Triple (2 page)

Ken Folieff

The Russian nodded solemnly. "Anything for a free drink."

Cortone said, "You interested in Hebrew Literature too?"

Rostov said, "No, I'm here to study bourgeois economics."

Dickstein laughed loudly. Cortone did not see the joke. Dickstein

explained, "Rostov is from Smolensk. Hes a member of the CPSU-the Communist

Party of the Soviet Union." Cortone still did not see the joke.

"I thought nobody was allowed to leave Russia," Cortone said.

Rostov went into a long and involved explanation which had to do with his

father's having been a diplomat in Japan when the war broke out. He had an

earnest expression which occasionally gave way to a sly smile. Although his

English was imperfect, he managed to give Cortone the impression that he

was condescending. Cortone turned off, and began to think about how you

could love a man as if he was your own brother, fighting side by side with

him, and then he could go off and study Hebrew Literature and you would

realize you never really knew him at all.

Eventually Rostov said to Dickstein, "Have you decided yet, about going to

Palestine?"

Cortone said, "Palestine? What for?"

Dickstein looked troubled. "I haven't decided."

"You should go," said Rostov. 'The Jewish National Home will help to break

up the last remnants of the British Empire in the Middle EasIt '

"Is that the Party line?" Dickstein asked with a faint smile.

"Yes," Rostov said seriously. "You're a socialist--"

"Of sorts."

"---and it is important that the new State should be socialist."

Cortone was incredulous. "Tbe Arabs are murdering you people out there.

Jeez, Nat, you only just escaped from the Germanst"

"I haven't decided," Dickstein repeated. He shook his head irritably. "I

don't know what to do." It seemed he did not want to talk about It.

They were walking briskly. Cortone's face was freezing, but he was

perspiring beneath his winter uniform. The other two began to discuss a

scandal: a man called Mosley-the name meant nothing to Cortone--had been

persuaded to enter Oxford in a van and make a speech at the Martyr's

6

TRIPLE

Memorial. Mosley was a Fascist, he gathered a moment later. Rostov was

arguing that the incident proved how social democracy was closer to

Fascism than Communism. Dickstein claimed the undergraduates who organized

the event were just trying to be "shocking."

Cortone listened and watched the two men. They were an odd couple: tall

Rostov, hisscarf like a striped bandage, takIng long strides, Ids

too-short trousers flapping like flags; and diminutive Dickstein with big

eyes and round spectacles, wearing a demob suit, looking like a skeleton

in a hurry. Cortone was no academic, but he figured he could smell out

bullshit in any language, and he knew that neither of them was saying

what he believed: Rostov was parroting some kind of official dogma, and

Dickstein's brittle unconcem masked a different, deeper attitude. When

Dickstein laughed about Mosley, he sounded like a child laughing after

a nightmare. They both argued cleverly but without emotion: it was like

a fencing match with blunted swords.

Eventually Dickstein seemed to realize that Cortone was being left out

of the discussion and began to talk about theirhost. "Stephen Ashford Is

a bit eccentric, but a remarkable man," be said. "He spent most of his

life in the Middle East. Made a small fortune and lost it, by all

accounts. He used to do. crazy things, like crossing the Arabian Desert

on a

go

camel.

"That might be the least crazy way to cross it," Cortone said.

Rostov said, "Ashford has a Lebanese wife."

Cortone looked at Dickstein. "She's--o'

"Shea younger than he is," Dickstein said hastily. "He brought her back

to England just before the war and became Professor of Semitic Literature

here. If he gives you Marsala Instead of sherry it means you've

overstayed your welcome."

"People know the differencer, Cortone said.

'This is his house."

Cortone was half expecting a Moorish villa, but the Ashford home was

imitation Tudor, painted white with green woodwork. The garden in front

was a jungle of shrubs. The three young men walked up a brick pathway to

the house. The front door was open. They entered a small, square hall.

Somewhere in the house several people laughed: the party

7

Ken Folloff

had started. A pair of double doors opened and the most beautiful woman

in the world came out.

. Cortone was transfted. He stood and stared as she came across the

carpet to welcome them. He heard Dickstein say, 'This is my friend Alan

Cortone," and suddenly he was touching her long brown hand, warm and dry

and fine-boned, and he never wanted to let go.

She turned away and led them into the drawing room. Dickstein touched

Cortone's arm and grinned: he had known what was going on in his friend's

mind.

Cortone recovered his composure sufficiently to say, -WOW."

Small glasses of sherry were lined up with military precision. on a

little table. She handed one to Cortone, smiled, and said, -rm Eila

Ashford, by the way."

Cortone took in the details as she handed out the drinks. She was

completely unadorned: there was no make-up on her astonishing face, her

black hair was straight, and she wore a white dress and sandals--yet the

effect was almost like nakedness, and Cortone was embarrassed at the

animal thoughts that rushed through his mind as he looked at her.

He forced himself to turn away and study his surroundings. The room had

the unfinished elegance of a place where people are living slightly

beyond their means. The rich Persian carpet was bordered by a strip of

peeling gray linoleum; someone had been mending the radio, and its

innards

all over a kidney table; there were a couple of bright rectangles on the

wallpaper where pictures had been taken down; and some of the sherry

glasses did not quite match the set. There were about a dozen people in

the room.

An Arab wearing a beautiful pearl-gray Western suit was standing at the

fireplace, looking at a wooden carving on the mantelpiece. Eila Ashford

called him over. "I want you to meet Yasif Hassan, a friend of my family

from home," she said. "He's at Worcester College."

Hassan said, "I know Dickstein." He shook hands all around.

Cortone thought he was fairly handsome, for a nigger, and haughty, the

way they were when they made some money and got invited to white homes.

Rostov asked him, "You're from Lebanon

"Palestine."

