Nile Shadows jq-3

by Edward Whittemore

  Joe gazed down at the crumbling stone at his feet.

  Major? I need you to help me. Will you do that?

  If I can.

  Good. I'll call you at noon. You won't be able to speak freely on the phone, but if you use the word Sphinx when we talk, I'll take it to mean there really is a meeting on with Bletchley. And if you don't use the word, no matter what you say, I'll take it to mean there's not going to be any meeting and I'm being set up to be killed. . . . All right? Just between the two of us?

  Yes.

  Joe talked then about many things, but especially about Stern and himself and Liffy. Finally he rose and put out his hand.

  In any case, Major, I appreciate you coming here no matter how it turns out, and I'm glad we had a chance to listen to the Delphic oracle in the moonglow and hear what the Sphinx had to say, and refresh ourselves by recalling Colly and Stern and Liffy. Things do have a way of being passed along, don't they?

  Despite even adverse winds and sunspots. Well then. . . .

  Joe slipped down to the ground and was quickly gone in the darkness, leaving the Major naked of weapons and lost in thought.

  . . . Liffy impersonating Joe at the houseboat and his reasons for doing so . . . Joe's mysterious connections with Stern and others over the years . . . Liffy's feelings for Stern and . . .

  But what does it all mean? wondered the Major, gazing up at the calm and battered face of the Sphinx.

  ***

  A light burned in the back of the Colonel's bungalow. The Major went in through the gate and walked down the path to the kitchen door, where he rapped lightly. A voice was humming inside. The door opened.

  Morning, Harry.

  Morning, sir.

  Cup of tea?

  Thank you.

  He sat at the small kitchen table, his head tipped sideways under an overhanging shelf, while the Colonel busied himself at the other end of the room near the stove. Tipsy unpainted cupboards made from packing-case lumber lurched along the crowded walls of the narrow kitchen, products of the Colonel's fondness for carpentry in his off-duty hours. Every shelf in the cluttered kitchen was askew and the cabinet doors all hung ajar, unable to close. The unpainted kitchen table was heaped with the Colonel's customary assortment of scholarly books on early Islamic calligraphy, medieval Jewish mysticism, the Bahai sect, Persian miniatures, Jerusalem at the time of the Second Temple, archeological finds in central Anatolia. A plate of muffins was squeezed in beside the books and the Major pinched one.

  Harder than a paw of the Sphinx, he thought. The Colonel, happily banging around in the corner, interrupted his humming to call out over his shoulder.

  Piece of cheese to go with your muffin, Harry?

  No thank you, sir.

  The Colonel came ambling over and cups and saucers clattered down on the table. He wandered off once more and the Major just had time to pluck the wing of a fly out of his cup before the Colonel came ambling back with the teapot, still merrily humming to himself and doing a sort of bearish dance as he slowly shuffled up and down the narrow room on his false leg.

  One step forward and a feint to the side, two steps backward and a feint to the side. Feint and shuffle and one and two, the Colonel turning around to make some backward headway and sidling up to the table more or less rumpside first. One step forward and two steps backward.

  The Colonel's Bolshie Trot, as it was called, after Lenin's famous description of the backward advance of historical necessity in a world that seemed to care nothing at all about necessity, historical or otherwise, and preferred to do its advancing hindside first, as the Colonel said, both for protection and in order to keep its eye on the past. A dance indulged in by the Colonel only before breakfast and late at night, rarely, when he had drunk too much brandy.

  In his hand the Colonel was carrying a chunk of hard white decaying matter, greasy and crumbling. A vague smile drifted across his face as he popped a piece of it into his mouth and stood beside the table, swaying on his false leg, gazing down at his hand.

  Cheese, he muttered, chewing thoughtfully. Do you realize that's what we all must have looked like once upon a time, back when the protein molecules were getting started on this bit of stray matter we call the earth? Makes you think all right, doesn't it. Did you say you wanted a piece, Harry?

  I think not.

