Nile Shadows (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 3)

by Edward Whittemore

  It’s curious you should use those words to describe life, said Joe. I used them myself just last night when I was talking about Liffy. What an odd coincidence.

  Maud looked thoughtful, searching her memory. Suddenly she smiled.

  It’s a coincidence, but I don’t know how odd it is. We were together when we first heard those words.

  We were?

  Maud beamed, she was so pleased she had remembered. She laughed.

  Yes. It was in Jerusalem but we never knew who said it. We’d just come back from the Sinai and it was our first evening in Jerusalem and we went for a walk in the Old City. And it was crowded and noisy and so confusing after the desert, overwhelming even. Then all at once there was a great commotion in front of us and we couldn’t move. Don’t you remember?

  Joe was smiling.

  Yes, I do now.

  It had something to do with a donkey, said Maud. Either a donkey had pitched his load or kicked someone or was just braying at the sky and wouldn’t move, something like that, and right away everybody was pressing in and shouting and waving their arms and yelling in all their different languages, every conceivable kind of person, the way it is in the Old City. All those milling throngs of people who look as if they might have lived a thousand years ago or two or three thousand years ago, all of them shouting and waving their arms and yelling as if the world were coming to an end. Remember?

  Joe nodded, smiling.

  Yes.

  And that was when it happened, said Maud. It was just a voice near us, just another voice in the crowd, but there was a yearning and a reverence in the words that rose above everything else and carried to us, part prayer, part anguish, part hope. And clear somehow, so very clear…. O Jerusalem. O gift of faces, o gift of tongues … remember?

  Ah yes. Laughter and shouts and a donkey braying to the heavens and the chaos of life on every side, and a clear voice in the midst of the chaos which we could hear, the two of us just rejoicing in all of it. It was one of those beautiful moments all right, one of those rare precious moments that make it all worthwhile and should never be lost, should always be passed on…. Must always be passed on.

  So you know what I intend to do someday, Maudie? Someday I’m going to tell Bernini all about this, every last detail of it. Liffy with his miraculous disguises and Ahmad with his secret closet, and me with them in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. And going back, Strongbow with his magnifying glass for seeing through the ages and old Menelik with his underground musicales and Crazy Cohen with his back-to-back dreams in sevens, the three of them feasting away the last century in an oasis called the Panorama. And later on, Half-Crazy Cohen and Ahmad père out on the Nile with the Sisters drinking champagne from cups, of pure moonlight, and later still, Big Belle and Little Alice playing their bassoon and harpsichord in a timeless shadowy moonroom while keeping watch on the river. And David and Anna dreaming their way to Jerusalem beneath a motionless clock in the dusty back room of Cohen’s Optiks. And before them, another Cohen and another Ahmad and Stern striding down the amazing sidewalks of life, three kings of the Orient of old, the one with his oboe and the other with his dented trombone and above all Stern, that one … alone with his violin in the eye of the Sphinx in the last darkness before dawn, soaring with all our tales of tragedy and yearning.

  Rich music, Maudie, the whole of it circular and unchronicled and calmly contradictory, suggesting infinity, and the tales themselves no less preposterous than true things always are. So why not a grand collection of them for that old white canvas bag Bernini always seems to have with him over there in New York? A little of this and a little of that always carefully tucked away in that shapeless old white canvas thing, like a shopping bag of life. But maybe Bernini’s kingdom too in a way, at least that seems to be how he thinks of it. Nothing in it really, just his treasures, as he calls them…. So yes, I’d like to think of him roaming around over there in the New World someday with this legacy of tales from the Old, rich music to carry with him always, now that he’s just starting out on his journey. Things he can understand straightaway, after all. Jokes and riddles and scraps of rhymes a lad can take to heart and make his own.

  Joe laughed in the darkness.

  Yes Maudie, I do like it…. It has a ring to it, Bernini’s bag. A sound that can’t be mistaken….

  They talked of other things, the time drifting and softly slipping away in the night. They talked and fell silent and finally Joe rose and she followed him inside, where he stood looking down at her little mementos.

