Into Suez (22 page)

The chamber was almost domestic sized; not magnificent at all, but bare and simple. It impressed her with neither peace nor calm, but with stasis, final
changelessness. She thought of Chalkie. Of how there was no time in his world, only a boundless waiting. But how Sergeant Roy White ate away at the living. Was consuming Joe, his comrade, infecting him with spores of death.

‘Well, we’ll have to love you and leave you, Tut my dear old pal,’ Mona said at length.

Wings fluttered in Ailsa’s chest; butterflies agitating for freedom. She couldn’t wait to get out into the fresh air.

Then, confusingly, there was Chalkie White with the head of a hawk, face turned away, eyes fixed on some sight in another world, turned away sternly and forever. The jackal god had him by the hand and was leading him back down into the tomb, back the way they had come.

Ailsa allowed herself to be supported up into the light of day. Passing the gatekeeper’s nod and the soldier’s sneer, they climbed into the Jeep and drank thirstily from their water bottle. The sun was setting behind tawny peaks of limestone with their patina of gold from the silted sand; the air had cooled and the swift Egyptian twilight was imminent. Vestiges of sunlight gilded the tired faces of the few tourists who’d followed in their footsteps into the valley.

‘I shall always remember that we were here together,’ Mona said. ‘Always. Are you all right?’ She leaned over and placed cool fingertips on Ailsa’s wrist, as if to take her pulse. They held and kissed each other. It seemed altogether the right thing. Mona drove through biblical hills with scattered mud brick villages. Black-robed women tended donkeys and goats, or carried petrol cans full of water on their heads. A boy with a cart heaped with palm leaves was thrashing a donkey.

Their last night: they laid out a picnic of delicious bread, goat’s cheese and tomatoes, and sat cross-legged on the bed eating, drinking, talking. About
Habibi
and his anti-Zionism and how he’d been disowned by most of his family in Manchester as an
anti-Semite
and a traitor to his blood; then he’d topped it all by marrying not just a
goy
but an Arab woman.
Habibi
could understand why they felt as they did, only he couldn’t share it. It was his decency that lay at the bottom of it and common sense, Mona said: his clowning around was his way of tilting at a mad world. He’d put himself in the firing line, every imaginable firing line.
He
gave people their best estimate, as witness her good-for-nothing self.

‘Look, let me show you something.’

From her wallet Mona took a pencilled poem by one of Ben’s psychiatric patients, jotted on a scrap of ruled paper above a sketch of the Wing Commander dancing, wearing a ballet tutu over his KDs and boots. Mona carried it around in her bag. Wasn’t it the spitting image? She kissed it. She’d wear it away, wear
him
away, she said, with so much kissing.

And yet you can bear to be away from him and spend time with me, Ailsa thought. 

‘Shall I read it aloud, love?’

‘Yes, of course, go on.’

‘Almost as if Gentle Gentle were a rank,’ Mona said. This was how
Habibi
was. He found it difficult to hate. It wasn’t in him. A bit of his brain was missing. The young man who’d written the poem had been suffering from psychosis, ‘sand-happy’ they called it; he’d tried to kill himself several times. Touched by
Habibi
’s kindness, he wrote the first and possibly last poem of his life.

‘What happened to him?’

‘Sent home, I suppose. Or he killed himself. Many of the boys Ben sees have seen too much. The War, Palestine.’

It wasn’t always easy to live with
Habibi
’s sweetness, she admitted, for Mona of course wasn’t like that, she was a bit of a bruiser. But he took people for the best in them. When they had met in Lübeck, he’d been with an American, Abe; she had imagined
Habibi
, well, could not love a woman. But that was wrong.

Ailsa tried not to stare. She blushed, breathed short; was aware of Mona’s arm, brushing her own. Don’t tell me any more, she thought, edging fractionally away.

Someone was screaming. A woman in pain or terror or both.

Hedwig’s baby made its presence felt. Time to be born, the child announced. Ailsa scrubbed her hands and arms; offered soothing words. The labouring woman clung to her. Two months early and far, Hedwig wailed, from civilisation and clean hospitals and her husband. Don’t let me be taken into one of the native hospitals, she begged, raising her
white face from the pillow, forehead beaded with sweat. Don’t let a foreign doctor get his hands on me. They don’t understand about germs, she said, and hygiene. Promise me, Ailsa, promise. And also Mrs Brean. That old
battle-axe
is not to come anywhere near me.