  No? Well the truth is breakfast has always been my best meal. Any old thing in the cupboard tastes delicious and the first pipe tastes delicious and I'm ready to take on the world. But then a half-hour later I begin to creak and wheeze and feel as if I weighed a thousand pounds, and that's it for me for the day.

  Cheese to cheese. Makes you think all right.

  The Colonel hadn't gotten around to dressing yet. He was wearing huge baggy underdrawers that hung down to his knees and one khaki sock, on his real foot, with a large hole in the toe. His undershirt was so poorly darned in so many places it gave his upper torso the appearance of a mass of poorly healed wounds. A faded old yachting cap was perched on the side of his head, and even though most of his body was covered, he looked far more naked than any unmutilated man ever could.

  Feint and shuffle, one and two. Humming happily, the Colonel sat down at the table.

  Nice out, Harry?

  Clear, cool, no wind.

  Lovely, yes. Best time of the day really. People haven't had time to muck up the camp and the air's sweet and everything tastes delicious. Later it's all just one stale pipe. No cheese for you?

  Not at the moment, thank you.

  No? Well the tea's almost ready. Been out for an early turn in the desert, have you?

  The Major nodded, waiting. The Colonel maneuvered his false leg into a more comfortable position and poured tea. After they had added sugar and stirred, and sipped, the Colonel fell to studying the plate of muffins on the table. He pinched one.

  Hm. I thought I'd picked those up this week, but it must have been last week.

  The Colonel glanced at one of the open books on the table and raised his eyes.

  Well now. You've been to consult the Sphinx?

  He's Colly's brother, the Major blurted out.

  What?

  Colly's brother, repeated the Major. Our Colly's younger brother.

  The Colonel's eyes lit up.

  Is that true?

  Yes.

  What's his name?

  Joe. Joe O'Sullivan Beare. He still uses the full family name. From the Aran Islands by way of a dozen years in Palestine and more recently a tour in America as the shaman of an Indian tribe in the Southwest.

  He seems to know everyone from his days in Palestine. Stern and Maud and all kinds of people Stern used to work with years ago. I haven't heard of most of them but you probably have.

  The Colonel's eyes flickered brightly.

  Well well well, and here's more than a chapter or two from the past turning up unexpectedly. . . Colly's brother, of all people. What's he like?

  Nimble, speaks quickly sometimes, seems to have an odd way of expressing himself. It's hard to describe.

  The Colonel beamed.

  As if things were a bit off-balance, perhaps? As if you were in a small boat at sea and the sky and the land and the water were all moving around? Up, down, sideways, never quite still?

  The Major nodded eagerly.

  That's it exactly. As if nothing were ever able to find a safe place for itself.

  The Colonel laughed.

  Colly, on the nose. His brother must be just like him.

  And there's also something strange about the way he views time, continued the Major. It seems to be all of a piece to him with no past and present and future particularly, just one big sea with us upon it. The dead, for example. No one seems to be really dead to him. But it's not as if they were still out there somewhere, or off somewhere, it's very different from that. It's much more concrete and seems to do with thinking of them as being within us, a part of us, not dead in that sense. Alive because we've known them and therefore they're a
part of us.

  Hm. You had that feeling with Colly sometimes, but not as much as with his brother, apparently.

  The Colonel smiled.

  You were taken with him, weren't you?

  I suppose I was.

  Yes, well, it's not surprising. Colly was a man of great charm. There was something out of the ordinary to him, another dimension. And if his brother is like him only more so, and meeting him for the first time at the Sphinx as you did, under a full moon . . .

  The Colonel broke off, humming happily to himself.

  Colly's brother, he murmured. How astonishing.

  He gazed down at the crumbling piece of cheese in his hand.

  Yes, curious. What does he want?

  A meeting with Bletchley.

  That's all?

  Yes, that's all. He says Bletchley has a standing order out to kill him, so he can't arrange a meeting by himself.

  Bletchley? A standing order to kill Colly's brother?

  Yes, and Liffy's already dead. Killed because he was mistaken for Joe.

