And although Ahmad fils had been in seclusion for decades, maintaining his privacy over bouts of solitaire and infusions of opera, he had once enjoyed a stunning reputation as a wildly charismatic figure in Cairo society, both in his professional duties as an interior decorator and in his more unpredictable role as an all-around boulevardier and dandy.
In particular, the poet was remembered for having served as the powerful stroke, and captain, of a racing crew of Cairo dragomen who had triumphantly swamped a racing shell rivered by the British naval establishment back before the First World War, the only time that astounding feat had ever been accomplished by an all-Egyptian crew, in what had been known in those days as the Annual Battle for the Fleshpots of the Nile.
In addition, Ahmad the Poet had once been famous for having introduced the racing tricycle to Cairo, around the turn of the century.
Sadly, it was Ahmad the Poet’s fondness for recalling the remarkable exploits of his past glories, in the form of old newspaper stories, that had probably caused the hotel to ignite so quickly. Reference was made to a large closet just off the hotel lobby, a small room really, which had been heaped from floor to ceiling with dusty yellowing newspapers, none of them less than thirty years out of date. This closet had become a brilliant torch when the fire reached it, causing the hotel to consume itself instantly in a towering pillar of the purest white smoke.
Little was known about the other victim, the lone guest in the hotel at the time of the fire. Through information routinely filed on all foreigners at local police stations, he was identified as a commercial traveler of Armenian extraction, a dealer in Coptic artifacts by the name of A. O. Gulbenkian, who had worn false teeth.
There was no further mention of the commercial traveler. But it was noted that an anonymous group of public-spirited Cairenes, calling themselves the Friends of Ahmad, had taken up a subscription to provide their once-renowned social leader with a proper funeral and full memorial services.
The former belly dancer up the street was acting as director general, coordinator, and secretary-treasurer of this anonymous ad hoc group.
Addresses and dates were given.
Joe took a deep breath. For several minutes he sat with the sheets of paper in his lap, gazing down at the river. Finally he handed them back to Bletchley and took a roll of money out of his pocket. He found the bill he was looking for and gave it to Bletchley.
For the Friends of Ahmad, he said.
Bletchley looked down at the bill—one hundred Greek drachmas. He turned it over without thinking—ten thousand Albanian leks. He glanced up at Joe.
I know, said Joe, it’s not much but it’s all I have at the moment. And anyway, Ahmad would appreciate it. Behind that dour exterior of his, if you could find the secret panel in his wall of defenses, there was always a droll sense of humor lurking inside.
Suddenly, Joe shuddered. His voice sank to a whisper.
Was there really a second body in the ruins?
Yes.
Liffy wore false teeth.
Yes.
And no service for Gulbenkian, I suppose.
He wasn’t that kind of man, said Bletchley. Gulbenkian was in transit here, just passing through. No one knew him.
No.
And if no one knew him, there can’t be anyone to provide him with a service.
No, murmured Joe, it would only look strange, suspicious. He was just passing through after all.
Joe turned away from Bletchley and wiped his eyes, his head sinking lower.
Well if that’s it for Gulbenkian’s remains, he whispered, could you tell me what happened to that man Liffingsford-Ivy who used to work around here? A movable prop, he called himself. The local illusionist.
Bletchley stared straight ahead.
