CHAPTER 20 - Aron in Cairo, a Red-Headed Russian and Ill Tidings

Aron & Sonya in Cairo

Aron, meanwhile, after a number of false starts and delays, has been in Cairo for a whole month and still has not managed to get any communication back home. Despite the promises made in London and his letter of introduction, the British in Egypt will not take him seriously. He is placed in a cheap hotel and forbidden to communicate with Palestine, as all post is being intercepted by Turkish censors and his status is still being decided. He gets in touch with Absa’s cousin, Raphael Aboulafia in Alexandria. The two men quickly become close. Their views and opinions so similar, with regard to the dire nature of the situation and the action that needs to take place without delay to save their beloved Zion.

A correspondence between them commences. Aron dares not leave Cairo in case he is summoned for a meeting and Raphael is busy with his own affairs in Alexandria and is still recovering from his injury incurred in Gallipoli.

Raphael in the Uniform of the Zion Mules Corps

Raphael is, like the others, a recorder of his life and times. His journal of that doomed campaign with the Zion Mules Corps - a record in French and Hebrew - of his embarkation on the Hymettus to an as yet undisclosed destination, the emotion of that departure, the uniforms distributed on board, the sparse comfort of his cabin, the singing of Hatikvah and the fervent hopes of all those aboard to return to Palestine as soon as possible. There is a Russian singer on board to entertain the new recruits. The sky is blue, the sea mysterious, a transport ship with some of his companions, black with three chimneys is torpedoed by a German submarine. The songs of the soldiers becomes sadder. Every morning, Raphael takes the regulation ‘l’huile de ricin’ - castor oil - to ward off sea sickness and stomach maladies. He ends one of his diary entries: ‘Will they arrive my letters? Who knows? I wrote to you at home and to the address in Alexandria’, addressing an unknown ‘Chérie’. He talks of battle and injury, the hapless Australians and the dying, of ordinance exploding and of horrors that he had never imagined seeing in his life.. The diary fits neatly into a long, red and gold, tin cigarette box, with logo ‘Maspero Freres Ltd, Caire, Egypte’ and a flaming Pharaonic figure to indicate the nature of its contents. A gift, from that chérie, on his departure which quickly goes up in smoke, but leaves a container for his thoughts which he hopes to give to the object of his love when he returns from war.

And now that he is indeed back and still, relatively speaking, in one piece - unfortunately his Chérie has just left him and gone back to Russia. He writes in his diary of his immense distress: ‘She has gone, my Yehudit! Is this indeed the end? All my dreams are dying. All my hope is waning! Yehudit, Yehudit, what have you done? Who is the devil that has come between us?’

He also finds a new girlfriend, Miriyam, soon to be his wife.

****

Things improve when Aron is inexplicably moved to the Grand Continental Hotel - an annexe actually - not entirely unconnected to the fact that the British have requisitioned the hotel as their Headquarters. This gives Aron some hope at least. He writes to Raphael from his new address, a distinct improvement and step up on the last one, and with much nicer notepaper.

Aron at his Desk at the Grand Continental Hotel, Cairo

He writes on that cream and bottle green page with its oval cartouche and engraved image of the double-winged, imperial-designed hotel, its horse drawn carriages, Parisian awnings, and proud flags of Empire on the grand Opera Square with soaring fountain and art nouveau street lamps.

Aron, it should be noted, does not have this view, his room being among the cheaper ones, is at the back of the hotel and faces an internal courtyard.

‘You are fed up with Captains Edmunds, Smith and Jones,’ he writes to Raphael. ‘So am I. Until the moment I started my conversations with them, I have never allowed any man to behave to me with such indifference and lack of respect as I allow them, because their ideas and behaviour are so different from ours.’

He rails against the casual racism of his dear Englishmen and rather unfairly, at Avshalom, who he considers was negligent, in that he already had much to do with them and gave no warning of their duplicity or as Aron calls it ‘decadence’.

‘I know that the lives of hundreds of our people are hanging on this slim hope of help we can bring, and I must continue our work, no matter how much I dirty my hands, or destroy my soul. I can’t step aside now. Only after I have succeeded in re-establishing connections with Atlit will I have the right to get out of this mire.’