  The Colonel was shocked.

  What?

  Yes.

  But that's not right. That's not right at all.

  It certainly isn't. And Ahmad is also dead. The desk clerk at the Hotel Babylon.

  Ahmad? But he was a delightful fellow, perfectly harmless. What's going on here?

  And a young man named Cohen, said the Major. David Cohen.

  Of the Cairo Cohens? Cohen's Optiks?

  Yes. He was a Zionist agent apparently, and a close friend of Stern.

  Well of course he was a friend of Stern, all the Cohens were. That goes way back to Stern's father's time. But what in God's name is going on here? Has Bletchley lost his mind? How could his men have mistaken Liffy for Joe?

  It seems Liffy was passing himself off as Joe. On purpose.

  Why?

  To give Joe time to recover after the hand-grenade explosion and Stern's death. To give Joe time, a chance, to save himself.

  The Colonel frowned.

  Why did Liffy do that?

  Because Joe knew Stern so well and Liffy felt Stern's life was. . . what shall I say? Of great importance somehow. More important to him, to Liffy, than anything else. Even more important than his own life.

  Is that true?

  Yes.

  And Ahmad and young Cohen? Why were they killed?

  Because they'd talked to Joe about something, or at least the Monastery thought they had.

  The Colonel frowned deeply and poked at his pipe, his mouth working. The Major had no idea what connections with the past he was making, and he knew it was useless to ask. Finally the Colonel heaved himself forward and planted both elbows on the table.

  So Liffy sacrificed himself in order to save Joe, is that it?

  Yes.

  But why? What's it got to do with Stern? I don't understand what you're trying to tell me.

  Well I don't have it too clearly in my own mind yet. But it seems that above and beyond whatever Joe was trying to find out about Stern, above and beyond all that, it seems Liffy felt that Stern, Stern's life . . .

  Well it's hard to describe without sounding mystical.

  The Colonel's tone was suddenly curt, impatient.

  Never mind how it sounds, Harry. Just say it.

  Well it seems Liffy felt there was some kind of special significance to Stern's life. In his peculiar background and his sufferings and his failures, in the ambiguities and paradoxes of the man. That just all of it, everything having to do with Stern, added up to a different kind of life. Something more than . . .

  The Major gazed into his teacup.

  . . . It's almost as if to them, to Joe and Liffy and the other people Joe spoke of . . . almost as if Stern's life is a kind of tale of all our hopes and failures. Living and trying as he did, failing and dying as he did.

  Ideals that may lead to disaster and yet still contain within them . . . Oh I don't know what.

  A clock clicked in the stillness. The Colonel reached out and touched the Major's arm, a kindly gesture.

  Never be afraid how anything sounds, Harry. A good deal of what's in these books of mine could be called mystical, or could have been once. It's just another word we use for things we don't understand very well, things we don't understand. To somebody else those same things might be commonplace, as routine as the most routine matters are to us. People have different realities, as Stern used to say, and there are many of them going on simultaneously for all of us, and the fact that one is true doesn't make any of the others less true. . . . As for Stern, he was a man who had a powerful effect on anyone who knew him. You instinctively felt great affection for him, even love, you couldn't help it. Yet at the same time there was a kind of indefinable fear you knew when you were with him, a fear that seemed to come from being in the presence of emotions so profoundly contradictory they could never be resolved.

  Something suggestive of the eternal conflicts in man, the mixture of the divine and the profane, holiness crossed with our dark natures and all of it pushed, pushed . . . because that's the man Stern was. . . .

  The Colonel nodded. He leaned back and went to work on his pipe.

  You were saying, Harry?

  Well that's all, really. Liffy felt Joe had to live on as a witness to Stern's life. As Liffy himself expressed it to Joe, so that one man at least would know, no matter what the war brings . . .

  A witness, murmured the Colonel. Yes, I see. And of course at the time Liffy said that, Joe didn't realize what Liffy was telling him? What Liffy intended to do?

  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 A
rian 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 disguished 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.