He’s been reported missing while on assignment in the desert, said Bletchley. We’ve lost a great many of our intelligence agents like that, it’s absolute chaos out there. Whole battalions just disappear. Back here, for convenience, we call it a line, a front, but it’s not like that at all. Everybody’s mixed up with everybody else and it’s shifting all the time, a unit here and stragglers there, ours and theirs, back and forth and God knows where. There aren’t even any sides out there. Just thirsty exhausted men covered with burns from their own weapons, fighting in any direction they can with no idea where they are, just men fighting desperately and going nowhere. Or wounded and dying in the terrible sun, lying where a shell or a mine went off, one of our shells or one of theirs, one of our mines or one of theirs…. The sand blows all night and buries everything except the burning tanks by morning, and the twisted skeletons of the other vehicles. It even covers open eyes by morning, but the one thing it can never cover is the smell, the stench. Radios sit all alone crackling, speaking to no one…. This is Coventry, come in please…. You can be in a place so desolate it might as well be the end of the earth and suddenly there’s a whine shrieking across the sky and the ground shakes and the intolerable silence descends as you wait, as you count, one two three … You drive over a ridge and all at once there are hands reaching out of the sand, out of nothing, hands grasping and reaching … just hands. Rigid hands. The fingers fallen and broken, too weak, too frail, and it’s horrible…. It’s just horrible.
I knew him, whispered Joe, hunched over and sobbing as Bletchley stared straight ahead at the river.
The felucca in the distance came around into the wind. Bletchley stirred.
Shall I finish with the details?
Yes, said Joe, I guess you’d better…. I’m dead. What comes after that?
Once you leave here there won’t be any stopovers, as I mentioned. You’ll be traveling under a temporary cover that’s only good for the trip. When you get to Canada you’ll disappear, and then you’ll have to begin working out a new identity for yourself. A new history and a new background, everything.
Yes.
I could help you but it wouldn’t be as safe as doing it on your own. And anyway, I can’t imagine you’d need my help with that.
No, I’ll make do.
But understand, Joe, I mean a new real name and a new real history and background to go with it. The real Joseph O’Sullivan Beare, born in the Aran Islands on April 15, 1900, died in a fire in Cairo in June 1942.
Joe nodded.
And so he did … and so he did.
Our records will show that, continued Bletchley, and that’s what the report to London will say, and the reports London will send to Washington and Ottawa. The Stern case is closed and everybody who was connected with it in any knowledgeable way has been accounted for. The case is closed and there are no surviving witnesses.
Yes, I can see that.
So this has to be an absolute agreement between the two of us, Joe. No one else inside will know the truth but me, and therefore I have to be able to count on you completely….
Bletchley paused.
Completely, he repeated.
Joe looked at him.
How can I assure you of that?
By telling me, said Bletchley. If you know you can do it, you’ll tell me so. If you have any doubts, you’ll tell me that.
Joe shook his head.
No, no doubts. I can do it and you can count on me.
All right, I will count on you then.
Joe nodded. He waited but Bletchley seemed to have finished. Let it go, thought Joe, for God’s sake let it be. He’s going way out of his way and doing an enormous amount to make this possible, so just let it be and don’t push him…. But Joe couldn’t let it be. He moved his legs and let his feet swing, gazing down at the water.
You said there would be … there are, no surviving witnesses to the Stern case. What about the Sisters?
The Sisters weren’t connected to the Stern case, said Bletchley. The two of them are half as old as time and they live on the Nile and maybe they are the Nile, and for all I know they haven’t spoken to anyone but the Sphinx in decades. And for all anybody knows they’ll outlive your grand
children and Stern’s grandchildren and they’ll still be around when the Sphinx is turning to dust. They knew Stern over the years, I imagine, but over the years they’ve known just about everybody on every side of any war, so that doesn’t connect them specifically to the Stern case. Their concerns aren’t the same as mine, or as yours and Stern’s used to be.
Yes, whispered Joe. I can see that.
Joe hesitated. Damn, he thought. Why can’t we ever let good enough alone? Why do we have this incurable need for answers?
Again Joe swung his feet, gazing down at the water.
You said no one else inside would know the truth. Does that include Maud? I wasn’t sure whether you consider her inside or not.
I don’t, said Bletchley. Not really, but I was going to mention that. I intend to speak to Maud privately, after you leave. I feel she has to know the truth, that you’re not dead, I mean. I don’t think it could work otherwise. But even so, you mustn’t try to contact her or anyone else you know out here, after you get back. It has to be all or nothing, Joe, and that still holds no matter what identity you adopt for yourself and no matter how plausible it might be for the man in that new identity to get in touch with Maud in one way or another, or with anyone else. There are people who might be interested and I don’t want them to have the least justification for being interested. Private suspicions and private conjectures are one thing. But a cause for suspicion is something else.
