Nile Shadows

More of Rommel's wine was opened as the night deepened and the talk swirled in the little room in the Hotel Babylon, as Liffy learned more about Joe and his interest in Stern, and Joe learned more about Ahmad and Bletchley and the British intelligence units known as the Monks and the Waterboys, the one with its headquarters in the desert, the other in the Irrigation Works in Cairo itself.

Of course Liffy knew Joe had been brought to Cairo by the Monks, since Bletchley was a Monk. And he was also friendly with Stern, as it turned out, although he had no professional connection with Stern and knew almost nothing about what Stern did.

We met through work, said Liffy, but that's not how we're friends and we never talk about work. With a war on, who'd want to? Mostly we just sit in one dim Arab bar or another and talk.

What do you talk about? asked Joe.

Oh, empty railway stations, living at night, Europe before the war. Stern was a student in Europe when he was young and he likes my imitations. They make him laugh, or at least they used to. Nothing much makes him laugh these days.

Have you met any of his other friends then?

Well there's the American woman, Maud, who works for the Waterboys. Translations, I think, not operations. I've met her with him once or twice. And of course there's Ahmad, they used to be friends.

But you know how it is out here these days, Joe. People tend to keep the different parts of their lives separate, very much so.

Joe nodded.

But what about these Monks and Waterboys, Liffy? What can you tell me about them?

Liffy's mouth worked silently, nibbling and chewing over his thoughts.

Well they have their different areas of interest, naturally, but the areas don't seem to have anything to do with geography. It's more a matter of the kinds of intelligence involved, or the levels, I guess you could say. The things the Monks do always seem more obscure, and they're fanatical about keeping their affairs to themselves. They take things from the Waterboys all right, information and support and so forth, but it never works the other way. The Monks are always careful to keep an outsider on the periphery of things.

Do the two groups compete with each other then?

Liffy shook his head.

You couldn't say that really. I suppose there's some overlap in their operations sometimes, there'd have to be. But in the end their goals are different, their levels of interest again. The deeper you go, the more likely you are to find it's the Monks who are involved, not the Waterboys. The more regular aspects of the business, that's what concerns the Waterboys. And the Monks . . . well something more, but I couldn't begin to define it exactly. . . . By the way, just out of curiosity I checked to see if the Waterboys know anything about you, and they don't. They've never even heard of you.

No? But why would the Waterboys tell you something like that, one way or the other?

Liffy smiled.

Oh they wouldn't, so I didn't bother to ask them. There's a file clerk on the graveyard shift who's a friend of mine, and . . . well, and so forth.

I see. And Stern? Which group is he with?

Liffy hesitated. He frowned.

Stern's an exception in many ways, isn't he? He seems to have done a lot of work for both the Monks and the Waterboys, which is so dangerous I don't even like to think about it. . . . But look here, Joe, I'm sure you realize by now how little I understand these things. I'm just a prop out here as I told you, and I only work on the fringes, and who knows, anyway, what to make of people called Monks and Waterboys? These days intelligence groups seem to pop up out here the way religions once did. In fact it's enough to make you wonder sometimes whether it's not our modern way of doing things, although God knows I'd certainly prefer to believe the Monastery is some kind of wartime aberration out there in the desert, rather than a permanent anything.

You speak of the Monks in a curious way, Liffy.

Well they're a curious bunch, and Bletchley with his grim business-is-business attitude is just the beginning of it. One of the more bizarre assignments I've had with the Monks is being taken on drives at night out to the pyramids, Bletchley acting as a silent chauffeur in front while some stranger sits in back with me talking inscrutably, while I fiddle around with a cigarette holder and occasionally toss off a prearranged question I don't understand. . . . Come on, Joe. A businesslike Cyclops who simply enjoys a nighttime spin at the wheel and a glimpse of the Sphinx by moonlight? Is this the spy trade, then, or some convention of myths, or both? . . . But if you think Bletchley's odd, just wait until you meet Whatley.

Who's he?

