Nile Shadows jq-3

by Edward Whittemore

  Joe was staggering, limping, bumping into things. A sharp metal corner drove into his thigh and there was another loud crash of shattering glass. His head banged into a door and he fell heavily against it, hanging there. The spyglass was being stuffed under his arm.

  Cohen had abandoned him. Cohen was somewhere back in the room speaking through another door, saying something to his sister. Joe finally found the door knob and turned it, staggered into the corridor and almost fell on his face in the darkness. He caught himself, felt a wall, leaned against the cool stones and pressed his forehead there, trying not to fall, trying to breathe.

  The door behind him closed. A hand touched him and Anna's voice whispered.

  It's all right now, I'll help you. This way.

  Joe let himself be led down the corridor in the darkness. When they reached the door to the street she moved closer to him. She seemed to want to say something.

  My right ear, mumbled Joe. I can't hear anything in the other one.

  He could feel her breath.

  I'm sorry, she whispered. My brother has many worries and Stern has always been like a father to us.

  Perhaps you could come back tomorrow.

  No. It wouldn't make any difference.

  She seemed to agree. She whispered again.

  I was listening, I heard what you said. I think you're wrong about Stern but I also think you want to help him.

  She hesitated.

  Might as well say it, whispered Joe. If I don't find out the truth others are going to come looking for it, and they're not going to care about Stern.

  He felt her breath on his ear. She was still hesitating.

  Oh say it, he whispered, dear God just say it. Does the silence of this world have to go on forever?

  He swayed, bumped into her, sank back against the wall.

  Please listen to me, Anna. I like your brother and I know Stern's been like a father to both of you, but what I said isn't unthinkable because nothing is, nothing ever. Look at the Nazis. And I know your brother's too young to take all this in, and you are, and it's not something any sane person should ever have to hear because it's beyond the human kind, God help us. . . .

  Joe reached out in desperation and seized her by the arm.

  But listen to me for Stern's sake, Anna, because he's going to die, and soon. There are depths to the human soul beyond all imagination, and you think you know Stern and you do know him in your way, but he's also more than that and I know it, I've seen it. And yes, he could barter away his soul and that may be exactly what he's done, God have mercy. . . .

  Please try to calm down, she whispered.

  I am trying, I am. It's just that I can't see and I can't hear and there's a shrieking in my head and I'm blinded by the darkness and I know what's going to happen and I'm frightened . . . afraid. . . .

  He loosened his grip on her arm, but he didn't let go of her. Hunched there against the stones, unable to see, the whole side of his head torn with pain, he didn't dare let go of her.

  Anna? Forgive me for saying those things back there. I'm sorry I had to say them but Stern is what he is and there's no way to . . .

  Anna? I'm afraid he's coming apart and I want to find out the truth about him. If there were only some little thing, Anna, just something to go on while there's still time. . . .

  Joe was sobbing for breath, no longer able to hold himself in, giving way as Cohen had before him. He heard the bolt on the door slide open, felt her hand tighten over his. Her lips were next to his ear.

  He's never mentioned anything about a Black Code, she whispered, but there was something he said a few weeks ago. The three of us were having breakfast and Stern was in a good mood. My brother happened to step out of the room and Stern suddenly laughed. I remembered the remark because it seemed so odd. . . .

  Yes?

  He said Rommel must be enjoying breakfast that morning with his little fellers. At first I thought I'd heard fellahs, meaning fellaheen, but it wasn't that. It was little fellers. He didn't explain it and I don't know what it means, but it might lead you to something. The American military attaché in Cairo is a Colonel Fellers.

  Oh?

  David didn't even hear the remark. And please try to help Stern, try to help him. Good-bye.

  Joe didn't have time to thank her. She squeezed his hand and the door closed behind him and all at once he was alone with the eerie sudden sounds of the city at night, peering up and down the narrow alley, trying to remember which way he had come.

  -14-

  Bletchley

  Bletchley's smirk was monstrous in its contempt. His mouth sagged and his single eye bulged grotesquely.

