The Rainy Day Man: Contemporary Romance (Suspense and Political Mystery Book 1) (6 page)

             
"The car's leaving," he reported, and I imagined the man who had been dropped off as he examined the furrows of the square made by the command-car. 

             
"Yvonne?" the man called softly.  "Michel?"  We heard the door to the clinic open and close, then the door to the house next door.  A long shadow advanced over the sand.  My eyes met those of the woman, which were very brown and deep.  She closed them and opened them immediately, in a trusting gesture. 

             
"No one's to move," I said quietly.  The shadow came in and stood in the space which the sun made on the garage floor.  Scheckler and the driver moved, closing the entrance, blocking the light that came from the outside.

             
"You," I threw out into the dimness, to get it over and done with as quickly as possible, "will have to come with us."

             
Scheckler bent into the Rolls and pressed a button.  Yellow light flowed from the headlamps along two paths of dust.  I closed my eyes, partly because of the sudden glare and partly because of the surprise.  All my achievements of the morning disappeared:  the man facing me, the one I had been told to arrest, was my man, the one who had been giving out vitamins in the refugee camp.

             
This time there was no expression in his eyes and, surprisingly, not even astonishment.  "I have to pack a few things," he said immediately in the same calm voice with which he had spoken to the children three hours earlier.

             
"Why?" the youngster behind me said suddenly.  "What has he done?"

             
I retreated to the wall, so that I could see everyone.  "We've received instructions..."

             
"You can't simply arrest someone just like that," the woman said.

             
I agreed with a movement of my head.

            She rushed forward a few paces.  "He's got commitments, plans..."  Her face reddened.  "Where will you take him?"

              "I don't know."

             
"For how long?"             

             
"A few hours, maybe a little longer..."

             
The man shifted in his place and gestured towards the woman.  "May I ask you to leave us alone for a moment?"

             
With a slight, almost evasive, movement I shook my head.  He did not argue, but walked back towards the entrance. 

             
"I'll go with him," Scheckler suggested.

             
Still without speaking, I ignored Scheckler and gestured towards the opening.  The man thanked me with a movement of his head.  Outside we were momentarily united, both blinded by the sun.  He recovered first and began walking quickly.  I left him enough room for privacy.  The dogs followed us, their noses up.

             
At the entrance to the house he paused to wait for me.  I indicated that he should go in.  There was something disturbing about his impeccable behavior.  For a moment I almost hoped he would try to escape through the back window, straight into the arms of the soldier who was waiting there.  I stood at the front of the building, by the window.  Inside the room the doctor stood on his toes and took a cardboard suitcase, a larger version of the one he had been carrying in the morning, from the top of a cupboard.  On the opposite wall, as if to complement the temptation of the medicine cabinet, were shelves laden with books.  I strained my eyes trying to look at the bindings.  He saw me out of the corner of his eye, then came over to the window and said, "I would like to ask you..."

             
I gestured with my fingers for him to hurry.  He tightened his mouth and his hands gripped the handle of the suitcase.  He disappeared somewhere inside the house and after a brief moment, too brief, in fact, went through the front door and walked straight into the garage.  How had he managed to pack so quickly? 

             
Scheckler looked out.  "The woman and the boy want to come out to say goodbye," he shouted.

             
"Let them come out," I shouted back.

             
The man stopped and waited without being asked to do so.  His suitcase was on the ground, his hands were free and spread out.  The way they trembled revealed, I guessed, an internal vitality which was hidden by his tall, ungainly stature.  The woman came out, accompanied by Scheckler and the soldiers, who surrounded her and the boy. She fell into the man's arms and detached herself immediately, in a movement which touched something inside me:  delicate, arching, a wave touching the shore.

             
For a moment I envied the arrested doctor for her warmth as she parted from him.  Secretly I studied her face, a beauty beginning to fade, a tautness in the skin above her upper lip, two furrows around her full, wide mouth, a fine network of wrinkles extending to her cheeks from the corners of her eyes.  I nodded to Scheckler, who grabbed the doctor's arm and led him briskly to the command car.  The woman walked beside them.  When he climbed the iron step she wavered and froze in mid-movement.  I called the soldiers who were guarding the back of the buildings and we all climbed into the vehicle.

             
Scheckler drove.  The doctor was sitting between us.  The woman's face, as she looked at her husband, was inevitably turned to me too.  A pallor spread beneath her tanned skin.  A tear rolled onto her bottom lip and she licked it.

             
"Get a move on," I said to Scheckler, banging the tin panel with my hand, "go..."

             
The doctor waved to the woman and the boy, then put the suitcase on his knees, eased himself into the seat and relaxed his facial muscles, as if preparing himself for a long journey.  He did it so naturally that for a moment I thought that the rules of the game we were playing were clearer to him than to me.

***

              The way back was shorter, maybe because we were going downhill or because all the time we could see the top of the roof of the Athenaeum, appearing and disappearing into and out of the cypresses in the garden. 

             
"You did that nicely," Scheckler said suddenly.  The compliment hinted at a certain comradeship and made me feel contemptible.  The doctor, wedged between us, was silent.  At one of the bends in the road he leaned over my knee and looked up at the massive summit of the sycamore.  His full lips moved, then stopped.  Then he looked from the other side.  Neither of us reproved him. 

