Rudi said, “When I was a young man, I made my way to Berlin. Why? For the most old-fashioned reason. I thought I might escape in the city. I was desperately poor. You must understand. This was 1922, I was sixteen. I lodged in a poor working-class quarter. It disgusted me. These people, I said to myself, are animals. They have no aspirations except to fill their bellies – and they are not even good at that. My landlord was a Jew. Every Saturday night he went round the rooms where his lodgers lay drunk if they had been paid that day, and shook all the money he could find out of their trouser pockets. He did that though it was his Sabbath. The lodgers were too stupid to realise what he did, and in any case most of them were so drunk that they did not know how much money they had spent or how much they should have left. Then, on the second or third day of the week, or even earlier on the Sunday, when they needed money for tram fares if they were working, he would offer to lend it to them. It was their own money he was lending, and if they did not pay him back, with 50 per cent interest, then they were out on the street.
“I saw that happen to many of them.
“I had one friend. He was called Karl. Sometimes he was in work as a barman, but often he was not. I didn’t know what he did then, and I didn’t suspect, though Karl was a strong handsome blond fellow. He was the only one of us who was not undernourished even though he was often out of work. As for me, I had found a job, as a clerk in a factory where they made glue out of bones. The stench was appalling.
“I tell you this, Franz, that you may understand the care I have had for you in your childhood, my determination that you should never suffer as I suffered.
“Well, one day – it was winter and raining – Karl came to me and said, ‘Will you help me?’ ‘To do what?’ I said. ‘Kill the Jew.’ I thought about it, and replied that I didn’t approve of violence. Besides, I said, what was the point? Karl explained. The Jew had a wife, a thin bedraggled wretch, bullied and tormented by her husband. I don’t know whether she was a Jew or not, I think she was perhaps Hungarian. Karl had seduced her. It wasn’t difficult, he said, seduction was too grand a word. ‘She was dying for it,’ he laughed. She would marry him if her husband was dead, and then the lodging house would be his. He promised me a share in the takings. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘the man who has not killed is a virgin.’ In those days I was a virgin in the normal sense of the word. Sex disgusted me, and continued to do so until I was in a position to have a bath every day and live in a house with a bathroom. ‘Have you killed a man?’ I said. Karl laughed. He put his hands on his hips and laughed. I can see him now, in that filthy bug-infested hovel, and hear him laughing as if he was a god. ‘What do you think?’ he said. So I said I would think about it. That Jew would be no loss, I told myself. He was loathsome. But then, to be an accomplice to a murder! So I asked Karl what his plan was, and I saw that it was more likely to be dangerous for me than for him. ‘I must keep in the background,’ he said, ‘on account of my affair with Lola.’ That was the wretch’s name, Lola, not very suitable. And so I told the Jew what was going on and what was planned.
“I saved that Jew’s life. And then I left, because I was afraid of Karl. As for the filthy Jew, he struck his wife so hard that she fell, hitting her head against the kitchen sink, and was killed. That was the result of my benevolent intervention. Somehow or other, I heard later that the Jew was acquitted of manslaughter. They said he bribed the judge. Or perhaps the judge was a Jew. Many were, in those days.
“As for Karl, I came across him, years later. He had become a Communist. He was always scum, I knew that. But for a time I was fascinated by him, and he had almost persuaded me to join him in the murder he desired but did not dare to commit. Later I despised him for not daring.”
Neither of the two young soldiers who acted as warders paid any heed to what Rudi was saying, except that once, as he hesitated, the younger of them caught Franz’s eye, and lifted his own left eyebrow. A whiff of friendship was carried across the zoom, rising with the cigarette smoke towards the ceiling. The other warder plugged in the electric kettle, and put tea bags into mugs.
Rudi said, “I hated my work. The bone factory stood in a dismal eastern suburb of the city. Suburb is the wrong word; it will give you the wrong impression. It was a place where the city trickled like dirty water into a countryside that had no grace or charm about it. The factory stood between a canal that needed dredging and a railway line. Trucks bearing bones from various abattoirs halted there. There were fat yellow and white maggots clinging to the bones, to which a few shreds of flesh and sinew were still always attached. If you picked up a bone a handful of maggots would fall off. That wasn’t the worst of it. Far worse was the stench from the furnaces. It hung over the dismal quarter. Even the beer they served in the two bars at the end of the street tasted of that smell. It was never my job to touch the bones, I was a clerk keeping records, but I would sit at the grimy window overlooking the yard and watch the seagulls that picked at them, always quarrelling. And though I never touched the bones, the smell clung about me. However often I scrubbed myself in the public bath-house it was there. There was a girl who worked in one of the bars who would sell herself to the workers, and when she leant over the table, exposing her breasts, the stench came off her, and I was nauseated. Yet I stuck to the job eighteen months. It was miserably paid, but it was a job and in Berlin in 1923, you didn’t abandon a job because of a bad smell.
