The Sun Chemist (26 page)

No time for reflection here. I rolled over on hands and knees right away and got moving. He couldn’t have seen me, but earth must have tumbled down, because the next thing I heard was the dog yelping as it ran along the road. I got to my feet and went pellmell down the hill, almost skiing, and in a flash, quite a flash, slammed into a boulder, and blacked out.

Everything black. There was earth in my mouth. I spat it out and tried to scramble to my feet but discovered that in some curious way I was stuck. I was in a pit. My feet were tangled in a cage. It took some scrambled moments to discover that I’d come to rest in some newly prepared foundations. A web of reinforcing
iron was in them, ready for concrete-pouring, and my feet were jammed in. I tugged and wrenched them out, and one
immediately
twisted underneath me.

I leaned back against the mound of spoil and felt the foot ache quite sickeningly. All the rest of me was aching. I’d collected a solid thump on the head and a bruise was swelling above my eyes. Another thing was that I couldn’t hear the dog.

Strange.

Stranger, now that the world was slowing, the unknown
building
was slowly turning itself into the back of the San Martin.

How the devil had I got to the back of the San Martin? I couldn’t remember seeing it from this position. Ahead and a bit to the right were lit-up streets and buildings. My instinct was to go for them – to get away from the San Martin, anyway. Except that whatever I thought, wouldn’t this fast thinker have
out-thought
me? I felt the hairs prickling all over my body. Away from here, anyway!

Resting on the good foot, I felt around and found a solid lump of rock with each hand, and at once began to hobble away from the San Martin. The damaged foot ached quite hideously, but it supported me. Toward the edge of the area of light, I paused and gradually began to orientate. Some of the buildings were definitely familiar. The Institute of Applied Science – wasn’t it? Definitely the Institute of Pure Mathematics. Quite close by, the heavy-water plant was thumping and gurgling: a cloud of steam hung in the air.

Lit-up windows in the buildings, cars parked, air conditioners whirring. Safer here, surely, to stop skulking in shadow and come out into the light. There must be people about.

I took a breath and hobbled out into the road, into the middle of it, and actually began to trot, clutching firmly to the rock. Weirdly, there still wasn’t a soul in sight. The whole Institute might have been hissing and clicking away like a robot
installation
on the moon. I had a distinct impression he was going to spring out at me from somewhere. I thought I’d send one rock through a lighted window and save the other for him. But
nobody
sprang and nobody appeared, and with a deepening sense of unreality I realized I wasn’t destined to encounter another
human being in this particular nightmare, until I looked to the left and saw one.

A cosy and familiar building sat at the end of a narrow lane, and a cosy and familiar figure was coming down the steps of it. With the nightmare knowledge that nothing would avail and nobody hear, I inflated my lungs and roared.

‘Finster!’

He stopped as though shot, and after a pause began turning this way and that, powerful nose almost scenting.

‘Finster!’

He saw me, and by this time could hardly help it. In the empty lane I was springing high in the air on the good foot, both arms semaphoring. He continued slowly down the steps of the Daniel Sieff and I hobbled rapidly toward him.

‘Finster – I’m so glad to see you!’

‘Ah.’ He seemed pleased at this. ‘You are taking some exercise?’ he said.

I was in a fine lather all over, the breath fairly singing from my nostrils. ‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Excellent. It is too easy to be lazy when the warm weather comes. What is it – specimens you have collected?’ He was
adjusting
his spectacles to examine more closely the rocks in my hand.

I had a look, too, before throwing them away, and then back at Finster. He looked so real, so good. ‘What are you doing here?’ I said.

He smiled indulgently. ‘A fermentation knows nothing of Remembrance Day. There are certain readings I must check … But I understand well the urge to pick up a specimen or two, however worthless. It’s hard to run, without an object. Although I understand Dr Patel does it. He runs also at night, I believe.’

‘I know he does,’ I said.

I recalled Marie-Louise’s remarks about his night exercise, and at the same moment had a recollection from last December,
looking
out the window at the rapid, jerky movement of a running man. Patel.

‘It’s a question of temperament,’ Finster was saying. ‘It’s hard for a person of impatient temperament just to exercise. I myself
use the stationary bicycle. One can take a reading at the same time.’

