Thieves in the Night by Arthur Koestler Page B

have slept though he could not remember it. The candle had grown short and old, covered with knobs of tallow like a warted gnome. Dina had slumped down in her chair and was resting with her cheek on his shoulder, asleep. At a slight movement of his she woke and moved her head away. “It will soon be day,” she said in a murmur.
    â€œAnother hour,” said Joseph.
    She lay back in her chair, shivering. The Auxiliary on the stretcher moved in his sleep. “How did Naphtali die?” she asked after a while.
    â€œI don’t know. We should have watched him….” He remembered the unutterable contact of his hand with the slushy mass, and remained silent.
    â€œPoor Naphtali,” said Dina. “I never liked him.”
    Joseph said nothing; he felt no desire to speak or to move;he only wished he could remain there, for a while, leaning against the chair, limp and desireless.
    â€œYou know,” said Dina, “I have never understood why you joined us. You don’t really fit in here.”
    â€œDo you?” he said.
    â€œThat’s different…. But even by race you only half belong to us.”
    â€œI have opted for the belonging half.”
    â€œBut why? You would be happier among the others. Why won’t you tell?”
    â€œThere was some incident.” “What incident?”
    â€œIs this a confessional?” he asked tiredly.
    They remained silent for a while; he could feel through the chair, acting as a conductor, that she shivered. The Auxiliary on the stretcher moaned. Dina got up and smoothed his blanket. Her teeth were chattering.
    â€œIt is cold,” she said. “I must lie down.”
    â€œAll right,” said Joseph. “I will go.” He started wearily to scramble to his feet.
    â€œBut you needn’t,” said Dina. She slid down to the floor and touched his face with her lips, “Will you let me sleep with my head on your arm?” she asked, lying down at a little distance from him and pulling the blanket over both of them. “But please don’t do anything.”
    â€œNo,” he said, lying stiff and frozen with the soft warm weight on his arm. “Sleep, Dina, you are safe; we are both safe here.”
    She breathed quietly against his head. After a while she asked:
    â€œWas it very bad—the shooting?”
    â€œNo,” he said. “It was all bluff and bluster, like everything these Arabs do.”
    After another while she said timidly:
    â€œIs it very beastly of me to lie on your arm and ask you to keep still?”
    He did not answer at once. Then he swallowed and said huskily:
    â€œAnything you like, darling. Darling, anything you like.”

12
    He could not go to sleep again. Instead his thoughts travelled once more back the worn path to the Incident. He wished he could bring himself to tell Dina about it, but shame and the fear of ridicule always held him back. It was such a squalid and grotesque story that he could not expect even her to understand its influence on his life.
    He had been eleven when his father died. His father had been a Russian-Jewish pianist of some renown. His mother was English and a gentile. Her people had never approved of her marriage. After her husband’s death she went back to live with them in their house in Oxfordshire. Joseph was an only child; he grew up in the large country house, played cricket and tennis, went to church, rode a pony and later a horse. His father was rarely mentioned and Joseph at eleven accepted this as one of the many paragraphs in the sacred code of “don’ts”.
    In due course he was sent up to Oxford, and during the summer vacation after his second term fell in love with a woman from the neighbourhood whom he met at a local tennis tournament. Lily was five years older than Joseph, blonde, slim, pretty and divorced. She was generally liked among the neighbours, and sometimes teased by them on account of her enthusiasm for a