The Seventh Sinner - Elizabeth Peters [76]
“So everyone knows,” Ted said resignedly. “Except my father…He soon will. I wrote to him this morning.”
“I don’t know,” Dana said. “Have you jilted your fiancée? Men are all finks.”
“That other was a family affair,” Ted said defensively. “She will not be hurt; she didn’t care.”
“Yeah,” Michael said, “but to get involved with an Arab girl…”
“Not only an Arab,” Ted said. “She is a member of a Palestinian guerrilla group.”
There was a short, respectful silence. Remembering the handsome hawk face of the girl in the café, Jean understood. Apparently Michael had gone through some of his student contacts to discover the girl’s identity.
“But surely,” said di Cavallo, as intrigued as the others, “isn’t that a trifle…?”
“Not a trifle. My father will disown me,” Ted said. His voice was resigned, but there was a light in his eyes that made him look even more like Michael’s sketch. “But feelings do not follow politics, do they? And not all of us, in my generation, are so free of guilt as our fathers, with their one obsession. To repossess Eretz Israel, we dispossessed half a million people. Do the sufferings of millions of Jews, through thousands of years, justify the infliction of more suffering, on others? Since I fought in the war my feelings have changed. I have argued with my father; now I argue with Salwa, because I do not believe that her kind of violence will right this new wrong any more than our violence against her people righted our ancient wrong. I hope to convert her—not to change her principles, but her methods. Someday, out of all this, there must be a way to peace.”
“Ishmael and Isaac were both sons of Abraham,” Jacqueline murmured. “I admire your principles, Ted. I hope you succeed. But the moderate usually gets stoned by both sides.”
“I have methods of persuasion with Salwa which are quite effective,” Ted said modestly. “If I go down under the stones I will go down fighting. And,” he added with a sudden grin, “I shall have one hell of a good time before I fall.”
“And we thought you were a spy,” Jean said. The look on Ted’s face made her laugh. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things we thought. I didn’t suspect Andy any more than I did the rest of you.”
“Michael did,” Jacqueline said. She pointed to the sketch. “His identifications were—forgive me, Dana—alarmingly accurate. All his saints were pacifists except one. Saint George was the heroic murderer, the only one of the lot who committed violence. And he was the patron of the Crusaders. They did a lot of damage among the Arabs, if you recall.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” Michael muttered.
“That’s what makes you so terrifying,” Jacqueline said severely. “You don’t think; you just reach in and drag out people’s souls. Why did you make Ann into Saint Barbara?”
“Needed some virgin saint or other.”
“Yet her legend is very suggestive. It was her father, if you recall, who locked her in the tower, and later betrayed her.”
“Which stood out like a billboard.” Michael’s voice was savage. “Damn that bastard Scoville; he’s the one who caused all this.”
“Don’t dump on my generation,” Jacqueline said. “We’re the victims of our genes and our surroundings and our parents, just as you are.”
“Blame is useless,” José said heavily. “We are all victims…. And I feel myself particularly a victim. I should rather be Beelzebub than Saint Augustine, as you show him.”
“I don’t get it,” Dana said, staring blankly at the sketch. “None of them make any sense, except maybe Jean as a little lamb…. And this one of Jake is downright blasphemous.”
“Not blasphemous, just plain insulting,” Jacqueline said. “I may be a reluctant mother, Michael, but my halo is not a bit ragged. It’s big and shiny and neat, and I earned it over twenty-one hard-working years.”
Michael smiled.
“Talk about hangups,” he said. “You didn’t want to get involved with us, did you? It was a case of the triumph of instinct over common sense.”
“Not instinct—habit. In both my professional capacities I’ve been