The end of the line. The man in charge out at that parched and pitiless center of nowhere. The abbot, I guess you'd have to call him. Or simply, Your Grace. He seems to like that. And he's really peculiar. I know it's human nature to prefer to fight the last war, yesterday being easier to understand than today, but Whatley seems to overdo it. Excessive in his obsessions, you know. So much so that sometimes I wonder if he's aware what century he's in. Of course everybody's born at the wrong time in the wrong era, and it's also true that madness doesn't age, that it's simply ageless. But all the same, you see some strange things in the inner cells of the Monastery, cancerous things perhaps. Life living and growing, but living and growing the wrong way and coming out deformed somehow, destructive somehow. . . .

Liffy's voice drifted off.

Or so it seemed to Joe as he sat listening to Liffy's darkly shifting visions of the Monastery. Joe's mind blurring then and slowly sinking in the uneasy shadows of a restless sleep.

-6-

Sphinx

It was late when Joe looked at his watch, no more than an hour or two before dawn. He realized he must have dozed off in the chair beside the table, but he had no idea how long he had been asleep. Liffy was still stretched out on Joe's narrow cot, wheezing softly. Joe glanced at the table littered with empty wine bottles and chicken bones and frowned. Liffy was watching him with concern.

Awake again? And are you all right? Do you feel feverish at all? You seemed to be doing battle with yourself last night while I was briefly recounting the history of the world.

As a matter of fact I don't feel too well, said Joe, easing himself forward and holding his head in his hands.

Perfectly understandable, murmured Liffy. A concise history of the world would have that effect on anyone. There's nothing more disquieting than memory. And I know exactly how you must feel this morning because I know exactly how I felt the first time I awoke in this world. When I was born, I mean.

Not many people can remember that far back, but I can.

Joe moaned, holding his head more tightly.

And how did I feel at that moment? asked Liffy. Outraged. Appalled. Utterly stunned by what lay ahead of me now that I had been expelled from my tropical sealike Eden, that warm and fluid and rhythmic womb where I'd been happy and safe. And I was only seconds old, mind you, a mere tiny red-raw bundle of quivering impressions. And then all at once this huge figure in white, who was wearing a mask, naturally, snatched me up high into the air and viciously slapped me on the back. Slap, just like that. And I screamed my way into the world then, just screamed, Joe. And I understood it all at that moment, just everything, and I said to myself,

Oh shit, you're in for it now.

Suddenly Liffy sat up on the bed, intensely alert.

Well? I was right about that, wasn't I? It was one of those rare cases of a man being right from the very beginning. The very beginning.

Liffy laughed, then frowned.

But are you all right this morning, Joe? Our bodies are but shoddy armor for the soul, after all. . . . And why are you wearing that hat?

What hat?

That faded red wool thing. Your Irish disguise. You look like some sort of sickly elf in need of a handout.

I told you I'm not feeling too well, muttered Joe.

Then we must get out of here immediately, said Liffy, rising. Dawn is about to break over Egypt, so why wouldn't a glimpse of the pyramids at sunrise be just the thing? Come on, Joe, why not? Fresh air at least, and aren't we a race of fearless hunters when all's said and done? Daring adventurers fated with the need to know and to seek?

Joe cleared his sticky lungs, his mind still a blur. Liffy snorted.

Of course we are, Joe, don't argue. Adventure is everything to men like us. It's in our very blood, along with chicken fat and the sour residue of Rommel's wine. Just consider my clandestine orders, the real secret orders I was given in London when I was being sent out here as a spy. Didn't I tell, you what they said?

No, muttered Joe. What?

Head east, my child, ever east.

They did?

Precisely. And after that general introduction, they got down to specifics.

A. Yes, my child, a leisurely journey is what we have in mind for you, so stop look and listen.

B. Mingle, eat the local mush.

C. Tarry in caves and open spaces and mark well the local aphorisms.

D. Even graze a goat or two, if there's time.

E. But above all head ever east, for these are your orders in life, my child. For now anyway.

F. Good luck.

G. Have a nice trip.

Liffy laughed.

