A Palestine Affair Read online

  He walked naked into the tiny kitchen that occupied a corner of his one-room flat and made himself breakfast: bread, olives, goat cheese and a cup of tea. He had one more go-round with the letter, then crumpled it in his hand and let it drop to the floor. Time to move on. There was the lovely Bukharian girl who worked at the corner grocery and leaned her bike on the wall outside his gate every morning; there was the young woman he had seen at the Polo Grounds in Talpiot fetchingly resting her head on her horse’s shoulder; there was the American woman who had stopped him to ask directions while he was crossing the street outside the post office, older than he, thirty maybe, her hair prematurely gray, almost white, and a lovely, open face. “My first day in town,” she’d said. He would have talked longer with her if the traffic policeman hadn’t begun to whistle from his high pedestal and wave his white-gloved hands at them like a crazy mime.

  Kirsch pulled on a pair of shorts and took his tea back onto the balcony. The sky, milk white when he had woken, was coloring up turquoise blue. In the distance he could see the zeppelin sail high over the King David Hotel; he watched its parachuted mailbags drift down like dandelion seeds. Twenty-five shillings if you found a lost and undamaged bag. He had written the reward notice himself, and had the handbill distributed all over the city and the province of Judea. The “undamaged” was important. Back in March some inappropriate people had come across some extremely inappropriate international post.

  It was Sunday. Kirsch thought he might take a drive, maybe Jericho, or perhaps Hebron. He could invite someone along for a fruit ice. When she’d left him the American woman had headed in the direction of the municipal buildings. Suppose he went there and simply hung about in the doorway, perhaps she’d show up again. He had to do something to give this birthday the appearance of a purpose.

  The phone rang as Kirsch was buckling the belt on his trousers. He listened for a moment.

  “Goodness,” he said. “Right away.”

  Kirsch sat at De Groot’s broad walnut desk, which was covered with books, journals, newspapers, and a large number of scrawled-on manuscript sheets. It was hard to tell if the materials had been disturbed, or whether the mess was simply the reflection of a chaotic mind. The window in front of Kirsch faced south onto St. Paul Street. For the Jews in the neighborhood it was a regular workday, and the shouts of vendors mingled with the braying of donkeys and the occasional car horn. De Groot’s body had been taken to the city morgue and identified almost immediately by one of the workers there, an Orthodox Jew from the Mea She’arim quarter. The victim was well known in those parts as a staunch defender of the faith.

  Kirsch opened the pages of a leather-bound notebook; the looped handwriting presented itself in columns down the middle of the page under the heading Kussen. Kirsch tried to read a few lines, “Het voorjaarbuiten is altijd zoel,” then gave up. He’d studied German at school but this was double Dutch to him, or rather, he realized as soon as this thought came into his head, single Dutch. He began to move methodically through the papers, studying carefully those that were in English. In the small white-walled room behind him Kirsch’s two sergeants, Harlap and Peled, were emptying the contents of a wardrobe.

  When he had finished with what was on the top of the desk Kirsch began to go through the drawers. In one he found a brown velvet bag that contained the victim’s prayer shawl, and in another, a smaller cloth bag embroidered with gilt Hebrew letters that held De Groot’s phylacteries. The narrow drawer under the center of the desk was locked. Kirsch called Harlap over and in a few moments the sergeant had pried it open. Kirsch removed a folder and extracted a thin sheaf of typed letters, carbon copies of originals that had been posted to London. De Groot had been arranging a trip; the date of his departure, already put off twice, had finally been established as early next week. There was nothing shocking in that, except that De Groot’s correspondence, with the exception of one letter, had all been sent to a rather familiar address: 10 Downing Street, home of the prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald. The other letter had gone to a marginally less distinguished recipient: Sir Miles Davenport at the Colonial Office in Pall Mall.

  Kirsch closed the folder and stood up. “Are we ready to leave?”

  Having gone through the pockets of De Groot’s dark suits, Harlap and Peled were now bundling them back into his wardrobe.

  “Did you find something?” Harlap asked, eyeing the folder in Kirsch’s hand.