****

It is now December 1916. His frustration is mounting. The ‘mire’ threatens his sanity and he has taken to drinking whisky in his room, fearing that joining the other officers in the bar, might end badly. A change over of personal means many of the officials are new and have no sympathy for his cause and a face to face meeting with the powers that be, takes weeks to arrange.

In the corridors he is ignored by supercilious British Officers who have no idea who he is. Aron takes this very badly.

At last, he is summoned to Command Headquarters. A fan turns in the hot stuffy offices of British Intelligence. 

Captains Edmunds, Smith and Jones

Aron faces disdainful Captain Edmunds, Smith and Jones, who peruse his letter of introduction from the War Office in London. 

Captain Edmunds is nonplussed: “All I can recommend is that you fill out a memorandum giving us your qualifications with references - ”

Aron is beside himself with anger: “These are my references! The War Office in London has sent me!”

The Captain is perplexed and has the usual prejudice of any British official of that time, shared by his poker-faced underlings:

    “I cannot believe there are dozens of people behind Turkish lines, waiting to risk their lives, and without payment, you say? That’s not the usual way for your people, is it?” 

An indignant Aron is more aggrieved than ever: “Our people - as you call them - are risking their lives for your cause!”

He jumps up and wagging his finger angrily at the Captain, shouts: “One of my agents is on his way at this very moment. Crossing the desert, at great risk to his own life - ”

Captain Edmunds raises his eyebrows in impatience and disbelief. Aron’s fury seems to him to be the pure insolence of an upstart. A Jewish upstart at that.

But Aron will not stop: “My people in Palestine are desperate! I must contact them! I won’t move until you give me the help I need!”

The Captain is affronted and will not budge. His shoulders stiffen, his gaze hardens: “I am sorry, but I will not be threatened, Mr. - ”

He seems to have forgotten our hero’s name.

    “ - Aronson. Lieutenant Aron Aronson!”, says Aron furiously, grabbing his papers.

Captains Smith and Jones, frog-march a loudly protesting Aron out of the door.

  ****

Sandstorm in the Sinai Desert

Night with a Clear Sky

A sandstorm in the Sinai. Wind blows sand everywhere. Visibility is at an arm’s length. Avshalom and Joe, in their Bedouins disguise, lurch along on two camels, their faces barely visible under their hoods as wind and sand sting their eyes and clog their nasal passages.

Through the howling gale of sand, their Bedouin guide on another camel, leads them through a line of Turkish troops who “Salaam” them and wave them through.

   ****

It is night,  a brilliant, velvety, black sky, with clear stars. The sandstorm has gone as if it was never there.

Avshalom and Joe with their guide, wait uneasily in the gritty darkness beside their camels. Absa lights a hand-rolled cigarette. The match, a flare in the darkness, the cigarette a dangerous red glow.

The guide gestures furiously for him to put it out.

Joe hisses: “He says no smoking - there are Turkish and German patrols, not to mention unfriendly Bedouins, out there.”

Avshalom takes one more drag of the rollie: “If anything happens to me - Tell Sara I love her.”

    “Nothing’s going to happen!” says Joe, yawning. “Now go to sleep.”

Absa has never felt so close to the cosmos, glittering in all its splendour. Never felt so close to Sara.

  ****

The sun rises. They wake  and after a few preliminaries - a sip of water from their fast diminishing flasks - Avshalom gestures for them to continue. The guide shakes his head and indicates they must crouch in the dunes to remain unseen.

    “It’s no-man’s land, he’s afraid if anyone sees us, they’ll shoot - ” says Joe in a low voice

    “We can’t just sit here doing nothing!”

    “Maybe, we should go back?” says Joe, beginning to regret his reckless decision.

But Avshalom is more certain than ever: “We can’t go back now.”                                    

    “Alright. We’ll wait until morning, then we’re sure to see the British camps.”

Absa takes out the bag of dates that Sara had given him and they suck companionably on those sticky, sweet fruits with their oval pitted stones.

    “Have you ever loved someone, Joe, I mean really loved someone?” Absa says earnestly.

