School for Love Page 18

  Felix, however, was called to the Transport Office and told to see that his passport was in order. Hundreds of English people caught in the Middle East by war had now to be sent home. He said he was in no hurry, but the authorities seemed to think the sooner the civilians went the better.

  Although he was disturbed and depressed at the thought of leaving Mrs Ellis, he was also a little excited and a little afraid. Pictures of England he had long forgotten began to come complete and brilliant into his mind.

  He saw the crescent where he and his mother had had their flat in Bath. The houses had been massive and columned like classical buildings, but in his imagination they hung upon the grey English atmosphere like drawings on tissue paper. He had been a little boy then – seven or eight; he had had a bicycle. He saw clearly his own red knees as he sped round the crescent. There were football-boots tied on his handle-bars. When he rode out through the town he had always gazed up from among the streets to see the near hills with their smooth, misted vistas of greensward and the smoky tree shapes crowding round great columned house fronts. Suddenly, walking in the hot, sun-shrill Jerusalem streets, he smelt the English autumn. He came to a stop, feeling upon his hands the damp-cold and seeing the blue drift of wood smoke, the patch of squelching mud at the field-gate; the red of the boys’ jerseys and the red berry clusters among the brown and yellow leaves. When he came to himself and realised how far away were these things, a nostalgia overwhelmed him. There had been Christmas. That came to him as something experienced indoors with the outside world green and wet. He saw logs on the fire, the glinting tree and, again, his mother. Without her, of course, Christmas would be another thing. At some time he must have seen snow, for the memory of the Jerusalem snow seemed to echo a memory of England. Then, realising that one day Jerusalem would be only a memory, he felt regret for it . . . But this went when he saw – where had he seen it? – a flat field with a flat stream turning like a looking-glass snake between the pollarded willows. Although he was nervous of the distant country that had ceased to be familiar to him, he could remember how, neither privileged nor resented as he was here, he had once belonged there . . . But he had had his mother then; now, perhaps, it would be different. Perhaps he would take back with him a quality of strangeness; he might find he no longer belonged; he might be resented. He was touched by a nausea of apprehension and he wished he were not going alone. If only Mrs Ellis were going with him! Caught between desire to go and stay, nervous and alone, he made a desperate appeal to her:

  ‘Do try and come on my boat. It’d be such fun.’

  She shrugged vaguely and said: ‘Oh, I don’t want to go back so soon. I believe it’s misery having a baby in England these days.’

  Then, as time passed and no word came from the Transport Office, these thoughts and memories faded from his mind. But it was as though his life had been disturbed at the roots and would not settle into Palestine soil again. He did not find Mrs Ellis as satisfying a companion as he had done: her voice sometimes sounded harsh and unfriendly: her judgments hard. He knew now she was often bored with his company. Small, unimportant events could fill him with irritation so that he began to wonder, if, like the man in the wool shop, he was suffering from living on top of a mountain.

  One day as he was working in his room, he heard an unusual rustle among the mulberry leaves below his window. Looking out, he saw that a Bedu woman and her brats were filling some large, flat baskets with mulberries. One boy, up in the tree, was dropping mulberries in handfuls to another. Three girls spaced round the tree were picking at a great rate, as though they meant to strip the branches. One small child was tearing off handfuls of the lower leaves and berries and scattering them about the ground. The baskets were nearly full.

  Felix felt indignation swelling in his throat. As he leant from the window to shout he could scarcely get the words out: ‘Yallah, yallah!’ The woman gave him a casual glance, then they all picked the faster. Felix shouted again, and when they still ignored him, he ran from his room. Rage seemed to transport him in a flash into the garden. He expected the whole family to bolt at the sight of him, but the children took no notice at all. The mother, twisting her face in a second into a mask of whining misery, stuck out a thin, dirty arm with a jangle of silver bracelets and began to beg. The small child, copying the attitude of its mother, began to beg, too, but the other children snatched the last of the berries within their reach. The boy up the tree stuffed his last handful into his mouth. The tree looked torn and naked.