  You’ll take care, Joe, won’t you? You’re very precious to me.

  I know, I feel the same way, Maudie. I always have. So you take care too and someday there’ll be another time, someday after the war. I do know it, Maudie….

  He picked up her seashell, the one she had saved from the oasis on the Gulf of Aqaba where they had gone when they were young, long ago in the beginning of love. He put the seashell to his ear and listened, his eyes closed, listening and listening, then replaced it. And held her and kissed her and looked into her eyes, and was gone.

  Maud stood watching the door for a time, as if it might open again. Then she wandered back to the balcony and sat in the darkness with the seashell in her hands, gazing out at the little lights in the night and thinking of many things, a world of faces and voices welling up before her under the stars. And every so often she put the seashell to her ear and listened as Joe had done, hearing once more the soft familiar roar of the sea, the quiet murmur of waves forever caressing the worn sands of memory … breaking and washing smooth the sands … bare the shores.

  Tides echoing in the turnings of the all-healing sea. As Stern had once said, the closest we ever come to the sounds of infinity…. Echoing now from the tiny universe in her hand, these soft tides and these ancient waves of all that was and would be.

  Bernini’s bag, she thought much later, still cradling the seashell in her hands, still cherishing the shadowy whiteness of its memories against the night.

  Yes, Joe’s right, she thought. Bernini would love it if only Joe could have a chance someday to pass on those worlds he’s known. Jokes and riddles and scraps of rhymes … rich music on the shores and tales suggesting infinity…. Oh yes, Bernini would love every single whisper of it, every last whisper from a beginning that never was, to an end that will never be. If only Joe could have the chance. If only….

  For of course the Colonel had said more that afternoon than she had told Joe. The Colonel had called her into his office as she was leaving and closed the door and taken her hands in his, holding them tightly, something he had never done before. And when he had quietly spoken his few words, trying to help as best he could, she had heard the sorrow in his voice and had understood what he was telling her about Joe, and about Bletchley and what would happen now.

  … maybe tonight, Maud, we ought to think of something Liffy used to say. He used to say miracles happen all the time, it’s just that we don’t raise our eyes to look for them. Well you and I know words are easy and life never is, but Liffy knew that too and he knew it as well as anyone, but still he went on trying to look for the miracles. He always tried to see more and feel more, and so for him, miracles did happen all the time. They did….

  In the darkness of her balcony, Maud suddenly pushed away her tears and held up her seashell to the stars, whispering.

  It’s yours. It’s a part of you too and so is Bernini, and so is Joe. And how I wish …

  23

  Nile Echoes

  AN EMPTY STREET CORNER with a single streetlamp casting a small circle of weak light. A distant clock striking the hour.

  Five minutes passed.

  A rickety old-fashioned delivery van came rattling out of the darkness, so old it might once have served as an ambulance in the First World War, so dilapidated it might once have been on permanent tour through the rutted back streets of greater Cairo, its bell clanging pied-piperly, its large awkward owner wistfully offering freshly cooked fish and
chips at modest and movable prices.

  The small van came sputtering in from the night, its cream-colored side panels recently painted to obliterate any hint of that bright green lettering that had once announced the approach of the fabled Ahmadmobile. The van shuddered and heaved to a stop in the shadows beyond the corner, near a darkened colonnade that ran the length of a block of shops. A small man, no more than a shadow himself, came ducking out of the colonnade and quickly slipped into the van beside the driver.

  Bletchley nodded, keeping both hands on the steering wheel.

  Evening, he said.

  Evening, said Joe.

  A match suddenly flared, illuminating the interior of the driver’s cab. Joe lighting a cigarette.

  There’s no one in back, murmured Bletchley, still staring straight ahead.

  I can see that, said Joe, but I was doing it more for the sake of your posse scattered up and down the street. Who in God’s name do they think I am anyway? Some desperado from Tombstone out to hijack the Suez Canal? I’ve never seen such elaborate precautions.

  Perilous times, murmured Bletchley.

