The Sun Chemist Read Online Free PDF Page A

Canal; a very nice picture of Sheik Yamani, the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister, seraphically describing his regret at the unfortunate economic condition of West Europe; a mysterious shortage of rice among the wholesalers of Israel, portending an imminent rise in the price of the product.
    ‘Excuse me. You are Mr Druyanov?’
    The Indian was smiling tentatively down at me. Extended, he was a long, sinewy figure, slightly hunched.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Connie said you would be here today. We are good friends. Forgive me for intruding. I just wanted to say how much I admired your book. There were one or two things I would love to discuss with you, the role of Gandhi in 1939– Oh, please don’t let me disturb you.’ We shook hands, I half on my feet, and a pickled cucumber fell on the floor. He shot after it like a python. ‘There. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t eat it. Although the floor is very clean. Well, I don’t want to disturb you. I am working here; we will meet again, I am sure.’
    ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
    The first signs of trouble in Arcadia.
    I finished breakfast and rang Connie, and a few minutes later was being driven by Ze’ev, the chauffeur, to the House. We went out of the Institute and turned left into the main road of Rehovot, and then left again and up the avenue for half a mile till we reached the gatehouse. This had been the guard post in the days when Chaimchik had been President of Israel. We sped through it and along the winding path between orange groves, to pull up in the drive outside the House.
    The biggish white place sat like a swan in the beautiful morning . The semicircular green awning was down over the window of Chaimchik’s old room, the wooden bird tray still attached to the balcony railing outside. He’d sat and fed the birds there while looking out to the Jerusalem hills, visible at this moment as a mauvish stain in the distance. I followed Ze’ev up the entrance steps and he unlocked the door.
    ‘You remember the way up to Mr Meltzer?’
    ‘Of course.’
    The wide marble staircase spiraled up from the hall: a spacious hall, quite light, quite bright, quite stately. A certain glacial quality sat upon it, the product of much limed oak. Limed oak had been the thing in the London of 1937 when Verochka had superintended the building. She’d become something of a magpie at the time. The results of her raids upon Sotheby’s and Christie’s were all around: chests, ornaments, lamps, rugs. She’d long outlived her lord; had slipped in her bath at the Dorchester on a visit to London at the age of eighty-five, and had returned in a coffin.
    I went up the stairs and along the corridor to her old bedroom; it was now Julian Meltzer’s office.
    ‘Well. So they put a bomb on the plane for you,’ he said.
    Something about old Zionists kept them like Peter Pan. He was sixty-nine and looked ten years younger: big, bland, calm, all in order. Some way above his mustache a pair of innocent eyes cannily gazed.
    ‘You didn’t happen to bring a token from your old friend Fidel?’
    I carefully opened my case and presented him with the token.
    He looked at the little cabinet for a bit and his mouth opened. Then he opened the box and looked at the cigars.
    ‘Oh, my word! I didn’t mean it. Where did you get these?’
    Caroline had got them. Her friend Willie was a gentleman cigar merchant, also a wine merchant; his father, the Earl, was.
    ‘Merry Chanukah, Julian.’
    ‘And a merry Christmas to you. Igor, these must have cost a fortune.’
    I agreed. ‘Perfectly correct. As it happens, I have a rather extended little tab for you to sign. We can go into it later. What is the mystery with Vava?’
    ‘Oh, well, Vava.’ He was still looking at the cigars with some disbelief. ‘I doubt if we’ll see anything from Vava.’ He very carefully put the cigars in a cupboard. There was another box of cigars in it, and a pile of books and files. ‘Wait a minute. I don’t think I ought to put these