The baby was not taking its time. It was speeding down a helter skelter and would plunge out into a dirty and unready world if they didn’t get a move on. Mona was set to fetching disinfectant, a bucket and a rubber sheet.

‘Now clean the sheet with the disinfectant,’ Ailsa told her. ‘Slosh it everywhere. And your hands and arms. Thoroughly. No, like this.’ As the belt of pain slammed tight round Hedwig’s belly, Ailsa murmured that all was well, breathe, breathe. There was nobody to refer to. Mona seemed to be plain useless under these circumstances. And Ailsa herself was tiddly.

‘If you’re going to puke, toddle,’ Ailsa told Mona with an asperity she didn’t try to hide. ‘I mean it.’

‘No, I’m not, I’m not.’

Mona scrubbed the red rubber sheet. They laid it on the bed, just in time, for Hedwig’s waters broke. Is it a haemorrhage?Mona asked in alarm, stepping back. No, you idiot, it’s the amniotic waters. Ailsa told Hedwig this was normal and natural and showed that things were progressing just as they ought. She had no idea if this was so.

Then everything stopped. Hedwig seemed to have lost her way. Get some more water, Mona. It must be boiled for three minutes and watch them do it. Mrs Brean had phoned Ish and Norman would certainly be on his way by now. And they were sending a team of medics. Not long now, Ailsa reassured Hedwig.

‘In a strange, hot land,’ she heard Hedwig say.

‘We’re here, your friends,’ Ailsa reassured her. ‘You’re not among strangers, are you? Everything’s fine.’

Hedwig fell into a light doze. What was the time? Ailsa consulted the disc of Hedwig’s gold watch. A quarter past two. The light bulbs faltered and recovered. A power cut was all they needed. Ailsa called for a torch.

Mrs Brean yoo-hooed round the door. She would take over now. Babs was the one to get this little squeaker born. Her abominable cheerfulness made Ailsa want to scream. No thanks. But I insist. And I insist you won’t. Ailsa assured her that everything was progressing in a calm, orderly fashion, and Mrs Webster expressly didn’t want anyone round her she didn’t know – but get hold of a torch, or preferably two, before you go.

‘Oh, but, lovey, everyone knows
me
.’

Mona, returning with torches, saw her off, Ailsa had no idea how, for Hedwig awoke with a shriek. Her nightie rode up as she tried to scramble off the bed, revealing the twisted ridges of old scars from thigh to knee.

‘Is
she
still here?’ Hedwig asked. ‘Don’t look, don’t look, just tell me. Over there.
Die Jüdin.’

A Jewish woman? Ailsa soothed her: there was nobody there at all. Just the three of them and the baby would make four when it came. Did she mean Mona? Or was she seeing things?

Hedwig closed her eyes. Her lips moved; she was muttering or chanting. Was this how people were when they were dying? Was Hedwig dying? Ailsa had to bend to catch the words. What was she saying?

Die Bombenflieger! Mutti
burning.

No one is burning. Wake up. You’re dreaming.

The bombing of Hamburg, of course. Her mother and
brother. Ailsa took Hedwig’s face in her hands and stroked it. Let’s get this over. Ailsa caught in fragments her hoarse whisper:
Jüdin. Sara. Dort drüben.

‘Hedwig, stop that. Stop that instantly. Now wake up.’ She shook Hedwig’s shoulder.

‘What? What is it, Ailsa? What have I done?’

She was clearly innocent of what had come out of her mouth.

‘You were dreaming. And delirious. Never mind. It’s all over now. We have to get this baby born. But by the way, Mona is not a Jew. Just for the record. Not that it would make any difference if she were.’

‘But, Ailsa dear, I know that,’ Hedwig said, puzzled.
‘Warum sagst du das, liebe Ailsa? Was meinst du damit?
Why do you say that?’

‘I must have misheard something you were saying.’

The belt of pain slammed tight again. The baby was coming now, fast. Contractions almost constant. Ailsa looked between the quivering legs. Darkness was crowning there. I can’t, I can’t. Yes, yes, you can. Cupping Hedwig’s knees in both palms, she created resistance. Just one more push – one more – there.

