Nile Shadows (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 3)

by Edward Whittemore

  Joe shook his head.

  Not much at all. Because the truth is Stern’s as complex and chaotic as life itself. And he’s human and he’s going to die.

  Joe stared hard at Cohen. He smiled.

  And yet I know there’ll never be an end to him.

  Joe looked down at the spyglass on the floor.

  Good workmanship, that. Made by your father for his friend Ahmad. The same Ahmad who is now a forgotten desk clerk at a Biblical ruin called the Hotel Babylon.

  Cohen stared down at the spyglass, confused, unsure of himself.

  But why…?

  Why did your father make it for Ahmad, you mean? Because Ahmad was the very king of the boulevards in those days, and a king should have the wherewithal to survey his kingdom. So the spyglass was a joke at the time, but now Ahmad uses the spyglass when he goes up to the roof of the Hotel Babylon on Saturday evenings to look for his lost homeland, like the Jews of old. And he takes his trombone with him and he wears his only suit, a flower in his buttonhole and a smudge of polish on his shoes and his dyed red hair slicked down with water, and he peers through his precious spyglass and pretends he can see the great city where he once ruled as king, alone there in the night of his captivity, a desperately yearning and haunted captive of the past.

  Cohen lowered his eyes. Joe spoke very softly.

  Your father died in the First World War, I know that. He was in the British army. The campaign to take Palestine?

  Yes, whispered Cohen.

  A young man, then. About your age?

  Yes. It was a freakish accident. The Turks had evacuated Jerusalem but a deserter was hiding in the hills and fired off a round. One shot and then he threw up his rifle and surrendered. An illiterate man, a peasant. He didn’t know his army had already left the city.

  Your father and Stern were the same age?

  Yes.

  And after that Stern saw to your upbringing, is that it?

  Cohen raised his eyes and gazed at Joe.

  Why do you say that?

  Because that’s the kind of thing Stern would do. It’s Stern’s way.

  Cohen dropped his gaze. He spoke with great feeling.

  If it hadn’t been for him we wouldn’t have been able to stay together. He supported my mother and made it possible for us to keep the shop, and then when my mother died he took care of Anna’s and my education…. Just everything.

  Cohen picked up the silver cigarette case.

  This was my father’s. He had it with him the day he was killed. Stern gave it to me when I was a child. I don’t know how he ever recovered it.

  Cohen held out the case to Joe. There was Hebrew lettering engraved in the corner.

  It was a present from Stern to my father on the day he enlisted. Do you read Hebrew?

  No, but I can read that. Life, or your father’s first name. Or both.

  Cohen took back the case. He looked at Joe uneasily.

  Shouldn’t you tell me why you’re here?

  Yes I should, said Joe, and I think I ought to start at the beginning, back when I was much younger than you are and didn’t know the smallest part of what you know about the world. Back when Stern and I first met in a mythical city.

  Cohen watched him. He smiled.

  Where did you say you met Stern?

  Joe nodded.

  That’s right, you heard it correctly. I met him in a mythical city.

  Slowly then, Joe smiled too.

  And now like a child with his toys, shall we give it a name? Shall we call it Jerusalem?

  Joe spoke quickly. When he had finished he leaned back and sipped from his glass, giving Cohen time to absorb it all. Cohen sat with his elbows on a workbench, his chin propped up in his hands, deep in thought.

  I like him, thought Joe, continually recognizing little things that reminded him of Stern. I like him and why not, he could almost be Stern’s son.

  Finally Cohen moved.

  But why not get in touch with him? Speak to him directly?

  Could you arrange that?

  Yes. He was here yesterday but that was a personal call. There’s a way I can leave a message for him though, and he’d contact me within twenty-four hours. Isn’t that soon enough?

  It might be, said Joe, but I’m not sure that’s the way to go about it. You know how Stern is. If I spoke to him now he’d probably thank me for the information about Bletchley and then be up and on his way, not wanting to cause me any trouble. He’d keep his problems to himself unless I could show him I was already part of the game.