  “Nothing incriminating. Poor sod was about to go on holiday. Booked to Rome on the Sitmar out of Haifa at the end of the month.”

  Kirsch locked the door behind him. The three men clattered down the narrow staircase and out into the street.

  4.

  Briggs opened Ross’s door and poked his head round.

  “He’s here.”

  “Who is?”

  “The painter chappee.”

  Ross beckoned Briggs into his office.

  “Look all right, does he?”

  “Overdoing the artist-type a bit. He’s wearing a beret. And . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, you know.” Briggs made a quick gesture with his forefinger to indicate the size and curve of Bloomberg’s nose.

  “That’s enough of that.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Well, show Mr. Bloomberg in.”

  Ross selected one of the three seals that lay on the blotter in front of him. He stamped a document OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, then, as Bloomberg entered the room, he rose from his chair and came around the desk. “So glad you could make it.”

  The two men shook hands.

  “I got Teddy Marsh’s letter. You’re out for, what is it? A year?”

  “Longer, probably.”

  “Excellent, we’ll have plenty of time to get to know one another.”

  On the wall behind Ross’s desk was a photograph of Allenby entering Jerusalem, a map of the city, and a series of wood-framed, poorly executed pencil sketches. Bloomberg recognized the Dome of the Rock and the Church of All Nations at the foot of the Garden of Gethsemane.

  Ross caught him looking. “Embarrassing, aren’t they? I’m afraid I haven’t your talent. But the passion is there. Hand simply won’t do what the brain tells it.”

  “Sometimes that works better.”

  Ross laughed. “Happy accidents, you mean? No, mine are all unhappy. But do sit down.” Ross paused for a moment to remove a cigarette from a silver case. He proffered the case to Bloomberg, who declined.

  “Well, quite a welcome to the Holy Land! Embrace from a corpse.”

  Bloomberg tried to smile. He could still feel the weak arms wrapped round him and the bloody chest pressed onto his bare skin.

  “Wife all right? Must have been a terrible shock. Terrible. Can’t imagine.”

  “I think I was more frightened than she was.”

  “Were you indeed?”

  “Do you have any idea who . . . ?”

  “Victim, or murderer?”

  “Well, both I suppose.”

  “The victim’s rather well known, I’m afraid. Jacob De Groot. A Dutch Jew. He came out to Palestine as a journalist, sympathies all on the Zionist side, but as happens over here more than you would imagine, living in the place transformed him. For the last few years he’s been singing the praises of the ultra-Orthodox. The black-hat chaps. They’re not too hot on the Jewish state idea, as you must know: defilement of the holy ground, the holy tongue, et cetera. But De Groot was a benign enough fellow—a poet—you know, quite well known back in Holland. Not that I’ve read his verses.” Ross shook his head. “Poor chap. Still, strange case, the Arab clothing and all that. Although we didn’t find a wallet on him, so there’s your motive, I suppose. As for who did it, we haven’t a clue on the knifer. Hoping you might be able to help us. Our Captain Kirsch is heading up the investigation. You’ll meet him. He’s . . .”

  Ross was going to add “one of your chaps,” but stopped himself. Kirsch neither looked nor acted like a Jew. In fact, he had attend
ed the same school as Ross’s nephew—but his mother, everybody said, or was it his father? Must have been the father, otherwise where’d he get the name? And what did it matter anyway?

  “. . . terribly bright,” Ross continued, lamely, he knew. In order to cover his embarrassment he began to speak faster. “Kirsch is young, but he’s shot through the ranks. Chose to bypass Oxbridge and come out here. He’s been with us almost since the beginning of the Civil Administration. Two years at least. Anything urgent he reports directly to me. There isn’t a better man on the force. If anybody can track down the killer, he will.”

  Bloomberg, distracted by a hawker’s cry from the street, looked toward the window behind Ross’s back, where the heads of a clump of shy trees peered in.

  Ross picked up two pieces of paper from his desk. He held up one of them, a flyer from the Whitechapel Gallery. “This show that you organized last year.”

  “Yes?”

  “Teddy Marsh was terribly impressed. All Jewish artists, am I right?”