“The man who owned the factory was a Jew. They said that whenever a new consignment of bones arrived, he picked over them, choosing those that would do for his own soup.
“I think that was true.”
Rudi tapped out a cigarette.
“Is all this boring you, Franz? I don’t know why it is, but those early years have been running in my mind, disturbing my sleep. It is sometimes as if I can still smell that slut in the bar.
“One night I thought I was going mad. It was winter, I had been working late, and the tram which I took back to the quarter where I now had my lodgings was empty. It was raining, and the few poor lights in that fringe of the city were mere spots, like a bulb shining through a shroud. Then, though the tram had not stopped, the carriage was full of people, and they all had the same face, they all wore damp overcoats with the collars turned up, and all gazed at me. They did not speak, but they directed their eyes at me. Only they had no eyes. The rest of the face was normal, pale wet skin stretched over bones, but the eye sockets were empty.”
The older soldier had added water to the tea bags. Now he removed the bags from the mugs and poured in milk. He put one spoonful of sugar in each mug and stirred the tea. He placed their mugs in front of them.
“I speak German, you know,” said the soldier. “My mother was from Berlin. She was a poor Jew, so she didn’t get out. Maybe she didn’t want to. I’m told she loved the city. I don’t know. It was an aunt who brought me and my sister out. I shouldn’t be saying this, but you can’t expect us to forgive. Or forget. Ever. When you speak of your landlord and your employer as filthy Jews, that’s as may be. But don’t you think they would have been just as filthy whatever their race or religion? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be saying this. I’m not supposed to be taking part in your conversation.”
“No, you shouldn’t be,” his companion said. “All the same, it’s a good question, isn’t it?”
Franz sipped his tea.
“I think you should answer that, Father. I think it would help if you did.”
“So?” Rudi said. “It’s not difficult. You are quite right, Moshe. But don’t you see, sticking on the label made it easier to hate. If you were swindled by an Arab, my friend, would you say, ‘What a swine’ or ‘Filthy Arab swine’?”
Rudi said, “I was a young man without purpose. For months I was on the verge of losing the last imperative: to survive. I dreamed of killing myself. Believe me, no one knows better the temptation of suicide. I was twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, and still nothing. At night I lay awake and listened to the noises of the lodging house and of the city, and I knew that my life was of no importance to anyone. Not even it seemed, in my blackest moments, to myself.
“And then I was rescued…”
Becky was uneasy when Franz went to visit his father. She knew he had to; it was why he had come there. But she wished he could leave off. He came back depressed and edgy. “I really despise myself,” he said. “I’ve known nothing. Do you believe it’s true that the man who hasn’t killed is a virgin?”
“No,” she replied, “I think it’s a stupid saying. I’ve heard it before, and it’s stupid. It’s sort of Argentinian.”
But that didn’t help him. So when he was away she fretted; she was afraid each time that he would come back and look at her and see a Jewess. She told herself none of that meant anything to Franz; then a voice reminded her of touching pitch and the unavoidable consequence of defilement. Once she even thought: “It’s not fair that I should have to bear this,” and was disgusted. She had never thought of herself as cheap.
She started to hear the telephone ring. She sat letting it ring. It threatened her, alone in her hotel room. It stopped, recommenced almost at once. This time she answered, and was relieved to find it was Rachel.
“Was it you a minute ago?”
“It was. Were you in the bathroom?”
“No. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. I don’t know why.” She went round to Rachel’s apartment. Luke was out. Rachel told her she felt nervous too.
“This whole goddam thing makes me jumpy,” she said.
She made coffee and pushed a plate of doughnuts at Becky. “Go on,” she said, “we need spoiling. Made them myself, American style. Go on.”
There was maple syrup in them, and Becky licked the syrup that escaped and trickled down her chin.
