“Darling,” he said. He kissed her breathlessly and they both began to run through the dark streets of Jerusalem until they reached the University quarter, when they slowed up a little.
“That was a bit of luck,” said Aaron with a laugh. Judith was trembling and breathless still — she had a pain in her side.
“Aaron — where are we going?”
“To the Professor.”
“But it’s late!” she cried, for she saw they were entering the dark doors of the Institute itself. Aaron took her arm.
“He said he would wait up all night by the telephone in his office.”
But the Professor had fallen asleep at his desk by the telephone, overcome by anxiety. They tiptoed into the room and watched him smilingly. Judith put a finger to her lips and, opening her briefcase, disposed the documents it contained quietly upon the broad desk before Professor Liebling. Then they sat down in chairs facing him and Aaron mimicked a cough and indicated with his hands that he was asking permission to wake him thus. Judith nodded and the cough was well and truly coughed. The Professor woke with a jolt and stared at them speechlessly; then he looked at the documents on his desk incredulously, and back at them.
“Well I’ll be damned!” he said querulously.
An account of her passage at arms with Donner made the old man almost incoherent with rage. He talked of going straight away to lodge a protest with the British authorities for this gross violation of common Mandate law. Then he grew thoughtful as Aaron said: “Let us not be hasty. Our own impression is that Donner was not acting officially but on his own account — illegally.”
“Mine too,” said Judith.
“And if he actually were trying to steal them on behalf of the British, you’d get small satisfaction anyway; they would muffle the news of the incident in the press and produce some excuse. Ben Adam knows Donner’s habits well. He takes bribes; someone may have offered him money for the plans.”
“But supposing he arrests Judith again?” said Liebling.
“Now the plans are safe he would get no satisfaction,” said Judith. “It was obviously the plans he wanted and not me.”
They discussed the matter in desultory fashion, and at last the Professor jumped up apologetically. “My goodness me, it is so late and here I am keeping you talking. Judith, I have your bedroom ready in my house. You will come and stay the rest of the night with us. My wife will be quite worried at the lateness of the hour. Come along.”
Aaron walked with them across the dark town and said good-night. “There’s been no time to talk,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Judith.”
He turned and disappeared down the dark street.
The next morning, Judith gave an exposition of her work on the plans to three serious young men and the Professor; heads bent over her work, they moved slowly up and down the long trestle tables in the drawing-office of the Institute. Outside, in the town, the noise of church bells floated in the clear air, and crowds passed and re-passed across the streets and the greensward of the University precincts. Jerusalem was celebrating the ending of the European war; but inside, the absorbed faces of the scientists were bent to the papers. They nodded and smoked and pondered. And Judith, with sharp, incisive gestures, completed her exposition. They hardly heard the bells or the buzzing of crowds in the historic city.
She had elected to return to Ras Shamir that afternoon, and they had hardly finished lunch at the Liebling house when she was called to the telephone. It was Aaron. “I have a surprise,” he said. “I hope it will be a pleasant one. I’ve been given permission to drive you back. It took some wangling as I’m attached to HQ here, but I’ve done it. When shall I call?”
So it was that she found herself sitting beside him in the late afternoon, as they rumbled down the curves and inclines away from Jerusalem. A newspaper lay on her knees and the empty briefcase at her feet. But her eyes were on the curves and tangles of the foothills they were negotiating. Aaron smoked silently, casting sideways glances at her from time to time. “Penny for your thoughts,” he said at last, with a hint of banter in his voice. She gazed at him for a moment, smiling absently. “You are miles away,” he said. She nodded. “I was thinking of Germany,” she said.
“Germany!”
She nodded again. “Now that the news has come, I suddenly feel that I am homeless in a new way.” He frowned but said nothing.
“I mean,” she said, “that even if Germany were ever to become her old self and welcome one back, it would be impossible to go. Something very vital has perished in all this train of horrors — a confidence, a trust.”
“But you wouldn’t think of going back,” he said sadly.
“No — I couldn’t.”
“Well, then.”
“But I see I shall have to go somewhere with a future for my sort of work, I don’t see myself being of any use here.”
“You shock me,” he said. “I thought by now you had begun to feel the place — the necessity for us founding an Israel here.”
“I think you are right, Aaron, but as yet I don’t feel anything. I am quite numb. I also see the difficulties. You may be obliged to use force.”
“Well then?”
“You may raise more devils than you can conquer.” Aaron groaned and was silent again. They were racing along in open country now; somewhere on the misty sea a warship’s gun was firing a salute. “So it’s London or New York for you, I suppose,” said Aaron. “I can’t blame you. You have a career ahead of you. But I am a sabra, and I’m going to stay here and watch a dream come true.”
With sudden penitence she turned and touched his shoulder. “Oh, Aaron, I’ve made you sad with my silly talk.”
He shook his head but his smile was unconvincing.
“I have. I’m sorry.”
“No. It’s simply that I felt sorry that you would not stay with us and share the dream — perhaps a crazy one. Things are going to get harder for a while — not easier. We shall be passing through the eye of the needle.”
“Damn,” she said. “Let’s stop a moment and have a cigarette.” Obediently he drew the car off the road under the olive trees and lit a cigarette for her. “Now,” she said, “I shall show you that I can still be of some use.” She took a piece of paper and began to draw a design on it, swiftly and fluently.
“Perhaps this will interest you,” she said. He looked at it curiously. “It’s a map of the Arab dispositions opposite Ras Shamir,” she went on.
“Good God, how did you get that?”
She drew a breath and said: “You know those two imps of Karam’s? In spite of his beatings they can’t be stopped from crossing the border. They spend half their time up there playing around, and Yehudi says he has found three paths on the cliffs which are unguarded. I drew this from his description. The crescent of tents there is the British Mission camp; here to the right the Prince and his entourage.”
He laughed. “Well I’m damned.”
She said very seriously: “I thought you might like to send up some of our people and cut all their throats.”
He jumped. “My God!” he said, looking at her with wide eyes. “Cut poor Daud’s throat? What next! He is a childhood friend of mine. I’ve known him since I was ten.” He seemed absolutely amazed at her tone, opening his mouth to speak, and then closing it again. He put one hand to his head and gave a hopeless laugh. Then he became very serious. Joining his hands together in supplication he said: “You must let me explain something to you; you must understand, Judith.” She stared at him with surprise ever so faintly tinged with contempt. He rose and walked a few paces away to another olive tree and laid his face against its trunk for a moment — then he turned and came back, starting to talk, his hands spread out. “You see, the overwhelming problem for us is the question of our legal right to be here, to found a place we can call our own; this is not simply another D.P. camp for us. We want it to justify itself as a permanent reality. But never can this be achieved by force of arms. What we want is for the world, which has made the half-hearted gesture of letting us settle here, to confirm our existence, to ratify our sovereignty. That is why we are trying to bounce the unwilling British into UNO; we believe that we could win our right to exist peacefully and not by force. We believe that our case and our cause are such that the right of Israel to exist as a State will be granted to us. We do not want to take it by force. You must stop thinking of this land in terms of an expiation for the guilt of past persecutions; it is not an expiation — it is a world commitment. We Jews have seventy nations represented here already.”