A Long Way to Shiloh (26 page)

He got his handkerchief out and dazedly wiped his head. He said in a kind of quiet frenzy, ‘Gentlemen – God has made a greater miracle! He has brought us back. He has given to us our own again. Here we do not have to beseech. We do not have to beg. We can …’

His voice had been rising, and his eye, wandering about the room, suddenly fell on little Teitleman. ‘Give unto Him what is His,’ he said firmly. ‘Seeing that thou and what thou hast are His.’

Then his eye fell on his red-bearded opponent, and he said, ‘Be exceedingly lowly of spirit since the hope of man is but the worm. And from the same source, the
Pirke
Abot
,’ he said, his glowing saintly face now on the committee, ‘we may read, “It is not thy duty to complete the work, but neither art thou free to desist from it.” We are not free. We are never free. What does the blessed Akiba tell us? Rabbi Akiba says, “Everything is given on a pledge, and a net is spread for all the living: the shop is open; and the dealer gives credit; and the ledger lies open; and the hand writes …”
And
the
hand
writes
,’
Bogeslavski
repeated very softly, nodding to himself.

He could have repeated it a lot more softly still. He had the room’s undivided attention as he stood there, raptly communing with himself. From out of his communion, he said with quiet intensity, ‘If on good authority I hear that in the earth of Israel the possibility exists that there might be a trace, an
atom
of
dust
, of the holy Menorah, and that it will cost me one million, a hundred million, a thousand million to get at it –
with
my
bare
hands
 – will a rabbi say something to stop me? Can there be enough money in the world? Is it possible –’ he said, but didn’t finish. He simply looked wonderingly round the room, and walked out of it, very slowly and very bent.

In the deathly silence that followed, a couple of the
committee
members cleared their throats. The chairman cleared his. He somewhat gruffly asked the red-bearded rabbi if he wished to say anything further. He said he didn’t. The chairman said they would announce the result of their deliberations later, and in an awkward flutter the room began to clear. A couple of minutes later we were walking back to the Plymouth.
Bogeslavski
was sitting in it, smoking a Russian cigarette. Nobody congratulated him. Nobody said anything much. A seemly silence seemed indicated. We sat and waited in it for the lawyer, who’d popped over for a quick word with the other side.

He was back shortly, grinning, and showing none of our reserve in the matter of the rabbi’s feelings. He patted him affectionately on the knee.

‘Rebbe,’ he said, ‘promise me one thing. If I should ever God forbid find myself at the wrong side of the dock, you’ll be there to plead for me.’

‘So what’s the news?’ Agrot said.

‘They’ve had such a fright thrown in them they don’t know whether they’re coming or going. I think we’re home,’ he said.

There was a general sort of sigh in the car; and in the middle of it, a little squeak. It was the window being wound down. ‘Well,’ Bogeslavski said, tossing ash out of it, ‘
mann
tracht,
Gott
lacht
,’ which may be interpreted as ‘man proposes, God disposes’. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, as the car took off.

I couldn’t bear to be at Barot, and Jerusalem wasn’t much better. There was no living with Agrot at all, and he commuted between the two like a cat on hot bricks. I’d already overstayed my time by a week, but I couldn’t tear myself away. And when I tried to think of all the things I should be doing elsewhere, I couldn’t do that either.

The rabbinical meeting had been on a Monday, and on the Wednesday Uri turned up from London on a mission feverishly proposed by Agrot and approved by the Department. Uri brought with him a personal tape-recorded message from the Bogoritze Rebbe in London. The Bogoritze community, a small sect so intensely devout that they considered the British chief rabbinate a crypto-gentile institution, was noted for its
patronage
of works concerning the mystical tradition in Judaism, and also for its comfortable financial position. The message from its rabbi was intended solely for the ear of the chairman of the rabbinical committee. We sat and listened to it a couple of times in the Rehavia flat. The piety came through very strong.

‘He doesn’t actually mention any money,’ Agrot said.

‘Can’t you hear the promise in his voice?’

‘I suppose they’ve really got some?’

‘You and I,’ Uri said, ‘should have what they’ve got. They’ve got half Stamford Hill. Unfortunately they haven’t got it to hand – they’re in deep at the moment with a big new yeshivah outside Epping. But who has to know? Play it again. I like that old bastard’s tremolo.’

We played it again. We played it several times, with varying degrees of hilarity and enthusiasm, while we had dinner and finished off the arak. By the time I left with Uri, Agrot had worked himself into a state of total conviction in the Bogoritze Rebbe’s powers of advocacy.

