Come To The War (32 page)

^{Her English which had become good and confident with me had now slipped in Selma's presence. 'It is three in the afternoon,' continued Shoshana. 'I have waited at the Press house.'}

^{I stood up. 'Shoshana,' I said tiredly, 'this is Mrs Haydn. Selma, this is Shoshana Levy.' I wondered why I had called Selma Mrs Haydn and not called Shoshana Miss Levy, and thought it must have been something to do with seniority. 'Mrs Haydn's husband has just been killed at El Arish.'}

^{Shoshana said: 'Whose army?'}

^{'The Israeli Army, of course,' I said.}

^{'He was run over by his own truck,' said Selma firmly as though wishing to get the matter straight from the start.}

^{'What is the widow of an Israeli soldier doing in a Jordanian house?' asked Shoshana.}

^{'Her interests are somewhat diffuse,' I said patiently. 'She is a British subject. Anyway this is Israeli territory now. She'll pay her rates to your lot.'}

^{Shoshana looked confused: 'Please keep from the jokes, Christopher,' she said. 'Why do you sleep here?'}

^{'Chiefly because I was bloody tired,' I said. 'I know Mrs Haydn and Mrs Haydn had this spare bed.'}

^{'It is a very big bed,' said Shoshana suspiciously looking carefully at Selma's dress. It was uncreased because she had gone to sleep with me wearing her slip.}

^{Shoshana said: 'Are you with me, Christopher? Mount Scopus is opened to us now. The Arabs, they fire on the road from the Old City but we can go up another way. The view is beautiful from there. Zoo Baby and the two others are at Government House.'}

^{She said it almost pleadingly and I think that I could have gone with her then and the situation would have been saved. I asked her to wait while I washed my face. Her confidence returned and she smiled at Selma and looked at the hole in the roof and the wreckage within the house. 'It is a nice place you have here,' she smiled insincerely. Sometimes she would come out with some cliche like that learned from an American film.}

^{'It was,' said Selma quietly.}

^{'Married to an Israeli soldier and you have this house in Jordan,' mused Shoshana cunningly. 'It is most curious.' She was more sure of herself now because I was going with her.}

^{'Curious things happen,' said Selma dully.}

^{As if to bear out her words a curious thing did happen then in the form of Abdullah the Arab postman wheeling his crimson racing bicycle into the room. He was bent and apologetic, shuffling and heavy with dirt. He began to speak in lisping Arabic to Selma and then saw Shoshana.}

^{They both screamed at once. I think Abdullah screamed the loudest. They backed away from each other as though they were rival monsters. Then Shoshana recovered and went forward like a tiger, her young strong hands going out towards the little Arab postman. He dropped his bicycle to the floor with a thin crash. Then he stepped back, backing away from Shoshana, and accidentally put his foot into the frame. He would not take his fearing eyes off the girl and he extricated his leg with difficulty and without looking.}

^{'Arabs!' Shoshana shouted at me.}

^{'One Arab,' I corrected.}

^{'Traitor,' said Shoshana. 'This Mrs Haydn, she is a traitor.'}

^{'Shoshana,' I said. 'This is not Colonel Nasser, it's a postman.'}

^{'Traitor,' spat Shoshana at Selma.}

^{'What a bonny girl you've got yourself, Christopher,' said Selma turning away.}

^{At that moment one of the women who had been hiding in the cellar and one of the wounded Arab Legionnaires appeared. They were trying to tell Selma something and pointing towards the cellar door at the far end of the other room. Shoshana stared at the man as though he represented the entire Jordanian armed forces. Then she stepped quickly into the outside hall and looked at the open cellar door.}

^{She swung angrily back into the room. 'Traitor!' she screamed at Selma.}

^{'Tell your little Jewess to shut up, Christopher,' said Selma icily. Jewess, the most anti-Semitic word next to
Yid,
came out with slow emphasis.}

^{'1 would hit you!' Shoshana bawled at her. 'But I never hit women.' She turned on me. 'You stay in a house and they hide Arab soldiers. Why is this?'}

^{'You forget,' I said quietly, sick of it all. 'I'm neutral and very tired. That's why I'm here. You can see this man is wounded. What harm can he do?'}

^{Shoshana's eyes remained vivid. I remember her well at that moment, her belligerent body, her breasts thrust out, her face alight with indignation. The Arab soldier and the woman were again trying to say something to Selma and she was attempting to listen with exaggerated patience over the top of Shoshana's angry voice. Then the postman who had, in the midst of the scene, extricated his naked and undernourished foot from the bicycle frame, emphasized what the other two Arabs were saying, using some sort of rigged language that Selma understood.}

^{'Oh, God, no,' said Selma. She moved forward and pushed by Shoshana with a sudden arrogant, inborn authority. A shot sounded from the cellar towards which she was making. She stopped then, in mid-pace. A woman screamed down in the cellar and began to wail. Selma turned towards me, pushing Shoshana firmly aside with her forearm. But it was the Arab Legionnaire who went. He moved decisively from the room and went down into the cellar, his heavy boots sounding on the stone steps. Selma then moved forward to the cellar door and stood there looking tall and rather fine, her hand resting against the cool wall. Shoshana was staring at me. I looked at her and then looked away towards the cellar again.}

^{We could hear the wailing woman coming up the stairs. She appeared with blood splashed on her face and her headdress, her hands flailing about, her ragged body writhing. The Legionnaire who had gone down to the cellar returned with her and a second Arab soldier followed. I heard Shoshana gasp when she saw the second Arab. It was as though rats were emerging from the cellar.}

