A Long Way to Shiloh (11 page)

I was early, and Ike didn’t answer the door himself. A little fellow in a white lab coat did.

‘Mr Isaacs in?’

‘Yes, sir. It’s Dr Laing? I’m his assistant. He’s through there, working. He’s expecting you, Doctor. Go in.’

He shut the street door behind me as I went in.

I said, ‘Well, you bastard – hit me with it!’

He did. Somebody did. Somebody hit me with something. My head seemed to explode and shatter in fragments. Just as I fell I had a glimpse, as if through a prism, of the little assistant, peering carefully, solicitously almost, into my face.

I was lying under the car on the A.6 and Paula was being sick again. This wouldn’t do, of course. I detached and
deep-breathed
, as advised, and it did the trick. No A.6. No sweaty nightmare blankets, either, though. Just mustiness, carpet
mustiness
. I’d passed out, then. Only where? And who was being sick? Somebody was being sick. Was it me being sick?

No, it was Ike being sick, poor old bastard. In his pyjamas, too. I seemed to be up on one elbow looking at him. He was being sick the wrong colour. He was lying on his side. It was all down the front of his pyjamas, and underneath him. My head was a long way away and icy cold. Wherever the hell it was, it was hurting. Then it returned, and we associated, and I said, ‘Oh, Christ,’ and tried to get up.

‘It’s all right,’ somebody said, clicking his tongue. ‘Stay still. You’ll be fine in a minute.’

‘What the hell is happening?’ I said. My lips seemed to be numb, and I said it in Arabic, no doubt because he’d spoken Arabic, too.

He didn’t say anything, just went on clicking. It was the little alleged assistant, and he had an ice-bag on my head. He was cleaning up my face, which seemed to be wet. Two others were there, heavy darkish men, moustached. They were sitting
smoking
, keep a casual eye on me, and on Ike. Ike was lying under the lamps, where the crumpet had lain. He was lying in a quite relaxed way, except for a subdued twitch every now and again as he vomited. His face was sideways on the carpet, in a pool of it, eyes open like a fish and looking at me. It was not an apprehensive or an urgent look, just thoughtful, absorbed almost, as if he were metering the flow that gushed
rhythmically
from his mouth. I was suddenly vomiting with him,
horribly
.

I seemed to be in the bathroom then, and one of the men was holding me while the alleged assistant quick as a cat, dabbed at my face with a little face flannel.

‘It’s all right, you’ll be fine, there’s nothing to worry about,’ he said, worried. ‘You just need a hat. Give him a hat,’ he said.

One of the men took his hat off and put it on me.

‘That’s fine. You look quite well. It’s only to the car,’ the assistant said.

I was weaving about, horribly shocked, mumbling. ‘What are you doing? What have you done to Ike? What do you want here?’

I knew, of course – in some remote, though acceptable way – what they’d done to Ike and also what they were doing here. Knowing it didn’t make it any less surrealist or improbable. It seemed important as I reeled about in my hat, to assimilate every detail of what was going on here. These characters were going to kidnap me. They were going to kidnap me in broad daylight! They had to be stopped, for God’s sake. They had to be hoodwinked, outwitted, frightened off in some way. In what way, for God’s sake? And by whom, for God’s sake? There were two big powerful men here, and one alert little spry one, all quite plainly on top of the job.

The little spry one hadn’t bothered answering me. He’d opened a medical chest and was fiddling with a pad of lint. And suddenly everything went into slow motion as my concussed and labouring brain started assimilating in a frenzy. I
assimilated
Ike quietly vomiting next door, and the large man standing over the lavatory and wiping a knife very carefully on toilet paper; and the other one leaning in the doorway and studying a sheet of curling black card – the scroll fragment, I realized suddenly.

The little one had lifted the hat and popped the lint inside and replaced the hat again. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘That will stop it. We can go now.’

I said, ‘Look here,’ still mumbling at him and weaving about. ‘This is some horrible mistake. I don’t know what you want, but you’ve got it wrong. You’ve got the wrong man. I’m – I’m a physician, a doctor,’ I said, suddenly recalling how he’d
addressed
me. ‘I’m simply a doctor. What do you want with me?’

‘A physician?’ he said, a bit taken aback, and the other two looked round, a bit taken aback also. ‘Well, I don’t know
anything 
about that,’ he said. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me. It will all be explained.’

