders and kissed him prolongedly and with fervour. The two groups mixed, shouting, kissing and patting each other; some of the older men were seen crying.

  “There is, after all, something to be said for tradition,” Joseph said to Moshe, as the whole gathering was moving with alacrity towards the banqueting tables.

  “Not if it’s become a parody,” said Kaplan who was walking next to them. “You should have heard the Bedu Sheikh’s comments.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He was so indignant, he almost got a stroke. He is the Sheikh of one of the Ruheiwat tribes who live mainly on smuggling hashish from Syria, and he’s got all the contempt of the pure Bedu for the degenerate cross-breeds who live in towns and villages. He calls them mongrels, sons of bitches, and denies that they are Arabs at all. He is a great fellow. Would you like to meet him?”

  “Is he a friend of yours?”

  “He is my blood-brother,” said Kaplan, grinning. “I once got him out of a mess—but that’s a long story…. Oi, ya Sheikh!” he called to the tall figure walking a few steps ahead, who now stopped and with a quick swerve turned towards them.

  “This is my brother, Sheikh Silmi of the Ruheiwat,” Kaplan introduced in Arabic, “and these are my friends Jussuf and Mussa, two Hebrews from the settlement across the valley and very good boys.”

  “My brother’s friends are my friends,” said Sheikh Silmi, shaking hands with them. He was an elderly, dark and vivacious man, with a sparse black beard along the edge of his jaw which ended in an abrupt tuft on his chin.

  “I was telling my friends that you did not like the ceremony,” said Kaplan.

  “It was a mockery,” said Silmi. “It was like monkeys playing at being Arabs.”

  They arrived at the table, where the English party and some of the notables had already taken their places. “Will you tell my friends the Bedu legend which you just told me?” Kaplan asked Silmi when they were seated.

  Sheikh Silmi smiled broadly, baring his teeth. “As you wish,” he said. “At the beginning of the world there was nothing but a strong whirlwind in the desert, and God caught a gust of this wind and out of it he created the Beduin. This Beduin shot an arrow into the air and God caught it and made it into the camel. Then God bent down and picked up a lump of clay and made it into the donkey. And after that God saw that he had forgotten something, and he bent down again and picked up the dung which the donkey had dropped, and out of it he made the peasant.”

  The sheep were brought on enormous wooden dishes, surrounded by mountains of rice, and the meal took its traditional course. There were more speeches and more coffee, and at the end of the meal a fantasia, with the village youths galloping round the square on their small underfed horses and shooting their rifles into the air.

  “Habibi,” Moshe said to Joseph with a discreet belch, “if we did that, they would confiscate the rifles as illegal arms and put us into jug. We are not picturesque.”

  “Shut up,” said Joseph. “You have filled your belly with their food. so stop grumbling. I am enjoying myself.”

  “You go on enjoying yourself,” said Moshe. “And I’ll go on wondering where they got those new Mausers from.”

  “You must ask the Duce,” said Kaplan.

  “What are you a Government official for?” asked Moshe.

  “To play chess with my superiors and collect taxes from you,” said Kaplan. “And if you don’t like it here you can bloody well go back where you came from.”

  At sunset the Jerusalem party set off.

  “Did you notice,” said Cyril Watson to Lady Joyce, “how those boys from the Hebrew settlement behaved? They looked as if they were making dirty cracks all the time, and it never occurred to them to come over and talk to us.”

  “What else did you exp
ect?” said Lady Joyce.

  “I thought you wanted to go and live with them to study Communism,” said Henderson, lighting his pipe.

  They were all tired, and walked for a few steps in silence.

  “I don’t know,” Cyril said after a while. “One’s got to be fair to them. Persecution and all that. But I must say, you can’t call them encouraging.”

  “Never mind,” said Joyce. “You go and study them and sleep with the girl comrades.”

  “… Whereas these Arabs,” Cyril mused, “whatever you think of them, they’ve got a certain style.”

  “That’s it,” said Joyce, getting into the car. “And now you’ve settled the problem I want to sleep all the way back from here to Jerusalem.”