A trifle vague perhaps, but no more so than most things having to do with intelligence. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if your orders were secretly the same, so come along then. Come.

Liffy helped Joe to his feet and removed his hat. Gently he steered Joe toward the door, murmuring in a soothing voice all the while.

Fresh air, yes, I know how you feel . . . you need to escape from this room and from the Hotel Babylon in general, which unfortunately has changed very little from the time when a detachment of Napoleon's camel corps was bivouacked here. . . . Ahmad tells the story. Apparently there used to be a plaque in the lobby commemorating the event. . . . Napoleon's camels slept here. With their eyes open . . . Of course, Joe, it's that kind of place. Come along now. . .

Liffy locked the door behind them.

Easy does it, he whispered. In this quarter the darkness has ears, and as spies, we must lurk without a sound.

They tiptoed down the stairs and the pianola on the ground floor came into view. Ahmad was asleep at the counter, sitting on his high stool with his head resting on an open newspaper. Next to his elbow were several large round sesame wafers, apparently left over from a midnight snack. Liffy scooped them up.

Survival rations for the dawn patrol, he whispered. The home front has all the luck. But have you ever noticed that all the spies in Cairo always read newspapers while waiting for their next clandestine strike?

While he whispered, Liffy was making a show of leaning over the counter to hang up Joe's key. But at one point he suddenly reached under the counter and grabbed for something, which he then hid behind his back. And a none too skillful maneuver at that, thought Joe.

They tiptoed toward the door.

I thought everybody in Cairo always did nothing but read newspapers? whispered Joe.

That's true, they do, but that's only because everybody in Cairo is a spy. Out here a man has no choice.

Spy and be spied upon—it's the real secret of the pyramids.

They tiptoed through the open door into the darkness and made their way up the rue Clapsius.

What we obviously need this morning, whispered Liffy, is a dramatic breakthrough. Now I'm going to fetch the van while you turn left at the next corner and follow your nose to a little square where there's a fragment of a Roman fountain, a pained marble face with an alarmed mouth spouting water. You can't miss it and it's also a chance for a quick wash-up. I'll meet you there.

Liffy trotted off, a long cylindrical leather case and a bundle of what looked like laundry tucked under his arm.

He must have left those things under Ahmad's counter when he arrived last night, thought Joe, wondering why Liffy had bothered to hide them behind his back in such a halfhearted way.

***

In an upstairs window at the end of the alley, in the dilapidated building owned by the former belly dancer who now roasted chickens for a living, a young man laid aside his newspaper and dialed a telephone number.

They've left the hotel, he whispered. Just the two of them.

Most of the young man's fingers were missing. He listened carefully.

All right, he whispered. Yes . . . I'll be here.

He hung up the phone and smiled.

And now for a real old-fashioned English breakfast, he thought, banging twice on the floor so the woman downstairs would hear him.

***

Joe found the little square and washed his face and hands, still unable to shake off the blurred feeling in his mind. He was standing in front of the small Roman fountain, gazing numbly down at the worn marble face and wondering what could be keeping Liffy, when suddenly a chilling shriek exploded behind him.

He whirled.

A huge horse and pale rider were wildly thundering out of the shadows and bearing down on the little square, the rider a fierce bedouin straight from the interminable depths of the desert, his great sword of Allah raised high as he charged headlong through the dim alley toward Joe. The hooded bedouin crouched low as the animal leapt and smashed its hooves into the cobblestones, rearing out of control in the half-light, enormous and fiery beneath the crackling robes of the horseman.

God help us, thought Joe, huddling in the little square and not daring to take his eyes off the monstrous vision, lest he be trampled or cut in half by the demon's slashing sword. The beast reared and charged anew, plunging recklessly back and forth as the bedouin whipped his mount into an ever greater frenzy, hair streaming and sparks flying, horse and rider hurtling skyward and filling the air with a stench of cold sweat.

Joe threw himself to the side as a blast of damp breath shot by his head. He slipped and went crashing down on one knee, catching himself at the last moment and spinning toward a wall, limping and stumbling, running, the awful vision of the horseman's face towering over him.

