Don't Look Now (26 page)

'Quite right, padre, quite right,' said the Colonel, who had heard the tail-end of this remark. 'It's absolutely essential to promote a spirit of goodwill in the Mess. Morale goes to pieces if you don't.'

Jim Foster pushed Jill Smith's foot under the table. The old boy was off again. Where did he think he was--Poona? Jill Smith retaliated by bumping her knee against his. They had reached the stage of mutual for-want-of-anything-better-attraction when bodily contact brings warmth, and the most harmless remark made by others suggests a double meaning.

'Depends what you share and who you share it with, don't you agree?' he murmured.

'Once married a girl has no choice,' she murmured back. 'She has to take what her husband gives her.'

Then, noticing Mrs Foster staring at her across the table, she opened her eyes, wide and innocent, and bumped Jim Foster's knee once more to cement duplicity.

Lady Althea, glancing round the restaurant at the occupants of the other tables, wondered if Jerusalem had been such a good choice after all. Nobody of much interest here. Perhaps there would be a better class of people in the Lebanon. Still, it was only for twenty-four hours, and then they would rejoin the boat and go on to Cyprus. She would be content that Phil and darling Robin were enjoying themselves. She must tell Robin not to sit with his mouth open. He was such a good-looking child, and it made him appear half-witted. Kate Foster was surely feeling the heat, she had become very flushed.

'But you should have signed the petition against the manufacture of nerve gas,' Kate was saying to Bob Smith. 'I got more than a thousand names on my appeal list, and it's up to every one of us to see that this frightful business is stopped. How will you like it,' she demanded, banging on the table, 'when your children are born deaf, maimed, and blind, because of this terrible chemical that will pollute succeeding generations unless we all unite to prevent its manufacture?'

'Oh, come,' protested the Colonel, 'the authorities have everything under control. And the stuff isn't lethal. We must have a certain amount in stock in case of riots. Somebody has to deal with the scallywags of the world. Now, in my humble opinion ...'

'Never mind your humble opinion, Phil dear,' interrupted his wife. 'I think we are all getting a little too serious, and we haven't come to Jerusalem to discuss nerve gas, or riots, or anything of the sort. We are here to take back pleasant memories of one of the most famous cities in the world.'

Silence was instant. She smiled upon them all. A good hostess knew when to change a party's mood. Even Jim Foster, momentarily quelled, removed his hand from Jill Smith's knee. The question was, who would be the first to speak and set the ball rolling in a new direction? Robin knew that his moment had arrived. He had been awaiting his opportunity all through dinner. His scientist father had told him never to introduce a subject or speak about it unless he were sure of his facts, and he had taken good care to be well-primed. He had consulted the courier-guide in the foyer before dinner, and he knew that his facts were correct. The grown-ups would be obliged to listen. The very thought of this was delicious, giving him a tremendous sense of power. He leant forward across the table, his spectacles slightly out of balance, his head on one side.

'I wonder if any of you know,' he said, 'that today is the 13th day of Nisan?' Then he leant back in his chair for his words to take effect.

The adults at the table stared back at him, nonplussed. What on earth was the child talking about? His grandfather, trained to be prepared for the unexpected, was the first to reply.

'The 13th day of Nisan?' he repeated. 'Now, my lively lad, stop trying to be clever and tell us what you mean:

'I'm not trying to be clever, Grandfather,' replied Robin, 'I'm just stating a fact. I'm going by the Hebrew calendar. Tomorrow, the 14th day of Nisan, at sunset, is the start of Pesach, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The guide told me. That's why there are so many people staying here. They've come on pilgrimage from all over the world. Well, everybody knows--at least Mr Babcock does, I'm sure--that according to St John and many other authorities Jesus and his disciples ate the Last Supper on the 13th day of Nisan, the day before the Feast of Unleavened Bread, so it seemed to me rather appropriate that we should all just have finished our supper here this evening. Jesus was doing precisely the same thing two thousand years ago.'

He pushed his spectacles back on his forehead and smiled. The effect of his words was not so stunning as he had hoped. No burst of applause. No exclamations of wonder at his general knowledge. Everyone looked rather cross.

'H'm,' said Colonel Mason, 'this is your province, padre.'