    “I‘ve had plenty of women - but if I didn’t have a wife - your Sara, now there’s someone I could spend the rest of my life with.”

Avshalom replies: “She’s a very beautiful woman - the best of women, I love her with all my heart - but it’s all written in the stars.”

 **** 

Indeed the stars shine brightly on that last night of Avshalom’s earthly passage. On the night of 19th to 20th of January - the eve of Tevet 26, 5677 - their guide abandons them and they wander, cursing, in circles in the dark. In the morning, their guide returns, all smile, asking that they come with him to his tent for shelter. In fact, he has decided to take his troublesome guests to surrender to the Turks. Joe smells a rat and threatens him with a gun. The young Bedouin, whose name is Younes al-Bahbah, runs off and reports that his ‘guests’ are trying to break through to British lines.  

Bedouin Raid

Two Turkish gendarmerie officers and thirty Bedouins set out to capture Absa and Joe.  A shoot out ensues. Both Joe and Absa are injured. Shot in the arm, Joe manages to escape, but Avshalom, wounded in the thigh and unable to move, shoots the Turkish gendarme in response to the demand to drop his weapon.

As a result, he is shot in the head, buried in a shallow sand dune, and forgotten, except by all those who knew and loved him.

  ****

A frustrated Aron, who knows nothing of his friend’s fate, walking up and down on the banks of the Nile under those same starry skies with Raphael Aboulafia. They walk engaged in deep conversation, heading for Shepheard's Hotel. 

Aron at Shepheard’s Hotel, Cairo

Lights strung along a river terrace of the British Officers’ Club, a watering hole, at Shepheard’s Hotel, renowned for its opulence, stained glass, Persian carpets, gardens, terraces, and granite pillars resembling those of the Ancient Egyptian temples. 

Raphael & Aron on the Terrace of Shepheard's Hotel

Its ‘American Bar’ frequented not only by Americans but also by French and British officers. There are nightly parties at which men appear in military uniform and women in evening gowns. The bar is known as the ‘long bar’ because it is always so crowded that it necessitates a great deal of time waiting to get a drink. At the time of the Second Great War, when there are very real fears that the Wehrmacht’s Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel might capture Cairo, a current joke amongst the British and Australian soldiers waiting for service will be: ‘Wait until Rommel gets to Shepheard’s; that’ll hold him up’.

Aron & Sonya in the Bar

On this particular night, twenty years and one war earlier, the bar is fuller than usual and people spill out onto the terrace. A vampish dark-haired Russian woman in uniform, laughing and drinking with the officers, has her eye on Aron who sits drinking with Raphael.

A drunken British officer, comes over to Aron and slops his drink over him.

“Whoops!!” he slurs, and as he goes off laughing to the bar, that inebriated antisemite shouts: “So how much are they paying you, Jew-boy?”

Aron wipes the spilled alcohol from this sleeve and says in disgust: “They rate me no higher than any paid informer!”

Sonya sways up to a stony-faced Aron.

    “I thought you’d sock him in the jaw for calling you a Jew!” she says.

    “I am a Jew,” he snaps.

    “So am I,” says Sonya, moving closer to Aron. “From a little shtetl in Russia...”

Aron not used to flirtatious, independent woman, whether from the shtetl or anywhere else, goes back moodily to his drink.

Raphael introduce her: “Miss Sonya Rosowsky, Lieutenant Aron Aronson.”

She offers her hand but instead of kissing it, Aron shakes her outstretched fingers with a masculine firmness that discounts any thought of romance.

Sonya raises her carefully painted eyebrows. Aron’s stiff demeanour amuses and attracts her. She wanders off back to the bar blowing Aron a kiss.

Raphael observes the kiss and smiles. 

Aron changes the subject: “These Englishmen all have the same agenda and we’re not on it!”

Raphael seeks to reassure him: “They’re not all bad. Be patient Aron, I think I've got the right Englishman for you - ”

Aron & Captain Norman Bentwich

On the terrace, we see the fastidious figure of British Officer, Captain Norman Bentwich, as it turns out, a Jewish Officer in the Camel Corps whose full surname is ‘De Mattos-Bentwich’, and who hails from a renowned Sephardic family. Introductions are made by Raphael. Aron shakes his co religionist’s hand, now firmly back in territory he understands, and hopefully a little closer to his intended mission. Bentwich, it turns out, is familiar with Palestine, having family himself, in Zikhron Ya’akov, a famous cellist sister in Jerusalem and in fact, he will rise in a very few years, to become Attorney General of Mandatory Palestine.

