The Levant Trilogy (67 page)

Angela had seated herself in the centre of the
front row and Harriet, discomposed by the fall, sank down beside her. There
were about fifty chairs, placed in a square and roped in with a heavy cord.
Outside the cord, a mass of people stood together, awaiting events. For the
first half an hour, they waited patiently, then the soldiers and young men,
growing restless, began to climb the scaffolding that shored up the interior
walls. Boredom produced noise and the noise grew as time passed. Occasionally
someone, seeing himself more privileged than the rest, attempted to breach the
cordon and sit on the empty chairs. Some were sternly ordered back to the
crowd, others, for no obvious reason, were allowed to remain. An Egyptian
family, the father in a fez, was left undisturbed while an old, fat Greek,
gasping, sweating and pleading, was helped to a chair by one major-domo and
thrown out by another.

After a long interval, Lister returned with
Castlebar, both men smelling strongly of arak. They sat on either side of the
two women and at first were circumspect, quietly gazing at the monument of
gold and coloured marbles that was said to mark the burial place of Christ.
Lister told them that the rotunda over it, shored up by girders and struts, had
been placed there by the Crusaders. They returned to silence. Fifteen or twenty
minutes passed then Castlebar, beguiled by the twilight, put his arm round
Angela and Lister fumbled for Harriet's hand. Harriet, grateful for the protection
he had afforded her, let him hold it for a while. Lister was kind but, thinking
of his fat, pink face, his ridiculous moustache, his wet eyes and baby nose,
she told herself that kindness was not enough.

The church was now so full that people were taking
places in the topmost galleries and some had managed to join the poor
Abyssinians on the roof. Faces were pressed against the small windows in the
dome. The young men on the girders climbed higher to allow others to take their
places. The most adventurous went up and up until one slipped and fell
screaming to the crowd below. The girders, hung with a weight of humanity,
creaked and shuddered and some of the women shouted warnings and the young men
shouted back. Gradually losing all restraint, the congregation talked and
laughed and began to sing Greek songs.

Lister's hand was plump and small with small,
fat fingers, an enlarged baby's hand, that seemed to Harriet much too soft. He
was not more than thirty but was deteriorating early. Defeat, though he resented
it, had got its hold on him and Harriet felt sorry for him. She, too, could be
kind and when he squeezed her hand, she squeezed back. Lister whispered: 'You
may get a better-looking one but a more loving one, you'll never find.'
Harriet laughed and slid her hand away.

The hubbub came to an abrupt stop. A minor
procession was entering the church. Representatives of leading Greek and Christian
Arab families, all male of course, were making a circuit of the sepulchre, the
more prosperous in dark suits and pointed, patent leather shoes, the very poor
in dirty galabiahs.

'A ruffianly lot,' Lister whispered as rich and
poor went round with no sense of status, linking fingers and smiling at each
other.

Seeing three people led to the doorway of the
sepulchre, Lister became grave: 'My goodness, look who we've got here! Prince
Peter and Prince Paul. The woman is Peter's Russian wife. He's a nice chap;
looks like an English gent.'

Harriet, turning her head away from Lister's
arak smell, saw a group of English officials being led to the chairs, among
them a woman she had seen somewhere before. But where? The woman chose to sit
by herself in the front row. Harriet watched her as she took her seat. She had
a large crocodile handbag which she placed on her knee, putting her hands on it
as though to shield it from all comers. This gesture confirmed Harriet's
certainty that the woman was known to her. Some occasion when there had been a
similar shielding of an object stirred vividly at the back of her mind but
would not present itself. The occasion, she knew, was associated with
unhappiness. She felt the unhappiness again, but that was all. The occasion
itself eluded her.

She remained puzzled until distracted by the
excitement around her. The major-domos were clearing a passage for the Greek
patriarch. Using their silver-headed sticks, they pushed and prodded people out
of the way. The congregation moved, if it moved at all, unwillingly, craning
necks for a sight of the great figure of the day.

As he appeared in the doorway, a shout of
welcome filled the church and he stopped, making the most of his entry, then
moved slowly forward. In robes of white brocade, wearing a large, golden, onion
dome on his head, the patriarch held himself with dignity, his white beard
parted from chin to waist so all might see the display of gold and gems that
covered his chest. The priests behind him were in cloth of gold, some of it
ragged with age, some new and gleaming. After the priests, came the choir boys.
They were singing, mouths opening and shutting, but the sound was lost in the
general din. After the choir boys, it was just anyone who happened to own a
religious banner. These rearguard upstarts were treated with little respect.
The crowd closed in on them, swamping them, throwing down their banners which
they used as weapons to keep the mob at bay.

The patriarch, with an eye open for press
photographers, pulled back his beard and arranged his jewels whenever he saw a
camera. The procession was to go three times round the church but in the third
round, all was confusion. The patriarch himself was untouched but his retinue
had degenerated into a rabble of shouts, scuffles and blows. Arriving intact at
the door to the sepulchre, he shook hands with the royal visitors then,
mounting the steps to the door itself, he stood benign and smiling, while
acolytes removed his onion dome and outer robes, leaving him in a black
cassock, a humble priest like any other priest. Then came the search for
matches or any means of making fire. He lifted his arms and the acolytes patted
him lightly on either side. No matches were found.

The search completed, the door to the tomb was
unsealed. The patriarch, with two priests to act as witnesses, entered the
sepulchre. The door was shut. There was silence as everyone awaited the
miracle.

'How long will it take?' Harriet whispered.

Lister nodded portentously: 'A decent interval.'