  Well do you trust this man Bletchley? asked Cohen.

  To do his job. And his job right now is Stern.

  But you don’t know what part of Stern’s work he’s interested in.

  True enough, said Joe. All I really know is that Bletchley’s deathly afraid of something Stern knows, or something he thinks Stern knows, same thing. Yet Stern’s been working with Bletchley’s people for years and why this suspicion about him all of a sudden? What triggered it?

  Joe shrugged in answer to his own question.

  No matter. There are any number of possibilities and an informer’s just one of them, but that’s neither here nor there now. Bletchley’s made it clear he’s not going to tell me why he has a case against Stern, and that’s something Stern wouldn’t tell me either. So I have to find it out myself, elsewhere, or I won’t be able to help Stern because he wouldn’t let me. He’d try to keep me out of it, and I didn’t come here for that.

  But what is Bletchley after? asked Cohen. Could it have anything to do with Stern’s work for us?

  Joe shook his head.

  Not strictly speaking, not Palestine or the Jewish Agency directly. The British concern is the war and it has to be something to do with the Germans. Just for openers, let’s begin with Stern’s Polish story.

  Cohen looked puzzled.

  Do you mean the time he disappeared just before the war broke out?

  Yes. I assume you know he escaped from a prison in Damascus in order to get to Poland when he did, but did you know that escape almost cost him his life?

  No. I had no idea it had been that dangerous.

  It was. Didn’t you notice his thumb later, when he got back to Cairo? The way he’d ripped it up?

  Yes of course, but that was an accident of some kind. He explained it to me but I don’t recall exactly …

  Not an accident, said Joe. He did that clawing his way out of prison, and the strange thing is he’d been due for release within twenty-four hours. But Stern just doesn’t take chances without a reason. Did he ever talk to you about that trip to Poland? Why he had been in such a desperate hurry?

  Cohen frowned.

  All I really remember is that he was very excited.

  Excited?

  Yes. As if he had taken part in something very important, almost as if there had been some kind of priceless breakthrough. You know how quiet Stern is about what he does. Well that time when he finally turned up again, he could barely contain his excitement. I remember Anna mentioning it, saying how wonderful it was to see him as his old self again. So exuberant and lighthearted, so enthusiastic. It was the way we’d always remembered him from before.

  Before?

  Yes. Back before all the changes came over him during these last years. Back before everything began to weigh on him so heavily.

  Ah yes, thought Joe, back when Stern was so lighthearted and exuberant. Back when he was his old self….

  And for a moment, Joe found his own memories slipping back through the years.

  Of course it wasn’t just that Stern had changed since David and Anna were younger. It was also that the two of them had ceased to be children and had learned to see more deeply, to sense Stern’s complexity and the contradictions in what he did, what he believed in.

  Then too, as children they wouldn’t have known about his morphine addiction and all that implied. As children they would have seen only Stern’s kindness and love, not the despair that went
with it in the bare rented rooms where he passed his nights in one dreary slum after another. Not the worn old shoes, sad reminders of journeys to nowhere, or the battered suitcase which held all he owned in the world, tied together from year to year with the same old piece of rope which was forever being carefully knotted, carefully unknotted, when it was time for him to move yet again. As children they would have known a very different Stern, as had Joe’s own son, Bernini. When Joe had seen him in New York, Bernini had talked a great deal about Stern as he always did, recalling Stern in a very particular way from his childhood….

  Stern?

  Bernini had smiled rapturously.

