Gaafar was giving him mashed potatoes and gravy, which he could eat from a spoon and swallow without chewing. He was existing on that and gin. Dr. Abuthnot had also told him he drank too much and smoked too much, and he had promised to cut down-after the war. Privately he thought: After I've caught Wolff. If Sonja was not going to lead him to Wolff, only Elene could. Vandam was ashamed of his outburst at Elene's apartment. He had been angry at his own failure, and the thought of her with Wolff had maddened him. His behavior could be described only as a fit of bad temper. Elene was a lovely girl who was risking her neck to help him, and courtesy was the least he owed her.
Wolff had said he would see Elene again. Vandam hoped he would contact her soon. He still felt irrationally angry at the thought of the two of them together; but now that the houseboat angle had turned out to be a dead end, Elene was his only hope. He sat at his desk, waiting for the phone to ring, dreading the very thing he wanted most.
Elene went shopping in the late afternoon. Her apartment had come to seem claustrophobic after she had spent most of the day pacing around, unable to concentrate on anything, alternately miserable and happy; so she put on a cheerful striped dress and went out into the sunshine.
She liked the fruit-and-vegetable market. It was a lively place, especially at this end of the day when the tradesmen were trying to get rid of the last of their produce. She stopped to buy tomatoes. The man who served her picked up one with a slight bruise, and threw it away dramatically before filling a paper bag with undamaged specimens. Elene laughed, for she knew that the bruised tomato would be retrieved, as soon as she was out of sight, and put back on the display so that the whole pantomime could be performed again for the next customer. She haggled briefly over the price, but the vendor could tell that her heart was not in it, and she ended up paying almost what he had asked originally.
She bought eggs, too, having decided to make an omelet for supper. It was good, to be carrying a basket of food, more food than she could eat at one meal: it made her feel safe. She could remember days when there had been no supper.
She left the market and went window shopping for dresses. She bought most of her clothes on impulse: she had firm ideas about what she liked, and if she planned a trip to buy something special, she could never find it. She wanted one day to have her own dressmaker.
She thought: I wonder if William Vandam could afford that for his wife?
When she thought of Vandam she was happy, until she thought of Wolff. She knew she could escape, if she wished, simply by refusing to see Wolff, refusing to make a date with him, refusing to answer his message. She was under no obligation to act as the bait in a trap for a knife murderer. She kept returning to this idea, worrying at it like a loose tooth: I don't have to.
She suddenly lost interest in dresses, and headed for home. She wished she could make omelet for two, but omelet for one was something to be thankful for. There was a certain unforgettable pain in the stomach which came when, having gone to bed with no supper, you woke up in the morning to no breakfast. The ten-year-old Elene had wondered, secretly, how long people took to starve to death. She was sure Vandam's childhood had not suffered such worries.
When she turned into the entrance to her apartment block, a voice said:
'Abigail.'
She froze with shock. It was the voice of a ghost. She did not dare to look. The voice came again.
'Abigail.'
She made herself turn around. A figure came out of the shadows: an old Jew, shabbily dressed, with a matted beard, veined feet in rubber-tire sandals.
Elene said: 'Father.'
He stood in front of her, as if afraid to touch her, just looking. He said: 'So beautiful still, and not poor . . .'
Impulsively, she stepped forward, kissed his cheek, then stepped back again. She did not know what to say.
He said: 'Your grandfather, my father, has died.'
She took his arm and led him up the stairs. It was all unreal, irrational, like a dream.
Inside the apartment she said: 'You should eat,' and took him into the kitchen. She put a pan on to heat and began to beat the eggs. With her back to her father she said: 'How did you find me?'
'I've always known where you were,' he said. 'Your friend Esme writes to her father, who sometimes I see.'
Esme was an acquaintance, rather than a friend, but Elene ran into her every two or three months. She had never let on that she was writing home. Elene said: 'I didn't want you to ask me to come back.'
'And what would I have said to you? 'Come home, it is your duty to starve with your family.' No. But I knew where you were.'
She sliced tomatoes into the omelet. 'You would have said it was better to starve than to live immorally.'
'Yes, I would have said that. And would I have been wrong' She turned to took at him. The glaucoma which had taken the sight of his left eye years ago was now spreading to the right. He was fifty-five, she calculated: he looked seventy. 'Yes, you would have been wrong,' she said. 'It is always better to live.'
'Perhaps it is.'
Her surprise must have shown on her face, for he explained: 'I'm not as certain of these things as I used to be. I'm getting old.'
Elene halved the omelet and slid it on to two plates. She put bread on the table. Her father washed his hands, then blessed the bread. 'Blessed art thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe . . .' Elene was surprised that the prayer did not drive her into a fury. In the blackest moments of her lonely life she had cursed and raged at her father and his religion for what it had driven her to. She had tried to cultivate an attitude of indifference, perhaps mild contempt; but she had not quite succeeded. Now, watching him pray, she thought: And what do I do, when this man whom I bate turns up on the doorstep? I kiss his cheek, and I bring him inside, and I give him
