Nile Shadows (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 3)

by Edward Whittemore

Do the shadows have a shape you can recognize?

  No, it’s too far away. Too small and indistinct.

  Of course, the Sphinx’s a riddle. Look harder.

  Joe did so. He leaned forward on his elbows, holding his breath, straining to see through the spyglass. All at once he whistled softly.

  Impossible.

  Beside him, Liffy closed his eyes, a blissful smile on his face.

  But it is real, whispered Joe, I can recognize him. Oh my God, it’s Stern. Stern….

  Ah, murmured Liffy, he wasn’t away after all. He’s there watching the sunrise from his favorite perch. You can’t always count on it anymore, Ahmad says, not the way things are these days. Just once in a great while can you find him at it…. But it’s a sight, isn’t it, Joe? Something worth looking for and waiting for and hoping will happen, our very own Stern gazing out through the eye of the Sphinx at dawn … and it doesn’t happen much these days, according to Ahmad, so we were lucky to catch Stern at it …very lucky. Unless Stern knew you were arriving in Cairo. Could he have known that?

  No, I didn’t tell him.

  And Bletchley wouldn’t have said anything to him?

  Oh no.

  Are you sure?

  Yes, positive.

  Liffy hummed. He smiled.

  Lovely then. It’s chance, pure chance, and I was the one who was able to show it to you…. Ahhh, the wonders of life, the miracles. Sometimes I feel as light as a dove on the dawn. Ahhh….

  7

  Monastery

  LIFFY WAS SURPRISED WHEN Joe told him he had a daytime meeting coming up with Bletchley. According to Liffy, the Monks were notorious for always conducting their briefings and meetings at night.

  Strictly at night, said Liffy. Darkness is the sea they swim in. Do you realize that in all my time here, I’ve never once been to the Monastery except at night? But if Bletchley’s really taking you into the desert to be briefed by Whatley, in broad daylight, at least you may not have to watch those awful films they show out there.

  Films? asked Joe, pouring himself more gin. The two of them were sitting in the small crumbling courtyard behind the Hotel Babylon, a narrow enclosure strewn with rubble and old newspapers and piles of ancient debris.

  On the dangers of venereal disease, said Liffy. Those same films they show back in England to young army recruits before they’re sent overseas. Noses missing … no eyes … holes in heads going nowhere. Just terrible. When you arrive at the Monastery at night you have to sit through a couple of those films in the cloisters first, before you’re allowed inside. Ugliness by starlight, in other words, to put you in the appropriate frame of mind before you enter the black bowels of the place. It’s a kind of ritual they have out there, and not the only one from what I hear…. Just blackness everywhere. Disgusting.

  Joe sipped his gin, thinking how the mere mention of the Monastery always disturbed Liffy so profoundly, in a way Liffy himself seemed unable to explain.

  But what is it that bothers you so much about the Monastery? asked Joe.

  Liffy shuddered and clasped his hands together, twisting his fingers around themselves. For a moment he stared at his fingers in horror, as if their slithering movements reflected his feelings.

  But that’s just it, Joe, I don’t know, I don’t know. When you first arrive out there everything seems normal enough. You look around you and it seems to be just an old fortress or an old monastery or whatever it was, that an intelligence unit has made its headquarters. Just a secret place where agents come and go in the darkness, carrying out the commonplace horrors of wartime. But somehow there’s more to it than that, a sickness of the soul, and after a while you begin to sense it.

  Well can you give me an example, Liffy? Something specific that makes you feel that way?

  Liffy waved his hands in the air.

  Take the maps, for instance, those copies of maps from the fourth century. Whatley has them all over the walls in one of the cells, along with contemporary maps showing the German-occupied areas of Europe and North Africa. And there’s a copy of the Athanasian Creed, prominently displayed, with symbols in the margins that correspond to symbols on the maps, both the ancient ones and the modern ones, as if there were some sort of connection between the two….

  Liffy suddenly began to wheeze, struggling to breathe, the same trouble he had as when he talked about the Nazis or Germany.

  What do you mean, Liffy? A connection between what and what? I think you’ve lost me.