  A great bear of a man who was always smiling and laughing when they had gone to meet his ship in Piraeus. The gangways clanging and noise and confusion everywhere as people rushed back and forth, and then all at once there was Stern in the midst of all the shouting passengers, laughing and waving and struggling down the gangway with his arms full of gifts, Stern’s wondrous presents from everywhere. Trinkets and charms and incense and a little sheik’s costume for Bernini to wear, and the Great Pyramid made of building blocks, complete with secret passageways and hidden treasure chambers. And lovely gifts for Mother too, as Bernini had said, rare wines and delicacies and a beautiful thin gold bracelet, the bracelet making a special impression upon Bernini because Maud seemed so touched by its simplicity. And then back at their little house that afternoon, after all the presents had been admired, Stern opening the first of the bottles of champagne and banging around in the kitchen as he began to conjure up the feast they always had on the night of his arrival, Stern laughing and dashing spices here and there as his cooking filled the house with delicious aromas from all the lands of the Mediterranean.

  Bernini had smiled happily.

  Stern’s feasts? There had never been anything like them.

  And it would go on like that for two or three days, nothing but champagne and delicacies and one treat after another, until finally the hectic visit was over and once more little Bernini would be standing with Maud on a pier in Piraeus, the crowds solemn now as they waved good-bye to the passengers along the railings, Stern a little apart from the others but waving and smiling as always … laughing, as always.

  And that was what Bernini remembered. Unaware, as he was, of all the things Stern and Maud had talked about late at night in the candlelight of the narrow garden by the sea. Unaware, as well, that Stern had once again squandered all his money, spending what little he had on others as he always did….

  Stern?

  Oh yes, Bernini knew Stern. He was a big jovial man whose sudden appearances always meant laughter and toys and feasts, and above all, magic. The exquisite magic of tales that spoke of the infinite wonders a child could one day discover and make his own…. So it was no surprise to Joe the way Cohen and his sister remembered Stern from their childhoods, from the time when Stern had been exuberant and lighthearted, as Cohen said. When he had still been his old self, as Cohen said, and had not yet grown somber under the weight of his burdens. For Stern had always tried hard to keep hidden the dark corners of his heart, and David and Anna had never suspected what lay behind the kindly words and the tender hands. But now in the last few years they had begun to see it, and sadly so, Joe imagined. Reluctantly so….

  Joe looked up.

  Priceless, you said? Stern acted as if he had achieved some kind of priceless breakthrough in Poland? But there’s only one thing Stern would consider priceless. Life. Just that.

  Yes, murmured Cohen, still deep in thought.

  But isn’t there anything you can recall, asked Joe, about that trip of his to Poland? Does the Pyry forest mean anything to you? A place known as the house in the woods, near Warsaw? Any of that?

  I’m sorry. Nothing.

  I see. Well let’s put Poland aside for the moment, it doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere. Let’s talk about codes.

  Codes? said Cohen, suddenly alert and wary.

  Yes, codes. That doesn’t bother you, does it?

  No of course not, replied Cohen, too quickly perhaps.

  Joe nodded, recalling Ahmad’s fears that Stern might be talking about forbidden things in front of others because he knew it would get him killed, because he didn’t have the strength to go on anymore.

  Oh well then, said Joe…. You see I already know Stern’s talking a lot about codes these days, but I also know he’s always been fascinated by them, and we do have so many different kinds, don’t we? Codes of law and ethics and behavior, codes that apply to secret thought patterns and just on and on. In fact you might even say codes are a metaphor for what we are beneath the surface of things. And some of them seem so universal we think they can be written in stone, while others are so obscure no one but ourselves may ever know they exist. So private, for that matter, that we may not even know they exist because most of the time there’s no need for us to know. Because most of us can go through our whole lives without that kind of situation ever arising.

  Cohen moved uneasily.

  What kind of situation?

  Oh I don’t know. Something extreme, say, something that’s more than just ambiguous. Something that goes beyond any notion of right and wrong into a kind of no-man’s-land of morality where nothing’s recognizable, where there’s not the slightest hint of better or worse or terrible and not so terrible. Just way out there beyond all that where a man’s alone and nowhere, with nothing but the deepest part of himself for company.

  Cohen moved impatiently.

  This is too abstract, I don’t know what you’re trying to say. Can’t you be more specific?

