Nile Shadows (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 3)

by Edward Whittemore

  To and fro, thought Joe, like a wee boat tossing on the shadowy nighttides of the Nile. But what’s it supposed to mean and who is he anyway?

  The stranger’s arms were heaped with shopping bags, which he was having trouble holding together. He took a step forward and attempted what might have been meant as a smile, but the smile abruptly faded and a gargling sound rose in his throat, an effort to speak gone wrong.

  Arghh?

  Graaa….

  Joe was reminded of a shy lion cub fitfully rolling its head and muttering to itself.

  Can I help you? asked Joe, reaching for the bags before they fell. He scooped up several and carried them back inside the room. The stranger still stood in the hallway, nervously shifting his weight back and forth.

  Don’t you want to come in?

  Two if for food and three if for drink, muttered the stranger. Paul Revere said that.

  The stranger reluctantly shuffled forward, avoiding Joe’s eyes. There was a wistful sadness in his voice.

  The hell with Paul Revere, who cares about him. You don’t recognize me, do you?

  I don’t think so, said Joe. Should I?

  I suppose not. I suppose there’s no reason why anybody should ever recognize me. That’s my problem.

  Excuse me?

  Being recognized as myself, when I’m myself. Nobody ever does. Wouldn’t you find that a problem too?

  Joe had to resist an urge to wrap his arms around the stranger, so forlorn did he seem. Instead he eased the last paper bag out of the man’s arms and put it safely down on the table.

  They’re heavy. What’s in them?

  The stranger shuffled his feet in embarrassment and said nothing. Joe touched the man’s arm.

  Who are you?

  The stranger stole a timid glance at Joe and lowered his eyes.

  I’m the official tourist guide for this street, he whispered, although frankly business has been terrible since the war started. The last war, that is, not this one. But nonetheless …

  Yes?

  The stranger took a deep breath.

  … but nonetheless, the rue Clapsius was once world-famous among those who knew the secret of life. In fact this little rue used to be considered the ultimate oasis of the soul by many, many philosophers. There was even a popular saying acknowledging the fact. See the rue Clapsius and leave the world humming. And do you know why this little rue used to be considered more significant, finally, than the Sphinx and the pyramids and even the Nile?

  Why?

  Because of its hum-jobs. History is really very simple, isn’t it?

  Joe’s eyes widened. He stared at the stranger, who continued to move nervously back and forth, his mouth working all the while, never still.

  Hum-jobs, you say?

  That’s right, muttered the stranger, and I’m talking now about the ultimate in good vibrations. The whores on this little rue, you see, were once spectacularly clever at humming off their customers. So much so that it wasn’t at all unusual to find philosophers from every corner of the globe, strong men, determined men, simply curled up and gurgling on the cobblestones at all hours of the day and night, unable even to drool, not even a hint of a syllogism in their heads, mere husks of their former selves…. But what do I mean? I mean drained.

  The stranger flashed a smile, which immediately faded.

  I’m talking about the best, he muttered. Europeans like to think hum-jobs were discovered in Bologna around the beginning of the Renaissance, what really got the Renaissance going, so to speak. But they go much further back in time than is generally suspected, like most things having to do with people. In fact the hum-job tradition on this street goes back to what Europeans call the Dark Ages, when things weren’t nearly as dark in the East as in the West. In the East scholars were still studying the Thousand and One Nights and passing on nibbles of their erudite findings to selected acquaintances…. Are you familiar, perhaps, with this classical piece of literature?

  Joe gazed at the man, dumbfounded. At last he found his tongue.

  I believe I’ve heard of it, yes.

  The stranger flashed another smile, apparently less nervous than before.

  Good. Then you probably know the Arabs borrowed the Nights a long time ago from the Persians, who in turn borrowed them much earlier than that from India…. But it’s intriguing, isn’t it, this notion of an enlightened East with the primitive buzz of hum-jobs echoing up through the mists of ancient India? Frankly, before I knew the truth, the very idea of all those strange tongues down there in the subcontinent of our souls always used to exhaust me. But now that I know better, I can see what a truly brilliant innovation it was on the part of the Indians to connect hum-jobs with the civilizing impulse…. Fakirs indeed. Fiendish really….