  Bletchley's face of concern, Joe reminded himself. . . . Bletchley's face of sympathy.

  Another man would have shown his feelings by softening his expression then, but Bletchley could never do that. Not in his shattered ruin of a face with its severed muscles and missing bones. In Bletchley's half-dead face everything always came out looking wrong. Concern appeared as a grin of contempt, sympathy took on a smirk of disgust.

  No wonder little children ran away from him on the street, thought Joe. No wonder strangers turned their eyes away in horror. Bletchley's shattered face couldn't speak the truth and he couldn't go around shouting it out every day of his life. So he smiled at the world, or tried to smile, and his humiliation never ended.

  He was gazing at Joe's bandaged ear.

  You weren't able to get a look at them?

  No, said Joe. Common thieves in the night, I suppose. I don't even know whether there were two or three of them, or only one for that matter.

  Bletchley sighed.

  Well please don't go taking yourself down deserted alleys again at night. If you have to go out for a walk stay in an area where there's some life, where the patrols come by. There's no sense getting banged up like this.

  Bletchley was using a handkerchief to clean the skin around his black eye patch. Sometimes when he did that he reminded Joe of a battered old tomcat trying to clean himself, ripped and torn and scarred from his battles but still trying to keep himself presentable. Of course Bletchley wasn't old. He just gave that impression because of his half-dead face that no one had ever been able to fix.

  I would have taken more care, said Joe, but I didn't think I was looking all that prosperous these days.

  Bletchley peeked over the top of his handkerchief and saw that Joe was smiling, mocking himself. He laughed, a snorting sound accompanied by an idiotic lopsided grin.

  Well you don't look that prosperous, for a European. But prosperity is relative, isn't it? Anyway, you're beginning to look more like the rest of us now. Like the rest of us, that's it.

  Bletchley went on snorting noisily. Joe smiled.

  I am? How's that?

  Your ear, said Bletchley. It looks as if it might be missing under that bandage, as if you'd just lost it at the front. Perhaps you don't remember your interview with Whatley too clearly, but Whatley only has one arm.

  Oh. No, I don't remember that too clearly. A one-armed Whatley, you say, once the fastest gun in the west but it's only a memory now? Sounds like one of Liffy's songs.

  Bletchley snorted.

  It is odd when you think of it, but all the Monks do seem to be missing a part or a limb. Crippled, that's it.

  Joe heard a ringing in his ear.

  True? Do you suppose that means there's some sort of secret law that you have to be a cripple to be in intelligence?

  Bletchley snorted.

  To be intelligent, you mean? Well you may be right, I never thought of it that way before.

  Bletchley finished dabbing around his eye patch and put away his handkerchief. The look of contempt came back into his face. Concern, Joe reminded himself.

  Don't you think we ought to have a doctor look at it?

  No need to bother, said Joe. Nothing to it really, and Ahmad seems to have a sure touch with bandages.

  Yes, a man of unsuspected talents. He did some vol
unteer nursing work in the last war, as I recall. Drove an ambulance mostly. Men of a literary bent used to like to do that, apparently.

  Sounds more like the Spanish Civil War, said Joe. Were you ever in Spain then?

  Bletchley looked uncomfortable.

  No. I was having some operations done.

  It itches, said Joe, grimacing, pointing to his ear.

  As usual, they were sitting in the small cellar room on the far side of the courtyard behind the Hotel Babylon. A single naked light bulb hung from the low ceiling, a cord leading down to the electric ring on the table where the kettle was steaming. There was also the chipped teapot and the two dented metal cups between them. As always, a newspaper lay at Bletchley's elbow and the meeting was being held at night, the customary time for dealings with the Monks, as Liffy had said.

  What's new that's not in the papers? asked Joe.

  Nothing good, said Bletchley. Nothing but one disaster after another. Bir Hacheim has been wiped out with its Free French and its Jewish Brigade, and now it looks like Rommel's going to be able to isolate Tobruk. We'll have to try to hold the line at El Alamein.