Sonya regards Captain Bentwich, with a little too much familiarity, her presence clearly a provocation and without invitation, she pulls up a chair and asks in a seductive tone: “May I join you, mon Capitaine?”

Captain Bentwich is a little taken aback but being an English gentleman of a certain class, he quickly complies and the seating is soon sorted out. 

A gap in the conversation requires some deft handling.

   “Lieutenant Aronson, this is Miss Sonya Rosowsky, our resident Russian translator,” says the very proper Norman Bentwich.

Sonya, takes Aron’s hand and this time she kisses it lightly and says in Russian: “Dobro pozhalovat' v eto logovo bezzakoniya,” which roughly translates to ‘Welcome to this den of iniquity.’

Bentwich feels the need to pull the conversation back to a more conventional and safer topic: 

    “Lieutenant Aronson, we will have to get you a new uniform, if you are to serve with us.”

This pleases our hero, who feels ill at ease in his civvies in an Officer's Club and sees a British uniform as evidence of his acceptance in this very closed club from which he and his people have been excluded for a very long time. Bentwich gestures to a waiter and a tray of vodka is quickly delivered.

Bentwich raises his glass: “To our new arrangements Lieutenant!”

    “Nosterovia!” says Sonya.

They all toast in Russian “Nosterovia!!”

Aron unused to vodka, and still thrown by Sonya's vampish presence, downs the glass in one go and accepts a second.

****

Aron, a little unsteady on his feet, about to enter the annexe of the Hotel Continental. Sonya follows him inside, then to his room on the second floor, her heels click-clacking on every noisy stair tread.

Aron and Sonya in bed together making passionate love.

Next morning Aron wakes, confused at what did, and what did not happen, the previous night.

Sonya Smoking

He is left in no doubt however, when he sees Sonya smoking a cigarette next to him in the bed. She tosses her hair over her shoulder and blows him a smoky kiss.

Aron, quickly checking his watch and uttering: “Damn! I’m late!” hurriedly pulls on his clothes.

 ****

Shepheard’s Hotel, the breakfast terrace. Aron, his head throbbing, tie, awry, hurries to meet Captain Bentwich who is eating a large plate of eggs. 

Captain Norman Bentwich on the Terrace of Shepheard’s Hotel

Aron apologises profusely for his lateness, then launches into a catalogue of the problems which caused his tardiness, omitting, however, the real reason for his over-sleeping. Captain Bentwich listens carefully, while finishing off his eggs. Then he hails a waiter who brings Aron a cure for the night before: the famous ‘Suffering Bastard Cocktail’ - a gin-and-brandy concoction with added Angostura bitters.

    “The trouble is, you're speaking to the wrong people,” says the helpful Captain who is, himself, drinking a glass of freshly pressed, orange juice. “It’s the Turkish Affairs Office that you need - not the War Office.”   
                   
Aron swallows his pride and his hangover cure: “They didn’t tell me that in London.”
                       
    The Captain waves his hand as if that’s not important, happy to put an astonished Aron right: “You’ll find that they’re right here in Cairo. I'll arrange an introduction but I think you'll find you know both gentlemen.”

Aron waits for more information, but it does not come.

     “Oh and don't mind Sonya, she's a good girl really. She likes vodka, but she has her  reasons - Her wealthy family was all killed by the White Russians, so now she’s gone Red. Pity. I’ve heard she’s very good in bed? But mum’s the word...”

Poor Aron’s face reddens but Norman Bentwich  is not worried and asks matter of factly:

    “Breakfast?” he offers, as his own plate is removed.

    “Thank you”, says Aron, his tummy rumbling like a tank revving up for action. “I am hungry. Translating Russian is hard work.”
 
The two men share a look of ironic complicity.