It was cold outside and they sat in front of the gas fire. Rachel kicked her shoes off and curled on a cushion on the floor.
“I couldn’t stand being alone this morning,” she said. “I’m glad you’ve come. Is Franz with his father?”
Becky nodded. Rachel put her hand out and squeezed Becky’s leg just above the knee.
“And that worries you, does it?”
“He comes back, oh I don’t know, different. As if he’s seen something that … Franz is innocent, you know.”
“Sure I know.”
“And then he’s edgy. We quarrelled yesterday when he came back. It was horrible.”
“Sure. He would hate it. It’s meat and drink to Luke but Franz would hate it. And when people hate quarrelling they find it hard to make up. Luke and I are different that way. He makes up easily. This case is hell for him too. It’s damaging him. Do you know why?”
Becky shook her head. Her hair floated over her eyes, obscuring Rachel’s face. The grip on her leg tightened.
“He can’t let it go,” Rachel said. “He worries. He’s on the point of speaking out against it, and to hell with the damage that does him. He knows he’s wrong, or that everyone will say he’s wrong, and he can’t use the argument he has that’s driving him on. Do you understand that? It’s Franz, you see.”
“No,” Becky said. “Look, it was maybe a bad idea me coming here today.”
Rachel took her hand away. “You’re free to go,” she said, “but I hope you won’t. Listen, it’s not like you may think I mean. Luke isn’t queer. It hadn’t even entered his head. But Franz still means something special to him. Maybe he does to all of us. I think it’s because he’s plastic.”
“What do you mean?”
“We each make of him what we want him to mean. Do you know, maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but he showed me that letter you wrote him about your … experiences, and if he had wanted me to make love to him then, I would, without question. And I’ve never been unfaithful to Luke.”
Becky pushed her hair back and looked at her. Rachel’s face was eager, explaining, American. It was the face of a newer and franker culture than any she had known, a face that suggested that the way to deal with a problem was to talk it out. But Becky had been raised the English way, in secrecy and silence and reticence. Eli had never interfered with that way of Nell’s in rearing their daughter. There were things he had been happy to leave in the dark of silence. So now, in conversation, Becky knew she had no words for feelings.
“I was so touched he showed me that letter. It showed he had confidence in me.”
Becky liked Rachel. She was sure that Rachel was good, that she wasn’t the sort of girl who liked stirring up trouble. But she was intrusive, Becky felt, and then she looked at her again and saw she was also unhappy.
“You really want to get Luke out of here, don’t you?”
Rachel, who had seemed to her in charge of things, aggressive to the point of bullying, began to cry. She sat on the cushion and rocked forward and back, and sobbed. Becky slipped out of her chair and put her arms round her.
“Don’t,” she said.
The sobbing intensified. To Becky it seemed as if her sympathy was making it worse. She disengaged, retiring to the window, turning her back on Rachel’s distress. It was too much. Rachel had no right. Tomorrow her mother and father arrived. In a couple of hours Franz would return from listening to his father – he assured her that all he did was listen. In a week the trial would be under way. The frontier was closed until sentence was delivered, judgement executed. She was caught in a vice. She looked out and the street was bare. A dustcart trundled round the corner. It disturbed a pigeon which had been pecking in the gutter. The sobbing subsided. Rachel began to sniff. The pigeon, not seeing her, landed on the windowsill. For a moment they met eye to uncomprehending eye. Then it pecked at the pane. Her dark clothes were serving to turn the glass into a mirror. It hadn’t, whatever she had thought, seen her at all. It was another pigeon it saw challenging itself there. She turned away, to free the bird, which, alarmed by the movement, flew off.
“I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what got into me.”
“That’s all right.”
“Let’s have some more coffee.”
Becky took a doughnut. “They’re awfully good,” she said. Rachel had told Becky what she already knew. She had known that about Franz from the start.
She said, “I wish you hadn’t told me that.”
“I’m sorry. Oh hell, why do I have to keep apologising for my goddam self?”
They settled again. With a moral effort, Becky got down on the floor, on a level with Rachel.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“There’s one thing I’ve wanted to ask you. When you were kidnapped, when these men held you, what did you fear most?”
“Oh,” Becky said, “no, I can’t talk about that, about that time. I don’t know why. It, it makes me feel dirty.”