  The stranger tossed his head and snorted, a kind of depraved mysticism creeping across his face.

  But admit it, he suddenly roared in excitement. Didn’t you always think Om was the important sound out of India? Didn’t they fool you with that one too? And doesn’t this new information mean, then, that the Hum and the Om may be far more closely entwined than anyone has ever suspected? That to chant the one is secretly to chant the other? That the Indian sages, in their wisdom, may long ago have discovered this astounding way to sound the bells of the soul and the flesh simultaneously? That the soul and the body, therefore, contrary to Western thought, are not only on secret speaking terms with one another, but are actually one and the same thing beneath it all? That the entire human story can thus be summed up in one profound phrase? That it’s all a matter of man seeking his true home? From hummmm to ommmm, in other words, and so to home? And so at last to hommmme….

  Joe stared. The humming sound went on and on as the stranger shifted his weight back and forth, all the while vigorously nodding his head in encouragement, a shy maniacal grin on his face. Finally Joe was able to shake himself out of the trance he had fallen into.

  But this is extraordinary, he murmured.

  Is it? asked the stranger eagerly. You mean wonders never cease? Not even in an alley as shabby as the rue Clapsius?

  Joe laughed.

  What did you say your name was?

  The man’s smile instantly disappeared. All at once he was gazing at Joe with an immensely grave expression. Solemnly, he cleared his throat.

  Didn’t say, did I. But my name’s Vivian and I drove you in from the airport and I’m sorry about everything. Sorry.

  Vivian blushed, his arms swinging in agitation. Joe laughed and warmly shook his hand, once more resisting the urge to embrace him.

  Viv? It’s really you without the wigs and tennis whites and leopardskins? Good to see you again.

  Vivian shrank back a little, looking even more doubtful than he had when he first entered the room.

  Is it? I know who you are, they told me a little about you. Not much, just a little. You’re not angry with me?

  No, of course not. Why should I be?

  Because of my rank behavior at the airport. But I’m sorry, it was a part, a role. When picking up someone new I’m expected to play some kind of exotic role…. I think … and sometimes I just lose hold and go blasting off in every direction. It’s the madness of the times that does it to me.

  Forget it, Viv. Anyway, you should be the one who’s upset.

  Vivian looked bewildered.

  Me? What on earth for?

  That business about Cynthia. I hope you realize it had nothing to do with you. It was Bletchley who was bothering me.

  Vivian sighed.

  Oh yes, the Bletch, none other. I understood that right away. Our local supply sergeant can be very unpleasant sometimes, especially when he adopts that business-is-business attitude of his. Don’t take it personally, the Bletch likes to say, but what nonsense. Of course I’m going to take it personally. This is my life that’s being tossed around out here in this Bletchedly dry business known as the Western Desert, and would you mind if I sat down immediately? My feet hurt.

&
nbsp; Of course, Viv, take the chair or the bed. It’s not much of a room.

  Vivian pulled off his shoes and slumped down on the bed with grunts and sighs. When not playing a role he seemed to wheeze heavily. He moved the pillow down to the bottom of the bed, covered it with his jacket and lay down with his feet up. Briefly he gazed at the paint peeling off the ceiling, then closed his eyes.

  Flaky, he murmured. But even so, when meeting someone in real life I always try to raise my feet above my head in order to increase the trickle of blood to my brain. Quite frankly, there’s seldom a time when my brain couldn’t use a little more oxygen. It’s my asthma that slows me down and the odd thing is I never had it until I came to Egypt, can you imagine that? A desert climate is supposed to cure such things, not cause them, but there we are. Another performance of the blues.

  Vivian smiled weakly from the bed.

  Yes, the blues. For some reason life has always struck me as pretty much of a raffish rendition of the blues. Rhythmic intensity, a stressing of weak beats, riffs.

  Vivian groaned. He felt his throat.

  Oh this body, he muttered. This wheezing jazz band of the soul.