We walked amiably back to the avenue together, and he cited a further example or two to illustrate the impatience of his
temperament
. He walked me right up to the academic courtyard before wishing me a good night, and I hobbled briskly into it, giving the guard on Katzir’s house a loud
shalom
to insure that he was awake and watching me as I made my way to Ham’s and pressed the doorbell.

He answered it himself. He had a towel round his waist and a glass of Scotch in his hand. His mouth opened as he took in my disheveled condition, and then a bit more as I took his Scotch from him and drank it.

‘What the hell happened to you?’ he said.

I let the Scotch go down.

‘Ham, did you call me at the House?’

‘Yes. I tried the San Martin, and they said –’

‘About half past six?’

‘No, two minutes ago. I thought maybe you’d fallen asleep, so –’

Not Ham, then. Patel had phoned, and received no answer … He
hadn’t
known I was there. It had been surprise, shock, he’d shown when he’d hunched forward and seen me from the window.

‘What is it?’ Ham said.

I told him.

He didn’t seem able to take it. He stood blinking at me. He said, ‘But that’s absolutely – Are you sure?’

‘No doubt of it.’

‘It’s unbelievable … Oh, my God!’ His face suddenly changed. ‘We are expecting him. He’s coming here.
Marie-Louise
thought it would be better if Marta and you didn’t – if Marta went with the Sassoons. Now what the –’

The phone rang, and Marie-Louise answered it, apparently from upstairs. She shouted down presently that it was Patel to say we needn’t wait. He was at the Sassoons’, and not feeling well. If he went to the concert, he would go with them.

‘Did Igor arrive yet?’ she called.

‘He’s here now.’

‘Oh. He asked. I didn’t know. Hi, Igor! I’ll be down in a minute.’

Ham poured another drink.

I was rapidly phoning Meyer; but he’d gone.

‘Ham, what am I to do?’

‘Well, goddam it – look, don’t alarm Marie-Louise.’ There were hurried sounds of her collecting herself.’ Are you sure it was him?’

‘It
was
him, damn it. It was.’

‘Well, I suppose, the police, security … What do you tell them?’

‘Well, I say … What do I say?’

‘That a guy broke in, who looked like – who was of the physical
type
of –’

‘He didn’t break in. He had a key.’

‘Well, he wouldn’t have that now.’

‘No.’ We looked at each other. I can’t just go to a concert,’ I said.

‘What is
he
going to do?’

‘Run.’

‘After you?’

‘No, I meant – Well, maybe,’ I said, worried.

‘At the concert?’

‘Well, he won’t go to the concert.’

‘Would he expect you to go?’

‘No. Yes. Damn it, I don’t know. What do you think?’

‘I guessed he’d think, after everything that’s happened, that you certainly wouldn’t – I mean …’

‘No. No.’

‘So maybe it would be better if – I mean, not to stay where … God knows.’

‘Yes.’

‘Hello, Igor.’ Marie-Louise was coming downstairs. ‘Ham, aren’t you dressed yet?’ … Igor?’ She’d suddenly caught sight of my battle stains. ‘What on earth have you done to yourself?’

‘He fell over,’ Ham said truthfully. ‘Out there.’

‘Oh, Igor! Those building sites. Are you hurt?’

‘No, I –’

‘And your trousers!’ They, were liberally bespattered with dirt, an orange stain on each knee. ‘Well, thank goodness I got the others back. Come upstairs and wash up. I’ll give you …’

In a couple of minutes I was washing up, and changing into the other trousers. I seemed to be changing trousers a good deal in this house. Just a few minutes later, still unclear about most issues, I was on the way to Caesarea.

*

I recovered a little on the way, and thought out the position: Patel’s gumshoeing around and watching me, the careful sowing of suspicion about Marta. He had evidently wanted Marta out of the way. I stayed in the House longer when Marta was there. Remembrance Day must have seemed a good bet: nobody about if I didn’t work late. He had telephoned first, had quietly and systematically tried all the doors. He must have got the shock of his life when he’d seen me watching him from below …

I recalled the desperate squeak of his shoes on the marble plaza. Like a fool, I’d dived into the groves at the very place where he’d · earlier spotted me with Marta. Well, he’d lost me, anyway. Perhaps I’d been knocked out longer than I thought. I hadn’t
appeared
where he’d calculated I would appear. He had evidently figured that I must have found a way of getting to Ham’s. He hadn’t turned up there, anyway. But he had telephoned to see if I had. And Marie-Louise had told him no. He must now be working out what I was up to.

