The car pulled up; she was in the forecourt of an old villa with boy sentries with machine guns posing in silhouette on the roof like heroes in a Russian movie. The air was cold and clean and full of all the Greek smells that the rain had left behind--cypress and honey and every wild flower in the world. The sky was full of storms and smoking cloud; the valley lay stretched below them in receding squares of light. They led her through a porch and into the hall, and there, by the dimmest of overhead lamps, she had her first sight of Our Captain: a brown, lopsided figure with a hank of straight black schoolboy hair, and an English-looking walking stick of natural ash to support his limping legs, and a wry smile of welcome brightening his pitted face. To shake hands with her, he hung the walking stick over his left forearm, letting it dangle, so that she had the feeling of holding him up for a second before he set himself straight again.
"Miss Charlie, I am Captain Tayeh and I greet you in the name of the revolution."
His voice was brisk and businesslike. It was also, like Joseph's, beautiful.
Fear will be a matter of selection,Joseph had warned her. Unfortunately, no one can be frightened all the time. But with Captain Tayeh, as he calls himself, you must do your best, because Captain Tayeh is a very clever man.
"Forgive me," Tayeh said, with cheerful insincerity.
The house was not his, for he could find nothing he wanted. Even for an ashtray he had to stomp around in the gloom, humorously questioning objects, whether they were too valuable to use. Nevertheless the house belonged to somebody he liked, for she observed a friendliness about his manner that said That's typical of them--yes, that's exactly where they would keep their drink. The light was still sparse, but as her eyes grew accustomed to it she decided she was in a professor's house; or a politician's; or a lawyer's. The walls were lined with real books that had been read and flagged and shoved back none too tidily; a painting that hung over the fireplace could have been Jerusalem. All else was a masculine disorder of different tastes: leather chairs and patchwork cushions and a jarring hotchpotch of Oriental carpets. And pieces of Arab silver, very white and ornate, glinting like treasure chests out of dark recesses. And a separate study down two steps into an alcove, with an English-style desk and a panoramic view of the valley she had just emerged from, and of the sea coast in the moonlight.
She was sitting where he had told her to sit, on the leather sofa, but Tayeh himself was still bumping relentlessly about the room on his stick, doing everything singly while he shot her glances from different angles, getting the measure of her; now the glasses; now a smile; now, with another smile, vodka; and lastly Scotch, apparently his favourite brand, for he studied the label approvingly. A boy sat either end of the room, each with a machine gun across his knees. A pile of letters lay strewn over the table, and she knew without looking that they were her own letters to Michel.
Do not mistake seeming confusion for incompetence,Joseph had warned her;no racist thoughts, please, about Arab inferiority.
The lights went out completely but they often did; even in the valley. He stood over her, framed against the huge window, a vigilant smiling shadow leaning on a stick.
"Do you know what it's like for us when we go home?" he asked, still gazing at her. But his stick was pointed to the big picture window. "Can you imagine what it is like to be in your own country, under your own stars, standing on your own land, with a gun in your hand, looking for the oppressor? Ask the boys."
His voice, like other voices she knew, was even more beautiful in the dark.
"They liked you," he said. "Did you like them?"
"Yes."
"Which one you liked best?"
"All equally," she said, and he laughed again.
"They say you are much in love with your dead Palestinian. Is that true?"
"Yes."
His stick was still pointing at the window. "In the old days, if you had the courage, we would take you with us. Over the border. Attack. Avenge. Come back. Celebrate. We would go together. Helga says you want to fight. You want to fight?"
"Yes."
"Anybody, or just Zionists?" He didn't wait for an answer. He was drinking. "Some of the scum we get, they want to blow the whole world up. Are you like that?"
"No."
"They are scum, those people. Helga--Mr. Mesterbein--necessary scum. Yes?"
"I haven't had time to find out," she said.
"Are you scum?"
"No."
The lights came on. "No," he agreed, continuing to examine her. "No, I don't think you are. Maybe you change. Ever killed anybody?"
"No."
"You're lucky. You've got police. Your own land. Parliament. Rights. Passports. Where do you live?"
"In London."
"Which part?"
She had a feeling that his injuries made him impatient of her answers; that they drove his mind beyond them all the time, to other questions. He had found a tall chair and was dragging it carelessly towards her, but neither of the boys got up to help him, and she guessed they didn't dare. When he had the chair where he wanted, he pulled a second up to it, then sat on the one and with a grunt swung his leg onto the other. And when he had done all that, he dragged a loose cigarette from the pocket of his tunic and lit it.
"You're our first English, know that? Dutch, Italian, French, German. Swedes. Couple of Americans. Irish. They all come to fight for us. No English. Not till now. The English come too late as usual."
A wave of recognition passed over her. Like Joseph, he spoke from pains she had not experienced, from a viewpoint she had yet to learn. He was not old, but he had a wisdom that had been acquired too early. Her face was close to the little lamp. Perhaps that was why he had put her there. Captain Tayeh is a very clever man.
"If you want to change the world, forget it," he remarked. "The English did that already. Stay home. Act your little parts. Improve your mind in a vacuum. It's safer."
"Not now it isn't," she said.
"Oh, you could go back." He drank some whisky. "Confess. Reform. A year in prison. Everyone should spend a year in prison. Why kill yourself fighting for us?"
"For him," she said.
With his cigarette, Tayeh irritably waved away her romanticism. "Tell me what's for him? He's dead. In a year or two, we shall all be dead. What's for him?"
"Everything. He taught me."
"Did he tell you what we do--bomb?--shoot?--kill?... Never mind."
For a time the only thing he cared about was his cigarette. He watched it burn, he inhaled from it and scowled at it, then he stubbed it out and lit another. She guessed he did not really like to smoke.
"What could he teach you?" he objected. "A woman like you? He was a little boy. He couldn't teach anybody. He was nothing."
"He was everything," she repeatedly woodenly, and once again felt him lose interest, like someone bored by callow conversation. Then she realised he had heard something ahead of everybody else. He gave a swift order. One of the boys leapt to the door. We run faster for crippled men, she thought. She heard soft voices from outside.
"Did he teach you to hate?" Tayeh suggested, as if nothing had happened.
"He said hate was for Zionists. He said that to fight we must love. He said anti-Semitism was a Christian invention."
She broke off, hearing what Tayeh had heard so long before: a car coming up the hill. He hears like the blind, she thought. It's because of his body.
"You like America?" he enquired.
"No."
"Ever been?"
"No."
"How can you tell you don't like it if you haven't been?" he asked.
But once again the question was rhetorical, a point he was making to himself in the dialogue he was conducting around her. The car was pulling into the forecourt. She heard footsteps and subdued voices, and saw the beams of its headlamps cross the room before they were put out.
"Stay where you are," he ordered.
Two other boys appeared, one carrying a plastic bag, the other a machine gun. They stood still, waiting respectfully for Tayeh to address them. The letters lay between them on the table and, when she remembered how important they had been, their disorder was majestic.