  ‘Oh, yallah! Go on – yallah!’ raged Felix and ran at the boy under the tree, who was about his own age. The boy darted off nimbly: his brother slid down and away. The woman and the girls, making no haste, propped the edges of their baskets on to their hips and adjusted their head-cloths before trudging off leisurely to start selling the fruit in the main street.

  Felix watched them helplessly. It was only when they had gone that he noticed Nikky lying full-length on the seat beneath the tree, open-eyed and gazing up through the pale, translucent leaves at the top. In his anger he forgot his usual deference towards Nikky and said:

  ‘Didn’t you see that crowd of Bedu stealing the mulberries?’

  Nikky twitched his shoulders: ‘Mulberries,’ he yawned, ‘a worthless fruit. Now, in Poland, we have raspberries . . .’

  ‘I like mulberries,’ Felix broke in and would not stay to hear about the Polish raspberries. When he returned to the sitting-room, he saw Miss Bohun coming downstairs and, sure of her approval, said: ‘There was a crowd of Bedu stealing the mulberries. I drove them away.’

  Miss Bohun clicked her tongue but she did not seem much concerned. ‘It happens every year,’ she said, ‘you can do nothing with the Bedu. If you drive them off now they’re back early in the morning before you’re awake. But it’s such a big tree. Thank goodness there’s enough fruit for everyone. I often have to give it away; but I always feel that whatever I give comes back in some other way. If I let the Bedu take the mulberries, God will give me something much more useful in return.’

  Felix, listening to this, on top of his indignation, felt at once irritated and in the wrong. He was relieved that Mrs Ellis, when she heard of the incident, was as indignant as he was. She said: ‘Those disgusting Bedu. It’s not only that they strip all the mulberries, but they tear the tree to pieces.’

  They were both fond of the tree that, heavy in foliage now, was a refuge from the growing heat.

  Sitting hidden beneath it, only a few yards from the open door of the house, they could overhear Miss Bohun giving a lesson or talking on the telephone. In this way they discovered she was organising a new ‘Ever-Ready’ entertainment. Parts were being apportioned and pupils were required not only to buy tickets, but to sell them.

  ‘Now I rely on you, Mr Liftshitz,’ her voice came one afternoon through the door, ‘to take four tickets for your family and I hope you will sell two more to your mother-in-law.’

  ‘Ach, no,’ breathed Mr Liftshitz nervously, ‘I cannot my mother-in-law make buy any such things.’

  ‘Nonsense, Mr Liftshitz. I’m sure you would succeed if you kept poking her.’

  Mr Liftshitz, murmuring and sighing, was hustled from the room and went out of the garden gate with the tickets in his hand.

  One pupil, a Greek, counter-attacked by asking Miss Bohun to help organise an entertainment that would bring in money for the Greek refugees encamped, she said, in misery down at Rafah. The appeal grew impassioned and was not brief. Miss Bohun apparently did not interrupt it, but when it was over she replied in coolly measured words: ‘I would like to help you, Madame Babayannis, but I am forced to think of others. My time belongs to many things. First, of course, to the “Ever-Readies”, then to my lodgers; fifteen hours a week of my time belongs to my pupils; it does not belong to me. And then I have this house – some of my time belongs to that. Besides, I know how much organisation costs. I feel I owe it to myself never to take on that sort of thing without payment. It would not be fair
to my other commitments.’ There was a pause during which Madame Babayannis must have sorted out this reply, for her voice came in a sudden explosion: ‘Ah, Miss Bohun, this is a new thing – the property of time.’

  ‘I don’t quite know what you mean by that curious phrase, Madame Babayannis. I have told you before that your English is good, but you tend to run before you can walk. Well, now – if time is a property, it is a valuable property, and we must not waste it like this.’

  The Greek woman’s voice cut in with the impatience of anger: ‘That, Miss Bohun, is what you call in English, “the snub”, is it not? But I am not accepting it. You live here – how? In an Eiffel Tower. You know nothing of the sufferings of my peoples . . .’

  ‘I cannot discuss the sufferings of Greece to-day,’ Miss Bohun interrupted with businesslike decision, ‘I have no time to waste. If you do not wish to continue your lesson then I must . . .’

