The Mandelbaum Gate (10 page)

‘I’ll
have a look at him,’ Freddy said. ‘One likes to know who’s who.’ He filed a
confidential report about the insurance business carried on between young Abdul
and his father. He reflected wearily on the difficulty of making any real
friends among the inhabitants of countries where one was posted. He had only
taken three lessons in Arabic from young Abdul at that time. Freddy decided to
discontinue the lessons with Abdul. He made up his mind to appoint a new
teacher. A pity, because Abdul was a pleasant fellow in his eager recklessness.
Freddy had felt he could understand Abdul. But after all one could never understand
these people. This young man was involved in too many things for Freddy’s
liking.

‘Arabic’s
a terrible bore,’ Freddy said to his colleague.

‘Frightful.
I don’t see the point in learning it, really. At least, not unless one is going
to stay here forever.’

‘Young
Ramdez is all right,’ Freddy said, ‘but he seems to be involved in too many
things for my liking. Life insurance. Terribly persistent about a policy. I’m
getting another teacher.’ As he spoke, Freddy felt greatly relieved to have
arrived at this decision, he even felt a satisfactory sense of having
accomplished the object of it.

And so
it was not necessary, after that, actually to get rid of Abdul Ramdez by
discontinuing the lessons in Arabic. And, after all, Abdul continued to call at
the hotel three times a week to instruct Freddy, who had progressed
sufficiently to be able to exchange formal phrases with Arab officials at
official gatherings, but not as yet advanced enough to make much headway with
the Arabs in the Arab quarters. Young Abdul spent one hour on each of the
lessons, and lingered, usually, another hour to depict himself and his early
life in romantically exaggerated scenes which delighted Freddy but did not
altogether deceive him. Abdul had also boringly continued to press Freddy on
the question of the insurance policy, each time exaggerating the mild interest
Freddy had expressed on the previous occasion.

‘As you
have said you have definitely decided—’

‘No,
no, I haven’t decided anything. I only said …’

It seemed
that the tendency to exaggerate ran in the family. But what one could take from
an attractive young fellow like Abdul in Israel was a different matter when it
came to the preposterous Joe Ramdez over here in Jordan. Freddy had sat in
Joanna’s garden, appalled and altogether beset by an inarticulate dread while
Ramdez approached, followed by his womenfolk.

‘It’s a
question of sincerity,’ Joanna said in her quick, chattery voice, as she passed
the teacups. She was interrupting her husband to assist him in making the point
of his story. Matt Cartwright, accustomed to these interruptions, went on in
his slow way to describe a qualm occasioned by his having newly got false
teeth. He was explaining in detail that, when a spontaneous smile occurred on
his face in response to his usual feelings, something now happened in his mouth
to prevent the smile taking the same form as it used to do.

‘They
don’t fit yet,’ Joanna said. ‘He’s got to be patient with them, till they
settle down.’

Matt
went on in his slow way. This story was to be their standby for some months to
come. He said, ‘Then, when I find myself giving a slightly different sort of
smile, d’you see, so help me God, I find myself feeling a slightly different
sort of emotion. I feel a bit false.’

‘He
feels a bit false,’ Joanna chattered, ‘and it makes you wonder what sincerity
is. I mean to say it’s a question whether the movements of one’s facial muscles
are adapted to one’s feelings or the feelings to — Mrs Ramdez, don’t you have
anything in your tomato juice?’

Matt
fell silent. Joe Ramdez beamed at Freddy, uninhibited by any relation between
his feelings and his facial expression. The Arab family all declined alcoholic
drinks. The younger daughter had a haunted look. The elder girl was, like the
mother, fat and stupid-looking, but the younger daughter was like her brother
Abdul, lean and blue-eyed, and she looked haunted. There is a history, Freddy
thought, behind that blue-eyed young pair.

Freddy
had seen the mother and girls before. They worked in the travel agency. Joe
Ramdez had introduced them as ‘my little team.

Joe
Ramdez now said to Freddy, ‘It’s better to smile without the heart behind it
than not to smile at all.’

‘Oh, he
won’t agree with that — not Freddy,’ said Joanna, while Freddy realized he was
looking as depressed as he felt.