. . . gaunt stony features and a ghastly pallor in the eerie light. A hawk's beak and sunken glittering eyes and cruel twisted lips. A crazed primitive face from some lost wilderness.

Death, thought Joe, the image flashing through his mind despite himself.

Death's the rider and there's no escape.

He was pressed against a wall and moving sideways, frantically groping for a doorway, shelter, anything.

He felt a cavity in the wall and slipped into it, shrinking backward, pushing against the stone with all his strength.

But as soon as Joe had slipped into the safety of the doorway, he began to notice things.

For one, the huge sleek stallion seemed to have curiously knobby knees. And its stomach sagged and it was swaybacked, and there were thick clumps of matted hair spreading down over its hooves.

For another, the huge beast wore a heavy wooden halter of the kind used to weigh down common workhorses. And there were strands of old rope trailing from the halter that looked as if they might have been attached to a wagon not too long ago.

Joe stared.

Instead of the fierce bedouin who had come thundering out of the shadows, he now saw a frightened figure desperately hanging on to his tired mount as best he could, a man who was all elbows and knees and terrified squeals as he crashed around on top of the old horse, his perch so precarious he was clinging to the horse's head and squashing an old rag over the poor animal's nostrils.

Even the long powerful sword was no longer what it had appeared to be. In fact it wasn't a sword at all but a long cylinder of dull metal thrashing harmlessly this way and that, obviously wielded more for balance than anything else.

In any case the spectacle was abruptly over, the strange illusion gone as quickly as it had come in the shadows of the little square. With a groan the exhausted workhorse heaved itself into the air a final time and came tumbling down on the cobblestones, its bones cracking ponderously in the stillness and its legs nearly buckling under the impact, the old creature shuddering once before becoming instantly immobile, its head hanging, a vision of worn-out flesh weary beyond belief.

Just before the horse landed, Liffy jumped free. He pushed back his hood and grinned.

Double-time, he whispered. This way.

In another moment they were running down an alley. As Liffy pulled him along, Joe looked back and saw the huge old workhorse standing alone in the little square, its belly sagging and its tail swishing, its nose nestled against the alarmed marble face of the small Roman fountain. Liffy wheezed happily.

We needed that to get the day started, he whispered. Quick, this way.

Why are we running? asked Joe.

Liffy slowed to a trot.

No reason really. It's just more dramatic.

But what was all that about?

Liffy sneezed. He smiled.

Drama, he whispered. The inescapable drama of life. I decided we needed a bracing event to get ourselves going this morning.

Bracing? You scared me half to death.

Liffy laughed.

I did, didn't I, I could see it in your face. For just a moment you must have thought fate had come riding in from the desert to pay you a call.

Joe tugged on Liffy's arm, slowing him to a walk.

And not just fate either, Liffy.

No?

Liffy stopped, suddenly serious. He stared at Joe.

And I looked, he murmured, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death.

Liffy touched Joe's chest.

But you just see how it is? You must be careful, Joe. The desert is never far away here, and even Old Cairo can be a dangerous place. And perhaps even the Hotel Babylon, if you're its only guest.

Joe looked at him.

Is that true? There's no one else staying there but me?

No one, said Liffy. And what's more, no one has stayed there in several months. You can ask Ahmad.

But why?

Who knows, Joe? Perhaps it was condemned or forgotten by certain sinister secret forces . . . until you arrived on the scene. Perhaps there's even far more to Bletchley's potted palms than we suspect.

Liffy nodded. He smiled.

But we've had enough of the Hotel Babylon for now. The point is the classical world still lives and the trick works. It took me awhile to find an old horse unattended, that's what kept me. There he was just roped to his wagon in a dreary back alley with the prospect of another dreary day ahead, old and tired and thinking he'd seen it all, when suddenly he shed the bonds of a lifetime and the two of us went flying away like the wind. Like the wind, Joe, I could feel it. Will wonders never cease?

Joe smiled.