Rachel pushed her a cigarette, held the lighter to it. Becky kept her eyes lowered, not to meet Rachel’s.
“OK, honey, I understand. I am sorry.”
“No,” Becky said, “it wasn’t that. Not what you’re thinking. We were afraid of that but that didn’t happen. It’s just that it makes me feel dirty. It made me feel diminished. It showed me anything could happen, that was it. As if we were just … pieces. Like debris you know, washed up by the waves. Does that make any sense?”
“Sure it does. Let’s get out of here. What do you say to a walk by the sea?”
The bus dropped them at the end of its run. They had left the popular beaches behind, and the path ran along little cliffs for half a mile or so until it dipped down to the shore. It was shingle now and they walked just above the shingle among sea-grasses and reeds. Inland there was scrub. They looked north and east to a wilderness, stretching, it seemed, to the hills. There was a valley in between which they could not see and that was fertile, but this part of the coast was desolate. There were coils of barbed wire between them and the sea, and though they were only a mile beyond the city, they were all alone. It wasn’t Rachel’s place at all; her short, city legs were not made for walking in this country, and she swore when a thorn pierced her jeans. Seabirds flew around them mewing. They reached a little knoll and Rachel lay down. The scent of lavender mingled with the smell which the breeze carried from the sea.
“Is it tomorrow your folks come?”
“Uh-huh.”
Becky chewed a grass stem.
“Nervous?”
“A bit.”
“I would be.”
“Yes, well, we’ve decided Franz can’t come to the airport.”
“Does he get on with your parents?”
“Well, yes.”
“Sure, he gets on with everyone, we’d agreed on that, hadn’t we.”
“Mummy adores him. I don’t know about Daddy.”
Aeroplanes – three fighters, wing almost to wing – howled out of the sky, above the sea, zoomed low over them lying there and turned towards the mountains. The sound died behind them. Becky sucked at her grass stem. Rachel had put her hands over her ears and lowered her head. She did not move until they were well away.
“It’s a reminder,” she said, “whenever they come. Luke’s a reserve pilot, you know.”
“No, I didn’t. Does that worry you?”
“No, it doesn’t worry me, it scares the hell out of me. Do you think it would be different if women ran the world?”
“Not really,” Becky said.
“I do.”
Becky threw away the grass stem, which was torn and ragged and had lost its sap.
“Will they hang him?” she said.
Rachel looked at her and waited.
“They hanged Eichmann, didn’t they?”
“Sure. You know that, honey.”
“I can’t believe it,” Becky said. “You know, I can’t believe it. I’ve had proof. They wouldn’t have taken Gaby and me, if he hadn’t been Kestner, and so I know he is, and I don’t need a trial to prove that if he’s Kestner, he’s guilty. Nobody needs a trial to prove that. But I can’t believe it. Do you know what I mean?”
“Go on,” Rachel said. “Why can’t you?”
“Because … I’ve only met him that once, you know, but he was nice. He was shy and he was anxious to make a good impression, for Franz’s sake, and he showed off a little. Franz has always been a bit afraid of him, but do you know? Do you know what I thought? I thought he was sweet. He wasn’t a person you could get to know well. I could see that. And I never thought we’d be easy together, but … there it is. Do you know what? He seemed to me like someone who’d been badly hurt. And he loves Franz, he really does. It doesn’t make sense.”
“We all love Franz, we agreed on that.”
“OK, but. But he’s his father. It makes a difference, knowing your father loves you. It must.”
“Does it?” Rachel said. “I wouldn’t know, but I guess it does.”
“They will hang him, won’t they?”
“I guess they will. Luke says they will, unless…”
“Unless what?”
Rachel rolled over on to her front. She kicked her heels up behind her. Her feet did a little dance in the air.
“Unless what?”
“I don’t know whether I should say this. I guess I shouldn’t. Still, to hell with it, Luke’s opinion is that he hadn’t a hope according to the law. There’s a chance that politics could help. I told you, Luke doesn’t like this trial, he’s got to like it less and less. And it’s not just Franz and you, not just because of you. It’s that he thinks it’s time for Israel to look ahead, to show magnanimity. He thinks that could do wonders. So he’s agitated, debating with himself, wondering if he shouldn’t be the one to take the lead. That newspaper piece didn’t help. Still, he’s got influence, Luke has. People listen to him. And then he said – and it started as a joke, well not a joke exactly, you know what I mean, that the second barrel could be you and Franz. You could appeal, he said, to the great warm heart of the Jewish people – he put that in quotes, you understand. And then it wasn’t a joke, because it made sense.”