‘Explained? Explain what?’ I said, but with a certain idiot relief flooding in. The man plainly didn’t know me from Adam, and I’d suddenly recalled that my passport and every other bit of identifying material was safely in the hotel; also that my Arabic was quite as good as his. ‘You camel turd, you!’ I told him. ‘You offal skin! You’ve made a mistake, can’t you see? I’m an Arab, you fool – like yourself! I’m visiting this man. He’s my patient. Ask anybody in the locality!’

This statement, though incoherently delivered, seemed to upset the two larger men, who frowned uncertainly at their colleague. It didn’t, unfortunately, upset him. He simply began fumbling fussily with a pocketful of papers.

‘No mistake, I think,’ he said. ‘No mistake my end, anyway. Seen with the man Agrot. Staying at the King David –’

‘Visiting, you fool – visiting a patient!’

‘– Followed here yesterday. And here – check photograph. That’s him, isn’t it?’ he said.

His two colleagues had a look at the photo. I had a look at it, too. No mistakes his end, all right. I seemed to be scrutinizing the photo anxiously for mistakes. There I was in it, sitting at a plain wooden table, alongside a military-type sleeve, with a young Arab grinning in the background; evidently taken on some dig in Jordan. I had the same worried scowl I must be wearing now.

I said, ‘That’s easily explained, of course –’

‘Of course. But we have to go now, Doctor.’ He was getting harassed. ‘All the mistakes will be settled. I’m sure you will be back here soon with many apologies. It’s just a matter of
control
. Stand straight now. We’ll walk to the car. We’ll walk quite slowly. What we’ll do, I and this gentleman will walk beside you. We don’t want to hold you. The other gentleman will walk behind you. He’s there to see you don’t make a disturbance. If you make a disturbance he’ll have to shoot you, and we’ll run. Please don’t make a disturbance.’

‘No, no, don’t make a disturbance,’ the other gentleman said. It was the first time he’d said anything, and he said it in a shocked, admonitory sort of way.

I was sitting on the toilet then, my legs having folded, and looking up seriously at the two heads of the little chap, my eyes having crossed as well. He was clicking with his tongue. ‘Come on, now. Stand up. You can do it. It isn’t far. I’m afraid you were hit a bit too hard,’ he said, clicking some more.

I’d been hit a bloody sight too hard. I couldn’t seem to keep abreast of the situation for more than seconds at a time. Thank God Ike had stopped vomiting. He’d stopped because we weren’t there now. We were on the iron stairs. We were in the alley. We were in the Jaffa Road. It was drizzling.

Mad, of course, all. of it. Couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t me here, walking thoughtfully down the Jaffa Road with the two gentlemen. Where was the other gentleman? The other gentleman was behind. Street crowded as usual; vans, buses, housewives, old men with sticks.

‘Not very far now. Just keep walking normally.’

I was walking normally. I seemed to be walking normally. My feet weren’t quite touching the ground. There was a reason for this, I thought, watching the windscreen wipers flick there and back. We were stopped at traffic lights. I was in a car. I suddenly remembered getting into the car. It was a big beat-up old Studebaker, parked at a traffic meter in a side street As I got into it I remembered why Ike had stopped vomiting.

Some confusion seemed to be present here. To do with my head, of course. Except it wasn’t mine, but this Arab doctor’s. He’d been hit on it. Hit a bloody sight too hard. I was full of indignation suddenly. ‘You
are
a camel turd,’ I told the man again. ‘A Palestinian camel turd,’ I elaborated. So he was; Palestinian Arab accent The others seemed to be Jordanian. ‘A turd,’ I said again. But it wasn’t him. He’d taken himself off. I was in the back with two other turds. I suddenly remembered he was driving. The whole trouble was,
lapses
. Pockets of sleep, gulfs. Like the Big Dipper, but instead of leaving your stomach, leave your senses, swoop. It wouldn’t do. Had to assimilate. Street names, say. Where street names? No bloody street names.

Y.M.C.A., though; tall tower and domes, couldn’t be
anything
else, which meant King David Hotel opposite.
Which
it
was
. This was pleasing. So the railway station next, if we were going out of town. Keep awake for it.

Didn’t keep awake. Went off, came back, tried to think what I was supposed to be keeping awake for. We were out of town. A bus lumbering ahead. I took its route number, quick as a flash. Number seven. A very useful item. Even more useful if I knew where it was going. Turn and see the destination board as we pass. Turned, but missed it. Too much mud. Endless red mud. Where the hell were we walking to through all this mud?

‘Where the hell are we walking to through all this mud?’ I said, tetchily.