I don't think they could if they wanted to, Liffy, not when you're around. But what did you do to that old workhorse to make him move like that?

I merely reminded him of the joy of life, answered Liffy.

How?

By recalling a day in the life of Alexander the Great.

What?

Yes. That rag I had pressed to the old gent's nostrils is actually a footnote from history. You find a mare in heat and acquire her scent, then when the magic is applied to the nose of a stallion, even a decrepit old jade as tired as that one, his blood wildly surges and all at once he's a bounding prancing colt again, deliriously out of control. Can't help himself, you see, not when you put it right under his nose. Sex, it's called.

Alexander the Great did that with a horse? asked Joe.

It was either him or one of his lackeys, and there you see how well it works. The scent seems to be good for several days, as well it might be. Clever, these ancients. Had their wits about them on occasion and discovered a thing or two about the meat of the matter. Including the fact that it's all in the mind, as we've often suspected. Sex, I mean.

Liffy hummed, whistled, sneezed.

Do you think Cynthia would be shocked if I told her about this? My guess is she'd pretend to be shocked while secretly relishing the whole idea. And who knows what it might lead to later in the evening, for who knows what lechery lurks in the minds of women? Or who knows what lurks in anyone's mind?

Or . . .

Joe smiled. Liffy threw back his head and studied the sky.

Now where did I leave that secret van? Our wholly inconspicuous Ahmadmobile?

He laughed and they started off again.

Oh I remember, it's just that it's like everything else in this world. We're not there yet, but we're getting there.

***

After twisting and turning through more alleys, they finally arrived at the small delivery van, its side panels boldly advertising AHMAD'S GREASY FISH & LEVANTINE CHIPS. Before they climbed in Liffy zipped up his former sword, a long collapsible spyglass, in its leather case.

Ahmad's, he said. He always keeps it handy under his counter, for those times when he feels the need to take an especially penetrating look at the past. I couldn't tell him I was taking it without waking him, but he won't mind. He only uses it at night . . . Saturday nights, I believe.

Liffy gazed at the bundle of clothing under his arm. He smiled.

The bedouin cloak goes with me for another day, but I think I just might play God this morning by leaving this magical rag, heavenly scented, right here on a windowsill. And should a weary workhorse chance to pass this way today, and should the sagging old jade chance to raise his weary head at the right moment and catch a whiff of this Alexandrian rag, he'll be rewarded by music far beyond his wildest dreams. For the old jade's blood will suddenly surge as he abandons himself to the passionate dances of his youth, and his owner will be astounded and everybody will be astounded and the whole neighborhood will gather to behold, as they used to say.

Solemnly, then, Liffy drew himself up and gazed at Joe, his hand held high.

And behold it was written, the neighbors will say one unto another, a gleam and a twinkle in every eye and the glory of divine grace full upon them. For if a broken-down old workhorse can suddenly become a prancing playful colt, dare we imagine what this must mean for the rest of us?

And behold it was written, they will say. And the word will go forth from this place and be good news throughout the land, bringing great joy to all who hear it, as from a golden bell. For there are miracles in this world, they will say, that surpasseth all understanding. And these miracles come to those who raise their eyes from the cobblestones and look to the heavens, to search in their hearts for the darkness and the light. . . .

Liffy smiled shyly. He dropped his hand and nodded.

And I know that must be written, Joe, because miracles happen all the time, they do. It's just that we have to raise our eyes to look for them. And mostly we don't because we're weak and afraid, but when we do . . .

Liffy went on smiling, nodding.

Well, an interlude then on the dawn patrol. But wouldn't it be wonderful if we could witness a small miracle this morning? Especially a miracle involving someone who deserves it? Someone like Stern? . . .

***

The engine of the delivery van started with a quiet purr.

Less noise than when we drove in from the airport, said Joe.

That was the muffler cutout, replied Liffy, sometimes useful when the traffic's clogged. Just a flip of a switch and our Egyptian friends think Rommel's panzers have broken through the Eighth Army and are thundering into Cairo. Instantly the traffic clears and I go roaring through with waves and cheers on every side. It sets you up a bit until you remember why they're cheering. Off we go now.

