The Mandelbaum Gate Read Online Free PDF

questions? The man was a hired guide. She was
paying for his services. Anywhere else one would take up a properly resentful
attitude. But here in Israel it was unthinkable; one paid their travel agency,
they were hired, but these facts appeared irrelevant to the relationship. Here
on this territory the Israeli guides were far more autonomous in their
attitudes than any French citizen on home ground, or any English guide in
England. The Israelis generally did not merely show one round, they guided, whether
they were official guides or not. It occurred to Barbara that all in some
degree rather resembled the Irish and the Welsh in their territorial
consciousness, and she was reminded, too, of the games of her childhood where
one’s own chalked-out area, once won, contained whatever features one said it
did, neither more nor less. She kept remarking to the guide that the country
was beautiful, since this was easy to say, being true. It duly pleased him. He
said, ‘I swam for it,’ and explained that he had arrived as an illegal
immigrant on a ship in 1947, and had swum ashore by night.
    She had
returned to the hotel after the trip to Caesarea in a state of exhaustion and
nervous panic that reminded her of the sensations she had experienced as a
result of anaemia, for a few months, some years ago. She was now in good
physical health; it was spiritual anaemia, she ruthlessly decided, that she was
suffering from. Instead of saying goodbye at the door and tipping him like a
tourist she acted on a desperate placatory impulse and asked him in for a
drink. Then, immediately realizing that she was yielding to a familiar
weakness, that of humouring the constitutional tyrant, she now recalled having
parked the fellow on Freddy Hamilton, who was reading a newspaper in the quiet
green courtyard, and had said she would be back presently. She had taken a long
time to come down from her room, and when she did she found the huge guide had
begun to expand on the adventures of the past day. Courteous Mr Hamilton had
seemed more than merely courteous, he was listening with deep interest. The
guide was checking off the fingers of his left hand, one by one, as he said, or
nearly sang, ‘I gave her Abu Gosh, I gave her Ramle where is Arimathea for the
Christians, I have given her Lod as you call Lydda, traditional birthplace of
St George —’
    ‘Patron
Saint of England,’ said pleasant Mr Hamilton.
    ‘Correct.
I gave her Haifa, I have given her Mount Carmel —’
    ‘Ah,
here’s Miss Vaughan,’ said Freddy Hamilton. ‘Ah, Miss Vaughan, I’ve been hearing
an account — let me …’ He rose to help her to pull up a chair from another
table. The guide continued, on his right hand, ‘I gave her the grotto of the
Prophet Elijah, I gave her, then, the Persian Gardens and the Temple of the
Bahai Faith.’
    ‘Ah
yes, I’ve heard of the Bahai Faith. Very interesting. Very decent people, I
hear. Founded after the last war. Money to burn.’
    ‘In
this the lady was not interested. She did not wish to visit the Bahai Temple.’
    ‘I
think we did enough for one day,’ Barbara said.
    ‘A very
full day,’ said Freddy.
    When
the Israeli had gone, Freddy said, ‘Nice fellow. Seems to know his job.’
    ‘I
found him insufferably overbearing.’
    ‘Did
you? Oh well, you know, we’re foreigners here now. One inclines to forget that.
British to them means something different from British to us, I’m afraid.’
    Saul
Ephraim, to whom she had recounted that day’s excursion in detail, said, ‘You
seem to be unlucky with our guides. Not surprising. You’re British. Well, that’s
all right, more or less. You’re a Catholic convert — O.K. But you’re a half-Jew
as well. The three together are a lot.’
    ‘I
should have thought being a half-Jew would be held in mitigation of the rest.’
    ‘You
ought to know better.’
    She did
know better. The family on her mother’s side at Golders Green, with whom she
spent half of the vacations of her