‘Have
my wild flowers been watered this afternoon?’ Joanna said. ‘Freddy, did you see
them being watered at all?’

‘I did,’
Freddy said, as if it was a duty he had performed; he longed for that earlier
departed hour in the afternoon before this crowd had appeared.

He
said, ‘I always feel this garden has such a delightful English atmosphere.’

The
younger girl looked apprehensive. The father smiled with a curious histrionic
glitter of the eye, by which many modern Arabs intended to express proud
loathing; they had got the trick from the cinema, over the years. At any rate,
Freddy realized he had said the wrong thing.

Not
that Joe Ramdez really cared one way or another. Freddy was aware, however,
that Joe had taken the opportunity of umbrage to put him in the wrong. Freddy
said, ‘I only mean, of course, that these wild flowers of Joanna’s are nothing
more or less than English wild flowers, planted in the countryside by silly
women during the Mandate.’

‘Freddy!’
said Joanna.

‘Early
tomorrow morning,’ said the wounded Arab, ‘I’m taking my little team on a trip
to Amman. It’s our only chance before the tourist season, of really getting
into our delightful Jordanian atmosphere.’

The
younger girl looked desperately at Freddy. Evidently she was longing to behave
in a Westernized mode to suit her clothes, and, no doubt, her feelings. There
was no guessing the variety of feelings amongst the very young in these parts.

‘So we
must go now,’ said Joe. His little team got up with him. He said to Freddy, ‘By
the way, I’ve got to send you a medical form and proposal form. A boy will
bring it. I know the doctor whom you can go to. He’s good for deferred
endowments even when appearance is unhealthy. I had a client last week that went
to Dr Russeifa with his form. Appearance was older than age given. There was
impairment of sight and hearing. Pupillary and patellar reflexes were abnormal.
Plenty of abdominal varicosities — well, Dr Russeifa has told me all this
trouble, but he fixed the client’s medical. Russeifa will make you all right. I’ll
make the arrangement.’

When
they had gone, Joanna said to her husband, ‘Did you hear what he said about
Russeifa? I don’t believe a word of it. Russeifa’s one of the most
conscientious men in the medical team.’ They were both deep in local welfare
work and were in a position to know what they were talking about.

‘Ramdez
is a liar,’ Freddy said, ‘the biggest I’ve ever met. Like an alcoholic. He lies
as he breathes.’

‘Well,
Freddy …’ said Joanna. She was relaxing on the bench with her drink, relieved
at the departure of the Ramdez guests, and now she seemed uncertain how to
chatter on, since it was unusual for Freddy to denounce anyone like this.

‘They
think in symbols,’ Matt said.

‘That’s
it,’ said Joanna. ‘It’s the Arab mentality. They think in symbols. Everything
stands for something else. And when they speak in symbols it sounds like lies.’

‘It is
lies,’ said Freddy.

‘Oh,
Freddy, come! Why are you taking out this insurance policy with Ramdez, dear?
It’s asking for trouble.’

‘I’m
not taking out any policy,’ Freddy said. ‘His son, who teaches me Arabic over
in Israel, has been trying to talk me into it. But I’ve made no definite
decision.’

‘You
should have said definitely no,’ Matt said. ‘If you don’t say no, they take it
you mean yes. That’s symbolic thought.’

‘Not to
me,’ Freddy said.

‘Is
young Ramdez a nice fellow?’ Joanna said.

‘A
remarkably pleasant young man.’

‘Freddy,
you mustn’t let him get round you for any insurance policy out here.’

‘I don’t
think they’re really interested in insurance, anyway,’ Freddy said.

‘Nor do
I,’ said Matt.

‘Nor do
I,’ said Joanna.

‘They’re
interested in you, Freddy,’ Matt said.

‘You’re
a symbol, Freddy.’

‘Yes,
but of what?’

‘Something
useful in the Foreign Service —’

‘God
help me,’ Freddy said, ‘I thought that’s what I really am.’

‘What
did you mean by saying that my wild flowers of the Holy Land are English
flowers?’