‘To the trees. It isn’t far now,’ one of the Jordanians said. Both Jordanians were there; not the little chap, though. Taken himself off again; a spry little bastard if ever I saw one.

‘Where’s the car?’ I said.

‘We’ll have another car. You’ll be comfortable. You’ll be able to rest first.’

‘Rest where?’

‘Not far now,’ he said.

We were in a lane. I had an impression we’d passed houses. Fruit on all sides, now; stepped terraces of fruit, dripping in the rain. Rock walls, red earth. Where the hell were we? A truck came bouncing along the potholes in the lane. I looked to see if there was a name on it. Couldn’t see. Too many trees. I was standing under one. My hat was tight, sodden from the dripping tree.

‘Where’s your friend?’ I said. The man was holding me up.

‘He’ll be back. How do you feel?’

‘Not good.’

‘Soon you’ll feel better. We’ll move soon.’

‘We’ll move now,’ the friend said.

We started to move. The hat was tight and hot. I wanted to take it off.

‘Don’t take the hat off,’ he said.

‘It’s tight. It hurts.’

‘Soon it won’t hurt.’

It hurt now. It hurt like hell. I was stumbling on a black
cinder
track. I held my head down. My head was getting banged somehow. A tunnel of blackness, and I fell into it, fell away into it.

‘I simply must have a rest,’ I said crisply.

‘Yes, you can rest. It’s done you good to rest.’

‘How long have we been here?’

‘An hour or two. Take another rest if you wish.’

‘Yes,’ I said uncertainly, and took one.

I was still in the tunnel when I’d taken it. We were all in the tunnel. I was in a slightly foetal position, back pressed hard into the curve, hat touching the roof. They were sitting one each side of me, a pistol in each lap. I was trembling in a
piercing
draught. A husky resonance sounded as the wind blew through the tunnel. I said, ‘Where are we?’

‘Just a place to rest. It was too wet in the trees. You look better now.’

I didn’t feel better. I felt as if a meat cleaver had been buried in my head and my limbs trussed and crammed into some
compact
sized freezer. A place to rest. We must be at the
jumping-off
point, then; on the frontier. We were waiting for something. What? My teeth started to chatter like castanets.

‘You still have some shock,’ the one without the hat said, watching me.

‘How long are we staying here?’

‘Till it’s dark. In an hour or two.’

‘I can’t stay like this for an hour or two,’ I said, chattering horribly at him.

‘Go to sleep again.’

‘I have to relieve myself!’

This was nothing but the truth. An hour or two! What could I do in an hour or two? What could I do anyway, with these two enormous ruffians and their pistols?

They were looking silently across me at each other. The
hatless
one nodded slightly and after a moment the other rolled over on to his hands and knees and lumbered up the tunnel. His face appeared in the entrance after a minute. ‘All right,’ he said softly.

The man beside me gave me a nudge, and I got over on my hands and knees, too. My head lurched shatteringly as it
accompanied
me. I moved into the husky resonance of the tunnel mouth and felt it vibrating my hat brim, and then wind-blown rain whipped in my face, and the man outside was helping me up. His companion was close behind me.

We were in a scrap heap in a thicket of olive trees. Large pieces of junk lay about, a battered old boiler, a rusted cistern, sandbags. The tunnel was a section of abandoned sewage pipe, about a yard in diameter. A zigzag ditch ran to one side of the thicket; a slit trench. We must be right on the border.

I relieved myself. We were in a valley. Through the olive trees I could see a hill on the other side of the border, with a little blue flag fluttering at its peak. A track led up the hill to where the flag fluttered, evidently from a road in the valley, out of sight now. That would be the road where the car would pick us up when it was dark – not more than a couple of hundred yards over the border.

There was nothing to be seen on this side of the border. We seemed to be in a hollow, a no-man’s-land. The slope cut off all signs of Israeli activity. But the Israelis worked their land close up to the border. There would be buildings and people near. How near?

The man with the knife had taken it out and was hefting it a little in his hand. He said, ‘Hurry up.’ I hurried up, and turned, and saw a rooftop, Israeli side.

A rooftop. A hundred yards away, not more. The slope of the hollow was littered with debris. Where it stopped, fruit trees began. Above the fruit trees was the rooftop.

My hands were shaking so much I could hardly zip up.

The building might be abandoned, of course …

Through the wind-blown rain, the mud on the slope winked evilly in the dirty grey light. One would have to run up the muddy slope. Very unpromising.