  ‘Ah! You are well known, if I may say so.’ Madame Babayannis in her turn interrupted with a cold intensity: ‘Is there anyone who does not speak of you for this thing? For instance, do you know one Gradenwitz?’

  ‘Gradenwitz! Never heard of him.’

  ‘Did he prune trees for you? Yes or no?’

  ‘Oh, that man! What has he got to do with the sufferings of Greece?’

  ‘Nothing. He works for a Greek lady and thus I learned this Gradenwitz was shocked at the little you pay your Arab gardener.’

  ‘Really, Madame Babayannis, really!’ In her indignation Miss Bohun sounded out of breath: ‘I refuse to be discussed in this way behind my back.’

  ‘We are discussed without our permission, Miss Bohun. And I may say, the comment was made in company that so mean a pay goes ill with so much religiosity.’

  Miss Bohun’s voice and phrasing changed now as she felt herself at a loss: ‘You don’t know the facts. The gardener hardly does any work at all – really, I have to work almost as hard as he does keeping him at it. You don’t know the trouble I have driving him all the time . . .’

  ‘Then why do you keep him?’ rapped Madame Babayannis remorselessly.

  Miss Bohun regained herself as she answered this one: ‘Because I have a theory one must support the aged. It is a duty. And now your hour is up, Madame; no doubt my next pupil is in the courtyard. So, good-afternoon.’

  While this conversation had gone on, its subject, the gardener, with fat, good-natured face sweat-slimy, was idly plucking off some withered leaves. When Madame Babayannis darted out from the door, he started to pick wildly, but seeing it was not Miss Bohun, he stopped and straightened himself with groans, and smiled, preparing to salute her. Her face looked dark and puckered. Mrs Ellis called to her. She swung round aggressively.

  Mrs Ellis passed through the mulberry branches into her view and said: ‘Would you let me help with your concert for the Greek refugees? When is the date?’

  Madame Babayannis was too angry to give thanks, but she glanced at the tickets in her hands and said sharply: ‘August 9th.’

  ‘Isn’t that the date of Miss Bohun’s “Every-Ready” entertainment?’

  Madame Babayannis was a small, thin woman, without charm. She replied: ‘Yes – it is here on her tickets and now I fix mine for the same. If you can sell tickets for me, I will send them gladly.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  As Madame Babayannis stumped off out of the garden, Miss Bohun called on a high and pleasant note from the sitting-room door: ‘Oh, Mrs Ellis, I wonder if you could spare a moment.’

  Inside the room, Miss Bohun spoke quietly to Mrs Ellis, so Felix, straining his ears, could catch only the operative words, ‘disloyalty’, and ‘Lady Evelina Lundy’. Mrs Ellis’s reply, when it came, was in her normal voice:

  ‘Oh no, Miss Bohun, I’m afraid I cannot move back to the King David. I can’t afford it, but in any case I have no intention of moving from here or of giving up the chance of getting this house in the autumn. Also, I know Evelina Lundy. She’s a thoroughly decent person. If she heard you’d turned me out to accommodate her, she would refuse to come here. You’d be left without anyone.’

  Miss Bohun, replying, spoke now with less restraint: ‘I am not turning you out for Lady Evelina Lundy, Mrs Ellis. There is no question of such a thing. I simply consider you an unsuitable tenant. When I took you in, you did not let me know you were going to have a baby. I have this young relative here – a boy, little more than a child. Really, you must see how unsuitable it is! And then, to add to it all, you take him off to . . . to low drinking dens where he listens to the most improper conversations. All this behind my back! I feel I’m deceived on all sides. I’ve always been a judge of people; I have an instinct about them – I am a genius in a rather unimportant and unobtrusive way; anyone who can handle people as I do, must be – but I would not have dreamt you could be capable of such depravity. The corruption of youth, Mrs Ellis, is a dreadful thing. Depravity is the only word I can find for it,’ she paused in her growing excitement, then repeated: ‘Depravity,’ as though only a special emphasis could give it the meaning she had in mind.