It was scarcely that. There were two
smoke-blackened holes through which the fire would appear. As it shot out, a
wild paean of joy bellowed from the crowd. A man had waited at each hole to
seize the cylinders that held the fire and at once, as the church vibrated with
the yells of the faithful, the fire was passed from hand to hand. The cordon
was broken and the congregation, stumbling over chairs and falling against the
distinguished visitors, rushed forward, holding out candles and tapers to
receive the fire. All inhibitions were lost in the intoxication of the miracle.
The patriarch had brought them the divine gift of fire.

Faintly above the uproar, the church bells could
be heard pounding away, telling the world the miracle was accomplished and
bringing down the plaster from the ceiling. Bunches of lighted candles were
given to the men on the scaffolding and passed up and up to the topmost
balconies and out to the Abyssinians on the roof so, in no time, the whole
interior of the church was festooned with light.

Two enormous, painted candles, guardians of the
tomb, Lit only on this special occasion, spouted enormous flames. Dark outlying
chapels became bright with the fire and the crypt, where Helena had discovered
the true cross, threw a refulgence from the depths.

Harriet, caught up in all the excitement, jumped
on to the seat of her chair and stood among a dazzling swirl of lights.

The door of the sepulchre opened and the
patriarch, his hands full of lighted candles, burst forth just ahead of the
witness priests who, holding him on either side, ran him from the church and
out of sight.

But that was not the end of the ceremony. A sort
of burlesque or harlequinade followed the miracle. Priests in tattered, grimy
robes now walked round shaking poles from which hung silver plates surrounded
by bells. After the priests came men with boys perched on their shoulders. The
boys had whips and lashing out, struck anyone who could not dodge away from
them. The men on the scaffolding leant forward to lunge at the boys and two of
them lost their footing and went down among the crowd.

A new, less pleasing animation had come over the
scene. The royal visitors prepared to leave and the English thought it best to
follow them. As Harriet stepped down from the chair, the woman at the end of
the row glanced towards her and she knew it was Mrs Rutter.

Mrs Rutter did not recognize Harriet. Their only
meeting had been brief. With her jewel case on her knee, she had sat near
Harriet in the train going to Suez. She had been in the queue moving on to the
Queen of Sparta
when Harriet saw
Mortimer and Phillips. By now she should have been half-way to England.

She hurried towards her friends and Harriet went
after her, catching her up in the church porch.

'Excuse me.'

Mrs Rutter, turning and seeing what she took to
be a stranger, frowned to discourage her: 'Yes?'

'Surely you are Mrs Rutter?'

'I am Mrs Rutter, yes.'

'We went to Suez in the same carriage. I was
with Marion Dixon and her little boy.'

Mrs Rutter let out her breath and, lifting a
hand to ward Harriet away, she went at a half-run out to the churchyard where
her friends awaited her. Disturbed and puzzled, Harriet pursued her and caught
her by the shoulder.

'Mrs Rutter, please, you must tell me why you
are here. You boarded the ship for England, didn't you? Then how did you get
back? Is Marion here, too?'

'Don't speak of it.' Mrs Rutter had lost what
colour she had and her voice was hoarse: 'I can't speak of it. I don't want to
speak of it. Go away,' then seeing Harriet's perplexed face, she relented a
little: 'Anyway, I can't speak of it here.' She moved over to the churchyard
wall and leant against it as though about to faint.

The casualties of the ceremony - two men on
stretchers, one shrouded in death - lay nearby but she seemed unaware of them.
Her friends, standing apart, stared at Harriet, realizing there was something very
odd about the encounter.

Breathless and still hoarse, Mrs Rutter said:
'You didn't know what happened? You don't know that we were torpedoed? Some of
us got into a life-boat. Marion and me and poor little Richard
...'
She choked and gasped before asking:
'You didn't know any of this?'

'No.'

'But it was in the
Egyptian Mail.'

'I didn't return to Egypt. I heard nothing.'

'The boat drifted. There was something wrong
with the steering. We had two lascars on board but they didn't know what to
do. We had no water, nothing to eat
...
It went on for days. We caught some rainwater in a tarpaulin and drank it, but
it wasn't enough. People started dying
...
Poor little Richard was one of the first.'

'And Marion?'

Mrs Rutter shook her head, unable to speak, then
whispered: 'All dead except me and the lascars. The children first, then the
women
...
I don't want to talk about
it. I came here to forget it.'

'I'm sorry if I've upset you but I had to know.'

Mrs Rutter, like an invalid in need of help,
looked towards her friends and one of the men, giving Harriet a look of
reproach, crossed to her and led her away.

Harriet remained by the wall, shock-bound by Mrs
Rutter's story. Angela, seeing she was alone, came to ask: 'What's the matter?'

'Guy thinks I'm dead.'

'Is that what that woman told you?'

'No. She told me the evacuation ship was
torpedoed and she was the only woman who survived. Marion and Richard were
lost. Guy thinks I was on the ship.'

'But he may not have heard
...'

'Yes, it was in the
Egyptian Mail.'
As Harriet absorbed this fact, tears came
into her eyes and she broke down, sobbing: 'Poor Guy. Oh, poor Guy, he thinks
I'm dead.'

Angela led her over to Castlebar and Lister.
Walking back to the Jaffa Gate, all three tried to comfort her by giving
different unfounded reasons for supposing Guy would know nothing of the
sinking. Harriet was too tense to listen. She wanted only one thing: to contact
Guy and assure him she was alive and well.

They stood together in the foyer of the King
David discussing how best to deal with the situation. Lister had been invited
to luncheon at the hotel but Harriet would not join the party. She said: 'I'd
better ring the Institute first.'

Castlebar said: 'It's Saturday. Isn't that Guy's
day off?'

Angela said to Lister: 'Is it easy to ring
Egypt?'

'Not very. The lines are always engaged. The
military used to have an emergency line but that closed down when the army
moved west. Better put the hotel porter on to it. Tell him to ring every two
minutes till he gets a line.'