  Ross began to read the list of names: “Lipchitz, Modigliani, Pascin . . . yourself.”

  Bloomberg could tell that the names were unfamiliar to Ross. And why shouldn’t they be?

  Ross shuffled his papers.

  “And here Teddy tells me”—Ross moved his finger down the page, then found his place in the letter—“that the Tate bought one of your paintings.”

  “Only a drawing, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, even so. You’re in elevated company there.”

  Bloomberg nodded his head. He could tell that Ross had no idea what kind of work he did, and he certainly seemed unaware of the way in which Bloomberg’s reputation had taken a dip in the last year. His February show, something of an experiment, had been a disaster. He had been savaged and ridiculed in the press, made one sale that had barely covered the cost of his materials, and then he had foolishly agreed to give a series of gallery talks: the newspapers were waiting. He remembered the attack word for word: “ARTIST EXPLAINS WHAT HIS PICTURES MEAN: Mark Bloomberg, currently on the cubist bandwagon, is holding an exhibition at the Ransom Gallery, where, once a week, he explains his theories to visitors—an example which might be followed by cubists, futurists and distorticists generally, especially the foreign ones. We could understand their pictures then—perhaps.”

  “Well,” Ross said, beginning to move a few items on his desk, “I’m so glad we could get acquainted. Anything I can help with you’ll be sure to let me know. Meanwhile Kirsch will absolutely take care of . . . this inconvenient robbery, this murder . . .” Ross’s voice trailed away. There seemed to be something that he wanted to ask but was afraid to. Bloomberg was surprised by Ross’s nervousness, but in a moment the governor appeared to collect himself.

  “Listen, old chap,” he continued, “I don’t know if you know, but I’ve been, well, and its hard to say this without sounding boastful, but, I’ve been, well, I and others, of course, restoring the city. We have a little society, well not so little actually, the Pro-Jerusalem Society, branches all over the place: London, New York, Chicago. We’re trying to be very careful, no more stucco or corrugated iron within the city walls, and no more demolition. We’ve retiled the bare spaces on the Dome of the Rock, that type of thing. Brought potters in from Mutahia who still work in the old ways, built them a little pottery, found the kilns in the area of the Haram not long after we took the city. Terribly interesting process, wonderfully rewarding. What I was wondering, and of course you may not at all be interested, but perhaps, if time permits, a break from your other work, a rendition of certain spots, buildings, the Muristan for example. Naturally one could pay . . .” Ross, feeling that he had overstepped an invisible boundary, came to an abrupt halt.

  Bloomberg smiled. “It’s not really my cup of tea.”

  “No, no of course not, a man of your reputation, simply a thought. Well, jolly nice to meet you and if you should change your mind . . .” Ross blushed.

  Bloomberg exited the office and at the foot of the stairs found himself being escorted to a waiting fawn-colored Bentley that showed government badges.

  “Sir Gerald said to take you wherever you’re headed, sir.”

  Bloomberg sat back in the broad leather seat. The strange thing was that since arriving in Palestine he had done nothing but paint realistically. Something was compelling him in what was for him an old-fashioned and unusual direction. Perhaps it was the beating he had taken in the London papers. Or something else. The obliterating white light. He didn’t know. Still, Ross was a strange one, seemed more interested in art than in the murder.

  “Where’s it going to be then, sir?”

  Bloomberg gave the driver his address, then changed his mind and asked to be brought to the Old City.

  5.

  Joyce, wearing only a loose white shirt, long on her, that Bloomberg used to paint in, stood outside the cottage and breathed deep. Not even the memory, all too vivid, of the stabbed and bloody victim could entirely dampen her spirits. If she was honest with herself, and in this particular she wasn’t quite ready to be, it was almost as if the murder, in its terrible drama, had already partially fulfilled the promise of excitement that her visions of Palestine had prompted. This place, Jerusalem, was the city that she had dreamed of for months and months, while she was chilled to the bone through London’s damp winter and on into its dull spring, the watercolor evanescence of the metropolis’s parks and gardens, its traffic honking like angry geese, all less real to her than the Palestine she had never visited, and on which she now pinned all her hopes.

