Nile Shadows (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 3)

by Edward Whittemore

  Maud laughed.

  Can I get you something to eat? she asked. You must be starved.

  I must be, but I don’t feel it. I think I might have a drink though.

  Have it then. Do you want me to get it?

  No, don’t bother yourself, I can manage. Where do you keep it?

  In the kitchen. In the cabinet over the broom closet.

  Swept away, said Joe, and disappeared inside.

  Maud heard the cabinet door bang in the kitchen. It swelled and stuck sometimes in the heat, and then flew back against the wall unless you were expecting it. She heard Joe muttering to himself. Glass clinked and there was the sound of ice being broken out of an ice tray.

  I forgot to mention the cabinet door, she said when he came back.

  Joe smiled.

  It makes a racket all right when there’s somebody as clumsy as me around. It just goes to show I’m not cut out for this kind of work. The moment I feel a little safe I go crashing around as if I didn’t have a care in the world.

  He took a long drink from his glass and sat down on the low wall of the balcony. Maud was bent over her knitting. She spoke without looking up.

  You seem to drink a lot.

  I do, yes.

  Does it help?

  Yes, I’m afraid it does.

  Well that’s good then, I guess.

  No it isn’t, Maudie, it’s a kind of weakness surely, but it eases things. So often the world seems such a dark and unyielding place that anything that stills the whispers inside seems to have its uses, even when you know it’s a false quiet.

  Could you stop, do you think?

  If I had to. Human beings seem to be able to do about anything if they have to. Even those things they’re doing right now out in the desert.

  Maud bent her head, a sudden uneasiness coming over her. She was trying not to let him see her concern, but he felt it anyway.

  Are you really sure Bletchley’s going to let you leave?

  Not sure, no, but it seems likely. If it were going to be otherwise I don’t think he’d be handling it like this, giving me the afternoon off and telling your Colonel to give you the afternoon off, too.

  But you said he’s having you followed again.

  Just company, Maudie. I suppose Bletchley doesn’t want anything to happen to me between now and tonight. Besides, I was the one who gave him the opportunity by going back near Menelik’s crypt, which I knew he’d be having watched. I didn’t have to do that.

  Why did you then?

  So he’d know where I was today and know there was nothing to worry about.

  But why didn’t you just stay out of sight until tonight?

  Well for one thing, I wouldn’t have been able to see you then. And anyway, it seemed like the time had come to get some things out in the open. After the way the Major went on last night about Stern and Colly, Colly in particular, it just didn’t seem that Bletchley would have gone to all the trouble it must have taken to get me over here, just to do me in in the end.

  But does the Major’s opinion count? Does it really matter that he happens to have such a high regard for Colly’s memory? Bletchley may feel very differently about it. About everything.

  He may, but I doubt it.

  But how can you be sure?

  I can’t.

  Well I don’t like it, Joe. It frightens me. Bletchley has a reputation for being very single-minded.

  As well he should be, in a job like that.

  But people say he’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants.

  I know, he told me so himself once. He said he’d do anything to defeat the Germans. Anything, and he meant it.

  But couldn’t that mean you’re still in danger?

  I don’t think so. Bletchley has always treated me in a certain way, which I can respect, and besides, there comes a time when you have to trust somebody. You play it alone as best you can for as long as you can, and then finally you have to come out and say, Look, this is all there is. This is all I am and I can’t do anymore. Eventually that time comes, and I know it and Bletchley knows it and it’s just that simple in the end.

  It doesn’t sound simple, said Maud in a low voice. Nothing about it sounds simple to me.

  Joe watched her affectionately as she bent over her knitting needles. It was the second or third time she had brought it up…. Was it going to be all right? Was he going to be able to leave Cairo? Why would Bletchley let him go after all the things that had happened?

  And of course Joe understood her concern. He knew she couldn’t share the relief he felt, because she hadn’t been through what he had experienced since his arrival in Cairo. For him, something was coming to an end and there was a finality about it, and the inevitable calm that brought. But not so for Maud. Stern was dead and that was final, but the other parts of her life were still the same. It was all just as precarious for her as it had been a day or a month or a year ago, and their son Bernini was still in America and none of that had changed, and there was no finality, no ending. It looked now as if Joe would be able to escape and that was wonderful, a blessing, but everything else was still the same for her.

  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 t
hem 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 alleys 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.