They drove through the narrow streets of the Coptic Quarter, past horse-drawn carts and men bent double under loads of sacks and vegetables. The air was fresh and cool. Here and there a café was opening.

Best moment of the day really, said Liffy. The heat and corruption haven't settled in yet, and the mind hasn't had time to be horrified by what lies ahead. Do you need coffee or can you wait?

I can wait. Where are we going?

It's a surprise, a secret destination.

Liffy hummed a music-hall tune, a habit he apparently shared with Vivian. Joe gazed out the window, once more bothered by the blurred sensation in his mind. They seemed to be driving out of Cairo toward the desert, where a gathering of light lay on the horizon. The road turned and Joe caught a glimpse of the pyramids against the dim sky.

You weren't joking? We're going to the pyramids?

The dawn patrol, murmured Liffy. We're heading toward the dawn of Egyptian civilization, and although five thousand years have passed since the pyramids were built, we still may be in for a surprise. At least I hope so. If we're lucky. . . .

***

They lay on a rise of sand, the pyramids and the Sphinx in full view in front of them, a deep red glow above the desert to the east. Liffy handed the long spyglass to Joe.

Now adjust the spyglass to the Sphinx, said Liffy Have him yet?

Almost.

Beautiful?

Exquisite. The light.

Yes. Now look at the right eye of the Sphinx and concentrate on that. What do you see?

Shadows, Liffy.

Fine, keep looking. Shadows assume unexpected shapes and that can be intriguing.

But what am I supposed to see?

Who knows for sure. That odd-looking mythical creature with his human head and his animal body has always been a riddle, unlike the rest of us. Just keep looking.

Joe did so, feeling the cool sand against his chest and smelling the freshness of the desert, his thoughts far from any war.

Nothing yet? asked Liffy.

More light.

Good. We could all use a little more of that. Just keep looking.

Joe strained to see through the spyglass. For a moment he thought he saw something moving in the right eye of the Sphinx. A flicker, shadows, he couldn't be sure. Perhaps the sun rising toward the horizon was causing shadows to play on the worn ancient stones.

Beside him Liffy began to whisper.

Last night, remember? You talked a lot about Stern and what he means to you, and why you came here.

You also said you'd heard about that friend of Stern's, old Menelik Ziwar, who was an Egyptologist in the last century. You said you'd heard stories about him when you were living in Jerusalem. But did you also know old Menelik had found time to do some serious poking around inside the Sphinx? Did anyone ever mention that to you?

No, whispered Joe, staring intently through the spyglass, trying harder and harder to see, not believing what seemed to be happening out there.

Well he did, whispered Liffy. Old Menelik decided he wanted to do a potter of sorts inside the Sphinx in the last century, lovable old mole that he was, and so he had a small tunnel dug from the outside, right into the Sphinx. The entrance to the tunnel is hidden as it has always been, and it leads to a tiny lookout old Menelik fashioned for himself right inside the riddle itself. . . . What do you see?

Something moving, whispered Joe.

In the right eye?

Yes.

A stone being removed?

It could be.

And now?

It looks like a face, a head, appearing.

Where?

Right in the middle of the eye.

On his back on the sand beside Joe, gazing straight up at the sky, Liffy sighed happily.

In the pupil of the eye, you mean?

Yes.

It looks like a face, you say, a head? And it's becoming the pupil of the right eye of the Sphinx? Still shadowy?

Yes.

Do the shadows have a shape you can recognize?

No, it's too far away. Too small and indistinct.

Of course, the Sphinx's a riddle. Look harder.

Joe did so. He leaned forward on his elbows, holding his breath, straining to see through the spyglass. All at once he whistled softly.

Impossible.

Beside him, Liffy closed his eyes, a blissful smile on his face.

But it is real, whispered Joe, I can recognize him. Oh my God, it's Stern. Stern. . . .

Ah, murmured Liffy, he wasn't away after all. He's there watching the sunrise from his favorite perch.