“I’m sorry,” Becky said, “I’m lost … confused. You’ll have to spell it out.”
“OK then. He thinks you should get married, here, in Israel, in Jerusalem. Before the trial, or while it’s going on. He thinks that would have an enormous effect.”
Becky shivered. The sun had gone. Big purple clouds mounted the sky behind the hills. She dusted her hands on her jeans.
“We couldn’t,” she said.
“But you love each other. You plan to get married.”
“Yes, but don’t you see? How can I explain it? That would be, it would be like using our marriage, it would, I don’t know, make it dirty, as if it was some sort of a stunt.”
“Don’t cry,” Rachel said, “you don’t need to cry. It was only an idea, a silly idea of Luke’s. He gets them, you know.”
She held out her hand. Becky took it, and Rachel pulled her to her feet. For a moment, they stood, holding hands, looking at each other, with the angry sky behind them and a wind scuffing the sand.
“But there is something,” Rachel said. “When Franz’s father is hanged, how will Franz feel about marrying you then?”
“God knows,” Becky said. “Do you think I don’t ask myself that, again and again, in the dark when I can’t sleep and feel him there, sometimes tense and not sleeping either? And the answer is never the right one, never. And we don’t dare talk about it. We don’t dare ask each other the question.”
Nevertheless … Nell used to tell Becky that life was a matter of nevertheless. “Everything told me I had lost your father,” she said, “nevertheless…” The secret was to accept that things were going one way, whether it was the way you wanted or quite the opposite, and yet to cling to the theory of “nevertheless”.
Becky sat in the airport lounge, waiting for the flight which had been delayed and was already an hour and a half late, twisting her handkerchief between her hands, lighting cigarettes which she stubbed out before they were half smoked, gazing at the drink she had ordered and could not touch.
Franz hadn’t come. They had agreed it was impossible: impolitic. Franz had even consulted Saul Birnbaum, who had for a moment brightened at the notion, scenting mischief and the opportunity of confusion; then he had shaken his head. It wouldn’t do. It might prejudice the court against them. He couldn’t say how; logically it shouldn’t; nevertheless (again).
And Franz not being there at least gave Becky the chance which she had scarcely had since her conversation with Rachel the previous day, to consider Luke’s suggestion. She saw the logic of that too. She saw how it might influence opinion. And yet she continued to rebel against it. It would be making what should be a thing in itself a means to an end. It would be making … A shadow fell on the table.
“Dear girl, a delightful surprise.”
She looked up. Ivan Murison was still wearing the shabby cream suit. The liquid in his glass tilted towards her. He bent to kiss her cheek. She submitted. He was sort of family.
He sat down, lit a cigar.
“Where’s the boyfriend?”
Becky didn’t answer.
“Mind if I sit here too?”
It was a girl, not much older than herself. She spoke with an American accent. She wore a canary-coloured trouser suit and had delicate features. She put her glass on the table. Her fingers were grubby.
“Can I get you a Coke, Miss Czinner?”
Becky shook her head. Ivan Murison was frowning.
“Surprised to see me, Ivan?” the girl said. “But Czinner will speak to the Press, he’ll have to. That’s why I’m here, you won’t get an exclusive.”
She leaned towards Becky.
“My name’s Minty Hubchik. I’m a freelance, covering the trial for the Toronto Star, and Insight – that’s a Canadian news magazine, maybe you’ve heard of it. I’d be grateful of the chance to have a long talk with you. Can I ring you at your hotel and fix a date?”
Ivan Murison said, “I warn you, dear girl, she’ll turn you inside out.”
“Oh fuck off, Ivan.”
Becky said, “I don’t know. I’m confused.”
“It’s in your interest…”
“Oh all right, but now…”
The tannoy crackled. The arrival of the flight was announced. Becky lit another cigarette, stuffed her things into her bag, knocking her lighter on to the floor. Minty Hubchik picked it up. She held it out, and when Becky advanced her hand for it, seized her by the wrist.
“OK, baby, I will. I know it’s hell, but I promise you, I’m on your side.”
“I don’t know what side that is.”