  And I believe it, and that’s why I lit the match. So your cavalry could see I’m empty-handed and not holding a sword over your head, heaven help us. Sword of justice, I guess they’d call it in Tombstone.

  Bletchley snorted noisily and threw back his head, breaking into a braying sound…. Bletchley’s laughter, Joe reminded himself. Bletchley’s infernal laughter.

  What do you call that, Joe? Monastery humor?

  Joe stared at him.

  Well I never have before but now might be the time to start. In fact I should’ve thought of that when Liffy was still alive, ho ho ho…. Gallows humor, you say, Liffy? No I was referring to something much blacker than that, so black it’s the very heart of blackness. I mean Monastery humor, Liffy, the pitiless kind….

  So what do you think, Bletchley? Would it sell in the Christian provinces or would good Christians like the Germans rather not hear about it? Would they rather ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist except as an aberration, yours and mine, I mean? But maybe we could get a laugh or two if we worked up a song-and-dance routine to go with it? A gaggle of jokes we could put together in the empty railway waiting rooms where we pass our lives deep in the night? Or in a concentration camp, maybe? … Liffy jokes, we could call them. Yes? No? Too black altogether for good Christians? Or only when Nazis are massacring Jews, maybe? Or only if you and I are Jews, maybe?

  Bletchley was suddenly angry.

  You must know none of this has turned out the way I planned.

  No? Well I’m certainly glad to hear it, Bletchley. I certainly wouldn’t like to think any of this had been planned. Because if it had been, it could only mean God’s been off in a different part of the universe these last ten or twenty thousand years, which could only mean He doesn’t spend all His time mulling over the grand sweep of human affairs on our little planet, unlike the rest of us.

  We’ll talk about it later, Bletchley said angrily.

  He shifted gears and the van lurched forward.

  They pulled up beside the Nile in the moonlight, near a small pier thrusting out into the river. It seemed to be a warehouse district, an area of deserted streets and squat windowless buildings, all of them dark. Bletchley switched off the engine and began wiping the skin around his bulky black eye patch, folding and refolding his handkerchief.

  I’ll just be a moment, he murmured, his face averted. Joe watched him. He shook his head.

  It must be next to impossible driving with only one eye.

  It is.

  But how do you manage it at all?

  Bletchley glanced at him, then turned away.

  Like anybody else with what they have to live with. Not very well and as best I can. You just keep trying to make some sense out of the flat picture you’re given, which is too flat and never enough, especially when it comes to people suddenly appearing in front of you. You can memorize a street with its buildings, but you can’t memorize people. There are too many of them. And anyway, they’re always changing their sizes and shapes.

  Bletchley finished cleaning around his empty eye socket and put his handkerchief away. He looked at Joe, averted his gaze.

  Let’s step outside for a minute.

  Bletchley climbed out of the van and walked a few feet on the sandy gravel. He stopped, waiting for Joe, gazing out at the Nile. Joe noticed that Bletchley had closed the door very quietly behind him. Once they were out in the night the two of them strolled forward in a natural way toward the river. They crossed onto the pier and strolled out to its end, where they stood side by side looking down at the water. Joe nudged a pebble over the edge with his foot.

  You barely make a sound when you close a door. Why is that?

  Bletchley stirred.

  What? Oh habit, I suppose.

  Joe nodded. He looked back at the dark buildings and the empty streets and whistled softly.

  What’s that? asked Bletchley.

  Just me whistling in the dark, said Joe. This looks like the kind of place where a man might be taken to walk the plank, but of course you didn’t bring me out here for that, at least I don’t think so…. Are we going to be here for a bit, do you suppose? I’d like to sit down. I’m exhausted.

  Of course.

  Joe sighed wearily and sat down on the end of the pier with his legs dangling over the edge. Bletchley sat down beside him and took a flask from his pocket. He drank, swallowed, wiped the corner of his mouth with his hand. He held out the flask to Joe.

  Brandy.

  Thanks.

  Joe took a drink, coughed, took a longer one.

