Arabesque (19 page)

As soon as she sat down, he got up and began to dance round the room, his hands thrust deep into trousers pockets, like an embarrassed schoolboy.

“You—you have to take it,” he told her. “Army orders, you know. Very unjust. Often very unjust indeed. The same for all of us. It will all come right in the end, Mrs.
Herne. It always does. But you have to obey.”

“Haven’t I?”

“Oh, yes. Delightful. And all this discipline is so silly for a person like you. Sportsman I always thought you were. Are, I mean. You take everything so—so sportingly. Oh, damn
this!”

“But do tell me in what way I’ve been a nuisance,” begged Armande.

“Not a nuisance. Lovely to see you here. And you’ve been so very kind to me. And you could do is standing on your head, all we’ve given you to do. In your place I should ask
for a court-martial, Mrs. Herne. Fairest court on earth!”

“But I can’t ask for a court-martial,” Armande replied, smiling at his incoherence.

“No. No, I suppose not. You’re a civilian employee. No, you can’t, of course. Dirty shame. I call it!” answered the colonel, wriggling off round the room.
“But—but you have to go.”

“If you won’t tell me what the matter is, shall I ask the adjutant?”

“No, no! No, no! He couldn’t tell you any more than I.”

“But you must see I can’t let it go like that,” said Armande reasonably. “If you won’t tell me, who am I to ask?”

“Oh Lord, it’s difficult! Damn these people! I don’t know what I ought to tell you. Look here, Mrs. Herne, you have an awful lot of friends in Jerusalem, much more than I
have.”

“No, I have very few friends in Jerusalem.”

“Yes, of course. Expressed myself badly. I mean, there’s any amount of people you know.”

“To speak to, yes.”

“Oh, more than that! Oh Lord, Mrs. Herne, don’t tell me that a lovely—well, I don’t know. Yes, I suppose nobody knows you really well. That makes it all the worse. Gosh,
what a mess! What I was going to say was—well, don’t you know any of the intelligence wallahs?”

“What have they got to do with it?” asked Armande, with the clear ring in her voice of an angry but well-bred Englishwoman.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” said the colonel hastily. “I just thought that …”

He anchored himself boldly to a corner of the table, and put his head to the threatening blast.

“Look here—you go and see one of them. You take my advice. I expect some of them are quite decent fellows really. Don’t you know any of them?”

“I know a Captain Fairfather very slightly,” said Armande with disdain.

“Just the man! I don’t know what he does. Sort of policeman, I think. Always running people in for wearing their regimental badges, and that sort of thing. I don’t
know—may be a very nice chap personally. We had a censor in the mess once. Always snooping in people’s letters home. But quite a decent chap when you got to know him. You go and see
Captain Fairfather. Just a personal call, if you see what I mean. I should be so glad to see you back. We all would.”

“Then why let me go?”

“Oh gosh, I’ve told you all about it, Mrs. Herne! You mustn’t be so persistent.”

Armande left without good-byes, as if she were to return to the office next morning. She was dull with anger at the stupidity of—well, not the colonel, but the army. Somewhere, somehow,
this was one of the army’s maddening, collective stupidities. It was so futile to be sacked and to be unable to give any reason.

On the plea of a headache she cancelled a dinner invitation of no importance. At least it seemed of no importance now. She felt it impossible to listen to army chatter without some of her
indignation escaping, and this was not a matter to be confided to anyone until she understood it herself. She knew the mess some combative male would make, when charging for her sake into a
delicate situation. Why, oh why, when they were chivalrous, were they almost always clumsy?

The colonel’s advice was sound. Laurence Fairfather was the right man to see before she or anyone on her behalf could be permitted to challenge the military. She did not like him, but at
least he was reasonable. Too intellectual, John said. But he wasn’t intellectual at all; he used to lay down the law without having read anything that he ought. He was essentially a coarse
man—coarseness seemed to be unfortunately common among his brand of policeman—whom John had completely misunderstood. Laurence Fairfather, it was true, had never attempted to make love
to her, but he made it so casually and revoltingly plain that if she felt the inclination he would be delighted to oblige. The man was a nihilist, morally and politically.

