The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [76]
Abdullah seemed to notice Wolff’s appearance for the first time. He immediately became very concerned. “What has happened to you? Have you been robbed?” He picked up a tiny silver bell and rang it. Almost immediately, a sleepy woman came in from the next room. “Get some hot water,” Abdullah told her. “Bathe my friend’s wounds. Give him my European shirt. Bring a comb. Bring coffee. Quickly!”
In a European house Wolff would have protested at the women being roused, after midnight, to attend to him; but here such a protest would have been very discourteous. The women existed to serve the men, and they would be neither surprised nor annoyed by Abdullah’s peremptory demands.
Wolff explained: “The British tried to arrest me, and I was obliged to fight with them before I could get away. Sadly, I think they may now know where I have been living, and this is a problem.”
“Ah.” Abdullah drew on the nargileh, and passed it around again. Wolff began to feel the effects of the hashish: he was relaxed, slow-thinking, a little sleepy. Time slowed down. Two of Abdullah.’s wives fussed over him, bathing his face and combing his hair. He found their ministrations very pleasant indeed.
Abdullah seemed to doze for a while, then he opened his eyes and said: “You must stay here. My house is yours. I will hide you from the British.”
“You are a true friend,” Wolff said. It was odd, he thought. He had planned to offer Abdullah money to hide him. Then Abdullah had revealed that he knew the money was no good, and Wolff had been wondering what else he could do. Now Abdullah was going to hide him for nothing. A true friend. What was odd was that Abdullah was not a true friend. There were no friends in Abdullah’s world: there was the family, for whom he would do anything, and the rest, for whom he would do nothing. How have I earned this special treatment? Wolff thought sleepily.
His alarm bell was sounding again. He forced himself to think: it was not easy after the hashish. Take it one step at a time, he told himself. Abdullah asks me to stay here. Why? Because I am in trouble. Because I am his friend. Because I have outwitted him.
Because I have outwitted him. That story was not finished. Abdullah would want to add another double cross to the chain. How? By betraying Wolff to the British. That was it. As soon as Wolff fell asleep, Abdullah would send a message to Major Vandam. Wolff would be picked up. The British would pay Abdullah for the information, and the story could be told to Abdullah’s credit at last.
Damn.
A wife brought a white European shirt. Wolff stood up and took off his torn and bloody shirt. The wife averted her eyes from his bare chest.
Abdullah said: “He doesn’t need it yet. Give it to him in the morning.”
Wolff took the shirt from the woman and put it on.
Abdullah said: “Perhaps it would be undignified for you to sleep in the house of an Arab, my friend Achmed?”
Wolff said: “The British have a proverb: He who sups with the devil must use a long spoon.”
Abdullah grinned, showing his steel tooth. He knew that Wolff had guessed his plan. “Almost an Arab,” he said.
“Good-bye, my friends,” said Wolff.
“Until the next time,” Abdullah replied.
Wolff went out into the cold night, wondering where he could go now.
In the hospital a nurse froze half of Vandam’s face with a local anesthetic, then Dr. Abuthnot stitched up his cheek with her long, sensitive, clinical hands. She put on a protective dressing and secured it by a long strip of bandage tied around his head.
“I must look like a toothache cartoon,” he said.
She looked grave. She did not have a big sense of humor. She said: “You won’t be so chirpy when the anesthetic wears off. Your face is going to hurt badly. I’m going to give you a painkiller.”
“No, thanks,” said Vandam.
“Don’t be a tough guy, Major,” she said. “You’ll regret it.”
He looked at her, in her white hospital coat and her sensible flat-heeled shoes, and wondered