Bentwich clicks his fingers and a waiter delivers a plate of eggs with green fenugreek and humus:   

    “No bacon, as you would expect. They’re all Muslims here and of course, we are both Jews,” says the Captain constructively, adding: “You’ll need a full stomach to work on, here!”.

Aron eats, gulping down his breakfast with alacrity and adding some fiery, harissa sauce for good measure - all this is too good to be true.

****

Aron in Uniform

Aron is soon kitted out with a uniform and his spirits rise. 

But the British have still not committed to sending a ship to communicate with Atlit, and Aron fears that Avshalom’s rashness might have ended in a mishap, and that Sara must be going out of her mind with worry at his long absence and the lack of messages.  

It is six months since he parted with Avshalom in Damascus. And almost that long since he has been able to contact Sara.

He does up the buttons of his British army jacket, straightens his cap and hurries off for the promised meeting. 

**** 

Turkish Affairs Office, Cairo

A sign reads: ‘Major Wyndham Deedes. Brigadier-General Clayton, Turkish Affairs Office, Eastern Mediterranean Operations Area.’

Aron talking to the two British Officers he has already met in London, now posted, as he is, to Cairo: balding Brigadier General Clayton and dry, practical Major Wyndham Henry Deedes - both experts in Turkish affairs. 

Only a year earlier Wyndham Deedes had been involved in intelligence gathering for the Gallipoli campaign. Lord Kitchener, head of the armed forces, had called him to his office. Deedes, who had been observing the Turkish Army for several years and had closely studied the Dardanelles defences, was asked for his opinion on a naval attack. His reply, that it was a fundamentally unsound proposition, angered Kitchener who dismissed him telling him that he ‘didn’t know what he was talking about.’ 

This did not however, stop Deedes from ascending the foreign office ladder and he now found himself running the Cairo office. Greater heights beckon and he will, in fact rise to become Brigadier-General Sir Wyndham Deedes and later, Chief Secretary to Sir Herbert Samuel, High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Palestine.

But back to the present meeting between Deedes, Clayton and Aron. And a surprise, and not entirely welcome interruption.

Brigadier General Clayton, Major Wyndham Deedes & Sonya

A secretarial assistant enters with a tray of papers. It is Sonya. Aron ignores her and Sonya pointedly puts the papers down with a bang.

    “Thank you Miss Rosowsky,” the Brigadier is brisk and business-like.
       
Sonya glares at Aron, then exits.

    “Hot-headed young woman. A free-spirit, so I’m told,” Brigadier General Clayton has observed Sonya’s look and made his own ironic appraisal.

Aron is flustered: “Yes indeed.”

But he is quickly back to business: “But whatever happened to Lieutenant Woolley! We waited and waited and he never came!”           

Major Wyndham Deedes, responds drily: “Lucky to be alive - torpedoed by a German sub - in jail in enemy country, poor chap.”
                       
Aron is taken aback by this news but reassured that it wasn’t the spy group’s fault that the contact dried up.

    “We must re-establish the contact without delay! I only pray we’re not too late. My sister and others in our ring are waiting in ignorance of Woolley’s plight. They have urgent information for you!”
 
The Brigadier nods: “You need to find someone who knows the coast, a strong swimmer - and who won’t be recognised when he lands.”

****

The Hotel Continental. A small balcony over a side-street. Aron with Raphael next to him waves his hands around, agitated: 

    “So all we need is a patriotic, Jewish, Olympic swimmer who can find his way in the dark and whom no one knows?!”

Raphael is quick to answer: “I’ve got just the man for you! One of us, who managed to get out. He has a family in dire need and would appreciate the work.”

  **** 

Aron in the Donkey Market, Cairo

The Donkey Market, Cairo. Heat and crowds. Neither of which, our hero likes. A fastidious Aron picks his way through a carpet of trash, donkey excrement and vegetable relics, past pens of braying mules. Images collide and bustle: trays of pink and green sweetmeats buzzing with flies, a cart full of pumpkins of every colour and circumference, which disgorges its load in an altercation with a cart, purple and orange pumpkins rolling through the streets, chased by ragged urchins, a one-armed man driving an albino donkey with a fly-whip, a boy in a basket on the donkey’s back, grabbing a pumpkin as if it were a beach ball.

