Except that the British might not be able to hold the line at El Alamein, which would mean packing up and leaving for Palestine and leaving the little place she had made for herself here ... moving again, returning to Palestine again after all these years. After all, she had only gone there once in her life and that was long ago when she had first met Joe in the crypt of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. So long ago now, when her dreams had still been young. . . .
Her hands came to rest in her lap, her head bowed. All at once she felt utterly exhausted. To move again? Couldn't anything ever stay the way it was for just a little while? . . . But then all at once Joe was standing behind her and she felt his hands on her shoulders, and even now, despite the years . . .
Joe? There's one thing you don't have to worry about, at least. The Major's feelings are every bit as strong as you think they are. I've heard him talk about Colly and all the rest and . . . well you see the Major, Harry and I, we're . . . close.
Are you? Well that's good, Maudie, I'm glad to hear it. It makes it so much better when there's someone to share with. . . . And I liked him too, for what that's worth.
He's not just the way he appears sometimes, she said. There are other sides to him. It's just that he's young and sometimes he romanticizes things and . . . well, he's young.
Joe smiled warmly.
And a good thing, too, for a man to be. As I recall, I moved along those lines once myself.
He nodded, smiling, then turned serious.
So you mustn't worry, my love. It's going to be all right, I know it. . . . And what were you thinking about just now, I wonder? Besides this good piece of news about Harry?
Oh. Oh I was thinking about Jerusalem. A friend there has written, asking if he can help in any way. He doesn't know what I do here, what I really do, but he said he could always find me a place in Jerusalem if I needed one.
Ah and that's just fine, Maudie. You have some very good friends who think of you.
I'm fortunate.
You are, but it's not by chance, you know that. People do such things because they know how much you've always cared, because you've taken the time to show them and it means a lot to them. It helps them. To them you're a still point, a touch of sureness and certainty in all the flux and turmoil.
She frowned.
A still point? I don't feel that way at all. I don't feel there's anything certain about my life. It's all been just one wrenching experience after another, and I haven't handled any of them very well.
Oh yes you have, Maudie, better than most of us ever do. You've worked hard to understand people and it shows. Just look at that little table inside the door. There are letters from all over the world there, people you've befriended through the years in one place or another, people who remember and want to stay in touch, because it helps them to do that.
People are so terribly uprooted in wartime, she said. They're scattered and frightened and they have to survive dreadful things.
Yes they are and yes they do, but in a way that's not just wartime. In a way that's what there always is, and you've been helping in your quiet way for a long time now. Stern mentioned it once in a letter he sent to Arizona. All those people who write to Maud from their little corners of the world, he said.
Could they ever manage half as well without her?
Well it was kind of him to say that but of course they could manage, and perfectly well.
No, not quite so well, and I suspect you know that. You do something special for them, Maudie. You honor the memories they have of whole parts of their lives, and in doing that you honor them. It's trust you give them and faith, the good things. They look to you for it and you give it to them, and that means a lot. The one truly dreadful thing is when people no longer have the faith to go on, when it seems to no longer matter whether they survive or not because nothing they can do is worthwhile and no one cares.
And that's when the smallest thing can make all the difference. I owe Maud a letter, she must be expecting a letter. She hasn't heard from me in months. When you're off somewhere and everything seems black and hopeless, even a thought as small as that one can be something to hold on to. Maybe even the difference between living and dying.
Pride, Maudie. When we have it it's no more than the air we breathe and the sun overhead. But when we don't have it, God have mercy. To give it to even one person is a beautiful thing, because what is it after all but the laying on of hands, the human act. What can be done when we learn to think about more than just ourselves. And you do that, Maudie, and people know it and feel it deep down.
How you do go on, she said.
Joe laughed.
And that's true too, talk's always been my affliction. Long thoughts standing around like pilgrims outside an oasis, leaning on their staves and restlessly waiting to be spoken to life. Talk, the poor man's gold. The thirsty man's water.
She looked up at him, her face suddenly serious.
Then tell me something, Joe? Why are the letters always from so far away? Why are they always from some distant place?
Ah well, because your life has been like that, I suppose. Because you've looked so hard for your place, and that's led to moving and to wandering.
Too much, she murmured. Too much, it seems. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever find a place of my own, yet it's not something so special I want, not something unusual. . . . Well, someday maybe.
Of course someday, Maudie. After the war. There's no question you'll find it, no question at all.
She pushed back her hair.
Yes, she whispered. After the war. . . .
Joe felt her uneasiness. He was sitting on the low wall of the balcony again, looking out at the little buildings and the rooftops and the laundry hanging out to dry, not far from the little square with its neighborhood restaurant and its neighborhood café and its everyday people with their everyday concerns, that little place so far from the war where he had seen Stern sitting in the dust not too long ago.
In rags then, a beggar, a solemn quiet man sitting in the dust at the end of the day.