  Can Tobruk take a siege?

  It did last year for seven months. It's not as strong now, but Rommel shouldn't know that.

  Bletchley looked down at the table.

  Of course there are other things he shouldn't know, this Desert Fox who has become such a hero to the Egyptians.

  And the El Alamein line? asked Joe.

  It depends on several factors, supplies for one. Ours and theirs. If Rommel has the fuel to keep pushing, well, we'll flood the delta and lose the Canal and take what we can to Palestine and Iraq. The implications are unthinkable and that's what we're thinking about now.

  I see.

  Joe glanced at the newspaper.

  What about the personal columns? Any better news there?

  Bletchley's face twisted into a kind of blank stare, his eye widening. An expression of sorrow, Joe knew.

  This isn't being reported yet, so don't say anything about it. All right?

  Yes.

  Bletchley hesitated.

  We had a large-scale operation under way behind their lines, paramilitary units, special strike forces, that kind of thing. We were trying to get at some of the more important bases they've been using to raid Malta, to stop our supplies from getting through. Well it was an absolute failure from beginning to end.

  They were waiting for us. . . . Waiting for us, that's it.

  Bletchley stared blankly at his metal cup and the two of them sat in silence for a time. Joe had made his report, such as it was, not mentioning the Cohens and not really going into any detail about Ahmad.

  Bletchley had listened in only a half-attentive way, and his questions had appeared to be more concerned with Joe's impressions of Old Cairo, rather than with Stern. It seemed peculiar to Joe, but then, he always found Bletchley's manner peculiar. Something to do with Bletchley's mask, a face that never reflected what the man was feeling or thinking.

  Bletchley was moving his metal cup around, nudging it a few inches to one side, a few inches to the other.

  The scraping noise made by the cup was the only sound in the room.

  Night, thought Joe. Everything happens under cover of darkness when you're dealing with the Monks.

  You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, Bletchley said finally. After all, you've only been in Egypt a little over two weeks, which is nothing for an assignment as complicated as yours. No one expects results right away and two weeks is barely enough time to learn your way around.

  Joe nodded.

  I know, but somehow it seems much longer than that. Probably because of where I'm staying. . . .

  Bletchley scowled. Thoughtful, Joe reminded himself.

  It is an odd old structure, Bletchley murmured in a noncommittal way.

  He looked up from his cup.

  Does your ear still itch?

  Yes.

  Isn't that supposed to mean someone's talking about you?

  I hope not, said Joe. I'm supposed to be an unknown visitor here, just A. O. Gulbenkian in transit.

  Bletchley continued to scowl.

  A strange cover, said Joe. Whose idea was it anyway?

  I'm not sure, answered Bletchley, still preoccupied. But don't try to expect too much from yourself too soon. Two weeks is nothing.

  Why does he keep saying that? wondered Joe. What's he talking about? Rommel's getting ready to overrun Egypt and he keeps saying there's all the time in the world. It makes no sense, or isn't he worried about Rommel reading the British codes anymore? What's changed that I don't know about?

  Bletchley was pushing his cup back and forth. The meeting seemed over. Joe got to his feet and lingered beside the table, not sure whether Bletchley had anything more to say.

  Well I'll be on my way then. . . .

  He started toward the stairs. Bletchley was still staring down at the table, his eye wide, empty.

  See here, Joe, I could find you another room. This accident of yours, this isn't always the best part of town to be in. What do you say?

  Joe shrugged.

  Oh I don't think it matters. We are where we are, I guess, but thanks anyway.

  Joe climbed the narrow stairs and stepped into the alley. Later he would often recall that quiet moment in the small bare cellar and Bletchley's concern, Bletchley's sorrow, his questions about Joe's welfare and his offer of another room elsewhere. At the time it had sounded like such a little thing, but had Bletchley meant something more by it? Something a great deal more important?

  Could it even have made a difference and saved a life?

  Two lives? Three lives?