^{She jerked suddenly and made to run towards the door. I caught her wrist and pulled her back. She turned and tried to pull away.}

^{'Shoshana,' I said firmly. 'If you're not careful somebody else is going to get hurt. Stay here and be quiet.'}

^{She stood squarely, still full of anger, like a restrained dog. Selma said: 'The officer has shot himself in the cellar. He did not want to fall into our . .. their ... hands.'}

^{'It is
good
they should shoot themselves,' rasped Shoshana.}

^{Her head jerked forward towards Selma. The Englishwoman}

^{stepped forward like a strict schoolteacher, a strong decisive}

^{step as though she had suddenly made up her mind about something. She brought up her flat hand in a wide loop and hit Shoshana across the side of her indignant face.}

^{In a moment they were fighting. Shoshana went at her like an animal with long claws, while Selma stood upright hitting at her with alternate hands, bringing each blow up from hip level, head high, very superior and controlled, like an elegant cricketer attacking fast bowling.}

^{I tried to get between them. I felt responsible. But as I attempted to push into the spitting fight I tripped over the lying bicycle and fell into its frame and oily wheels. I was like a bear in a trap, crouching on all fours trying to pull myself free while the two women screamed and fought.}

^{'Traitor! Dirty traitor!'}

^{'Jewess. Rotten little Jewess!'}

^{'English filth!'}

^{'Bloody Jewess!'}

^{Still caught in the bicycle, I called out to them: 'Ladies, girls, please ... ladies . . .'}

^{The Arab woman stopped wailing for a moment when the fight began but immediately began again, and louder, her howlings rising above the breathless insults of the battling women. The two soldiers appeared to be moving around with half-helpless sidesteps, like the impotent crab-walk of a referee in a boxing ring. I could see their boots moving sideways across my vision even as I tried to get up from the bicycle. Then Abdullah, the postman, leaned punily across to try and help me. Either Selma or Shoshana or both struck him with their angry bodies as they fought. He shot spectacularly forward with a sort of subdued wail, landing across my shoulders and knocking me flat on top of the bicycle frame again. I could feel blood coming from my knee where the pedal had thrust itself. Lovers I have had in later times always thought that was where a bullet had taken a trench out of my flesh. I truthfully told them it was a battle injury.}

^{I pushed Abdullah away from me, rolling him over on the floor. He lay panting and mewing like a mangy old cat. I carefully disentangled myself from the bicycle, oil and blood over my hands and legs and arms. Selma was hitting Shoshana crisply back towards the big bed. It caught Shoshana behind the knees and she tumbled back but caught Selma's loose hair with two hands as she fell and pulled the Englishwoman with her. They rolled on the bed like primitive gipsies, legs and thighs open, screaming and spitting. The Arab Legionnaires were standing and observing with unconcealed sensual expressions. I staggered towards the bed and once again tried to part the women. They were fighting with every ounce of their spite and anger and strength. Nails and teeth were attacking. A whole hank of Selma's hair was on the pillow, pulled out by the violent Shoshana.}

^{'Ladies,' I moaned helplessly. 'For God's sake.' Then lamentably: 'Where are your manners?' One of them, Selma I think because it was a heavy blow rather than a sharp one, punched me in the ear and after that I dived like a life-saver in between them, using all my strength to lever them apart. I managed to make a channel between them by forcing my body through theirs. Then with my left hand across Selma's breasts and my right across Shoshana's I held them down. It took all my strength to keep them like that. They were both exhausted and that helped. Selma was crying angrily and Shoshana was spitting out violent little words in Hebrew.}

^{I was lying, face down, panting, trying to work out what to do next when I heard O'Sullivan's voice. He had arrived at the door and surveyed the scene contained in the wrecked room. The great hole in the roof, the debris from the war, the fallen bicycle, two Arab soldiers, two Arab women, Abdullah the thin postman still flat on his back, and Christopher Hollings, renowned concert pianist, holding down two heaving women on a large untidy bed. 'Will you be wanting both of the ladies, Mister Hollings ?' he inquired calmly.}

^{'Have them, for God's sake,' I said getting up gratefully from the bed. Shoshana leaped up as though released by a spring and, at last feminine, ran weeping like a schoolgirl towards O'Sullivan. He put a fatherly arm about her. Selma sat on the bed trying to arrange her hair. I leaned over and gave her the piece that Shoshana had torn out. 'Thank you, Christopher,' she said evenly. 'I think perhaps you had better go.'}

^{I went with O'Sullivan. As we returned into the open Shoshana put her arm into mine and gave an ashamed smile. 'That was a very interesting situation, I think,' said O'Sullivan. 'Very interesting indeed.'}

^{'You should have taken a look in the basement,' I said. 'There was an Arab officer down there and he'd blown his brains out.'}

^{'Deaths are four a penny in Jerusalem today,' he said. 'But it's not every morning of the week you find a couple of ladies havin' a scrap like that. It must be something you do to them, perhaps, Mister Hollings.'}

^{'It's just that I like my women to have spirit,' I said.}

^Seventeen

^{We had some food and wine at Government House and then Dov brought another jeep around and we set out for Mount Scopus. Shoshana continued to hold on to my arm, as though I were some prized possession recently reclaimed. I wondered what Selma would do. O'Sullivan had said to me when Shoshana was not there: 'That woman has nothing to worry about. Just as long as she's got her passport issued by Her Britannic Majesty's Government, all they'll do is throw her out on her ear. And she'll probably be glad to go.'}

^{'She can go to Haywards Heath,' I said. O'Sullivan nodded as though he immediately understood.}