To Live in Peace Read Online Free

were driven out of Arab countries. That the Palestinian Liberation Organisation has never been used to liberate the Palestinians at all, but to keep them in misery, discriminating against their own people, depriving them of human rights…”
    Maurice pressed the button, truncating the newsreader. “Not that I condone this war. It’s doing inestimable harm to history’s impression of Israel which is lying and deceiving for the first time. Frankly,I think Prime Minister Begin has taken leave of his senses.”
    “I’m glad Rachel can’t hear you,” Kitty said. “She gets hysterical.”
    “Tempers are running pretty high here. The antisemites – anti-Zionists they call themselves now – are crawling out of the woodwork.” He put a hand on Kitty’s. “War is a terrible thing. But there are worse things. Don’t let’s talk about it, Kit. Tell me how you’ve been.”
    Talking to Maurice was like finding sanctuary. In London she had been surrounded by people, but they had their own problems, none of them more than superficially concerned with what Kitty Shelton had on her mind. The children were good, nothing to complain about there, but she was aware of a look, glazed and faraway, that came into their eyes when the conversation got round to topics that did not immediately concern themselves. It was the same with her bridge circle. The four widows brought their own problems to the table and laid them down with the trumps on the green baize card-tables in the various flats, but each marched to the music of her own drummer and could not hear the other’s tune. Maurice listened, as he had in Israel when the confidences had come tumbling out. He did not say much but he gave Kitty’s outpourings, trivial as they may have been, his undivided attention, and could, she swore, have taken an exam in the altercations she was having with her landlord who wanted the tenants to pay for the installation of new central heating boilers before the onset of winter; in the state of the portfolio bequeathed to her by Sydney; in Rachel’s refusal either to move from her council flat or to make any practical preparations for her forthcoming child. If Maurice could not provide the solutions to her problems at least he provided thesympathy. It was what she wanted. What she missed. Everyone needed somebody. She wondered if the yearning for the soul-mate she had lacked since Sydney’s death had been worth the transition to New York.
    Her previous impressions of the city had been gleaned from the television – “49th Precinct” and “Starsky and Hutch”. She had been unprepared for the relentlessness and volume of the traffic, dumbfounded by the oscillating mass of multi-ethnic, summer-clad humanity in perpetual motion in the sizzling streets, overwhelmed by the tottering menace of the preposterous buildings, and doubted the wisdom of her decision – despite the comforting presence of Maurice – before she reached his flat. Apartment. She had to remember to say it. There was so much to remember. So much that was new.
    She did not know what she had been expecting, she had not really thought about it. As she wrote the address, East 85th Street, on her letters to Maurice, she had not had any clear picture in her mind of where he lived. Seeing the elegant striped canopy which stretched from the doorway of the building, across the wide pavement, to the kerb, Kitty had at first thought that Maurice must be taking her to an hotel. When the doorman, short and swarthy in his neat grey uniform, rushed out to take her cases and greeted Maurice with a “Hi, Doc!” she knew that he had not.
    “This is Joe,” Maurice said, introducing him.
    “Hi, Mrs Shelton.” Joe proffered a hand. “How y’a doing today?” Kitty was surprised that he had addressed her by name. There seemed no end to the surprises.
    “Joe knows everyone on the block,” Maurice said with pride, “including the man who runs the numbers. Anything you want to know about