  He opened his eyes and laughed.

  Flaky, your ceiling, no question about it. But life as music aside, let me tell you straight off this visit has nothing to do with business. I’m here to apologize and I’m just me now, nothing more. Are you hungry at all?

  Famished, Viv. I was just getting ready to go out when you knocked.

  Good. I’ve brought some roast chicken along, and also some wine and loquats, to try to help you forget my body-block at the airport the other morning. The chicken’s usually quite tasty, I get it from a retired belly dancer up the street whom Ahmad knows from another era. She’s also the one who told me about the local hum-job tradition. And the wine should be good, if you can make do with German wine. One of our Long Range Desert Groups plucked it out of Rommel’s personal supply van no more than a week ago.

  Vivian frowned.

  But perhaps you’d like to save the wine for a more important occasion. You wouldn’t be hurting my feelings if you did. I’m used to slaps and kicks and punches.

  Hold on, Viv, this is the important occasion. Just let me get to it.

  Vivian smiled in relief and began singing a popular tune. Joe went to work opening one of the bottles.

  Oh by the way, Viv, is your name really Vivian? I ask only because Ahmad chanced to mention he’d never seen or heard of a Vivian around here.

  Vivian scowled. He groaned.

  Oh he did, did he? Ahmad actually said that?

  Yes.

  Vivian rolled sideways and gazed sadly at Joe, his mouth nibbling and chewing, never still.

  That’s a heavy blow, he sighed. Why on earth would you ask me that?

  Well I don’t know, Viv, the thought just came drifting by. But no offense meant, let’s forget it.

  Forget it? My name? Please study me carefully and tell me the truth. Don’t I look like a Vivian?

  The cork popped out of the bottle.

  Well maybe not, said Joe. Can’t say you do, really.

  Did I before? Coming in from the airport?

  Yes, maybe so. I guess you did.

  But I don’t now?

  No, maybe not.

  Not even a little bit? Isn’t there anything in this world but slaps and kicks and punches?

  Wait, said Joe, I think I’m beginning to see it. Vivian, you say? Vivian? Of course, it’s unmistakable. There’s a startling resemblance, Viv.

  There is?

  Oh yes, simply stunning. The only reason I missed it at first was because I’m not used to seeing a Vivian. You don’t come across one every day on an Indian reservation in Arizona.

  I can imagine, muttered Vivian gloomily. And how about a Vivian McBastion, then?

  A what? Is that true?

  Yes.

  Well now, I like it, said Joe. It has the tang of an aristocratic Scottish fortress hunkering down in the cool mists and repulsing every assault.

  On his back, Vivian cast a bleak smile at the ceiling.

  Don’t leap to conclusions. There’s an enormous amount of confusion in the world and I’m afraid I play a part in it. I’m afraid that’s only the beginning of my persona. There’s more to my mask, much more. Are you ready to hear all of it?

  Of course, why not?

  You’ll see. Brace yourself then. My full name is Vivian McBastion Noël Liffingsford-Ivy.

  Jesus, Viv, is that the truth?

  Vivian scowled and his voice was gloomier than ever.

  Furthermore, I’ll tell you why I don’t look like a Vivian, let alone all the rest of it. I’m not.

  Well there, cried Joe with relief.

  I mean that’s my legal name, but it’s not really me. My father’s name was Lifschitz. When my parents came over to England from Germany they wanted something that sounded less foreign, so they did a potter around in a hunt for common syllables and Liffingsford is what emerged, like a new Tory leader in Parliament. The Ivy was an afterthought, meant to add a comfy appearance of having been around awhile. I’m not sure how well they understood English at the time.

  I know how that is, said Joe. I didn’t understand it myself until I was fifteen or sixteen.

  They bought a little shop when they came to England, a cozy thatched-roof affair in the heart of London. They thought it was the only decent thing to do. Fair play, England my England, a nation of shopkeepers and so forth. Then when I came along they did a hunt through the Sunday tabloids to find a name for me, and that odd lot is what they came up with. Later I disappointed them though. I didn’t become a dentist.

  I see.