  Between the German armies and the Athanasian Creed.

  I’ve heard of the Creed, Liffy, but what does it have to do with the maps? What’s the connection?

  Exactly. That’s what’s so strange about it all. And frankly, I’ve always avoided thinking about those maps, just as I’ve always avoided the implications of those disgusting films they show out there. But would you like me to try to make some sense out of it for you?

  Joe nodded. Although Liffy had made it clear more than once that he hated to talk about the Monastery, he began to do so now in a kind of monotone, slipping into what was almost a trance.

  Well first of all, murmured Liffy, the Creed grew out of the Arian controversy, didn’t it, a great crisis in the early days of Christianity. The Arians took their name from Arius, the Libyan theologian who taught that Christ couldn’t be both human and divine. Instead they claimed that Christ was human only, and it took some time before the Church was able to overcome the heresy, stating its position in the Creed. Arianism was pagan to the core and the Germanic tribes embraced it especially, so there were great wars as a result. The Roman Emperor Justinian had to destroy the Vandal armies in North Africa and the Ostrogoths in Italy, and campaign against the Visigothic kingdom in Spain, because they continued to adhere to the heretical view. And who, by chance, was the Church father in faraway Egypt who was so influential in helping to overcome the heresy?

  St Anthony, said Joe despite himself, his head beginning to whirl.

  St Anthony, repeated Liffy in his trance. The same St Anthony who’d gone into the Egyptian desert and become the founder of monasticism. And didn’t all of that occur in the fourth century after Christ? And what, pray, is Whatley doing out there in the desert today, connecting Hitler’s armies with the Arian controversy? Doesn’t the Nazi madness have to do with A-r-y-a-n-s? And isn’t this the twentieth century, not the fourth century? And don’t fifteen hundred years count for anything in human history? Or is the answer to that merely a shrug and the sad whisper, Not always, my child.

  Joe was stunned. For a long time he sat gazing at Liffy, his thoughts tumbling and racing.

  But what are you implying? he finally asked. What does any of it mean?

  I can’t imagine what it means in its entirety, said Liffy, but I should add that Whatley can be a very charming man when he wants to be. A trifle erudite and also rather preoccupied with his own concerns, unlike the rest of us. But charming…. So the straightforward facts concerning the Monastery seem to be these. St Anthony and Whatley are out there in the desert with their secret armies of monks and Monks, and they appear to be mounting campaigns against heresies traditionally adhered to by the Germanic tribes, while all the while the Vandals and the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths maraud in the fourth century, and the Nazis viciously replay the ancient barbaric performance in the twentieth century.

  Whatley, said Joe. Could you put your imagination to work on him for a moment?

  You want conjecture, you mean? Not facts?

  Yes.

  Well if I had to try to understand what Whatley is truly up to out there in the desert, I think I might ask myself if it’s a case of Whatley believing the Germans are denying the divine part of our natures? And if Whatley thus sees these new barbarians, the Nazis, as simply the old barbarians dressed up in snappier uniforms, with black and leather and death’s-heads everywhere, who embrace the heretical Arian doctrine in the same way as the Germanic tribes did fifteen hundred years ago? And whether Whatley assumes, therefore, tha
t he’s some kind of latter-day St Anthony doing righteous battle against the evil Germanic heresiarchs?

  Liffy sputtered and coughed, struggling for breath.

  And if so, why? Because Whatley’s a religious fanatic? A fanatic of history? A fanatic for the cause of moral uplift? … And I don’t need to add that these Christian metaphors are merely that, merely metaphors. Christianity is only incidental to the matter, only the form of moral uplift that happens to have been the most obvious one in the West over the last two thousand years. The matter goes much deeper than any specific religion or philosophy, for what the Germanic streak in human nature really can’t bear is change. Any kind of change. It prefers what was, in our case the animal state. Very deep is the well of the past, says Mann. May we not call it bottomless? says Mann. And thus that seductive whisper oozing out of the blackness, the Germanic whisper in all of us…. Where you were is where you are, my child. So gaze backward and downward, my child. Forever….

  Liffy gasped for breath.