She called him up the next morning, and was immediately invited to lunch. Armande replied coldly that she was engaged for lunch, and then, as was her way, relented.

“It’s just that I would rather see you in your office,” she said.

Captain Fairfather made no comment. That she approved.

“Five o’clock suit you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

There could be no nonsense with Captain Fairfather. He was a man whose compliments were likely to be embarrassing if one looked too attractive. A bloody man—Armande from a child had used
stronger expressions to herself than ever passed her lips—with a lewd bald head. Bald heads, she decided in her annoyance at this disturbance of her peace, were always lewd. Italians had bald
heads. So did commercial travellers. And bankers. But not people with any real culture and gentleness of insight. What did Laurence Fairfather do in peacetime? She didn’t know. Some
commercial job abroad which took him home to London at regular intervals. Tweeds and smart tweeds were the right wear to intimidate Captain Fairfather.

“You look like something out of the
Tatler
,” he said when she entered his office.

“Yes?” she replied indifferently.

“Point to point. So refreshing after all this local colour. A cigarette?”

“Thank you. I was told to come and see you by my colonel.”

“Very naughty of him.”

“Oh, please!” said Armande impatiently.

“But it was. He’s not supposed to indicate to you in any way why you lost your job. Of course it would be ideal if every employer were a born actor and could pretend, when we order
him to sack somebody, that the reason was disgraceful conduct or inefficiency. But they aren’t actors.”

“So it’s true you had something to do with it!”

“I, personally? Nothing at all. Nor your Sergeant Prayle either.”

“Then for heaven’s sake tell me what has happened.”

“Certainly. You have been black-listed for employment by any of the Services.”

Armande stared at him. The Jewish and Arab employees in the army offices had talked mysteriously of this black-listing. It was one of the bogeys, like arms dealing, to be discussed only in a
lowered voice; and dreaded, since its victims, from the point of view of the humble, seemed to be arbitrarily chosen. They were cut off, then and there, from all further attempts to bleed the army
pay roll.

What a phrase! Armande shuddered at her racing, uncharitable thoughts. And yet how many of them had sacrificed anything at all to work for the garrison? If they could get more money elsewhere,
they got it. Devotion? Damn you, she exclaimed to herself, won’t you allow devotion to anyone but Armande? Not those, anyway! And when it comes to having the impertinence to black-list a
British subject of standing (what standing, darling, damn you again?) I’ll … I’ll …

“Why?” she asked casually, as if the whole matter concerned some other woman.

“Because, I suppose, we are afraid of you.”

“No, you are not. Not a bit. Is this a punishment because I have Jewish friends?”

“As many as I?” he asked gently.

“Oh, you! You can get away with anything.”

“So can you. Or at least you ought to be able to. I don’t know what has gone wrong. I don’t know why you are so touchy on this Palestine problem. Just what is your opinion of
Zionism?”

“I think we have broken our word,” she exclaimed with a flashing vehemence that sprang from her personal humiliation rather than any political anger. “I think the White Paper
was a scandal, and the League of Nations said it was a scandal. We have stopped the Jews building up their National Home. And it doesn’t matter in the least what the meaning of National Home
is.”

“We also kept the Arabs quiet.”

“That may be. But if I were a Jew, I’d be an extremist.”

“Do you often say things like that?”

“Yes, if I feel like it. Is that why I’m black-listed?”

“No. We aren’t quite such fools, you know. Your opinions, of course, might be considered—well, some slight additional evidence. But I don’t know if anyone ever bothered
with them.”

He offered her another cigarette, and lit it. His eyes were annoyingly and steadily returning to hers.

“Good God, what a glowing person you are!” he said with a half laugh. “And we continue to talk nonsense.”

Armande, raging internally, kept her temper.

“You think that has nothing to do with it, but it has,” he went on. “I wouldn’t use those words of some obvious little trickster. You’re mysterious, yes. But
it’s so clear from your face that … well, Spencer, isn’t it?
For of the soule the bodie forme doth take: For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.
I can’t feel you
could ever be harmful to anything I believe in. That sounds conceited, I know. And naturally what I believe doesn’t matter to you in the least.”