You can't always count on it anymore, Ahmad says, not the way things are these days. Just once in a great while can you find him at it. ... But it's a sight, isn't it, Joe? Something worth looking for and waiting for and hoping will happen, our very own Stern gazing out through the eye of the Sphinx at dawn . . . and it doesn't happen much these days, according to Ahmad, so we were lucky to catch Stern at it . . . very lucky. Unless Stern knew you were arriving in Cairo. Could he have known that?

No, I didn't tell him.

And Bletchley wouldn't have said anything to him?

Oh no.

Are you sure?

Yes, positive.

Liffy hummed. He smiled.

Lovely then. It's chance, pure chance, and I was the one who was able to show it to you. . . . Ahhh, the wonders of life, the miracles. Sometimes I feel as light as a dove on the dawn. Ahhh. . . .

-7-

Monastery

Liffy was surprised when Joe told him he had a daytime meeting coming up with Bletchley. According to Liffy, the Monks were notorious for always conducting their briefings and meetings at night.

Strictly at night, said Liffy. Darkness is the sea they swim in. Do you realize that in all my time here, I've never once been to the Monastery except at night? But if Bletchley's really taking you into the desert to be briefed by Whatley, in broad daylight, at least you may not have to watch those awful films they show out there.

Films? asked Joe, pouring himself more gin. The two of them were sitting in the small crumbling courtyard behind the Hotel Babylon, a narrow enclosure strewn with rubble and old newspapers and piles of ancient debris.

On the dangers of venereal disease, said Liffy. Those same films they show back in England to young army recruits before they're sent overseas. Noses missing . . . no eyes . . . holes in heads going nowhere.

Just terrible. When you arrive at the Monastery at night you have to sit through a couple of those films in the cloisters first, before you're allowed inside. Ugliness by starlight, in other words, to put you in the appropriate frame of mind before you enter the black bowels of the place. It's a kind of ritual they have out there, and not the only one from what I hear. . . . Just blackness everywhere. Disgusting.

Joe sipped his gin, thinking how the mere mention of the Monastery always disturbed Liffy so profoundly, in a way Liffy himself seemed unable to explain.

But what is it that bothers you so much about the Monastery? asked Joe.

Liffy shuddered and clasped his hands together, twisting his fingers around themselves. For a moment he stared at his fingers in horror, as if their slithering movements reflected his feelings.

But that's just it, Joe, I don't know, I don't know. When you first arrive out there everything seems normal enough. You look around you and it seems to be just an old fortress or an old monastery or whatever it was, that an intelligence unit has made its headquarters. Just a secret place where agents come and go in the darkness, carrying out the commonplace horrors of wartime. But somehow there's more to it than that, a sickness of the soul, and after a while you begin to sense it.

Well can you give me an example, Liffy? Something specific that makes you feel that way?

Liffy waved his hands in the air.

Take the maps, for instance, those copies of maps from the fourth century. Whatley has them all over the walls in one of the cells, along with contemporary maps showing the German-occupied areas of Europe and North Africa. And there's a copy of the Athanasian Creed, prominently displayed, with symbols in the margins that correspond to symbols on the maps, both the ancient ones and the modern ones, as if there were some sort of connection between the two. . . .

Liffy suddenly began to wheeze, struggling to breathe, the same trouble he had as when he talked about the Nazis or Germany.

What do you mean, Liffy? A connection between what and what? I think you've lost me.

Between the German armies and the Athanasian Creed.

I've heard of the Creed, Liffy, but what does it have to do with the maps? What's the connection?

Exactly. That's what's so strange about it all. And frankly, I've always avoided thinking about those maps, just as I've always avoided the implications of those disgusting films they show out there. But would you like me to try to make some sense out of it for you?

Joe nodded. Although Liffy had made it clear more than once that he hated to talk about the Monastery, he began to do so now in a kind of monotone, slipping into what was almost a trance.

