Nile Shadows (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 3)

by Edward Whittemore

  No, not at all. He can hardly mention Liffy’s name now without breaking down. He just goes to pieces and I’m sure that’s not like him. Obviously he’s a man of great discipline.

  Yes yes, I understand, said the Colonel. It’s a terrible burden for Joe and he knows it full well and he knows it will always be that way. But how strange this all is…. Stern, Joe, Liffy…. The three of them coming from their various corners of the world to have their fates crossed here, in front of us. Yes….

  The clock clicked. A match was struck in the stillness. The Major smelled pipe smoke and looked up from his teacup.

  Well, what do you think?

  The Colonel puffed.

  I think I’d like to hear it all from the beginning, everything that happened out there at the Sphinx tonight. So I’ll know where I stand when I speak to Bletchley. But also, frankly, for my own reasons.

  The grayness of dawn had come to the windows by the time the Major finished his account. Both men looked exhausted as they faced each other across the kitchen table, but in fact neither one of them felt tired at all. Suddenly, the Colonel slammed his fist down on the table.

  Whatley, he exclaimed, referring to the officer who was chief of operations at the Monastery, Bletchley’s second in command.

  Whatley, he repeated angrily. It’s his doing, I’m sure of it. Bletchley must have turned the case over to him and gone on to other things, and Whatley’s had his gunmen out running around pushing people off roofs and pushing them in front of lorries and shooting up houseboats. Damn Whatley. Damnable little snit. Bletchley has always spent most of his time in the field trying to know his agents, almost compulsively conscientious about it, and what does Whatley do out there at the Monastery when he’s left in charge? What does he do, I ask you?

  The Major lowered his eyes. He had heard others speak of Whatley with disgust, but never the Colonel. Normally the Colonel was much too circumspect to speak openly of the defects of a fellow field grade officer.

  Dress-ups, hissed the Colonel. That’s Whatley’s infernal game. Leave him alone for a minute out there in the desert and he slips into a cowl and habit and ties an old piece of rope around his waist and pretends he’s a militant monk from the Dark Ages, or worse, some sort of fourth-century abbot doing battle over doctrinal disputes in the early days of Christianity. Pretends he’s plotting his way through the intricacies of the Arian controversy, or some such nonsense. Actually keeps a map on the wall showing which parts of Europe and North Africa are on the side of the angels, his side, and which parts are on the side of Arius and the devil. Lucifer and the heresiarchs in one camp, the true defenders of the faith in the other.

  Arianism and the Arian heresy today? God and His Son are the same substance? Are not the same substance? What rubbish. Go back far enough and we’re all the same substance, just so much cheese. And how did Whatley ever arrive at these grandiose delusions in the first place? Simply because Arian sounds the same as Aryan? I thought only schizophrenics and poets were supposed to be afflicted with sound-alike fantasies?

  Malicious nonsense, muttered the Colonel, all of it. Whatley and his incense and his censers and candles and his organs booming out Bach’s Mass in B Minor, and acolytes and terrified novices tiptoeing back and forth and aides passing themselves off as monks-in-waiting. Standing directives from faceless bishops and indulgences handed out in the form of overnight passes to the fleshpots of Cairo, staff rooms disguised as gloomy chapels and orders from the desert to kill. Real orders to kill from the heart of the wasteland, blandly referred to as excommunication with extreme prejudice.

  Extreme what? Madness is more like it, the vicious madness of dress-ups. What is it about men that makes them do that in wartime, or any time? Weren’t they able to get enough of it as children, this strutting and skulking and prancing around in costumes? Make-believe is horrible. War isn’t a little boy’s dress-up dreams come true. It isn’t meant to give grown men the chance to be little boys running riot in the nursery.

  The Colonel glared, fuming.