  Not only brandy but the real stuff for a change. Not that I’m complaining about the Arab variety, you understand. Any oasis in a sandstorm, as we bedouin say. But the real stuff does have a way of not slashing your throat on the way down. Smooth is what it is, like a trackless path in the desert. Or like a felucca coming around in the wind on a clear night on the Nile. A reassuring motion after all. See that one out there?

  He drank again and handed the flask back to Bletchley, who put it down on the worn boards between them.

  And it is a clear night too, said Joe. Ahmad used to find it amusing the way I mention the weather. It’s always the same here, he used to say.

  Bletchley stared straight ahead. Abruptly, he passed his hand over the side of his face, as if brushing something away.

  I’ll give you the important details first, he said.

  Joe nodded, then all at once sagged forward.

  Are you all right? asked Bletchley.

  Yes. Exhausted, that’s all. Tired deep down.

  Bletchley looked at him again, quickly, a nervous motion. He spoke in a low voice.

  You’ll be leaving by plane tonight for England. You won’t stop there. You’ll be put on another plane for Canada and when you get to Canada you’ll disappear. But there’s a proviso.

  Only to be expected, said Joe. If there weren’t, we’d be in a better world. What’s the proviso?

  Bletchley stared straight ahead. You’re dead, he said in a quiet voice. A. O. Gulbenkian is dead, which means the agent who was using that cover is dead.

  Joe fumbled for a cigarette.

  Forever, added Bletchley, officially and unofficially. So far as the Waterboys and the Monastery are concerned, so far as London is concerned, so far as everybody is concerned.

  Joe’s hands were trembling. He gripped his knees and looked down at the water.

  How’d I die, did you say?

  In a fire. There’s been a fire.

  Oh.

  Bletchley reached inside his jacket and pulled out several sheets of folded paper. He handed them to Joe, who leaned over to peer at them. With the moon and the reflections off the water, there was just enough light to make out the typed words.

  At the top of the first sheet of paper there was a printed heading, the name and address of a Cairo news agency. The typed copy was in
the form of a news story, marked for immediate release.

  A fire had broken out in the Coptic Quarter of Old Cairo, destroying a small run-down hotel, the Hotel Babylon. The fire was thought to have started in the tiny cluttered courtyard behind the hotel, where the desk clerk, neighbors reported, had recently been in the habit of sitting up late at night beside a small campfire, along with the only guest who had been staying in the hotel during recent weeks.

  The courtyard had been strewn with old newspapers and other inflammable debris. It was assumed a spark had settled into the debris and caused it to smolder until after the desk clerk and his guest had retired for the night, when a fire had broken out and ignited the decaying old structure just before dawn, quickly raging out of control and burning the hotel to the ground.

  Fortunately, no other buildings had been damaged due to the alarm sounded by an alert neighbor, a retired belly dancer up the street who for the last thirty years or so had risen every morning before dawn to go in search of fresh chickens, which she roasted and sold locally to support herself.

  Two men had perished in the fire, the desk clerk and his solitary guest, both of whose bodies had been recovered.

  The desk clerk, a longtime employee of the hotel and an astute observer of the Cairo social scene, had been known as Ahmad the Poet on his little street, itself known colloquially as the rue Clapsius, a mere shadowy byway of an alley and a short stroll to nowhere. Yet although it led nowhere, it was also the place where a good part of nineteenth-century Cairo was said to have acquired an incurable dose of nostalgia during the long lazy siesta hours of yesteryear. This desk clerk’s finely tuned social sense was the result of a thoughtful scrutiny of the Cairo scene over the years, particularly on Saturday evenings, which Ahmad the Poet was known to have devoted to undisturbed meditations on the roof of the Hotel Babylon. There in the darkness he had studied the city through a spyglass, aided by melancholy surges of music conjured up on an ancient dented trombone.

  It was further recalled that the poet, Ahmad fils, had been a fiercely loyal supporter of Ahmad père’s idealistic nineteenth-century political cause, the Movement, a loosely spun Old World organization which had fearlessly advocated social progress from the there and the then, defying all opposition, in the general direction of the here and the now.