‘So,’ Uri said, as we walked back to the King David, ‘you’ve had times here, eh? It was always my view we could make a man of you. When I’ve finished at the rabbinate tomorrow, take me to Barot. Maybe we’ll still see your trousers keeping the flag flying in Jordan.’

But I didn’t go with him to Barot. I went to Tel Aviv. I’d not not seen her for a week – she’d gone back to the military – but she’d phoned to say she was mortgaging some future leave to take a long weekend. Shimshon, unfortunately, was also having a weekend; but not till Friday. I went down on Thursday.

The bad minded Mr Benyamini was providentially elsewhere, so we slipped in unobserved, and spent the afternoon in Shimshon’s bed, the eye of God prudently covered with a prayer shawl.

‘I suppose this is wrong,’ she said.

‘Do you think so, love?’

‘But it doesn’t
feel
wrong,’ she said curiously, drawing one silver-painted nail down my chest.

‘That’s all right, then.’

‘I mean, I’m not promiscuous. You know that.’

‘Of course I do.’

‘And it doesn’t alter anything with Shimshon.’

She was leaning studiously over me,
au
naturel
, and mention of the absent behemoth seemed somehow improper in the circumstances.

‘Do you know why Shimshon is coming?’ she said with a secret little smile.

“No. Why?’ They did seem to be letting him off rather a lot, I thought censoriously.

‘We will be engaged, officially. I wanted it, suddenly.’

‘Well. I hope you’ll be very happy.’

‘We will. I know it. I love him truly.’

This line of talk didn’t really seem to be getting us anywhere, so I put her lieutenant’s cap on her head, and was roused by it suddenly to mad excesses. We retired for a while.

Uri was going back in the evening, so I rang him at the
airport
.

‘Well, I honestly think everything is going well, love. They were impressed about the Bogoritze, and also by the fact that the Diplomatic were in some way involved. There were one or two snide comments about that.’

‘Is that bad?’

‘No, it’s good. There could be some small repercussions, but there are heaps of ways the Bogoritze could have heard, as well as from us. And I didn’t have to be coming just for this. In the wider field, it’s helpful. The more people who know, in a quiet way, the less danger there is of any little – you know.’

‘Did you get any idea when they’re likely to decide?’

‘Not before Shabat, anyway. Sunday would be the earliest. When are you going back?’

‘Well. They might want some further word from me,’ I said weakly.

‘I understand. So, keep out of trouble. Shalom.’

‘Shalom.’

She was waiting outside the telephone box.

‘We’ve won?’ she said, seeing my face.

I hastily adjusted it. ‘Not yet,’ I said. It didn’t do to court providence, of course.

*

The old buffer didn’t recognize me without the
shtreiml
, so I went next door and put it on.

‘Hello,
bocher
!’ he said delightedly. ‘So you made your studies with regard to the Mishmar Zin?’

‘Yes, thanks,’ I said.

‘Strangely enough, this week also we read of a mysterious place.’

The weeks had rolled on. Four weeks after
Vayishlach
, and the Pentateuchal portion was
Vay’chi
, the forty-eighth chapter of Genesis to the end.

‘In
Vay’chi
what do we find? Jacob is taking farewell of his sons. For Judah he prophesies everything. “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,” he says, “nor a lawgiver from between his feet, till men come to Shiloh.”
Ad
kee-yavoh
Shiloh.
What does it mean? The Christians, of course, read it “Until Shiloh come”, and see a messianic reference. Rashi, Onkelos, Saadyeh, many others, also see such a reference. And the Targum, as we know, reads Shiloh as
Shaleh
– the poetical Peace. However, another school sees it as the actual physical place, Shiloh. So we must ask –’

‘Idiot, leave off!’ his wife said, coming in the room at that moment. ‘Excuse him. He lives only for the synagogue. So you’re quite recovered now?’ she said, smiling at me, and blinking only fractionally at the
shtreiml.

‘Yes, thanks’

‘And you’ve heard the news with our Shana?’

‘Yes. Yes. I was delighted.’

‘It’s not unexpected, of course. He is a good man. He doesn’t speak very much, maybe …’

‘We won’t be eating in tonight,’ Shoshana said, coming rapidly in. She’d been in the kitchen and the walls were thin.

‘You won’t – but, sweetheart, we looked forward –’

‘The professor has studies in town and wishes me to assist him. We may have to stay all night –’

‘Stay studying
all
night
?’

‘Didn’t you think, Professor?’

‘Well. It’s possible,’ I said. ‘That is, if it’s not putting you –’

‘Not at all. My parents understand. Study must come before pleasure.’

‘Study
is
pleasure,’ the old nut said, seizing on a familiar word.