             
When we got to the main street of the village he suddenly said, "I must pay a debt in a shop."  The shops were closed.  A few dozen men and women were coming out of a church, the last building in the row overlooking the abyss.

             
"It's Sunday today," I remarked.

             
He pointed to the opening of a few unpaved alleys which extended into the maze of houses. 

             
"There the shops are open."  In his voice there was the tense friendliness of someone who believes that troubles end well if they are tackled cautiously and intelligently.

"Don't let him,"
Scheckler intervened.  He had to slow down, almost stop, to avoid hitting the worshippers leaving the church.  Some people had already noticed us and were standing in groups, watching.  On the other side groups of youngsters burst out of the alleys and stood by the roadside.  Scheckler added:  "It's dangerous."

             
One of the boys shouted something.  The others froze where they were.  The transmission creaked as Scheckler changed gears.  The car leaped forward but the doctor made no protest, his face once more assuming its relaxed acceptance.  He no longer looked back, just sat bent, one shoulder thrust forward, as if sitting comfortably on the seat caused him pain.

             
In the courtyard of the Athenaeum I jumped out of the command car and spread the arrest warrant out on the bonnet. 

             
"If you want," Scheckler suggested to me in a friendly voice, "you can stay here and I'll drive him..."

             
"Thanks."  Surprised, I filled in the tiny squares on the form.  The pen was bad and the letters came out uneven.  Even so, they were sufficient to make the doctor a prisoner and the detention camp his next address.  I gave the papers to Scheckler and escaped up the stairs to my room.

             
Towards evening I tried to write to Jonathan again.  I felt a sense of both oppression and need, but had nothing to say to him apart from the fact that twenty-four hours had passed since my arrival and the only event which I had regarded as an attempted contact had turned out to be a complete mistake.  Restless, I got up and wandered around the offices.  There was dust on the desks.  The wastepaper baskets were empty.  I opened a few files and read the material inside.  It was worthless, reports of trivial incidents which had occurred in the area, neatly-filed general orders.  Then I went to the kitchen, the garage and the courtyard.  Now, in contrast to yesterday, all the witnesses were a nuisance.  How could the soldiers be gotten away from this place so that they would not be hurt?  I wandered among them, as lonely as a teacher in a busy playground.  In the evening I was almost pleased to see the command car hooting by the gate.

             
Scheckler was exultant.  His thin lips were stained with red juice.  The car's toolbox was laden with ripe cherries. 

             
"The orchards, you should have seen them," he exulted to the mechanics.  "Plums and peaches, each one as big as my fist.  As many cherries as you want..."  Coming from him, even the descriptions of the fruit had an obscene aura.  I indicated to him to follow me upstairs, to the office.

             
"How was it?" I asked.

             
He put a dripping bag on the desk.  "You see, I didn't forget you..."             

             
"How was it?"

             
"The usual, what were you expecting?  We took him there, and that's that."

             
"Did he say or do anything?"

             
"He kept quiet all the way."

             
I put my hand out.  "The papers."

             
"What papers?"             

             
"A copy of the arrest warrant.  They were supposed to stamp it and give it back."

             
"They didn't give it back."

"Phone them."

              "O.K."

             
"Now!"

"What's your hurry?"

              "I'm responsible for him."

             
He shoved his dirty hand into his shirt pocket and pulled out a creased envelope.  "If you have to have proof, you've got this."

             
I read the address:  Father Silwani, Dura. 

             
"Tell me everything," I demanded, "from the beginning."

             
"Okay," he relented.  "When we got there he wanted to post a letter.  He talked to the military police for all the world as if he were some lousy tourist come to stay at a hotel, not like an Arab.  So they laughed at him, and he slipped the envelope to me..."

             
A path of cherry juice trickled from the bag across the desk.  I pushed the bag into the drawer.  Scheckler buttoned up his shirt pocket.  An expression I had known well crossed his face. 

             
"How much?" I asked.

             
"How much what?"

             
"How much did you get?" I came round the desk and stood close to him.  "After all, it wasn't for nothing that you volunteered to go with him."

             
One could see the alternatives being weighed up in his mind one by one.  Finally he unbuttoned his pocket again.  All disappointment, he threw some crumpled money onto the desk.  I spread it out and examined it from either side.  Then I gave it back.

             
"Is there anything else?"

             
"Like what?"

             
"Things you took, or received."

             
He did not reply, merely turned around and left the room angrily.

             
I pulled out the drawer.  The letters on the envelope indicated that they had been written with care, at leisure, in advance.  Had he intended to ask me to convey the letter to its destination when he had addressed me through the window, or had he hoped to leave it at the shop he had asked to go to?  My perturbation was pierced by a sense of gloom:  the folded piece of paper which was in my hands to do with as I pleased was the peak of a very direct contact with the life of another man, with his soul, his happiness.  I passed my nail along the flap.  It was stuck down well.  An examination against the light of the lamp revealed a single sheet folded into four, a secret enclosed in a paper womb.