  But everybody has always called me Liffy, with the exception of my mother and father and Bletchley…. Blasted authority figures, they always get everything wrong. But Ahmad knows me as Liffy, and everybody else around here does.

  Fine, Liffy, that’s what I’m going to call you then. And I like the name, because it just happens to recall a river I know.

  I suspected it might, said Liffy, and it’s always pleasant to remind someone of a river. But I never became a dentist, I have to tell you that right now. I became a clown, a sad clown. That’s my problem.

  Have some wine, Liffy?

  Thanks, I will. My liver hurts.

  Maybe you ought to ease up then?

  No, it can’t have anything to do with drinking, I almost never drink. My liver often hurts at night, and I think the reason it does is because the liver was considered the seat of the passions in the classical world, back before barbarians destroyed the classical world and the passions were transferred to the heart. But somehow in my case the transfer never seems to have been made. In other words, Joe, I’m a throwback.

  To what?

  I’m not sure, that’s my problem. But I have an uneasy feeling I may be the Wandering Jew from antiquity. Everything seems to suggest it.

  Have you wandered a lot then?

  Oh yes, that’s all I did before the war. I wandered around Europe as an itinerant entertainer, making people laugh after dinner. Then I sat in empty railway waiting rooms late at night, feeling hungry and waiting for a milk train to nowhere. The restaurants were always closed by the time I finished work in the evening, and when I arrived in a new place the following morning I’d take a nap in the railway waiting room to save expenses, until it was time to appear in a show that night. So I almost never slept in a bed and I didn’t see much daylight either. In those days I lived almost entirely on milk and it made me quite pale. All told, it was a ghostly experience.

  Were you really a professional clown, Liffy?

  Well it was that general aspect of life. I worked as a clown or a mime or an actor, a juggler or an acrobat or a song-and-dance man, the fat drunken companion of a Shakespearean king of merrie olde England or a not so merry Shakespearean moneylender in gloomy old Venice, sometimes in blackface and sometimes in white, but far more frequently in gray. And more often tha
n not in the end, after giving my all, done in. It seems that in every human drama there has to be someone who loses, and for some mysterious reason that role became my specialty. Occasionally I had to be taken seriously, but in general I was the absurd chameleon of the species, the ludicrous jester and buffo, the all-purpose fool. Making people laugh was my profession. It’s a sad way to make a living.

  I believe it, said Joe. And what about your work here, Liffy? What do you do?

  Little things. Play a role for an hour or two or a day. Anything that might require a disguise and some makeup and a language or two. I’m just a prop really. I do a turn as an Italian general or a Syrian merchant or a Czech peasant, whatever’s wanted. When they need a prop they trundle me out and I rage and swagger or skulk and cringe, bending my knees and shifting my weight and detesting kulaks or Jews, Jerries or Tommies, as the case may be. I’m the local illusionist, that’s all. A sad clown.

  Why sad, Liffy?

  Because the world’s sad

  Why a clown then?

  Because the world’s so sad we have to laugh, otherwise it would be an even more dangerous place than it already is.

  Liffy smiled shyly.

  But there. Like everybody else, I like to pretend there’s some lofty explanation for my private quirks. The truth is I’m probably sad because I spent so much time in empty railway waiting rooms before the war, at night. Have you ever noticed that people who live at night seem to have no bones? Perhaps it’s the bad lighting.

  And why did you become a clown, Liffy?

  Why? Well I don’t think I did in the beginning. I started out as a child imitating grown-ups, as every child does, and before long I discovered my imitations could make people laugh, and making people laugh brought me a sweet or two. So I went on doing what I’d grown accustomed to doing, the thing that brought in a sweet or two, and thus a career and a life in the usual manner.

  But you’re not like most people, Liffy.

  No, I’m sure I’m not. I’ve been drifting around the world too long for that.

  Liffy smiled.

  How long, you say? Do I really qualify as the Wandering Jew from antiquity? Well sometimes it does seem as if these wanderings of mine have gone on for a full twenty-five hundred years, more or less. Sometimes it does seem that long when I’m alone at night and afraid.