  Or at least it shouldn’t be. Damn that Whatley and his kind. Damn him to hell with his parchment maps and his toys and costumes and his incense and organ music, his monks-in-waiting tiptoeing in and out with candles. Yes Your Grace, No Your Grace, Up-my-arse-with-pleasure Your Grace. The truth is that man always wanted to live in the fourth century or whatever it is, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. Reveling in the obedience and piety and obscurantism of the Dark Ages, righteous as he can be as he piously fasts in some filthy hole beneath the Monastery which he pretends was once St Anthony’s cell, joyously having himself flagellated before he issues another righteous order of excommunication, murder in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

  Piety and power, muttered the Colonel. Self-righteous murder and that repulsive flagellation that goes with it. All power to the nursery, in our age. All power to the gruesome little boy who dizzily sniffs his forefinger and giggles over his playthings.

  The Colonel’s face grew even darker.

  And the other side’s unspeakably worse. At least we don’t honor these practices officially and make them into institutions by handing out habits as regular issue, the way the Nazis hand out black uniforms and black jackboots and death’s-head insignias. Even Whatley can’t begin to compare to that Nazi crowd with their insatiable need for blackness. They just keep lusting backward into the past until they’ve become so many packs of animals loping around in the primeval gloom. Smell blood and you snap at it. Massacre enough and the beast inside may be able to know peace for a moment or two, with the help of some Bach or Mozart of course. Slaughter enough and you have the illusion of immortality because everybody around you is dying.

  A civilized people, the Germans. Some of the finest music in the history of the species served up to soothe the beast in Western culture, a beast the Germans just happen to know a great deal about.

  Damn Germans, damn Whatley, damn. Nothing’s as simple as it used to be, or maybe it’s just the opposite. Maybe everything’s as simple as it used to be, sadly for us…. But the damn problem is, Whatley’s a good staff officer when he’s not playing his games, which is why Bletchley probably couldn’t get rid of him even if he wanted to. Whatley’s very diligent and thorough and hardworking, not unlike the Germans….

  The Colonel paused.

  I wonder why those traits always have to bring the Germans to mind today? Thorough … diligent … those traits seem to have become dangerous somehow in our century. As if there’s no room anymore for the wobbly human factor. Automatons seem to be what society wants today. By the numbers, one two three…. Whatley will even tell you he’s not a very aggressive man by nature. Just competitive….

  The Colonel paused again

  It’s true he used to be a good sportsman before he lost his right arm….

  A sudden change came over the Colonel. His chest sank and he groaned, looking more naked than ever in his mended undershirt and his faded yachting cap. He reached down to move his false leg and a look of resignation settled over his face.

  Damn, he muttered, that’s it for me. I’ve had my early morning fling at being defiant and ready for anything. From now on I take what comes and deal with it in whatever plodding way I can. Breakfast is over.

  The Colonel looked at his watch.

  Time to get cleaned up. I’ll call Bletchley as soon as I get to the office. I can’t imagine there’d be any difficulty about a meeting with Joe. Bletchley was a great fan of Colly’s after all, and it must have been Bletchley who came across Joe’s name in Stern’s file in the first place and decided to get him over here from America. Nor can it be a coincidence that he assigned Colly’s old cover to Joe, resurrecting this notion of a Purple Seven Armenian. Bletchley had to know what he was doing, and I can’t imagine he’d want to give Joe serious trouble now. Maybe he has to straighten some things out with him, but surely it can’t have anything to do with the way Whatley’s been going about matters.

/>   The Colonel rummaged around cleaning out his pipe.

  Oh by the way, Harry. I assume you had your bad ear turned this way when I was going on about Whatley a moment ago. Fellow officer and so forth.

  Didn’t hear a word, Colonel.

  Yes. Well then….

  The Major was ready to leave but he hesitated. He had the impression the Colonel wasn’t quite finished.

  Was there anything else, sir?

  The Colonel fumbled with his pipe.

  No not really. I was just …

  The Colonel glanced at the pipe in his hands and put it down on the table, an emphatic motion. There was an odd mixture of regret and wistfulness in his face, something the Major wasn’t used to. In his shapeless underwear and his old yachting cap, the Colonel suddenly looked forlorn.

  Silence, the Colonel muttered…. Why does there have to be so much silence in our lives?