  She walked down the rough path broken through high grass to the point where De Groot had died. The police had scoured the spot and its surrounding area but found nothing. Joyce bent to the ground and rubbed her hand in the dirt, half expecting her fingers to come up bloody. She examined the dirt under her nails, then stood and wandered into the garden’s wildest corner, where three flat rocks were overgrown with chicory and poppy. The air hummed and a black-and-white hoopoe darted flight paths across her line of vision, as if to sign, seal and demarcate the area that belonged to Joyce and Bloomberg. She felt, as never before in the long history of her enthusiasms, that this time she would achieve a genuine accomplishment. On her last visit to a Zionist gathering—the rain, as always it seemed, drizzling onto their heads—a smiling Leo Cohn had told her that once she got to Jerusalem someone would get in touch with her, and the way in which she might make herself useful would be specified. Joyce couldn’t wait to begin: she imagined how her talents might be employed; she could certainly teach, preferably art or dance, or if more physical work was required she could do that too. She wasn’t averse to chopping or digging, or any kind of rigorous endeavor that might both test and strengthen her.

  Mark had only the vaguest idea of her degree of involvement with Zionism, and he seemed to regard her fascination with Middle Eastern politics (such as he knew it) as a substitute for domestic entertainment: she had worked up an interest in helping to advance a homeland for the Jews, but she might equally have taken up bridge.

  Joyce went back into the cottage. Its walls, pink in the dusk when she had first seen them, followed, so Aubrey Harrison had explained on handing them keys to the door, the governor’s prescriptions for new city building: all-limestone under a tiled red roof. The cottage’s general state of disrepair and temporary disarray appealed to Joyce, although its outhouse, a fly-ridden closet surrounding a hole in the ground, was, even after her experience of London’s medieval plumbing, almost too much to tolerate. Nevertheless, in the thought that there was work to be done on the cottage and its surrounding garden she located a pleasure of identification with the Jewish pioneers whom she admired so much. Again, this feeling could not be relayed to Mark. “But you’re not even Jewish!” he liked to remind her, a fact that her fellow Zionists at Toynbee Hall meetings had considered utterly irrelevant.

  Light pierced the room’s latticed screens and lay a pattern in dots and bars across the yellow matti
ng on the floor. Joyce circled the cramped space, tidying up a little. The tips of the grass outside had rubbed against the back of her legs, and she stretched to scratch at itchy spots that had erupted in the sweaty pockets at the back of her knees. She stacked Mark’s paintings by size against a wall. His stuffy kitchen/ studio in Stepney Way, a room that smelled of boiled vegetables, had been perhaps only half the size of this place. When she had first visited him there, in the company of her friend Anne Marsden, its decrepit table had been strewn with drawings of a heavy woman with plain features— the only model he could afford, his mother—but the walls were covered with paintings, and on the longest space a canvas was stretched from floor to ceiling. The large work took Joyce’s breath away; it showed figures emerging from the hold of a ship, but Bloomberg had presented them as jerky marionettes cast in reds, lavenders, blues, arcs and spirals. Nevertheless they were physical and alive. She lost herself in the painting.

  Anne, in order to leave Joyce alone with the artist whose work she so much admired, had suddenly remembered an important errand that she had to run. Mark stood on a sturdy chair, his arm stretched high to a corner of the painting. He continued to work while Joyce watched. The poverty of her surroundings had made her nervous, but she was aroused by Mark’s presence and waited impatiently for him to put down his brushes and talk to her, and perhaps, later, to embrace her. That was the beginning, to be followed by the weeks of high passion familiar to all new lovers. She wasn’t sure now whether she had encouraged him to leave London for Palestine in order to save him, or save their marriage, or entirely for her own singular purposes. Whatever her motives, the new country, now that she had arrived, seemed alive with possibility.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Joyce called, then, realizing that she was naked beneath Mark’s shirt, scrambled to find a skirt to pull on.

  A young man in a well-pressed but faintly grubby white uniform pushed the door open and stood on the threshold of the room.