Leibel Bornstein - 'Donkey Man'

Raphael points through the crowd at a small - puny even - knock-kneed, gap-toothed, jug-eared man, Leibel Bornstein, in a creased, brown donkey-jacket. A veteran of the Zion Mule Corps who like Raphael, fought in Gallipoli. He is scruffy, slow-spoken, scrawny and child-like, no more than a boy it seems. The most unlikely figure for such a mission, he doesn't look like he could pick up a child - though apparently he has six of them - let alone swim though icy, cold water in the dark, lugging important messages and heavy boxes onto an unknown shore.

And, he stutters: “Yes... They call me the D...onkey Man. I drive a d...iligence round Jaffa and Petach Tikva. I drive a truck, I drive donkeys too. I can swim. I would con...sider it an honour to work for you!” Leibel, pumps a surprised Aron’s hand with a grip that defies his size. 

Despite Aron's many doubts, the deal is swiftly concluded and while Raphael - whom he trusts implicitly both on matters of character and money - discusses the financial details with the Donkey Man, Aron inspects some of the enticing pink and green sweetmeats. If it weren’t for the flies...

Sonya treading her way through the donkey manure, comes up to Aron at the sweet stall and before he can say anything, slaps his face hard.

    “That’s for ignoring me, yesterday! I can live with anything - famine, pogrom - but never ignore me!”

Aron clasps his reddened cheek and bruised eye and wishes a hole in the ground would swallow him up.

But Sonya is already buying - and eating - some of those delicious condensed milk and ground almond candies, licking her fingers as if nothing is wrong, and flies are the least of her concerns.

 ****

British Headquarters, Cairo, Intelligence Office. A fan turns in the hot stuffy offices. Aron, sporting a black eye and a bruised cheek, faces his antagonist, supercilious Captain Edmunds who will hear nothing of Leibel and his troubles.   

    “I thought you said your men didn’t need payment? That they weren't ordinary spies!?”

Aron snaps back: “He’s got to live - he’s got a wife and six children - ”
       
    “Ah, I see. Money. I thought this was all about your precious homeland? says this slanderer of the Jewish nation.

Our defender of the homeland gets up, furiously pushing away his chair.

    “ If you can’t pay him, I’ll pay the man myself!” he says, heading out the door.

****

Cairo Market Café

A café in the Khan el-Khalili Bazaar in Cairo. A - relatively - quiet corner in the bustle of the market. A narrow passage hung with copper bowls and pots, men smoking shisha in hookahs of every shape and size. Raphael drinking breakfast coffee with Aron - his eye turning from black to yellow - who has his shoes shined by a swarthy shoe-shine boy as dark as his boot polish.

    “Well that’s two problems sorted,” says Raphael adding another cube of sugar to his already too sweet coffee, so that the spoon almost stands up on its own.

    “It’s Absa, I’m worried sick about - still not a word!” Aron can’t help but sound pessimistic.

The matter has been pressing on his mind for days.

A stray Abyssinian cat swishes at his ankles until the shoe-shine boy, swats it away.

    Raphael nods: “He’s like a cat with nine lives - ”

The cat darts away, as the wheel of a tuk tuk cart almost runs it over. The cart skids to a halt, the wheel rolls off, knocking over a pile of copper-ware, already precariously balanced - the ironware shopkeeper shouts, the copper-ware clatters, the driver curses and his passengers spill out into the street yelling at him for refunds. The cat, unconcerned, disappears into the mêlée.   

    “Even a cat runs out of lives some time - ” says Aron.

He stops mid sentence as he sees Sonya, the last passenger, get out of the lop-sided rickshaw and checking her ankle for any damage, sashays, much like that cat, up to Aron.

Aron & Sonya at Cairo Café

    “I see I’m in time for tea,” she says, sitting down and without further delay calling for a Karak tea, with its cardamom, saffron, and cinnamon, simmered with sweetened evaporated milk and adding some rose-water, shredded coconut delicacies to her order.

Aron can see he is in for a long day.                       

****

In the afternoon he goes for his regular bicycle ride - an effort to work off some of those pastries.