In the alley below, a little farther along, some children were playing. They had scratched figures on the hard baked earth of the alley, circles and squares, and they were following some complicated set of rules to advance from figure to figure, hopping on one leg. When one of the children reached the end he had to start again at the beginning. They were shouting and laughing as they played, but they also seemed to be going about it very intently.
I hope it's not some kind of war game, said Joe.
What's that?
The children playing down there.
Maud leaned forward and looked over the balcony. She smiled.
Don't you recognize it? It's Greek hopscotch.
Is it now? And how could they have learned that, I wonder?
Maud laughed.
I can't imagine. Some old Greek spinster must have taught them.
More likely a younger woman than that, given the leaping and hopping going on. But do you know them well then?
Yes, I know the family. Most of them are from the same family. That doorstep down there where the cat sleeps is the door to their kitchen. Is he there?
The cat? Yes indeed, soundly asleep. What's his name?
Homer. That's his place before dinner. The grandfather of the family lived in Turkey once and he likes to talk about it, and the children are fascinated by descriptions of any foreign place. I'm afraid I spend more time at their kitchen table than I should, they've practically adopted me. Sometimes the wife sneaks over here in the afternoon when I'm home and has a cigarette. She looks at my little mementos and imagines all sorts of grand things, having no idea how tattered my life has been. But then before long she has to leave again because of all the things she has to do . . . all the people who are waiting for her and need her.
Maud looked into the distance.
Sometimes when I leave their kitchen in the evening I take the long way around, strolling through the alle
ys and just listening to the sounds of the night, people talking in low voices and getting ready to go to bed. The soft yellow glow in the little windows always looks so inviting. I know the people inside may not be content with what they have, but that's never the feeling I have when I walk by.
She was silent for a moment.
I've been to see Anna, she said. It's very difficult for her because she and David were so close, just the two of them for so many years. And Stern going at the same time makes everything worse. But she's a strong person and I'm sure she'll manage. We've talked about some things that might make a difference.
Maud paused.
I'm not supposed to mention this, Anna wasn't supposed to say anything about it. . . . It seems Bletchley is being very helpful and doing a great deal for her, papers and money and so forth. It rather surprised me when she told me. It's not the kind of reputation he has at all.
No I guess it isn't, said Joe, but I'm certainly glad to hear it. Have you known her long?
No. I met the two of them once with Stern three or four months ago. At the time it seemed like an accidental meeting, but later I realized it wasn't. Stern had planned it of course, without telling either them or me. Anna and I figured that out.
Yes.
And I also intend to follow your suggestion about looking up Belle and Alice. I've already sent them a note explaining who I am and asking if I could come to call some evening. If there's time. If I'm still here.
That was thoughtful of you, Maudie. They haven't had many visitors in recent years and I know they'd appreciate it. They'll like you, and it would mean a lot to them because you knew Stern so well.
Good, she said, and fell to studying her knitting.
It's in the silences, he thought. When you're close to someone they speak to you in the silences and the feelings just tumble out.
But there was still one presence softly echoing through all their thoughts, a man who had to be spoken to life between them before they parted. And so as the darkness gathered, Joe told her about his last evening with Stern.
. . . and I realize, he concluded, there's no way for us to know, ever, whether that peace I saw in Stern's eyes in the end was because he was at peace with himself, finally, or simply because he saw the hand grenade coming . . . death. But we do know the last word he said before he spoke my name and struck me and saved my life.
Maud sat very still.
Yes, she whispered. Love. . . .
***
Joe muttered something about his glass. He walked inside and a light went on behind Maud. She heard him rattling around in the kitchen and then the light went off and he was back again, resting his hand on her shoulder before he moved away to sit on the low wall of the balcony.
Once Stern repeated something to me, she said, that I've never quite forgotten. It was an ancient Chinese account of caravans in the Gobi desert, of all things. He'd come across it in some obscure book he was reading, and I suppose the description has stayed with me because the images seemed so haunting. It was written about two thousand years ago, he said. Anyway, it went something like this.
***
A region of sudden sandstorms and terrifying visions. Rivers disappear overnight, landmarks go with the wind, the sun sinks at midday. A timeless nonexistent land meant to plague the mind with its mirages.
But the most dangerous thing that must be mentioned is the caravans that appear at any moment on the horizon, there to drift uncertainly for minutes or days or years. Now they are near, now far, now just as assuredly they are gone. The camel drivers are aloof and silent, undistinguishable, men of some distant race. But the men they serve, the leaders of the caravans, are truly frightening. They wear odd costumes, their eyes gleam, they come from every corner of the world.
These men, in sum, are the secret agents who have always given the authorities so much to fear.
They represent the princes and despots of a thousand lawless regions.
Or is it perhaps that they represent no one at all? Is that why their aspects make us tremble? In any case we know only that this is their meeting place, the unmarked crossroads where they mingle and separate and wander on their way.