TRIPLE

"Ah!" Rostov became animated. "And what do you think of the United Nations

partition plan?"

"Irrelevant," the Arab said languidly. 'The British must leave, and my

country will have a democratic. government."

"But then the Jews will be in a minority," Rostov argued.

'They are in a minority in England. Should they be given Surrey as a

national homeT'

"Surrey has never been theirs. Palestine was, once."

Hassan shrugged elegantly. "It was-when the Welsh had England, the English

had Germany, and the Norman French lived in Scandinavia." He turned to

Dickstein. "You have a sense of justice-what do you think?"

Dickstein took off his glasses. "Never mind justice. I want a place to call

my own."

"Even if you have to steal mine?" Hassan said.

"You can have the rest of the Middle East"

"I don't want it."

Rostov said, "This discussion proves the necessity for partition."

Eila Ashford offered a box of cigarettes. Cortone took one, and lit hers.

While the others argued about Palestine, Eila asked Cortone, "Have you

known Dickstein long?"

"We met in 1943," Cortone said. He watched her brown fins close around the

cigarette. She even smoked beautifully. Delicately, she picked a fragment

of tobacco from the tip of her tongue.

"I'm terribly curious about him," she said.

9619n3rri

"Everyone is. Hes only a boy, and yet he seems so oU Then again, he's

obviously a Cockney, but he's not in the least intimidated by all these

upper-class Englishmen. But hell talk about anything except himself."

Cortone nodded. "Im finding out that I don!t really know him, either."

"My husband says hes a brilliant student."

"He saved my life."

"Good Lord." She looked at him more closely, as if she were wondering

whether he was just being melodramatic. She seemed to decide in his

favor. "I'd like to hear about it."

A middle-aged man in baggy corduroy trousers touched her shoulder and

said, "How is everything, my dear?" 9

Ken Folleff

"Fine," she said. "Mr. Cortone, this is my husband, Professor Ashford."

Cortone said, "How are you." Ashford was a balding man in ill-fitting

clothes. Cortone had been expecting Lawrence of Arabia. He thought: Maybe

Nat has a chance after all.

Eila said, "Mr. Cortone was telling me how Nat Dickstein saved his life."

"Reallyl" Ashford said.

"It's not a long story," Cortone said. He glanced over at Dickstein, now

deep in conversation with Hassan and Rostov; and noted how the three men

displayed their attitudes by the way they stood: Rostov with his feet

apart, wagging a finger like a teacher, sure in his dogma; Hassan leaning

against a bookcase, one hand in his pocket, smoking, pretending that the

international debate about the future of his country was of merely academic

interest; Dickstein with arms folded tightly, shoulders hunched, head bowed

in concentration, his stance giving the lie to the dispassionate character

of his remarks. Cortone heard The British promised Palestine to the Yews,

and the reply, Beware the gifts of a thief. He turned back to the Asbfords

and began to tell them the story.

"It was in Sicily, near a place called Ragusa, a hill town," he said. "I'd

taken a T-force around the outskirts. To the north of the town we came on

a German tank in a little hollow, on the edge of a clump of trees. The tank

looked abandoned but I put a grenade into it to make sure. As we drove past

there was a shot---only one-and a German with a machine gun fell out of a

tree. He'd been hiding up there, ready to pick us off as we passed. It was

Nat Dickstein who shot him."

Eila!s eyes sparkled with something like excitement, but her husband had

gone white. Obviously the professor had no stomach for tales of life and

death. Cortone thought: If that upsets you, pop, I hope Dickstein never

tells you any of his stories.

- "The British had come around the town from the other side," Cortone went

on. "Nat had seen the tank, like I did, !nd smelled a trap. He had spotted

the sniper and was waiting to see if there were any more when we turned up.

If he hadn't been so damn smart I'd be dead."

The other two were silent for a moment. Ashford said, "It's not long ago,

but we forget so fast."

10

TRIPLE

Eila remembered her other guests. "I want to talk to you some more before

you go," she said to Cortone. She went across the room to where Hassan was

tying to open a pair of doors that gave on to the garden.

Ashford brushed nervously at the wispy hair behind his ears. "The public

hears about the big battles, but I suppose the soldier remembers those

little personal incidents."

Cortone nodded, thinking that Ashford clearly had no conception of whar war

was like, and wondering if the professor's youth had really been as

adventurous as Dickstein claimed. "Uter, I took him to meet my cousins-the

family comes from Sicily. We had pasta and wine, and they made a hero of

Nat. We were together only for a few days, but we were like brothers, you

know?"

"Indeed."

"When I beard he was taken prisoner, I figured rd never see him- again."

"Do you know what happened to him?" Ashford said. "He doesn't say much . .

."

Cortone shrugged. "He survived the camps."

"He was fortunate."

"Was he?"

Ashford looked at Cortone for a moment, confused, then turned away and

looked around the room. After a moment he said, 'This is not a very typical

Oxford gathering, you know. Dickstein, Rostov and Hassan are somewhat

unusual students. You should meet Toby-he's the archetypal undergraduate."

He caught the eye of a red-faced youth, in a tweed suit and a very wide

paisley tie. "Toby, come and meet Dickstein's comrade-in-arms-Mr. Cortone."

Toby shook hands and said abruptly, "Any chance of a tip from the stable?

Will Dickstein win?"

'Tvrin whatr'Cortone said.

Ashford explained, "Dickstein and Rostov are to play a chess match-they're

both supposed to be terribly good. Toby think you might have inside

information-he probably wants to bet on the outcome."

Cortone said, "I thought chess was an old man's game."

Toby said, "Ahl" rather loudly, and emptied his glass. He and Ashford

seemed nonplussed by Cortone's remark. A little girl, four or five years

old, came in from the garden carrying

I I