He rides with his friend, Pascal Peretz, an old Zikhron colleague, an orange grower, also of Romanian descent, who has found asylum in Cairo and receives for his pains a small stipend and some lovely, silk stockings for his wife who has been left behind in Petach Tikva. Pascal doesn’t ask about Aron’s shiner and Aron offers no explanation. But with regard to Absa, he confides to Pascal that he is worried. Very worried.

****

It is evening by the time Aron returns to his hotel with Sonya draped over his arm. 

Captain Edmunds in the Hotel Foyer

A bellboy runs towards Aron and gestures at none other than, Captain Edmunds, waiting impatiently in the foyer. Sonya pulls at Aron's sleeve. She's tired and wants a nap. Aron shakes her off with urgency.

    “I’ve been looking for you all day!” says that extremely irritated bearer of ill tidings, Captain Edmunds. “You must go at once to Port Said. One of your men has reached there through the desert!”

    “Avshalom! Thank God!”

    “I don’t know if that’s his name? He’s wounded, I think. Badly,” says the British Captain in a clipped tone, looking at his watch, eager to go.

Aron gasps: “My God!” 

The man's lack of compassion and his own trauma and distress hit him like a thunder clap, rendering him almost senseless with shock.

   **** 

Aron at the 31st Military Hospital, Port Said

The 31st Military Hospital, Port Said. Wounded British soldiers lying in narrow camp beds tended by Australian nurses. Aron cannot see Avshalom anywhere and asks one of the nurses who looks puzzled for a second, then she nods and leads Aron to a canteen in a large hall.

Aron with Joe at Port Said Military Hospital

Aron marches in to the noisy canteen, only to see - Joe Lishansky, bandaged arm in a sling, looking very sorry for himself.

Aron's disappointment and rage evident in the veins that pulse at his jugular.

Aron grabs Joe by the neck. “Where is he?”

    “Sir!” protests the Australian nurse.

Aron ignores her and in a huff she turns to attending to her numerous other patients.  

    “Where in God’s name is he?! Where’s Avshalom!?”

Joe’s face pales: “Somewhere near El Arish - I didn’t want to leave him - But I fled for my life!”

Aron shakes Joe by the neck: “Is he alive? What happened, for God’s sake!?”

    “We were attacked. There were dozens of them! From all sides. A sand storm - no stars - I couldn’t see - “

    “Who?! Who attacked you?”

Joe throws out his bandaged arm causing him to wince:

    “Bedouins, hundreds of them. There was a feud, an argument, they wanted us to hand over our guide - so they could slit his throat and to give them our weapons - ”
       
    “And then?”

Joe delivers the final blow: “Avshalom refused, then he shot that treacherous guide - so they shot him.”

Aron with cold fury asks the fatal words: “Is he dead?”

Joe starts to weep: “I don’t know. Perhaps he’s still alive! I don’t know...”

The nurse confronts Aron: “Sir! You're upsetting my patient! You must leave immediately!”

      **** 

Aron on the Banks of the Nile

Aron walks along the banks of the Nile, his grief overwhelming and he remembers the passage from the Prophet Samuel about the favourite son of King David, Absalom, so similar to our own Avshalom in his beauty, rebellious nature and tragic fate.

‘King David asked the messenger, ‘Is the young man Absalom all right?’ And the messenger replied, ‘May what has become of the young man happen to the enemies of my lord the king and to all who rise up against you to harm you’. The King was shaken and went up to the gate chamber and wept. And as he walked, he cried out, ‘O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’

**** 

Aron and Major Wyndham Deedes at the Turkish Office

British Headquarters, Cairo, Turkish Affairs Office. Aron and a grave-faced Major Wyndham Deedes face each other.

Aron: “I ask you one thing - he is my dearest friend and my best agent, send a patrol to find him - or his grave!”

    “Lieutenant Aronson, in return for your invaluable help, not a stone shall remain unturned in our search”, responds the Major.

Aron is overcome by emotion: “Thank you, Major.”

Major Wyndham Deedes hands him a handkerchief and Aron blows his nose noisily on it. Then folds it neatly and hands it back. The Major declines with a simple movement that shows that he is on side and Aron pockets the borrowed hanky, which becomes something of a lucky talisman.