  Joe nodded.

  I guess I can and I guess I’m working myself up to it. I guess I don’t even like to imagine such a Godforsaken place because it terrifies me and that’s the truth, David. Sometimes I don’t like to remember where I’ve been….

  Joe broke off. Cohen was moving restlessly back and forth, becoming as disturbed as Joe was. But Joe knew he had to go on, there was no avoiding it.

  I’ll try to be more specific, David. Say your personal code was based on a reverence for life. On never harming or molesting life and certainly never taking it. But then there came a time, a moment, when if you ordered death for some, many more would be saved. What would you do?

  Order it, said Cohen immediately, relieved. But isn’t that what war is, any kind of war? Why are you bringing that up now and agonizing over it? Aren’t men making those terrible decisions every moment in Cairo and in the desert? In Europe? Everywhere?

  Yes, said Joe. God help us, yes. But what if the situation were the same but not quite the same? What if you stood alone over a little girl who was maimed and dying and there was no hope of saving her and her pain was unbearable and she whispered Please, and there was a knife in front of you and nothing else in the world because the world was gone, and you were alone and nothing worked and nothing counted and there was nothing but screams and suffering and dying and a little girl’s twisted body and her eyes in unbearable pain and her whispers, Please, and a knife, and you picked up the knife and pulled back her head and her throat was in front of you as frail as all of life, and it was life. Would you do it, God help us? Would you?

  Cohen was straining forward as if he were going to scream, so harsh and unrelenting had Joe become, his voice and his eyes, every part of him. And Cohen might have screamed if Joe hadn’t suddenly shuddered and moaned and clutched his hands together in a wild violent movement. For a moment Joe seemed utterly exhausted and unable to go on, but then all at once he was whispering again, leaning forward and staring, all the harshness back in his voice.

  Cohen moved in his chair. He looked down at the floor.

  It’s horrible, he whispered, horrible. How can anyone answer something like that? It’s not fair to talk about it in an abstract way.

  Cohen made a futile gesture in front of his face as if he were brushing something away.

  In fact this is all too abstract. There’s a world war
going on and the suffering is incalculable and we all know that, so what’s the point? This talk about a little girl….

  Suddenly Cohen sensed something. He looked up and found Joe’s eyes hard upon him, and a fearful suggestion of doubt swept through him.

  That’s right, said Joe softly. There aren’t many people in this world who have Stern’s faith, and it was a fiery night at the end of the world when I saw him pick up that knife twenty years ago in Smyrna. A night of death and screams deep in the blackness of nowhere, and Stern was alone and I was alone and the little girl was lying between us, and I didn’t have the strength to touch that knife and I wouldn’t today. But I’m no match for Stern in many ways, nor are you, nor are most of us. And there’s nothing more to be said about that, one way or another. We all do what we can in life. We try to no purpose and we do what we can and what we can’t do, we don’t….

  A muscle twitched in Joe’s face. He looked away, lowered his eyes.

  He seemed calmer now, but Cohen himself was still shaking. Never had he witnessed anything like the intensity he had seen in Joe’s eyes and heard in Joe’s voice, a terrifying glimpse of some world he never wanted to see himself. And as Cohen sat there watching Joe, it suddenly struck him how small Joe was. He hadn’t thought of it before because it wasn’t the impression Joe gave, not at all. But Cohen noticed it now and it seemed strange to him somehow…. Such a small thin man, even frail in appearance.

  Joe was sitting quietly, gazing down at the floor. Slowly, he looked up again.

  Codes, said Joe. They can be like names in what they tell us about people and don’t tell us…. Take Rommel. Everybody calls him the Desert Fox because of the uncanny way he anticipates every move the British make. He doesn’t have half the forces the British have, but somehow he always manages to have his armor in the right place at the right time to give the British another mauling. But is he really so clever? Or is somebody reading the British codes for him?

  Cohen reeled, shocked.