— Yes, sir…
— Just so, sir. “Awake, sleep not”: that was the gist of it; the speech lasted but a few minutes. Whereupon he held out his arms to the Turkish officers standing about him with their shiny boots in the mud; and they lifted him and carried him on their shoulders to keep him from muddying himself. There wasn’t a peep from his large audience. It hadn’t understood a word; hadn’t understood what this new thing was that was wanted of it; hadn’t understood what was a country; barely knew where the borders of its village lay. He donned his cloak in the gathering dusk, much fussed over by the German; was escorted back to no-man’s land; and promised to come again next Saturday with more documents…
— Yes, sir, that was his sole remuneration; we’ve verified it from sources behind the lines. But he returned every Saturday in January and February, eight times all in all; they even gave him a little flock of goats each time, so that he would look like a shepherd; not that he didn’t manage to lose most of them on his way down the first hill and end up with only two or three. They had him vary his route each time, and the German organized a special task force to track him and pick him up. Straightways he would hand them the documents with a show of scorn, saying, “You don’t deserve them,” after which he would be taken deferentially to that week’s village, where his audience had been waiting on its feet since dawn. By now every Arab between Ramallah and Nablus knew of him and was convinced he was a punishment inflicted by the Turks for their defeat — a most odd and ridiculous punishment, a sign of disarray and weakness. By now too he had his table, and a chair, and a blackboard, and even a glass of water; he stood with the Turkish officers about him and read Lord Balfour’s declaration; and then he unfurled a colored map of Palestine that he had drawn himself, with the sea a bright blue, while the Arabs stared at it and failed to comprehend why, if this was their country, it was so small. He pointed to the blue sea, to the Jordan, to Jerusalem, and said, “Awake!” and they looked to see who had dared to doze off; “Get ye an identity,” he went on, “before it is too late! All over the world people now have identities, and we Jews are on our way, and you had better have an identity or else!” And then he took a scissors from his pocket and said, “Half for you and half for us,” and cut the map lengthwise, and gave them the half with the mountains and the Jordan, and kept the sea and the coast for himself. It rather distressed them to see it snipped up like that, and they pressed forward and some even tried to touch it, but the hungry, rickety-legged, rheumy-eyed Turkish soldiers pointed their bayonets and cocked their rifles, because the German had laid down the law that not a hair of the Jew’s head should be harmed. Not that anyone would have harmed him, because the angrier he became and the more he swore at the villagers and provoked them, the sorrier for him they felt, even if they did blurt out to him like children, “But we want the sea too!” At first that stunned him, made him lose his temper; then, irately, he took another map from his bag and cut it horizontally…
— Some eight Saturdays, sir.
— In many villages, sir. He even got as far as Nablus and Jenin and visited prominent notables. He was much too stubborn and proud for them; he wouldn’t even taste their coffee; hardly anyone knew what he was talking about, and there were some who snickered pityingly; but there were a handful of others who turned pale and wiped the smiles from their faces, men with a smattering of learning who had studied in Beirut or Haifa or Jerusalem and strode about their villages with suits, ties, and white shoes as if they were Virgil or Plato; they listened with trepidation when he talked about the Jews who were coming; “Like locusts,” he said; “one day they’re in the desert and the next they’re upon you…” It’s a mystery, Colonel, how he was never spotted by one of our patrols. He crossed the lines in broad daylight as though slicing butter, and returned by night, walking quietly and quickly, a six-mile round-trip all in all; arrived from the north, tired, wet, and dirty, slipped into the old city through the Nablus Gate, and vanished down the empty, rain-washed alleyways; and then, together with the moon that rose from Jericho, pressed on to the stone steps of his house, where his large wife opened the door even before he touched the doorknob; never knowing where he had been or come back from but helping him out of his clothes, and bathing him, and drying and feeding him, and pulling back the quilt for him; and only then, sinking into it, did he begin to tremble all over, while the moon sank into bed beside him…
— I beg your pardon, sir, I truly do.
— Yes, sir, I beg your pardon, sir. I’m afraid I was a bit carried away.
— Horowitz, sir. Oh, dear.
— Ivor Stephen, sir. Horowitz, sir. I’m afraid I was carried away.
— Yes, Colonel.
— Yes, sir.
— Quite, sir. I am rather fagged. I’ve been working on this case day and night for the past five weeks, and my passion for the truth has overwhelmed me. I’ve investigated every last detail; been in and out of his home a hundred times; even walked the route of treachery on foot — and if some fact could not be ascertained, I imagined it back into existence, because I’ve been dreadfully anxious to get to the bottom of it all.
— No, Colonel, absolutely not. A thousand times no. Had he been an Arab, or an Indian, or a Ghurka, I would have done the same thing. Wherever the Union Jack flies, it will be my passion to know and understand. I rather fear, though, that the trial will flow by us too quickly; because Mr. Mani will plead guilty; and the prosecution — you musn’t misjudge me, sir — will be razor-sharp; and Lieutenant Colonel Keypore and Major Jahawala have already made up their minds. And the fact is, Colonel, that when you see the quantity and nature of the documents he passed to the enemy, you’ll be in high dudgeon yourself.
— Yes, of course we do, sir. It’s all listed right here. He himself kept exact records and received a receipt for each document. It’s all been verified, sir, because — and this is a little secret between us — we have an Englishman behind the lines who’s passed for a German since the end of the last century, and from time to time he renders a small service.