The bloody head was driven out into Ailsa’s hands; the narrow body flopped out after it. Its little willy baptised them with an eccentric arc of urine. Ailsa sucked the mess out of its nose; spat; welcomed the mewing protest. The baby was removed from her hands; Mona wrapped it in a torn-up sheet. Ailsa awaited the afterbirth. Cries pumped out. Good, well done. Over now. But Hedwig moaned, whimpered. Here you are, Hedwig, your little boy, he’s perfect. No! Take it away! All was not right. The mother had begun to toss again, and Ailsa, straightening up,
realised that labour was continuing. Ailsa said, there’s a twin, a second baby, Hedwig, now, when you want to, push, that’s the ticket, push. Nearly there.

The head was out and it was the wrong colour.
Blue-black
. The embryo had died some time ago; its bloodied face bunched like a fist. Another boy, less than half his brother’s size. Ailsa could not think what to do with the corpse. She held it in convulsively trembling hands, sheathed in its brother’s black slime of meconium. Keep it from the mother, wouldn’t that be best? She shouldn’t see. Poor Hedwig. Scissors were brought, Babs was there and Ailsa was glad of her. She made way for Babs and left for her own room.

‘God, my
God
, remind me not to have children,’ Mona gasped. ‘How did you manage that? Coping like that?’

‘No choice. You have to cope. At least she’s got one,’ said Ailsa tonelessly. ‘One healthy boy. It’s all she was expecting after all.’

Mona’s hand shook, pouring out the red wine they’d been drinking, what seemed a lifetime ago, sharing their private confidences. She looked at Ailsa in awed apology for not having been more use.

Glass in hand, Ailsa opened the shutters and stepped out on to the veranda. The last violet moment of sunrise burned away; men below rode bicycles with panniers of new bread; a Land Rover drew up on the opposite side of the road, four doors opening, men springing out. The medics rushed into the wrong hotel, the Luxor Star. Ailsa called but none of them heard. She shrugged. Babs would sort it out. Blood flecks stained Ailsa’s blouse, honourable blood. She thought of Hedwig’s fire-scarred legs. No wonder she wouldn’t be seen dead in shorts or a bathing
suit, however sweltering the sun. She’d been hurt by us, hurt beyond all bearing, yet she’d picked herself up and agreed to live. It was brave. Yet Ailsa couldn’t like her.

On the bedside cabinet lay Joe’s Kodak, the film not quite used up. Mona had taken endless pictures of Ailsa and the obelisk at Thebes, Ailsa eating a sandwich at Memnon, Ailsa beside the Nile. Picking up the camera, she went in to photograph Hedwig’s baby.

‘Such a bouncing fellow-me-lad!’ Babs was exclaiming. ‘Had you thought of names? I found my girls’ names in
The Reader’s Digest
.’

‘No, he has no name. Where have you put the other one?’ Seeing Ailsa, Hedwig held out one hand, with an expression of relief. ‘Oh, thank you. Thank you for everything. Whatever would I have done without you?’

Ailsa got rid of Babs by telling her that the medics had arrived from Ish and gone into the wrong hotel. She soaked a flannel in warm water and bathed Hedwig’s face; passed a comb through the front of her hair, so that the fair curls sprang up. They both gazed at the child in his mother’s arms. The Ancient of Days, thought Ailsa, come out of hiding. A nativity. And it seemed in some measure her child, the boy she herself did not have – yet. The baby’s mouth against Hedwig’s breast rooted sideways in its sleep. Its hand, a closed bud, was held between its mother’s finger and thumb.

‘A beautiful boy,’ Ailsa said.

‘Yes. But what about the other one?’

‘Hedwig, it had not grown. It had died in the womb.’

‘I see. Where is he?’

If the mother chose to see him, that was her right. Perhaps the baby corpse could be made presentable. Ailsa
went out to see. But Babs had ordered it burnt in the hotel incinerator. Ailsa stepped out into the back yard. The heat had risen, though the shadows were still long. Chickens scratched round in the stony sand; a small boy was relieving himself against a wall. Black, rancid smoke eddied from the incinerator. Too late. Perhaps it was just as well.

Hedwig turned her face away. The successful twin had starved out the weak one. Fratricide. Law of nature, Ailsa thought. The nameless survivor had fought for the space and won.

‘Ailsa.’

‘Still here.’

‘Did I say something before – to upset you?’

‘No. Of course you didn’t.’

‘I had the impression –’

‘No. Really.’

‘That’s all right then,’ said Hedwig doubtfully. ‘Only, you know, one is not oneself at such a time. Where is your friend?’

‘Mona? I don’t know. Shall I get her?’