  ‘This is all nonsense . . .’ Mrs Ellis was half-laughing, half out of patience, but Miss Bohun broke in, not listening:

  ‘You’ll have to find another lodging. I won’t have this sort of thing going on under my roof.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’ demanded Mrs Ellis, but Miss Bohun in a mounting hysteria of annoyance still continued as though she heard nothing: ‘Felix is only a boy. He’s my dead foster-brother’s child. It’s my duty to protect him . . . I just won’t have you here . . .’ she broke off as she suddenly noticed Felix now standing in the doorway: ‘Please go away, Felix,’ she said irritably, ‘this is a private conversation.’

  But Felix was not to be dismissed. He was filled with an exalted sense of purpose that gave him rights in the grown-up world: he spoke with the dramatic force he had so often heard issue from the cinema screen: ‘If Mrs Ellis goes, I go.’

  Unfortunately, however, he got no more than a moment’s attention, then Mrs Ellis gave his shoulder a push so that he stumbled back off the step on to the gravel: ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, ‘I’m not going. If Miss Bohun wants another lodger, she can let the front room.’

  ‘How dare you mention . . .’ began Miss Bohun, but now it was her turn to be over-ridden. Mrs Ellis, continued, completely out of patience: ‘All this nonsense about the Second Coming. True religion should give practical results. “I was naked and ye fed me; I was hungry and ye took me in.” Here I am a widow. I’m pregnant, and I look it. If Miss Bohun turns me out, I shall jolly well see that the whole of Jerusalem . . .’

  Mrs Ellis stopped as Miss Bohun’s face began to work tragically before collapsing in tears: ‘This is the return I get! I throw open my doors . . . I . . . I . . . And you, Felix. You of all people!’ Unable to say more, she turned and felt her way towards the stairs. As she went she sobbed so loudly, the others knew that to speak themselves would be a waste of effort.

  11

  When Felix next set out to see Mr Jewel, his mind was full of the state of affairs at the house. They depressed him deeply and yet there was no one with whom he could discuss them. Mrs Ellis was so clearly avoiding him that he had not the courage to go to the Innsbruck. As for Miss Bohun, she behaved as though he did not exist. She took her meals in complete silence and when he discovered that anything he said was ignored, he sat bored and miserable, isolated in bleak consciousness that he had somehow got himself into the wrong with everyone. When he had announced: ‘If Mrs Ellis goes, I go,’ he thought he was being very impressive, but no one had been impressed, and he had done no good at all.

  Now there was only Mr Jewel to whom he could talk. The sunshine and regular meals had so improved Mr Jewel that Felix felt he could now risk his discovery that the attic was no longer empty. Mr Jewel had put on some weight; he was sunburnt; he moved with briskness and decision, and he looked ten years younger than he had done in the summer. He enjoyed being looked aft
er; he enjoyed the fuss the nurses made of him and he enjoyed having his leg pulled by the young policemen, but he had moments of gloom, knowing he could not stay there for ever. Sometimes he complained to Felix that a chap needed a roof of his own. He himself needed somewhere where he could do a bit of painting when he felt like it.

  Felix had offered to bring his paint-pot, brushes and pieces of board to the hospital, but Mr Jewel said: No, he liked to feel they were there to go back to. It was as though he imagined they were keeping his place for him.

  Felix wondered why Mr Jewel did not take the short walk down the hill to Herod’s Gate and tackle Miss Bohun on the subject of his attic and his return. He did go out sometimes, to buy a paper or his weekly ounce of tobacco, and Felix had seen him once gazing into the window of a small shop that still had some artists’ materials at scarcity prices, but it was as though an invisible barrier kept him from approaching the house. Once Felix had mentioned to Miss Bohun that he had seen Mr Jewel walking in the Jaffa Road and Miss Bohun had said with an air of self-congratulation: ‘No one whom I befriend ever has cause for complaint. There’s Mr Jewel living at the hospital as though it were an hotel, free to come and go, paying almost nothing, I’m told; and there’s Frau Leszno in a splendid job. And neither of them ever comes near me to say “thank you”.’