I tried to work out what he was up to. At the Sassoons’.
Deciding
whether to go to the concert or not; trying to read my mind, as I was his. Either I’d recognized him or I hadn’t. If I hadn’t he must act quite naturally. He hadn’t been acting naturally; he’d changed plans abruptly. But of course he’d been rattled. I looked at my watch. Unbelievably, it was still not quite half past seven. Less than an hour since I’d heard the quiet snick of the door from Chaimchik’s room. But he would have pulled himself together by now.

How would pulled-together Patel read the situation?
Somewhere
in the rubbish heaps by the atom-smasher, he’d lost a very frightened I. Druyanov. I. Druyanov, whether he’d recognized
him or not, would shortly after, from some haven, be raising hell and security men. Security men would by now be at the House. If Druyanov
had
recognized him, they would also be beaming in on Patel. He would by now be regretting that he’d gone to the Sassoons‘; would be rapidly thinking up some reason why he was there instead of at the Wykes’, where he was supposed to be. But from then on he’d do everything that he was supposed to do. What was he supposed to do? Go to the concert.

Yes. He’d go; certain to. I was suddenly sure of it. I’d be seeing Patel soon. He wouldn’t expect to see me. Well, jolly good. In a way …

The amphitheatre at Caesarea was a splendid sight in the black night, but as I hobbled up the steep stone steps I was on the
look-out
for an even more splendid one. I saw it presently: white mane of hair, Red Indian face very grave as he peered down into the arena below. He was in the V.I.P. tier, some tiers below ours, and an aisle away. I couldn’t stop or turn back in the file of late arrivals, but I marked the spot, and when we were seated marked it again.

He wasn’t so far from the aisle. I was seated at the edge of mine, which was all to the good. I needed him. The first car park had been full of buses and we’d been signaled on to the secondary one beside the Crusader town. I’d thought out the position as we hurried back the few hundred yards to the
amphitheatre
.

We were scarcely seated on the stone benches (on cushions Marie-Louise had wisely brought) before the drums rolled.
Everyone
stood as Katzir arrived below. The national anthem was played, and then he took his seat and the whole place settled. In the general hubbub, even later arrivals were still scuttling up the stone steps.

I hadn’t seen Connie, or Marta. I hadn’t seen any of them. All around, the great rock bowl seethed, the tiers aglow with faces, like banks of flowers; there was the glint of jewelry, women’s bare arms, petallike. But now, as I sank back, I saw Connie waving, some distance along the row. She’d come with a party,
and a block of vacant seats stretched between. It suddenly struck me why they were vacant as Felicia Sassoon came loping,
pink-faced
, up the steps. She was followed by Marta, and by Michael, and by none other than Dr Ram Patel.

There was a very satisfactory double take out of him as he spotted me. I was standing to let them shuffle past, everything now ashuffle: choirs below shuffling onto long benches at the back of the brilliantly lit arena; musicians fiddling with their music stands; Zubin Mehta gently flexing inside his tail coat on the podium.

‘So sorry … so sorry,’ as they passed.

‘I must speak to you!’ Patel was gripping my arm, hissing in my ear.

‘All right.’

‘Most urgent. Do nothing until then.’

He had passed, and passed Marie-Louise and Ham and Felicia, was sinking furtively into place as the conductor’s arms came up, and down, and the
Eroica
began.

I was in some turmoil as I listened to the sonorous opening chords. ‘I must speak to you! … Do nothing until then.’ He’d thought up something fast, then. I was in turmoil, anyway. There was something peculiarly apt and sonorous about all
ceremonial
events in Israel: a resonance of ages. Just now, in this place, there was an aptness so extraordinary that two thousand hearts seemed to catch, all around.

Beethoven had dedicated his symphony to Napoleon, and then had second thoughts on observing that the idol had feet of clay, a notion familiar in the area. But as the massive work proceeded with its hammer blows of fate, its lament for heroes and its funeral march, there was a spasm even more intimate and
poignant
from the audience. Between the last Independence eve and this, heroes had fallen here, some for good and all, others into political darkness. A whole sanguine society had been felled, was on hands and knees, still stunned; and not for the first time, or even for the first time in this place.