    “We will work together from now on, I swear to you,” promises Major Wyndham Deedes.

****

British Officers Club, Shepheard’s Hotel. Night. Waiters with silver trays and red fezzes, a belly dancer cheered on by a group of Officers including Captain Edmunds. A little group are gathered around the impeccable and charismatic, figure of Lieutenant Colonel T.E. Lawrence - in shining leather boots, perfectly pressed uniform and that ubiquitous, Arab headdress.

Lieutenant Colonel T.E. Lawrence with Officers at Shepheard’s Hotel

Aron enters and goes straight up to Captain Edmunds. The bawdy cheering stops.

    “What can we do for you Lieutenant?” asks the Captain with a supercilious and inquiring stare.

Aron punches Captain Edmunds, a glancing blow on the jaw.

    “You’ve killed the bravest man that ever lived!”

Captain Edmunds’ face - red with shock: “I say, I say, steady on, old man - ”

Some of the other officers grab hold of Aron. One of them upbraids him: “Insolent little Yid!”

Lawrence steps forward like a Pasha arbitrating justice and upbraids the insolent officer: “Let him be, sir,” says that Oxford educated archaeologist, diplomat and Arabophile.

The antisemite lets a seething Aron go. 

Sonya in Red

The sound of ironic clapping issues from a glamorous, scarlet-clad Sonya seated with Lawrence: 

    “Bravo Aron! Bravo mon Captain. You are learning something about passion!” says the lovely Russian translator, so recently in Aron’s bed.

Aron, Sonya & Lawrence in the Officers' Club

 

    “Come and join us, Lieutenant - ” Lawrence pulls up a chair.

Then looking down his elegant nose, that charismatic man, declares “You’re the man everyone’s talking about.”

Aron can only wonder at who exactly Lawrence refers and what that conversation, might be.

Lawrence gestures to a waiter: “Garçon, champagne for our Jewish friend here!”

Aron sits, a little red in the face and still breathing heavily.

The garçon brings the drinks; expensive French champagne in delicate flutes.

    “If we’re going to work together we may as well drink together!” says the Lieutenant Colonel with a haughty smile, bred from generations of Christian education and class superiority.

And he proceeds to harangue Aron on his exploits with the Hedjaz Arabs, his opinion on the settlements  of the Jews in Palestine, ‘the spirit of the people’, the ‘feelings of the Arabs’, and why the Jews would be doing the ‘right thing’ if they assimilated among those who claim Mohammed as their Prophet.

Each word is a confirmation to Aron of everything he despises in Britain and its colonies, but he stifles his instinctive, angry response and keeps his thoughts for his journal.

Sonya in her marvelous, red satin dress, the colour of the last rays of the setting sun in a desert of khaki, raises her glass to Aron.

      “A leetle toast to Palestine!” says our Russian Mata Hari, “And to victory in the East.” 

Ambushed Aron, with Lawrence and Sonya raise their glasses to each other and clink: 

    “To victory in the East!”

In the background, Captain Edmunds still rubbing his jaw.

   ****

When Aron wakes in the morning, a crumpled, red dress lies on the floor. Stepping gingerly over it, careful not to wake his mistress, Aron tip-toes to his other ‘mistress’, his trusty journal in which he confides his innermost thoughts with neither fear of favour nor of judgment.

When he writes of his opinion of the famous Lawrence of Arabia, it is with just one word: ‘arrogant’.

Followed by another diary entry where he is more expansive and describes the meeting as ‘without a scintilla of friendliness’, declaring that the man in question, ‘has too high an opinion of himself’.

‘Listening to his words, I had the feeling that I was present at a lecture by a Prussian scientific antisemite who expresses himself in the English language. I fear that in the ranks of the archaeologists and the priests, a good deal of the spirit of the ‘Boche’ has penetrated...’

He continues with no attempt to mince words: ‘Lawrence, with the means available to him, intends to carry out a survey for himself of the feelings among the Jews in the Galilee villages. If they favour the Arabs - they will survive. If not - they will be slaughtered. He hates us openly. Fundamentally he is of a missionary breed.’ so concludes our hero’s less than humble opinion.

****