Yes.
I’m thinking now of people who are on the inside and have access to files. People who became involved in this and shouldn’t have been, or people who simply might be curious for their own reasons. I’m referring to the Major from the Waterboys whom you met, and to his superior the Colonel, and I’m also referring to Whatley. They’re all professionals, and good ones, but they should be allowed to forget these incidents so they can move on to other things.
Yes, I can see that.
And I’m not being sentimental when I say Maud has to know you’re alive or it wouldn’t work. I feel she has to know for security reasons. Because if she didn’t, I don’t see how she could keep from trying to find it out somehow, and that could cause trouble. Not because of where she is in her job exactly, but because of connections she has.
Yes. I know how close she and the Major are, by the way. She told me.
I wasn’t going to mention that, said Bletchley. There didn’t seem to be any reason to.
There wasn’t, not for you. I only mentioned it so you’d know I really do understand what it means in terms of security, and the agreement between you and me.
Joe hesitated.
This isn’t your concern, I know, but what about Bernini in New York?
Bletchley shook his head. He looked out at the river and shook his head again.
I’ve thought about that, Joe, and I don’t know what to say. Out here, tonight, New York seems very far away from the war, and Bernini isn’t involved with the war and he’s never going to become involved. So on the face of it there wouldn’t seem to be any reason why you and Bernini … But damn it, look at it the other way, Joe. We have to consider everything and Harry knows about Bernini, and we don’t know what might become of that, Harry and Maud, I mean, so there again, it’s just too dangerous now. Your death and all the rest of it has to be absolutely secure and certain with not a shred of evidence to the contrary. After all, we’re talking about something that comes before everything else. Before everything else. So perhaps someday, after the war’s over … if it ever is….
Bletchley shook his head, perplexed, saddened.
Anyway, I don’t see what you could say to Bernini now, how you could explain anything to him. I mean … well forgive me, but from what I understand he’s not the kind of boy, young man, who could take this in. How could he even begin to make any sense out of Monks and Waterboys in Egypt, or a mysterious houseboat on the Nile, or the Sphinx speaking to Harry on a clear night and what that means. Forgive me, Joe, but I don’t see how Bernini could even begin to make any sense out of any of it.
Joe smiled.
Either that or he’d make better sense out of it than we do.
Joe?
No, it’s all right. I do understand and you’re right of course, and it’ll be as you say. Maud will have to let him know I died in a fire….
Only he won’t believe it, thought Joe. Not him, not for a moment. But that’s all right. The two of us will have a chance to straighten out matters someday. After the war. Someday….
Bletchley glanced at his watch. He picked up the flask of brandy.
We still have a little time, he said, uncomfortable all at once, an uneasy tone in his voice.
He took a drink from the flask and passed it to Joe.
I don’t know, he said, I don’t know whether … you want to talk about any other things.
What happened, you mean?
Yes.
Well maybe just in passing. Maybe there are a couple of things.
As you like, Joe. I’ll tell you what I can, and what I can’t tell you, I won’t.
Joe touched Bletchley on the arm and Bletchley turned away from the river to face him.
There’s one thing that’s been troubling me, said Joe. It has to do with Stern. I was wondering if there was any way he could have known where that hand grenade was going to go off? And when?
Deep lines appeared in Bletchley’s forehead and he smiled in an arrogant manner, his good eye bulging, a twisted smirking expression.
Surprise, Joe reminded himself. Bletchley’s face of surprise.
What do you mean? asked Bletchley. I don’t think I understand. How could Stern have known that?
Someone might have told him, said Joe.
Who?
You.