Ivan Murison laughed. He got up, with a movement like a man heaving himself from a deckchair, and shouldered his way to the bar. He lifted his glass high above his head and shouted for attention.
Minty Hubchik said, “Maybe you don’t need me to tell you, but he’s bad news.”
“No,” Becky said, “that’s clear to me already.”
“’Bout four then? OK?”
“All right, but what’s it about?”
Minty Hubchik released her wrist, restored the lighter to her.
“Look,” she said, “do the authorities know you’re here? They don’t? Because your father, believe me, is going to be whisked away, VIP treatment, and you’ll miss him. Here, let me take charge of you.”
She did so. It was necessary. She talked to the right people, and doors were opened. They were invited behind the barriers and found themselves in a small room with imitation leather banquettes and potted plants and magazines on glass-topped tables. There was a pot of coffee waiting and Minty poured them each a cup. Then, instead of resuming conversation as Becky feared, she sat in the corner, pulled a file from her shoulder-bag and began to read in it. Becky sipped the coffee and waited; it was like being at the dentist’s.
The door opened. Airport officials entered first, then a group of hard-looking young men, two of whom wore revolvers in shoulder holsters, and then Kinsky leading Eli. Becky got up and moved towards them. The men with revolvers exchanged a look and for a moment seemed as if they would bar her approach, but Kinsky called out, “Becky, darling … Eli, here’s Becky,” and they gave way.
Eli’s hand sought hers. They embraced. Their cheeks met. A camera flashed. One of the men with revolvers advanced on Minty Hubchik. She engaged him in argument.
“I’m tired,” Eli said, “and I’m having trouble with my back.”
Someone thrust a glass of fizzy wine into his hand. He sniffed it and passed it on to Kinsky, who held it, away from his face, his arm stretched out, while he extended his cheek towards Becky.
“Where’s Mother?”
“Shh.” His other arm settled round her back and hugged her. “Not now, we’ll talk about that later.”
Someone, who might have been important but didn’t dress it, was welcoming Eli to Israel. He started in Hebrew and then someone else tugged at his sleeve and he switched into English. He said it was sad that it was such an occasion which had at last brought the distinguished economist to Israel, a man whose work had done credit to the whole Jewish people.
He went on. There was something about the Nobel Prize, which should have, and hadn’t, but might nevertheless… Becky didn’t listen. She had never believed in her father’s eminence. She wasn’t going to start now. He had aged. The expression of discontent and mockery had deepened. He looked like an actor who had put on greasepaint for a farewell benefit performance. Yet when, listening to this, he held out his hand, pushing it towards her like someone fending off unwelcome attentions, she took hold of it. His face registered nothing, but he squeezed back. She supposed he knew it was her hand.
There was more talk, now of the Press. They went through into another room, where a half-ring of chairs had been assembled opposite rows occupied by a few journalists. The dirty cream-coloured suit was over on the right propped against the wall. Unlike all the other journalists, Ivan Murison kept his glass in his hand and disdained – she supposed it was disdain – a notebook.
Introductions were effected. It was explained that Professor Czinner could not talk of matters which were sub judice. He would not at this stage answer questions. But he was prepared to make a statement.
Becky glanced at him to see if this had taken him by surprise. Apparently it hadn’t. It must have been agreed in advance. He got to his feet, resting his right hand on the arm of the chair as he did so. He spoke in English, in a weak voice which had several of the journalists straining to hear him.
He said how happy he was to be in Israel at last, or how happy he would have been if the occasion had been other than it was. He had come because it was necessary, because certain things could not be forgotten, but must be remembered. The crime committed against the Jewish people was also a crime against humanity. Only God could forgive it. Their business was justice.
He sat down. He had said nothing, but he was sweating. Would he be able to withstand the pressure of giving evidence? He laid his fingers on his breast, as if feeling for his heartbeat.
The man who was acting as chairman said they would now permit photographs.
“One moment. Is it true, Dr Czinner, that you have a personal interest in bringing Kestner to justice?”
“No questions, Mr Murison. I said no questions.”
“Is it true you knew Kestner before the war, had extensive dealings with him during the war, and personal ones more recently?”
“Mr Murison, I must protest. The conditions of this Press Conference…”
“Were such as to make it no conference, merely a farce. Very well, no more questions.”
And Ivan Murison brought his glass to his lips, gazing at Becky over the rim.