Freddy
felt the moment was not ripe to explain his theory to Joanna. Indeed, it might
undermine her at this tired moment, which was the last thing … He said
instead, ‘Miss Vaughan, the schoolteacher lady, is very pleased with the
geraniums you sent, very touched, you know. I believe she’s coming over next
week. As I say, she’s a bit tense, but you’ll do her good, Joanna dear.’

‘Oh, do
you know,’ Joanna said. ‘I was talking to Joe Ramdez about Miss Vaughan. He’s
promised to send one of his drivers to the Gate to pick her up. Isn’t it nice
of him? Now really, you must admit that’s good of him. If one of the Ramdez men
is there to meet her she won’t have any trouble with the officials.’

‘Is he
doing it for free?’ Matt said.

‘Oh
yes, and he’ll lay on a guide and everything to take her round.’

‘He
must have a reason,’ Matt said.

‘We are
the reason,’ Joanna said.

She was
darting between her husband’s chair and Freddy’s seat on the bench, in her red
dress, collecting their empty glasses and handing them back filled with good
strong drinks. ‘Joe Ramdez,’ she said, ‘would do anything for us.’

‘You
didn’t,’ said Matt, ‘tell Ramdez that this woman had Jewish blood?’

‘Of
course not,’ Joanna said. ‘I only told him there might be trouble with her
visa, seeing that it’s unusual for Christian pilgrims to go to the Israel side
first.’

‘They
mustn’t know anything about her Jewish blood,’ Matt said. ‘She’d be in trouble.
We’d all be in trouble. The government here is looking for a bit of trouble
with the Jews at the moment.’

‘She’s
only half,’ Freddy said.

‘Half
is enough,’ Matt said. ‘They think in symbols over here. The Jewish half is the
symbolic half.’

‘Which
half is the most important to her?’ Joanna said.

‘Don’t
ask me. Miss Vaughan’s only a recent acquaintance, you know. Very pleasant
woman, of course. And with a British passport. After all, she—’

‘Most
of the people arrested as Israeli spies have got British passports,’ Matt said.
‘She’d be taken for an Israeli spy if they knew of any Jewish blood or
background and arrived here by way of Israel. Does she realize that?’

‘I
really don’t know,’ Freddy said. ‘Is that true? It sounds quite absurd.’

Joanna,
in her inexhaustible enthusiasm for seeing to the welfare of others, said, ‘Freddy,
you aren’t taking Miss Vaughan’s difficulty seriously enough.’

‘I don’t
see what can be done, Joanna dear,’ said Freddy, so deeply conscious of his fault
that he leant forward and rested his chin on his hand to try and be serious
about Miss Vaughan’s difficulty. ‘She’s a devout R.C. and she naturally wants
to visit all the shrines of the Holy Land. There’s really no difficulty.’

‘What
about the man?’ Matt said.

‘Yes,
what about the man?’ Joanna said.

Matt
said, ‘I take it that’s the whole point of her coming here.’

‘Oh no,
she wants to visit the holy places.’

‘I’ll
take her up to the Potter’s Field,’ Joanna said. ‘The guides won’t go near the
Potter’s Field, they’re terrified.’

‘You
keep away from the Potter’s Field,’ Matt said.

‘I
shouldn’t go there too often, Joanna,’ Freddy said. The hill road to the Potter’s
Field bordered on disputed territory, and wanderers in the area were likely to
be shot at by the patrolmen of either country.

Matt
said, ‘This man that’s digging at the Dead Sea — why doesn’t he come up and
look after her? He should go across to Israel and see her, instead of her
coming here to see him.’

‘The
scholars aren’t allowed to go back and forth. The Jordanian government won’t
allow it,’ Freddy said. ‘Of course, the Israeli scholars get to know everything
in time.’

‘He
could leave Jordan by air and enter Israel by sea. He could easily get there if
he wanted to,’ Matt said.

‘Well,
she wants to come here for religious reasons.’

‘Let
her come,’ Joanna said.

Then
Freddy, dismayed by a disastrous thought that had occurred to him, but proud
since it proved he was taking Miss Vaughan’s difficulty seriously, said, ‘But
look, young Ramdez over in Israel probably knows about her Jewish blood.’