  Which translates in modern times into a mindless loping around on the savanna, killing, to the accompaniment of Bach.

  Liffy choked.

  I’m sorry, Joe, I just can’t talk about this anymore. I hate to think about the Nazis and their black and their leather and their death’s-heads. It’s a gigantic pyramid of skulls they’re after and it’s monstrous.

  Joe stood up and sat down again. This Whatley, he muttered.

  Liffy nodded.

  I know it. It’s a regular Whatley, what? What? And there always does seem to be a Whatley out there somewhere, morbidly flagellating his flesh because he wishes he didn’t have any, because purity would then be possible. But the Whatley factor exists and there’s no use denying it simply because we don’t like it. A part of us always does yearn for purity, clarity, absolutes. Yearns for it, alas, even though living matter and clarity are opposites, as Einstein said.

  And he was right as usual, said Joe. But we human beings seem to be far more confused than any other living thing, and why is that?

  Because we think. And there’s nothing more ruinous to clarity of purpose.

  Ah, said Joe, now that has a ring to it for sure. Is it yours or are you quoting again?

  Mine, said Liffy softly, no more than mine. It just came to me here in these ancient ruins of a courtyard, a kind of local aphorism to be contemplated on the journey east. In fact we just might codify it as Liffy’s Second Law. To wit. If you want to be sure you know what you’re doing, never think…. But this whole conversation leads me to suspect that much lies ahead of you, if the truth is ever to come out.

  And which truth is that? asked Joe.

  Liffy nodded. He smiled.

  The truth about Stern, of course. But is it really possible to learn the truth about someone else? Is it? … I’ve often wondered about that. It was one of those unanswerable questions that used to plague this ancient child of a soul of mine, late at night, back in empty railway waiting rooms before the war.

  Liffy smiled gently.

  A Wandering Jew does wonder about such things, after all, because in the end that’s what his wandering is all about and that’s the whole point of his destiny. The mystery of other faces and other tongues—wonder in all its guises…. To behold, as they used to say.

  They left the courtyard soon after that, Liffy to keep an appointment and Joe to lie down in his room until it was time for his meeting with Bletchley. The blurred feeling had begun to come over Joe again while they were sitting in the courtyard that morning, just as it had the last time when he and Liffy had talked about the Monastery. An uneasy feeling on Joe’s part, a shadowy warning from somewhere within him.

  Meanwhile, on a roof not far away, an observer lay on his stomach peering down into the narrow courtyard of the Hotel Babylon, his binoculars resting in front of him. Having been deaf for some years, the observer could read lips with ease. Yet he found he was having difficulty that morning with the man called Liffy, because of the way his lips moved continually whether he was speaking or not. Nibbling and chewing, that mouth never seemed to rest for a moment.

  The other man, the one called Joe, was no problem at all. But unfortunately it was the constantly nibbling Liffy who had done most of the talking in the courtyard.

  They won’t like it at all, thought the observer, crawling backward with his binoculars.

  Damn that bastard Liffy and his lips that never stop….

  Later, when Joe tried the door on the far side of the courtyard, he found it locked. He used a key Ahmad had given him and groped his way down the stairs in the darkness to the second door at the bottom.

  The cellar was just as he remembered it. A cool oblong room with a ceiling so low he had to stoop. A table with a single naked light bulb overhead, a cord leading down from the fixture to an electric ring where a kettle was steaming. A teapot and a raised newspaper.

  But Bletchley seemed to be in a better mood that day, even though Joe was late for their meeting. As soon as Joe walked in Bletchley put aside his newspaper and rose to shake hands, putting out his hand that wasn’t crippled.

  Now there’s a first, thought Joe. He began to apologize for being late but Bletchley waved the apology aside.

  No matter, he said, I was just having a second cup of tea. Care to join me?

  Joe thanked him and Bletchley reached for the teapot, an ugly expression flashing across his face.

  Jesus, thought Joe, he’s trying to smile. That piece of ugliness is his way of smiling.