  He looked up at the Major.

  Did I ever tell you I just missed being given command of the Monastery? It was the plum of course, but …

  The Major shook his head and waited. Something about the Stern case, he realized, had released a profound surge of emotion in the Colonel.

  But I didn’t get it, muttered the Colonel. It happened a few years ago. I had the background for it, that wasn’t in doubt, and I even had this new false leg as an added qualification….

  The Colonel attempted a smile, a sad expression.

  But I didn’t get it in the end. I wasn’t considered determined enough, whatever that’s supposed to mean. A polite way of saying ruthless, I suppose. So they decided to go with Bletchley even though this wasn’t the area he knew, and they gave him Whatley as a deputy because Whatley’s so thorough, and I was given the Waterboys instead. More your line, they said. Pretty much the traditional kind of operations and a much larger staff and all the ancillary services, which you can handle…. Not that Bletchley didn’t deserve the job, he did. He’s good and no one would deny he’s conscientious, and they might have been right about me when it comes to the sort of work the Monastery does. But still….

  The Colonel’s voice trailed off. He gazed down at the table and shook his head.

  Anyway, Bletchley got the Monastery and he saw a lot more of Stern after that than I did. And he also saw a good deal more of Colly, whom he seemed to take a particular liking to, and so …

  The Colonel’s hand slowly went out to the chunk of cheese on the table. He picked up a small piece, toying with it, the crumbs spilling through his fingers.

  Enigma, he thought all at once, the idea coming to him from nowhere. That’s what’s behind all of this. Somehow Stern found out about Enigma…. Of course, that was his Polish story. And Bletchley found out Stern knew and he dug Joe’s name out of Stern’s files, Colly’s brother, of course, and he got Joe over here and gave him Colly’s old identity and … But how did Bletchley find out about Stern? There’s no one here who …

  Unless Stern had told someone, thought the Colonel … and that someone had spoken to Bletchley.

  The Colonel stared at the table. If that was what had happened and Joe knew the truth, there was simply no way Bletchley could let him go now. Joe could never leave Cairo, it was out of the question. Bletchley had no choice in the matter. He would agree to a meeting and then he would have to … Well maybe they were right to have given him the job, thought the Colonel. Maybe he is better fitted for it than I am, more determined or whatever. After all, Colly’s brother….

  The Major was still standing beside the kitchen table. The Colonel glanced up at him and smiled sadly. He shrugged.

  Just my mind wandering, he said, it has nothing to do with this. Anyway, I’ll call Bletchley as soon as I get to the office and explain the situation. I’m sure he’ll agree to a meeting.

  The Major nodded eagerly.

  Very good, sir.

  Yes, well….

  The Colonel groaned and heaved himself up from the table. For a moment he stood there tottering on his false leg, getting his balance, gazing down at his books.

  Well that’s it for now, Harry, it’s time to get on with the day. And I hate to say it but I already feel as if I weighed a thousand pounds. Somehow the good things in life always seem to be over almost before we knew they were there….

  The Major was at his desk when his private telephone rang exactly at noon. He picked it up and said hello.

  A wandering minstrel here, Major. Any news of a meeting with the local pharaoh before the sun sets?

  The Major gave Joe a time and a place.

  After the sun sets, you say? Well that’s all right with me. Most of my business seems to have been conducted at night since I’ve been in Cairo. Nature of the business maybe, wouldn’t you say?

  The Major laughed, adding that he was sorry the location of the meeting wouldn’t be as dramatic as the Sphinx had been the night before.

  No, well, we can’t always have such sweeping views of the nighttide sky, now can we, Major? Life has to go on in its little ways and the Sphinx is just too big a concept for any of us to be visiting it every night. Too big and then some, too hard to understand too. An inscrutable notion after all, like life and a lot of things. Until the appointed time and place then….

  The line went dead. The Major hung up the phone and looked across the room at the Colonel, who was sitting in the corner watching him. The Colonel nodded, rose.