‘Of course,’ Shoshana said. ‘I’m ready now.’

We went to the Sheraton, and studied all night.

The engagement party was on Friday night, so that Miriam and Avner could get pre-Shabat transport from Ein Gedi. Shimshon had brought a friend, another strapping red-beret. The friend was very jolly, and Shimshon, now free of his smouldering tension, was much improved himself. He even cracked the odd joke about my drinking too much as the
sacramental
and later the celebratory champagne-type ‘President’ wine went round the table. He sat with his arm round Shoshana and actually came up with a couple of well-chosen phrases from Proverbs in response to her brother’s toast.

‘A virtuous woman,’ Shimshon said, blushing slightly but giving her a squeeze, ‘who can find? For her price is far above rubies.’

‘Hear hear,’ I said.

And Avner repeated it, raising his glass to cover a certain death-ray type glower beaming my way from Miriam.

The old man, excited by this reasonable talk that had sprung up, produced several more apt quotations himself, and as the festivity proceeded, and several simultaneous conversations with it, appeared to have found his way back to
Vay
’
chi.

‘
A
lawgiver
from
between
his
feet
. What can we read in this? Also
The
sceptre
shall
not
depart
from
Judah
. Now Ibn Esra takes the view …’

‘So in the end, tell me, what happened? Did you do it through your embassy – the legal department?’

‘We used to wonder – who is he writing to? He sits by himself for hours, writing, writing. And when the mail comes, who’s there first? Now I see he wasn’t wasting his time, the dog! These quiet ones …’

‘Take a biscuit with the wine, Professor. Who can just drink without eating? Look at her – she’s happy!’

‘Similarly, if we regard it as a ruler’s staff, some emblem of kingship, we’re in the same difficulties. He’s already mentioned the sceptre. So it is something mystical, some holy thing that Judah has between his feet.

‘All I can say, the fellow is very lucky. Myself, I wouldn’t have rested. These swines with their big cars – I wouldn’t have minded what it cost. I’d have got the biggest lawyer in town – Trouble, trouble, all right it’s trouble. For something like that I’d go to the trouble. I’m surprised your embassy didn’t advise …’

‘A long way from Ein Gedi! I say it’s a long way – You haven’t forgotten what it’s like there? And the Cave of
Shulamit
– you remember that, eh? Eh? Ha-ha. Eh? Here’s to the Cave of Shulamit. I say here’s to – and you, of course. Your continuing good health. You should always have the strength.

‘So we have to ask ourselves, if not the Messiah, then some object, some holy object? And thus, if we take it in conjunction with Shiloh as
Shaleh
, Peace, we are left with the question – what is it that Judah will give up when Peace …’

It was a nice party, and nobody got drunk.

I slept by myself that night at the Sheraton.

*

Everybody left when Shabat was out on Saturday night, and Shoshana left, too. She came to stay with me at the Sheraton.

‘Did you remember to telephone your unit?’ I said.

‘Yes, I did it.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘That I had to stay in bed.’

‘Quite right,’ I said. We were both there, with another bottle of President. There was her new status to be celebrated.

*

Sunday was a terrible day. I tried to ring Agrot and couldn’t get him, so I rang a few others instead, and finally got the lawyer. He said yes, he understood the decision was going to be given today. He was holding himself in readiness to go to Heikhal-Shelomo. No, he didn’t think I could do any good. But he didn’t think I would do any harm, either, so I went.

We took the
shtreiml
with us, and dropped it at the doctor’s, in a big polythene bag, with many thanks. And then we tooled around and tried to find Agrot. We couldn’t find him anywhere, and I couldn’t get in to Heikhal-Shelomo, so in the evening we went back to Tel Aviv, and walked into the Sheraton and found him there. He was sitting hunched over a glass of brandy and it only needed one look to see what the decision was.

He’d taken notes of it, and he unfolded them from his breast pocket and handed them over. There were two sheets, and the first read:

‘Oh, Jesus Christ, I’m sorry.’

‘Turn over,’ Agrot said. ‘It’s an insurance policy.’

I turned over. The other sheet read:

I’d been inhaling deeply and I let the smoke out.

‘Teitleman, of course,’ I said, ‘will have a lot of use for a devotional library and a Bet ha-Midrash.’

‘You never know,’ Agrot said wearily. ‘I’d hazard the guess there might be a rabbinical element among the guests at the Camphire from some years to come. Special guests. Real guests. Also he’s taking an increasing interest in religious affairs, is Teitleman. Another item came my way today – totally
unrelated
. It seems he’s going to build a low-rent housing
development
for religious youths. A non-profit-making development to be administered by the rabbinate. He seems to think if he doesn’t run into any unexpected expense he can raise the starting capital free of interest.’