  “Did you notice,” Moshe said to Joseph as they were riding back, on horses borrowed from Gan Tamar, towards Ezra’s Tower, “did you notice that not one of these English people said a word to Kaplan or to either of us?”

  “I did,” said Joseph. “Why didn’t we go and talk to them?”

  “Me?” Moshe puffed indignantly. “Crawl before that arrogant bunch of Herrenvolk number two?”

  “They are less arrogant than shy,” said Joseph. “Inhibitions are a national disease with them.”

  “What a misunderstood nation,” said Moshe. “They had to grab an Empire out of sheer timidity.”

  Joseph patted the head of his horse. It was a small Arab horse and he thought of the pony he used to ride in the bygone days, and of the lawn in front of the spacious Elizabethan house, and of Mr. Watkins the gardener who preached on Sundays in the Methodist church.

  “At home they are different,” he said. “It is unfair to judge them by the type we meet out here. When people talk about the French, they mean the Frenchman in France. When they talk about the English, they mean the Englishman abroad—the tourist and the colonial. But you can live in England for years without seeing anybody of this type—except in the comic cartoons.”

  “I can only judge by those I know,” said Moshe. “If they are so unrepresentative as you say, they shouldn’t send them abroad. Don’t try telling me that poor Henderson is pitting the Arabs against us because he’s shy and has inhibitions.”

  Joseph gave no answer. He felt a little irritated by Moshe, as he often did. But after all it was not his business to defend the English. If they always appeared in the wrong light it was their own fault. Why could they never show themselves as they really were? Why did they disdain to give explanations and hold the judgment of the world in such sovereign contempt?

  “You know it is more complicated than that,” he said after a while.

  “You don’t say.”

  “It is a kind of double-decker sandwich. There is a crusty top layer of apparent arrogance, which in fact is just shyness, as I said. When you pierce that, there is a soft layer of jolliness and decency. But when you get through that too you find the bottom layer of real conceit, which is the more unshakable as it is elastic, mumbling and incoherent. It is the arrogance of the under-statement, which is worse than boasting.”

  “Tov, tov,” said Moshe. “Whether it’s a double-decker conceit or simple arrogance is all the same to me.”

  Having said his evening prayers and put on his blue-and-yellow striped pyjamas, the Hamdan Mukhtar voluptuously stretched his huge body in his bed. It was the first time for many years that he had gone to bed without the shadow of danger hovering over his dreams. He was too excited to go to sleep at once, and after a while called for Issa. Issa came in, his abaye hurriedly thrown over his underclothes.

  “Well, son,” said the Mukhtar with unusual geniality, “thanks to God it was a great day.”

  “Yes, Father,” said Issa.

  “With God’s help there will be peace in the village now for ever,” said the Mukhtar.

  “So help us God,” said Issa.

  “Did it hit your eyes that the English and the Hebrews did not speak together?” the Mukhtar asked thoughtfully. “There must be something behind this. And Henderson effendi made a certain remark …”

  “What did he say, Father?”

  The Mukhtar looked at the pock-marked face of his son and didn’t like it. But he had to talk to somebody.

  “He made a remark about the Dogs’ Hill. He said it was not certain that there would be more settlers coming to live there. He did not say anything clearly. Henderson effendi always talks in riddles.”

  “What does it mean, Father?”

  “I don’t know,” said the Mukhtar. “But it is certain that they did not talk together. They are like cats and dogs, thank God….” He laughed to himself, and added:

  “If there are cats and dogs, what else is there? This is also a riddle, son.”

  “I don’t know,” said Issa.

  “The stick,” said the Mukhtar. He laughed to himself and would have liked Issa to laugh with him. But Issa only gave a sour smile, and the Mukhtar stopped laughing. “The stick,” he repeated. “The stick beats both, the cat and the dog.”

  “Yes, Father,” said Issa.

  Outside in the hills, the moon was just rising over Ezra’s Tower; the big, peaceful, orange-coloured moon of Galilee.

  4

  Pages from the chronicle of Joseph, a member of the Commune of Ezra’s Tower

  Sunday, November … 1938

  Since last week our population has almost doubled. Ezra’s Tower now counts 77 souls: 41 old settlers (including the five children), plus 11 newcomers who are to become permanent members of the Commune, plus 25 boys and girls who are to spend here six months of their vocational training.

