Walking the narrow road with Father Newell, picking up curious objects, shells, bandages, Arab comic books and letters, stepping aside for trucks stacked high with bread, weighing down the springs, projecting at the rear. But really the main subject could not be changed, the subject of the dead. Bristling in the green-brown and gravy-colored woolens. The suffocating wet cardboard fumes they gave off. In the superhot, the crack light, the glassy persistency and distortion of the desert light, these swollen shapes were the main thing to be seen. They were the one subject the soul was sure to take seriously. And this perhaps was what Sammler's instinct had directed him to do. To go to Kennedy, to get on a jet, to land in Tel Aviv, to have snapshots taken, to obtain a press card, to find a bus to Gaza, to visit the great sun wheel of white desert in which these Egyptian corpses and machines were embedded, to make his primary contact. Certain desires thus were met, for which he could not account. And this war was, as human affairs went, a most minor affair. In modern experience, so very little. Nothing at all. And the people involved in it, the boys, after fighting, played soccer at Al Arish. They cleared a space, and they kicked and butted, they leaped up, they trotted on the sand. Or in the shade of the hangars they took out their books and read biology or chemistry, philosophy, preparing for exams perhaps. Then he and Father Newell were called over to look at captured snipers on the bed of a truck, trussed up and blindfolded. Below these eye rags, the desperate faces, as if it were not a most minor affair. One saw those, and then the next things, and then other things. And evidently Mr. Sammler had his own need for these sights, for which he mastered the trembling of his legs or the wish to cry which flashed through him when he saw the snipers' bandaged faces. He was taken down to the sea by some men. They entered the water to refresh themselves. He too went in and stood. In a broad band along the beaches the foam mixed with heat-shimmer for many miles, in varying deep curves of seething white between the sand and the great blue. For a little while, in the water, he did not smell rotting flesh, but soon had to tie a handkerchief over his face. The handkerchief quickly absorbed the smell. It tainted his clothing. His spittle tasted of it.
Via London, ten days later, he flew home. As if he had been on some sort of mission: self-assigned: fact-finding. He observed that modem London was very playful. He visited his old flat in Woburn Square. He noted that the traffic was very thick. He saw that there were more drunkards in the streets, that the British advertising industry had discovered the female nude, and that most posters along the escalators of the Underground were of women in undergarments. He found his acquaintances as old as himself. Then BOAC brought him back to Kennedy Airport, and soon afterward he was in the Forty-second Street Library reading, as always, Meister Eckhardt.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit. Poor is he who has nothing. He who is poor in spirit is receptive of all spirit. Now God is the Spirit of spirits. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, and peace. See to it that you are stripped of all creatures, of all consolation from creatures. For certainly as long as creatures comfort and are able to comfort you, you will never find true comfort. But if nothing can comfort you save God, truly God will console you."
Mr. Sammler could not say that he literally believed what he was reading. He could, however, say that he cared to read nothing but this.
On the lawn before the half-timbered house the ground was damp, the grass was fragrant. Or was it the soil itself that smelled so fresh? In the clarified, moon-purged air, he saw Shula coming, looking for him.
"Why aren't you in bed?"
"I'm going."
She gave him Elya's own afghan to cover himself with, and he lay down.
Feeling what a strange species he belonged to, which had organized its planet to such an extent. Of this mass of ingenious creatures, about half had gone into the state of sleep, in pillows, sheeted, wrapped, quilted, muffled. The waking, like a crew, worked the world's machines, and all went up and down and round about with calculations accurate to the billionth of a degree, the skins of engines removed, replaced, million-mile trajectories laid out. By these geniuses, the waking. The sleeping, brutes, fantasists, dreaming. Then they woke, and the other half went to bed.
And that is how this brilliant human race runs this wheeling globe.
He joined the other sleepers for a while.
VI
The washstand in the small lavatory off the den was dark onyx, the fittings gold, the faucets dolphins, the soap dish a scallop, the towel thick as mink. Mirrors on four walls showed Mr. Sammler to himself in more aspects than he wanted. The soap was spermy sandalwood. The blade was dull and had to be honed on the porcelain. Very likely ladies occasionally slipped in to trim their legs with this razor. Sammler did not want to look for another blade upstairs. The master bedroom was seriously water-damaged. The ladies had pulled the twin mattresses from the beds to a dry corner. Dr. Lal had slept in the guest room. Wallace? Perhaps he had spent the night on his head, like a yogi.
Suddenly Sammler stopped shaving, paused and stared at himself, his dry, small, "cured" face undergoing in the mirror a strong inrush of color. Even the left, the swelled, the opaque guppy eye, took up some light from this. Where were they all? Opening the door, he listened. There was no sound. He went into the garden. Dr. Lal's car was gone. He looked in the garage, and that was empty. Gone, fled!
He found Shula in the kitchen. "Everyone has left?" he said. "Now how do I get to New York?"
She was pouring coffee through the filter cane, having first boiled the grounds, French style.
"Took off," she said. "Dr. Lal wasn't able to wait. There was no room for me. He rented a two-seater. A gorgeous little Austin Healy, did you see it?"
"And Emil, where is he?"
"He had to take Wallace to the airport. Wallace has to fly--to test-fly. For his business, you know what I mean. They're going to take pictures and so on."
"And I am stuck. Is there a timetable? I've got to be in New York."
"Well, it's nearly ten o'clock now and there aren't so many trains. I'll phone. And then Emil should be back soon, and he can drive you. You were sleeping. Dr. Lal didn't want to disturb you."
"Extremely inconsiderate. You knew and Margotte knew that I had to get back."
"The little car was very pretty. Margotte didn't look right in it."
"I am annoyed."
"Margotte has thick legs, Father. You've probably never even noticed. Well, they won't show in the car. Dr. Lal will call later in the day. You'll see him all right."
"Whom, Lal? Why? The document is there, isn't it?"
"There?"
"Don't irritate me by repeating questions. I am already irritated. Why didn't you wake me? The document is in the locker, isn't it?"
"I locked it up myself, with the quarter, and took out the key. No, youll see him because Margotte is out for him. Maybe you didn't notice that either. I really need to talk to you about this, Father."
"Yes, I'm sure you do. I did notice, yes, to tell the truth. Well, she's a widow, and she's had enough of mourning, and she needs somebody like that. We aren't much comfort to her. I don't know what she sees in that bushy black little fellow. It's just loneliness, I suppose."