*

A bottle of President didn’t seem indicated that night. There wasn’t anything much to celebrate. I felt sad and I drank fruity Stock instead.

‘Never mind. If it’s there, nobody at least can take it now.’

‘True.’

‘And it’s certainly been there a long time.’

‘Also true.’

‘Do you think it will ever be found?’

‘Do you think there’ll ever be a state of poetical peace?’ I said.

‘A state of what?’

‘Poetical peace.’

‘I think,’ she said, moving the bottle farther from me, ‘we should change the subject. On our last night.’

We changed the subject.

Afterwards, she said, ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I know this is terrible. But it just doesn’t
seem
terrible.’ She was wonderingly tracing grooves with her silver fingernails again. ‘It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Shimshon. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anybody, except you and me. It’s – private, isn’t it?’

‘Well. Yes,’ I said.

‘And you don’t think it’s wrong?’

I did. It seemed to me without any question wrong. But a lot of wrongness was in the air tonight And Almogi didn’t seem capable of the grosser kinds.

‘Not terribly,’ I said.

‘It’s been nice, hasn’t it?’

‘It’s been lovely.’

‘Will I see you again, Caspar?’

‘Of course you will.’

‘But there can’t be any more of this.’

‘Can’t there?’

‘Oh no,’ she said, nodding seriously.

All of a sudden I was smiling at her, this gift of God. But I was thinking of something else. I was thinking that Shimshon in the course of time would be thinking that somebody had short-changed him. I translated this one for her.

She said, ‘I don’t think it’s very nice to talk about this.’

‘All right.’

‘But if it worries you, there’s judo.’

‘Judo?’

‘Judo. It’s energetic.’

‘Oh. Ah.’

‘What are you smiling at?’

‘You.’

‘Because I’ll marry Shimshon and you’ll go away?’ But she was smiling herself, a sad little smile.

‘No, Because I love you.’

‘Do you think you do?’

‘I think I do.’

‘Then I think I love you, too,’ she said. She was smiling at me from her pillow. I smiled at her from mine. ‘Now tell me what you truly think.’

‘I think we’re sojourners, love.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means we sojourn. We’re transients. We’re on the move. It’s not to be taken seriously, most of it. But it can be nice.’

‘Nothing is serious?’

‘Oh, yes. Sometimes in the rush somebody manages to leave a meaningful memento. Not very often, but sometimes.’

‘Aren’t we talking about love?’

‘We’re talking about all sorts of things. We’re talking a hell of a lot, aren’t we?’

‘Yes. Let’s go to sleep now.’

‘In a bit,’ I said, adoring her again suddenly.

*

I said good-bye to her in the morning. I paid the bill. I got a standby booking on a Caravelle to Brussels. Then, feeling more of a sojourner than ever, I got the hell out of it to Lod. I’d had a word with Agrot on the blower, and he was there at the
airport
. Tanya was there, too. ‘Well, we’d better see if you’re actually going,’ he said, after we’d made glum conversation for a while. He went off to look into it.

‘So now you’re off to quieter haunts,’ Tanya said.

‘In a way.’

‘Of course! Your new appointment. I hear Silberstein got all the books for you.’

‘Yes.’ Uri had been full of tidings.

‘Oh, every kind of good wish. It sounds wonderful,
marvellous
, a really stimulating challenge. I expect you’re sorry you wasted your time here now. All the sound and fury and nothing came out of it.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘We know where it is. One day perhaps –’

‘A long way ahead.’

‘It’s always a long way to Shiloh.’

‘A long way to where?’

‘All right. Come on. They can take you,’ Agrot said,
hurrying
back. ‘You’ll have to be quick. Hurry now. Shalom. Shalom.’

‘Shalom,’ Tanya said, kissing me.

‘Shalom.’

‘Shalom-Shalom.’

And I was off; and an hour or so later, in that curious way of jet travel, in which the recent past slips away faster even than the flowing geography below, could already feel it behind me, far far behind, in another time; with all the encapsulated figures in it still going about their evolutions: Himmelwasser and Teitleman and bad-minded Mr Benyamini and red-eyed Shimshon …

I was already engaged with the future, that stimulating future spoken of in the long-ago by Tanya. There was the University of Beds. There was Lady Longlegs. There were challenges
aplenty
till Shiloh come. This satisfying thought was presently reinforced by another, which brought a warm and comforting glow as the Caravelle buzzed along. Shiloh, after all, might not be so far ahead. In a world of transience, the works of
Teitleman
were more transient than most.