  The whole of last week was simply bedlam. All the sweet peace and routine wrecked, shattered, blown to smithereens. Oh our salad days, legendary days, days of youth and innocence.

  The eleven new settlers were the first to arrive. They came on Tuesday. All we knew about them was that they were a mixed bag—Germans, Poles, Rumanians, and even an Egyptian—whom our Colonisation Department was to dump or rather graft on us, as a first instalment of further grafts which, within a year or two, should bring us up to our full establishment of two hundred adult workers. We further knew that they had only recently arrived in the country and were refugees—as distinct from us who, with the exception of Dina and Simeon, had all come before persecution in Europe had started in earnest and more or less out of our own free choice. Finally we knew that they were seven men and four girls, all unmarried so far, and our bachelors of both sexes were looking forward to their arrival with ill-concealed expectations. Particularly Gaby, our red-haired Viennese Messalina who, having a year ago left Max for Mendl, has now left Mendl too—(who, however, does not seem to care much, dividing all his time between the tractor and the string quartet).

  Anyway, we rigged up our three disused tents from the early days, put up a streamer with “BLESSED BE HE WHO COMES” across the gate in the fence, and hoped for the best. They came from Tel Aviv in a truck and arrived during the midday break; so all of us except those working out in the fields lined up at the gate to welcome these newcomers with whom, for all we know, we are going to spend the rest of our lives.

  As the big lorry jolted up the dirt-track with the eleven settlers standing upright in a bunch, and their bundles and possessions piled up messily around them, my first impression was that of a transport of survivors from a fire or earthquake who had saved whatever came first to their hands; there were mattresses, saucepans, a cuckoo-clock, a granny-armchair, a bicycle and even a bird-cage. But they were singing full blast “El yivneh ha-galil” and that improved things a little; though, as the lorry turned in through the gate, we all stared at them silently and dumbly, like an assembly of village yokels at the arrival of the summer guests. I too felt paralysed, and for a second I saw in a frightening flash our own crowd of heavy, slow-moving men and women, mute, wary and backwoodish as we had become during this first long hard year…. But then we began running alongside the lorry, escorting it to the Square, waving and shouting, and the spell was broken
. The lorry stopped in front of the Tower and the new ones jumped down and started singing the anthem, standing nicely to attention; so we did the same, joining in. We hadn’t sung the anthem for God knows how long, and it was all rather solemn. In the middle of it one of the new girls began to cry; she is very fat with a round pudding-face, and she went on singing the refrain with the tears streaming down her face:

  Not yet dead is our hope, the ancient hope

  To return to our Land, the ancient Land,

  To return to our town, the town which David built….

  The second face which caught my eyes was the Egyptian’s. He is swarthy to the point of being quite a Coloured Hebrew Gentleman, with the bluish-white eyeballs and the rubbery loose-jointed limbs of a negro step-dancer. He stood to attention in complete stillness of body—one of the things that Jews as a rule are unable to do—with even his pupils immobilised; they were turned upward, fixed on the topmost point of the Tower. The third one I noticed was a lean and gauche young man, the typical German Akademiker and future Dr. Phil. (subject: Neo-Kantianism). He had jerked to attention over-eagerly with all his muscles cramped and now stood looking as if his bones had been broken and re-set in the wrong way, trying to readjust them by little fidgets. I made a vow not to dislike him and had already broken it at the end of the first verse. Meanwhile Gaby’s eyes had begun melting at the Egyptian (she seems to be capable of having an orgasm in her pupils), while Sarah’s pinched little bird-face assumed that expression of primly indignant refusal which always comes over it when a man appeals to her starved senses. While we went on singing it occurred to me that, while with nine out of ten men Gaby would win hands down, in the case of the Egyptian boy it was just possible that the first impact of Ad-lerian psychotherapy would lay him out and make him forsake Gaby’s more obvious charms. Then my eyes fell on Moshe, standing opposite me and singing full blast, while his gaze wandered with an experienced pawnbroker’s appraisal over the goods and chattels heaped on the truck, which from to-morrow will enrich our Communal stores.