Bletchley’s one eyebrow slipped lower and the lines in his forehead disappeared. His expression became one of cunning. Devious, cruel, scheming.
Regret, Joe reminded himself. Bletchley’s face of sadness and regret.
Bletchley found it so difficult to answer he almost stuttered.
… me?
Yes, you. You admired him and you might have done that for him. He was finished after all and he knew that, and you did, so you might have helped him out by telling him where and when. So he wouldn’t have to think about it and could go on to other things, and settle his affairs in a way.
I don’t understand. What affairs did he s-s-s-settle?
Oh, with Maud, say. He was with her the night before he was killed and he told her a great many things he never had before, and it was a summing up of sorts and a final parting, he made that clear enough. They sat up together by the pyramids and then he took a photograph of her at dawn. Maud robust and smiling for him on his final day, framed between the Sphinx and the pyramids, a photograph she’d always have, taken by Stern on his final day. Because he did say that, he did tell her it was the last dawn he’d ever see. And he did seem to know all right. He didn’t seem to be just guessing.
Bletchley looked down at his hands, the normal one and the crippled misshapen one with its tight grafted skin.
I didn’t know about that, Joe. I didn’t know what he’d told Maud. But if that’s what happened, then he did seem to know. You’re right.
And so?
Bletchley covered his bad hand with his good one. He gripped his bad hand, holding it tightly.
You have to understand some things, Joe. Ahmad and Cohen and Liffy, those things were done. It was wrong and it shouldn’t have happened, but it did. But the hand grenade in the bar … that was pure chance, that was an accident. Some soldiers were out drinking and brawling and one of them, in his drunkenness, tossed a hand grenade through an open door as a joke, a door to a poor Arab bar that none of them had ever seen before, as a joke…. Well I don’t have to tell you how funny the world is, but no one ordered it and no one knew anything about it. The Monastery had nothing to do with it and no one else did, just the soldier who threw the grenade. No one knew anything about that bar or who was
in it. No one had ever heard of it. It was all pure chance.
Bletchley gripped his bad hand more tightly, as if to hide its ugliness.
I had it looked into and I was able to have the soldiers traced. They were Australians who’d been in Crete when the island fell and somehow they managed not to be captured. They spent months hiding in the mountains and it was only this spring that they escaped from Crete, by paddling a rowboat across the Libyan Sea. There were five of them who escaped together and they were out drinking that night, having a last celebration. They’d all been reassigned and their unit was moving up to the front the next day. And it did, and of the five, two are dead and one is missing and presumed dead, and another one is wounded…. Their new unit took it very heavily. There was nothing much left of it after a few hours. The man who threw the hand grenade is one of those who’s dead. Known dead. None of the five was over twenty.
Bletchley fell silent. He rocked, gripping his hand.
That’s all, he added in a whisper. That’s all….
Joe looked out at the river.
And so that’s how it was, he said. And what we call Stern’s fate turns out to be some lads roaming in the nighttime and having a last round of fun before their own turn comes, and the playfulness was playful, but not really. And destiny’s hand belongs to a twenty-year-old kid from Australia, now dead, who maybe wanted to sing Waltzing Matilda while marching across the sands of the Middle East the way his father did the last time around, in the last war. He didn’t get much of a chance, that kid, too young by far. And will they send a medal for him to his people back home, because he survived in the mountains of Crete and escaped across the sea and was blown apart at a place called El Alamein, somewhere in the desert in his twentieth year? Will they do that for an Australian kid who had a song in mind?
I imagine, whispered Bletchley, rocking, gripping his bad hand.
Sure, said Joe. His unit took it heavily and so did he, and that’s the way it works. And history has a way of dealing with its grand events not very grandly, doesn’t it? Here Stern dies in a sordid little place without a conspiracy in sight, without the great powers or the lesser powers taking any notice whatsoever, and what’s to mark it? What’s to mark Stern’s death?
Nile Shadows (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 3) Page 51