  That’s it, said the Colonel. We’ve done what we could and it’s up to Bletchley now.

  The Colonel went limping back to his office.

  Shameless, he thought, Harry using a private code like that right in front of me. The Sphinx, indeed. It’s easy enough to understand how he was taken with Joe, but all the same charm isn’t really what’s wanted in wartime. It turns heads….

  And abruptly an image came to the Colonel from before the war, during the Arab revolt in Palestine. An image of Colly arriving at night at a Jewish outpost manned by settlers above Galilee, near the Lebanese border, Colly turning up in one of his disguises to train the settlers and to organize what would later become the Special Night Squads of the Palmach.

  A taxi with its headlights off, its taillights on the front of the car to confuse the enemy. And Colly’s two young future deputies, Dayan and Allon, approaching the mysterious taxi and seeing a small lean figure come jumping out of the car with two rifles and a Bible and a drum, an English-Hebrew dictionary and five gallons of New England rum.

  Flair, thought the Colonel, there’s no other word for it. Colly had flair….

  He smiled at the memory, then thought of Joe and lost his smile, recalling a saying Stern had once been fond of repeating.

  The Panorama Has Moved.

  Finished, he thought. What a shame. It’s all over for Joe and Liffy died for nothing, but of course there can’t be any other resolution to the Stern case. With the secret of Enigma at the heart of it, there’s no other way. None. Bletchley can only do what has to be done. End the case and close the file with those terrible words, No surviving witnesses. But still….

  The Colonel closed his door and leaned against it, recalling the strange account of a voice that had come booming out of the Sphinx under a full moon.

  … Who knows what evil lurks in the

  hearts of men?

  Well the Sphinx surely, thought the Colonel. The Sphinx finally, but which one out of all of them was really the Sphinx in the end? Or is everyone, finally …?

  22

  Bernini’s Bag

  THEY SAT ON THE narrow shaded balcony that opened off Maud’s living room, on the far side of the building away from the fierce sinking sun, a promise of twilight gathering in the corners of the alley below.

  … and when the Major let me know there was truly a meeting on with Bletchley, said Joe, I couldn’t stop myself from doing a little dance in place for about five minutes. I tried to call you here but there was no answer, so I made my way back to the public garden where old Menelik’s crypt lies buried, and I found a shelte
red little spot to sit in the shade by the river, and that’s what I did. Just sat and watched the currents and let my mind drift.

  Joe’s hair was wet from the shower he had just taken. His left ear was newly bandaged.

  But it wasn’t just anyplace by the Nile, he went on. It was the very same spot where Strongbow and old Menelik had once spent a silent afternoon together toward the end of their long lives, just before the First World War, the place where there had once been a cheap open-air restaurant with beautiful trellises and vines and hanging flowers, with a pool where ducks paddled and a cage where peacocks squawked, that very same rendezvous where Strongbow and old Menelik and Crazy Cohen had met for their dreaming and drinking bouts on Sunday afternoons so long ago, when they were three young men starting out. A place for forty-year conversations and then some, the same spot where a famous sign had stood years later in the midst of emptiness, all by itself in a vacant lot … THE PANORAMA HAS MOVED. And I guess I got to thinking about that sign and its worlds within worlds, and before I knew it I’d just dozed off to the murmuring spell of the river.

  There hasn’t been much sleep for me lately, he added, despite my being officially dead…. A case of the restless dead, I guess you’d have to call it.

  Maud smiled.

  Was that really where the sign used to be?

  Oh that was the spot all right. Stern pointed it out to me when we were leaving the crypt that night. So I dozed off without meaning to, and by the time I woke up it was late afternoon, so I came straight here.

  The Colonel told me I might have a visitor waiting for me at home. Oh Joe, I was so excited. I was sure it meant things were going to turn out all right for you.

  And was that all he said?

  Yes, but it was enough. I knew what it meant.

  Well I’m glad you did, but it was still cryptic of him and that’s the trouble with this business. Nobody says more than he has to and you miss a lot that way. Me, I just wanted to shout because I was alive again.