Babcock did a rapid calculation. He was used to problems being fired at him on the Any Questions programme he gave quarterly at the youth club, but he wasn't prepared for this one.

'You have evidently read your gospels thoroughly, Robin,' he said. 'Matthew, Mark, and Luke appear to disagree with John as to the exact date. However, I must admit I had not checked up on the fact that tomorrow is the 14th day of Nisan, and so the Jewish holiday begins at sunset. It was rather remiss of me not to have talked to the guide myself.'

His statement did not do much to clear the air. Miss Dean was frankly bewildered.

'But how can this be the day of the Last Supper?' she asked. 'We all celebrated Easter early this year. Surely Easter Day was the 29th of March?'

'The Jewish calendar is different from ours,' said Babcock. 'Pesach, or Passover, as we term it, does not necessarily coincide with Easter.'

Surely he was not expected to enter into a theological discussion because a small boy enjoyed showing off?

Jim Foster clicked his fingers in the air. 'That explains why I couldn't get Rubin on the telephone, Kate,' he said. 'They told me the office in Tel Aviv would be shut until the 21st. A public holiday.'

'I hope the shops and bazaars will be open,' Jill exclaimed. 'I want to buy souvenirs for the family and friends back home.'

After a moment's thought Robin nodded his head. 'I think they will,' he said, 'at least until sunset. You could give your friends some unleavened bread.' An idea suddenly struck him, and he turned delightedly to the Rev. Babcock. 'Seeing that it's the evening of the 13th day of Nisan,' he said, 'oughtn't we all to walk down the hill to the Garden of Gethsemane? It's not very far away. I asked the guide. Jesus and the disciples crossed the valley, but we needn't do that. We could just imagine we had gone back two thousand years and they were going to be there.'

Even his grandmother, who generally applauded his every action, looked a little uncomfortable.

'Really, Robin,' she said, 'I don't think any of us are quite prepared to set forth after dinner and stumble about in the dark. We aren't taking part in your end of term play, remember.' She turned to Babcock. 'They put on a very sweet little nativity play last Christmas,' she said. 'Robin was one of the Three Wise Men.'

'Oh yes,' he countered, 'my Huddersfield lads staged a nativity play at the club. Set the scene in Vietnam. I was very impressed.' Robin was gazing at him with more than usual intensity, and he made a supreme effort to meet the challenge. look,' he said, 'if you really want to walk down the hill to Gethsemane I'm willing to go with you.'

'Splendid!' said the Colonel. 'I'm game. A breath of fresh air would do us all good. I know the terrain--you won't be lost with me in charge.'

'How about it?' murmured Jim Foster to his neighbour Jill. 'If you hold on tight I won't let you go.'

A delighted smile spread over Robin's face. Things were going his way after all. No risk now of being packed off early to bed.

'You know,' he said, touching the Rev. Babcock's arm, his voice sounding very loud and clear, 'if we were really the disciples and you were Jesus, you would have to line us all up in a row against the wall there and start to wash our feet. But my grandmother would probably say that was going a bit too far.'

He stood aside, bowing politely, to let the grown-up people pass. He was destined for Winchester, and he remembered the motto, Manners Makyth Man.

The air was sharp and clean, like a sword's blade. No wind-- the air alone made the cutting edge. The stony path led downwards, steep and narrow, bound on either side by walls. On the right the sombre cluster of cypress trees and pines masked the seven spires of the Russian cathedral and the smaller humped dome of the Dominus Flevit church. In the daytime the onion spires of St Mary Magdalene would gleam golden under the sun, and across the valley of Kidron the city walls which encompassed Jerusalem, with the Dome of the Rock prominent in the foreground and the city itself spreading ever further west and north, would not fail to awaken some response in every pilgrim heart, as it had done through the centuries, but tonight ... Tonight thought Edward Babcock, with the pale yellow moon coming up behind us and the dark sky above our heads, even the low hum of the traffic beneath us on the main road to Jericho seems to blend and merge into the silence. As the steep path descended so the city rose, and the valley separating it from the Mount of Olives down which they walked became sombre, black, like a winding river-bed. Mosques, domes, spires, towers, the rooftops of a myriad human dwellings fused together, blotted against the sky, and only the walls of the city remained, steadfast on the opposite hill, a threat, a challenge.