He spoke slowly, and Armande had time to regain an uneasy balance. Her thoughts were too ragged for her to feel any sort of relaxation, but she liked what he said; it sounded sincere. The man
might be a nuisance, yet less ordinary than she had imagined.

“Home is so far away, Captain Fairfather. Have we got to fence with one another?” she begged. “What crime am I supposed to have committed?”

“Really I don’t know. It’s in Beirut that they know, or think they know. It appears that in a moment of carelessness or idealism—not, I am sure, for money—you did a
job for the French or the Jews.”

“I did neither,” Armande retorted indignantly. “Doesn’t one department of Intelligence ever tell another what it is doing?”

“Not if one department is Abu Tisein.”

“You mean I’ve been sacrificed to—what?”

“Something worthy, I hope. I’m not in this, you see. Palestine—contrary to what you thought—has nothing whatever against you. My only information comes from Wyne, whom I
trust, and he trusts Prayle, and Prayle says—he’s far from complimentary for so devoted an admirer—he says you are not only innocent, but sweet innocent into the
bargain.”

“Sergeant Prayle said that?” she asked coldly.

“Well, I’m translating his thought into my own words, you know. He may have put it quite differently.”

“Something about my little loaf, probably,” Armande replied, measuring contempt into every word.

Captain Fairfather chuckled.

“Noggin, I think,” he corrected her.

Armande had to smile. Nevertheless Prayle’s impudence was exasperating. A sweet innocent, indeed—she a disciplined, calm, worldly woman, who had taken an active interest in every
intellectual movement of her time!

“Why on earth don’t you people ask David Nachmias about me?” she said.

“Has it occured to you that he must have been asked before you were black-listed?”

Armande stared at him.

“Oh!”

It was a cry of pain, childlike and uncontrollable, as if caused by some small, surprising wound. His words opened an abyss of human infamy. And it was no valley through which she had to pass.
She was in it. Now. And what he said was true, so obviously and unchallengeably true.

“But then—I’m back where I was.”

“Where was that?” he asked.

“Oh, just—Beirut.”

“I don’t know what sort of hell that means to you. But you aren’t back where you were.”

“Yes.”

“What about friends?”

“Not much use, are they, in this sort of thing?”

“I didn’t mean the brigadiers,” he said, smiling.

“They would shy off, wouldn’t they?” she agreed bitterly. “No, I’m grateful. Thank you.”

“Don’t. I hate injustice too.”

“How do you know there has been any?”

“Oh, refer to our earlier conversation … My poor Armande, this is a scandalous thing!”

She accepted the sudden use of her Christian name. So timed, it nearly made her cry.

“What am I to do?”

“Well, if I were you, I should go to Egypt.”

“Will I be …?”

She hesitated over the word.

“Black-listed there too? Yes, I’m afraid so. But there are two good reasons for going. One is that you may get home from there. The other—you’re better out of Palestine
till this can be cleared up. In your present situation you’re open to police slanders, exploitation, anything. My driver has an odd story of women changing into men, and I see a man is wanted
who disappeared from Beit Chabab. No, don’t tell me anything! I liked your Sergeant Prayle. But the connection with you is there to be made if the right policeman reads our black list. Have
you a passport?”

“Of course.”

“Give it me. I’ll fix up your visa.”

“I can do it myself, really,” she protested.

“Perhaps.”

“Only perhaps?”

“Anyway, I could do it much more quickly.”

Laurence Fairfather’s suggestion that she should go to Egypt was wise. She had certainly no wish to be asked any polite questions about Fouad. And every intimate impulse prompted her to
get out of Palestine. It was impossible to sit idly in her flat and put off all the awkward and friendly inquiries; impossible even to talk to her acquaintances while wondering how much they
knew.

“Who knows about this?” she asked.

“About what?”

“About what I am supposed to have done.”

“Your name us just one among hundreds. If you don’t apply for jobs with the Services, and don’t come to the notice of officialdom—”

“But how long must I endure this?” she interrupted. “Can’t I be cleared? Can’t I ask for some sort of inquiry?”

“Yes, I think you could. But would you be any better off? Who really were those troops in British uniform who collected the arms?”