As for where they go and why, we cannot be sure of such things. There are no tracks in such a barren waste. The sandstorms blow, the sun sinks, rivers disappear, and their camels are lost in darkness. Therefore the truth must be that the routes of such men are untraceable, their missions unknowable, their ultimate destinations as invisible as the wind.
If the Son of Heaven is to continue to rule with integrity, we must defend our borders at all costs from such men.
***
Maud turned to Joe.
Thus an ancient Chinese description of the Gobi desert . . . the unknown . . . written two thousand years ago.
She smiled sadly.
But that's enough of that. Let's not talk about Stern anymore. Life is always a gift of faces and a gift of tongues, and I don't mean just those of others. I mean our own. . . . All the faces we're given in the course of a lifetime . . . and all the many tongues we learn to speak in.
***
It's curious you should use those words to describe life, said Joe. I used them myself just last night when I was talking about Liffy. What an odd coincidence.
Maud looked thoughtful, searching her memory. Suddenly she smiled.
It's a coincidence, but I don't know how odd it is. We were together when we first heard those words.
We were?
Maud beamed, she was so pleased she had remembered. She laughed.
Yes. It was in Jerusalem but we never knew who said it. We'd just come back from the Sinai and it was our first evening in Jerusalem and we went for a walk in the Old City. And it was crowded and noisy and so confusing after the desert, overwhelming even. Then all at once there was a great commotion in front of us and we couldn't move. Don't you remember?
Joe was smiling.
Yes, I do now.
It had something to do with a donkey, said Maud. Either a donkey had pitched his load or kicked someone or was just braying at the sky and wouldn't move, something like that, and right away everybody was pressing in and shouting and waving their arms and yelling in all their different languages, every conceivable kind of person, the way it is in the Old City. All those milling throngs of people who look as if they might have lived a thousand years ago or two or three thousand years ago, all of them shouting and waving their arms and yelling as if the world were coming to an end. Remember?
Joe nodded, smiling.
Yes.
And that was when it happened, said Maud. It was just a voice near us, just another voice in the crowd, but there was a yearning and a reverence in the words that rose above everything else and carried to us, part prayer, part anguish, part hope. And clear somehow, so very clear. . . . O Jerusalem. O gift of faces, o gift of tongues . . . remember?
Ah yes. Laughter and shouts and a donkey braying to the heavens and the chaos of life on every side, and a clear voice in the midst of the chaos which we could hear, the two of us just rejoicing in all of it. It was one of those beautiful moments all right, one of those rare precious moments that make it all worthwhile and should never be lost, should always be passed on. . . . Must always be passed on.
So you know what I intend to do someday, Maudie? Someday I'm going to tell Bernini all about this, every last detail of it. Liffy with his miraculous disguises and Ahmad with his secret closet, and me with them in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. And going back, Strongbow with his magnifying glass for seeing through the ages and old Menelik with his underground musicales and Crazy Cohen with his back-to-back dreams in sevens, the three of them feasting away the last century in an oasis called the Panorama. And later on, Half-Crazy Cohen and Ahmad père out on the Nile with the Sisters drinking champagne from cups of pure moonlight, and later still, Big Belle and Little Alice playing their bassoon and harpsichord in a timeless shadowy moonroom while keeping watch on the river. And David and An
na dreaming their way to Jerusalem beneath a motionless clock in the dusty back room of Cohen's Optiks. And before them, another Cohen and another Ahmad and Stern striding down the amazing sidewalks of life, three kings of the Orient of old, the one with his oboe and the other with his dented trombone and above all Stern, that one . . . alone with his violin in the eye of the Sphinx in the last darkness before dawn, soaring with all our tales of tragedy and yearning.
Rich music, Maudie, the whole of it circular and unchronicled and calmly contradictory, suggesting infinity, and the tales themselves no less preposterous than true things always are. So why not a grand collection of them for that old white canvas bag Bernini always seems to have with him over there in New York? A little of this and a little of that always carefully tucked away in that shapeless old white canvas thing, like a shopping bag of life. But maybe Bernini's kingdom too in a way, at least that seems to be how he thinks of it. Nothing in it really, just his treasures, as he calls them. . . . So yes, I'd like to think of him roaming around over there in the New World someday with this legacy of tales from the Old, rich music to carry with him always, now that he's just starting out on his journey.
Things he can understand straightaway, after all. Jokes and riddles and scraps of rhymes a lad can take to heart and make his own.
Joe laughed in the darkness.
Yes Maudie, I do like it. . . . It has a ring to it, Bernini's bag. A sound that can't be mistaken. . . .
***
They talked of other things, the time drifting and softly slipping away in the night. They talked and fell silent and finally Joe rose and she followed him inside, where he stood looking down at her little mementos.
You'll take care, Joe, won't you? You're very precious to me.
I know, I feel the same way, Maudie. I always have. So you take care too and someday there'll be another time, someday after the war. I do know it, Maudie. . . .
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