'I'm not ready for this,' he thought. 'It's too big, I can't take it, I shan't be able to explain what it means, not even to this small handful of people who are with me. I ought to have stayed in the hotel reading up my notes and studying the map so as to be able to speak with some sort of authority tomorrow. Or, better still, have come here on my own.'

It was wrong of him, uncharitable, but the perpetual chatter of the Colonel at his side got on his nerves, made him edgy, irritable. Who cared what his regiment had been doing in '48? It was out of keeping with the scene spread out before them.

'And so,' the Colonel was saying, 'the Mandate was handed over to the U.N. in May, and we were all out of the country by July 1st. To my mind we should have stayed. The whole thing has been a bloody nonsense ever since. No one will ever settle down in this part of the world, and they'll still be fighting over Jerusalem when you and I have been in our graves for years. Beautiful spot, you know, from this distance. Used to be pretty scruffy inside the Old City.'

The pine trees to their right were motionless. Everything was still. To their left the hillside appeared bare, uncultivated, but Babcock could be mistaken: moonlight was deceptive, those white shapes that seemed to be rocks and boulders could be tombs. Once there would have been no sombre pines, no cypresses, no Russian cathedral, only the olive trees with silver branches sweeping the stony ground, and the sound of the brook trickling through the valley below.

'Funny thing,' said the Colonel, 'I never did any proper soldiering once I left this place behind me. Served for a time back home, at Aldershot, but what with reorganisation in the army, and one thing and another, and my wife wasn't too fit at the time, I decided to pack it in and quit. I should have been given command of my regiment if I had stayed, and gone to Germany, but Althea was all against it, and it didn't seem fair to her. Her father left her the Hall, you know, in Little Bletford. She had been brought up there, and her life was centred in it. Still is, in fact. She does a great deal locally.'

Edward Babcock made an effort to attend, to show some sign of interest. 'You regret leaving the army?'

The Colonel did not answer immediately, but when he did the usual tone of brisk self-confidence had gone; he sounded puzzled, strained.

'It was my whole life,' he said. 'And that's another funny thing, padre--I don't think I've ever realised it before tonight. Just standing here, looking at that city across the valley, makes me remember.'

Something moved in the shadows below. It was Robin. He had been crouching against the wall. He had a map in his hand and a small torch.

'Look, Mr Babcock,' he said, 'that's where they must have come, from the gate in the wall over to the left. We can't see it from here, but it's marked on the map. Jesus and his disciples, I mean, after they had had their supper. And the gardens and trees were probably all up this hill then, not just down at the bottom where the church stands today. In fact, if we go on a bit further and sit down by that wall, we can picture the whole thing. The soldiers and the high priests' attendants coming down with flares from the other gate, perhaps where that car is showing now. Come on!'

He began running down the hill in front of them, flicking his small torch to and fro, until he disappeared round a turn of the wall.

'Watch your step, Robin,' called his grandfather. 'You might fall. It's jolly steep down there.' Then he turned to his companion. 'He can read a map as well as I can myself. Only nine years old.'

'I'll go after him,' said Babcock. 'See he doesn't get into trouble. You wait here for Lady Althea.'

'You needn't worry, padre,' replied the Colonel. 'The boy knows what he's doing.'

Babcock pretended not to hear. It was an excuse to be alone, if only for a few minutes, otherwise the scene beneath him would never make the deep impression he desired, so that he could describe it later to all the lads, when he returned to Huddersfield.

Colonel Mason remained motionless beside the wall. The slow, careful footsteps of his wife and Miss Dean descending the path behind him were only a short distance away, and Althea's voice carried on the still cold air.

'If we don't see them we'll turn back,' she was saying, but I know what Phil can be like when he's in charge of an expedition. He always thinks he knows the way, and only too often he doesn't at all.'

'I can hardly credit that,' said Miss Dean, 'as a military man.'

Lady Althea laughed. 'Dear Phil,' she said. 'He likes everyone to think he might have become a general. But the truth is, Miss Dean, he would never have made the grade. I had it on the highest authority from one of his brother officers. Oh, they were all fond of him, but the dear old boy would never have gone any further, not in the army as it is today. That's why we all persuaded him to retire when he did. I sometimes wish he would be just a little more active where local affairs are concerned, but there it is, I have to act for us both. And he has done wonders in the garden.'