  Bletchley was wearing an old set of khakis that day, which gave him quite a different appearance. In a business suit, at night anyway, he looked both elegant and efficient despite his bulky black eye patch. But in baggy cotton trousers and a wrinkled open shirt, both badly worn and faded, there was a shabbier quality to the man. His belt was too big for him, gathering his trousers in clumsy folds around his waist, and his shoes were old and scuffed. One of his shirtsleeves was rolled up while the other flapped around without a button. There were even some roughly mended spots down the front of his shirt, rips repaired at home, it appeared. In all he was a much less impressive man than Joe remembered. Certainly not overbearing in any way, rather frail in fact. A slight weary figure with an attentive air about him.

  For a moment Joe had the impression of a lonely recluse puttering around in a garden that wasn’t his own, embarrassed at being out of place, painfully uncomfortable among plants and flowers he didn’t recognize.

  Bletchley poured tea.

  I dropped in to say hello to Ahmad this morning, he said, and he mentioned that you must have gone out early for a walk. I’m an early riser myself, always have been. Of course I don’t sleep much these days anyway. Still no sugar?

  Right, thanks. Anything of interest in the newspapers today?

  Mostly Rommel as usual, said Bletchley. He’s only forty miles from Tobruk and nothing seems to be going right. It’s almost as if Rommel knew beforehand every move we’re going to make. Damn it, but that’s exactly how it is.

  Joe blew on the tea in the metal cup. And what if that were true about Rommel? he wondered. What if he did know every British move beforehand? Could anyone have intelligence sources as good as that?

  Well what about the personal columns? he asked. Any better news there?

  Not really. One man heard from, one not. It’s odd but business aside, I’ve always been intrigued by the personal columns in local newspapers. They give you such a strangely intimate view of a place and people’s lives in that place, or at least an illusion of it. Oh by the way, you haven’t tried to get in touch with Maud yet, have you?

  No. I’m following instructions.

  Advice, murmured Bletchley. I’m sure they’re not trying to control your every move. I’m sure they want you to go about it in your own way. But it’s my impression they feel the more looking around you can do before Stern finds out you’re here, the better off you’ll be. Yes, that’s it. Stern’s going to find out soon enough anyway, once you begin
moving around.

  And when will that be, do you suppose?

  Soon. Right away. They’ve gone slowly with you because of something to do with Stern’s schedule, Stern’s activities, but now I’ve been told Stern’s leaving tonight on an assignment that will keep him out of Cairo for several weeks. Two weeks at the very least, that’s it. So now you should have time for a good headstart.

  He won’t be in contact with anyone in Cairo?

  Not with anyone who could tell him about you. I assume it was arranged that way.

  Fair enough, said Joe, picking up his teacup and hesitating, not wanting to burn his lips again as he had the first time he came to the cellar. And he was also trying to decide what to say, because he felt it was important to try to move closer to Bletchley. He looked up now and made a gesture toward the black bulky patch over Bletchley’s right eye. Most of the scars seemed old, although some of them, curiously, not that old.

  Catch that trouble in the last war, did you?

  Yes, replied Bletchley, surprised by the directness of the question.

  How’d it happen? asked Joe, gazing over the rim of his cup.

  Abruptly Bletchley dropped his stare and went perfectly still. For a long silent moment he looked down at the table, his single eye round and blank and uncomprehending. But when he spoke at last his voice was matter-of-fact, without emotion.

  It was fairly early in the last war. I was using a spyglass when a bullet struck the thing and shattered the casing, driving metal and glass fragments into my eye and severing some muscles in my hand. A friend tried to pull out the metal bits in my eye but he couldn’t manage it. Then he was killed and I had to lie there for five or six hours until help came. Later they were able to reconstruct the bridge of my nose and fix up the hand a little, but removing the fragments from the eye socket turned out to be a drawn-out process. Months, years, it just went on and on, that’s it. For a long time I felt useless.

  Joe shook his head sadly. Bletchley was still staring down at the table, his eye wide, uncomprehending.

  The worst part about it, then, was that I’d been in the regular army, and of course there was no future in that. When you’re young, it’s hard to accept the fact that you’re never going to have the chance to do what you want in life. Most people may end up that way, but at least the disillusionment takes place over time. It’s not like knowing from the start that you don’t have a chance.