They were in the car driving away from the airport. There was a man from the Ministry of Justice with them. He was called Aaron. Minty Hubchik had managed to string along, and was sitting in one of the tip-up seats opposite Becky. Eli sat between Becky and Kinsky. He rested his head on the back of the seat. As they drove along the man from the Ministry pointed out places of interest and historical significance.
“There, Professor,” he said, “is the Benei-Atarot settlement. As you will surely know, this was established in 1902 by Germans and named after the Kaiser: Wilhelm… I believe a great-uncle of yours was among the pioneer settlers. Yes? … This village is Yehud. It is mentioned in the Bible as belonging to the tribe of Dan, I forget to which tribe… Ah but, we are now passing through the Plain of Ono. You will remember that when Nehemiah returned from the captivity in Babylon, his enemies sought to lure him out of Jerusalem into the plain, and he, realising their intentions, sent a message, ‘I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease?’ You remember that, Professor? You must often have thought that way yourself. ‘I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down – why should the work cease?’”
“It’s a long time since I read the Bible,” Eli said, not moving his head.
“What was the great work?” Kinsky said. “I don’t think I ever heard of this Nehemiah.”
The man from the Ministry, who had a plump, serious expression, frowned.
“He was rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.”
“Ach so?” Kinsky said, and giggled. Becky bit her lip. She felt Minty Hubchik’s foot move against hers, and looked out of the window. There wasn’t much to see in the Plain of Ono; lorries were loading oranges into a warehouse.
Eli said, “That journalist can’t have been Ivan Murison?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Astonishing. I knew him in Berlin before the war. A shit then, and I would guess a shit now. He was married to your mother for a time, Becky, but you know that of course. I hope you haven’t been seeing much of him.”
“If you see Ivan Murison, you see too much of him,” Minty Hubchik said.
The man from the Ministry left them at the hotel. He asked if they would like a sightseeing tour in the afternoon. Eli said that, in the circumstances, he thought not. Minty Hubchik told Becky she would wait for her in the bar.
“I guess your father will want to rest before long.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Eli said when they were in the room. “It’s no place for you, I can’t think why your mother wouldn’t see that.”
“Where is Mummy? Why isn’t she with you? What’s happening?”
Eli said, “All hotel rooms everywhere are the same. It’s remarkable, and depressing. Your mother thought I shouldn’t come. So she hasn’t accompanied me. That’s all there is to it. Now that I’m here, I fear she may be right, especially if we have to suffer more idiots like that one they assigned us this morning. Still, it is necessary. Your mother tells me you are living with the young Kestner.”
“Yes, I’m living with Franz, Daddy. I don’t think of him as the young Kestner.”
“That must stop. It’s unseemly. It’s obscene in the circumstances. You are mad to think it possible. You must come here. Kinsky, will you get the Ministry to find her a room.”
Becky looked at Kinsky. He shook his head. He was occupying himself unpacking suitcases and he looked at her over the lid of a suitcase and put his finger to his lips.
“I’m tired,” Eli said. “I’m going to sleep. Sightseeing! What a gift to a blind man! I’ve been having trouble with my heart. I need to rest it. Kinsky, find my pills, will you. And a glass of water. I suppose there is bottled water.”
He went through to the other room. They heard him shuffling about. Kinsky found the pills and took a bottle of water from a cabinet and followed him through. Becky sat on the settee, which creaked when she moved. She closed her eyes. The lashes fluttered and a nerve jumped in her left temple. It was quiet outside. The city was suspended for the lunch hour.
“That’s him settled. I think he’ll sleep. I could do with a drink. Let’s see what they have supplied us with.”
“Kinsky, why are you here? And why isn’t Mummy? Is she all right?”
“Here, darling, drink this. I’ve a letter for you from Nell. And why am I here? Because, ducky, he insists on coming and he can’t be by himself. So, old Kinsky has to turn to. That’s all. How’s Franz?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you are with him?”
“Yes, but I don’t know how he is. I don’t know how he’ll ever be again. He says he’s all right. Oh Kinsky, I am glad to see you.”
“All part of the service, darling. Look, here’s Nell’s letter.”
“I won’t read it now. I’ll read it when I’m alone.”
“Suits me, darling. Don’t worry, and don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it, Kinsky. I try to be brave but it doesn’t work.”