  ***

  As soon as Joe stepped into the night he heard the rumble of trucks in the distance. Everywhere now there were trucks moving into Cairo, pouring in from the desert with wounded soldiers and stragglers who had lost their units. Guns of all sorts and RAF wagons and recovery vehicles, armored cars and countless lorries crammed with exhausted sleeping men, crowding the roads outside the city beyond the pyramids, transports rolling in from the wreckage of the long campaigns in the Western Desert.

  And smoke above the British Embassy where documents were being burned. And huge crowds in front of the British Consulate where refugees waited silently, hoping for transit visas to Palestine. And rumors that the British fleet was already preparing to sail from Alexandria to the harbors of Haifa and Port Said, to escape Rommel's advancing panzers.

  Unmistakable signs, thought Joe. The fingerprints of war. And everywhere in Cairo the same whispered question.

  When will he arrive? When will he get here?

  ***

  But Joe had no thoughts for Rommel. It was Bletchley's melancholy remarks that obsessed him, the failure of the special operation behind enemy lines which Bletchley had talked about. For that must have been the mission that was going to have kept Stern away from Cairo for two weeks, and its collapse meant that Stern's last mission for the Monastery had officially ended.

  Hours ago? Days ago?

  In any case, Stern was now due back in Cairo so far as Bletchley was concerned, and whatever Stern had been secretly doing was now finished and at an end. Bletchley would see to that. Bletchley who did his job well, and who seemed to have arrived at a new sense of calm despite the news from the front. So for Joe there was very little time left. And sadly, as he had known all along, the outcome would be the same for Stern no matter what he learned now.

  Indelibly the same, Stern's passage, Stern's fate, the mysterious weaving of Stern's journey over the years. Even Liffy had finally come to realize that when he had found Joe limping down the alley to the Hotel Babylon that morning, before daybreak. Liffy rushing up to help Joe after having waited all night in the shadows for Joe to return from his visit to the Cohens, fearful and more, frantic that something might have gone wrong.

  As indeed it had. Dreadfully wrong. A small cry escaping Liffy then, when he had learned what had
happened.

  That's not like David, Liffy had said of the blow that wounded him so deeply.

  Violence, Liffy had whispered with a shudder. It's terrifying. Even when we abhor it, it can seize us.

  And then he had fixed Joe with his eyes there in the alley, gripping Joe and whispering urgently and looking for all the world like some tormented prophet of antiquity who had just seen a vision of the coming destruction of his beloved Jerusalem.

  Whatever Stern has done, Joe, you must prove it's right for the sake of all of us. It doesn't even matter if you and I are the only ones who ever know the truth, or if just one of us does, even that would be enough. For I have this haunting feeling that unless Stern's right in what he's done, with all he knows, there can be no hope for any of us in this monstrous war without end.

  -15-

  The Sisters

  Flowers, boomed Ahmad. . . . Flowers are the keys to this particular queendom, therefore you must select the makings of your nosegay with special care. These two old dears are shamelessly sentimental and always have been.

  Ahmad raised his head and solemnly sniffed the air, considering the matter further.

  Or better yet, take two nosegays, he said to Joe. They may be twins and they may be in their nineties, but that doesn't mean they've always gotten along in every respect. They've had their differences over the decades and I suspect there's still a certain sisterly sense of competition, especially when a man comes to call.

  On second thought, why not let me prepare your nosegays? Although it's been awhile, I'm familiar with their tastes and also with the color schemes on the houseboat. I did their interior decorating, you know, the last time they had it done, which must have been around the turn of the century. I don't recall exactly when it was, but one of them would surely remember. Between the two of them they remember everything. In fact there used to be a popular saying in Cairo which was a great favorite among boatmen, particularly.

  Fear not, nothing can be lost on the Nile. For what the Sphinx forgets, the Sisters remember.

  In other words, mused Ahmad, see all . . . hear all . . . speak what? In some respects, you might say, these two old dears are rather like the Nile itself.