Well first of all, murmured Liffy, the Creed grew out of the Arian controversy, didn't it, a great crisis in the early days of Christianity. The Arians took their name from Arius, the Libyan theologian who taught that Christ couldn't be both human and divine. Instead they claimed that Christ was human only, and it took some time before the Church was able to overcome the heresy, stating its position in the Creed.

Arianism was pagan to the core and the Germanic tribes embraced it especially, so there were great wars as a result. The Roman Emperor Justinian had to destroy the Vandal armies in North Africa and the Ostrogoths in Italy, and campaign against the Visigothic kingdom in Spain, because they continued to adhere to the heretical view. And who, by chance, was the Church father in faraway Egypt who was so influential in helping to overcome the heresy?

St Anthony, said Joe despite himself, his head beginning to whirl.

St Anthony, repeated Liffy in his trance. The same St Anthony who'd gone into the Egyptian desert and become the founder of monasticism. And didn't all of that occur in the fourth century after Christ? And what, pray, is Whatley doing out there in the desert today, connecting Hitler's armies with the Arian controversy? Doesn't the Nazi madness have to do with A-r-y-a-n-s? And isn't this the twentieth century, not the fourth century? And don't fifteen hundred years count for anything in human history? Or is the answer to that merely a shrug and the sad whisper, Not always, my child.

Joe was stunned. For a long time he sat gazing at Liffy, his thoughts tumbling and racing.

But what are you implying? he finally asked. What does any of it mean?

I can't imagine what it means in its entirety, said Liffy, but I should add that Whatley can be a very charming man when he wants to be. A trifle erudite and also rather preoccupied with his own concerns, unlike the rest of us. But charming. . . . So the straightforward facts concerning the Monastery seem to be these. St Anthony and Whatley are out there in the desert with their secret armies of monks and Monks, and they appear to be mounting campaigns against heresies traditionally adhered to by the Germanic tribes, while all the while the Vandals and the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths maraud in the fourth century, and the Nazis viciously replay the ancient barbaric performance in the twentieth century.

Whatley, said Joe. Could you put your imagination to work on him for a moment?

You want conjecture, you mean? Not facts?

Yes.

Well if I had to try to understand what Whatley is truly up to out there in the desert, I think I might ask myself if it's a case of Whatley believing the Germans are denying the divine part of our natures? And if Whatley thus sees these new barbarians, the Nazis, as simply the old barbarians dressed up in snappier uniforms, with black and leather and death's-heads everywhere, who embrace the heretical Arian doctrine in the same way as the Germanic tribes did fifteen hundred years ago? And whether Whatley assumes, therefore, that he's some kind of latter-day St Anthony doing righteous battle against the evil Germanic heresiarchs?

Liffy sputtered and coughed, struggling for breath.

And if so, why? Because Whatley's a religious fanatic? A fanatic of history? A fanatic for the cause of moral uplift? . . . And I don't need to add that these Christian metaphors are merely that, merely metaphors. Christianity is only incidental to the matter, only the form of moral uplift that happens to have been the most obvious one in the West over the last two thousand years. The matter goes much deeper than any specific religion or philosophy, for what the Germanic streak in human nature really can't bear is change. Any kind of change. It prefers what was, in our case the animal state. Very deep is the well of the past, says Mann. May we not call it bottomless? says Mann. And thus that seductive whisper oozing out of the blackness, the Germanic whisper in all of us. ... Where you were is where you are, my child.

So gaze backward and downward, my child. Forever. . . .

Liffy gasped for breath.

Which translates in modern times into a mindless loping around on the savanna, killing, to the accompaniment of Bach.

Liffy choked.

I'm sorry, Joe, I just can't talk about this anymore. I hate to think about the Nazis and their black and their leather and their death's-heads. It's a gigantic pyramid of skulls they're after and it's monstrous.

Joe stood up and sat down again. This Whatley, he muttered.

Liffy nodded.

I know it. It's a regular Whatley, what? What? And there always does seem to be a Whatley out there somewhere, morbidly flagellating his flesh because he wishes he didn't have any, because purity would then be possible. But the Whatley factor exists and there's no use denying it simply because we don't like it. A part of us always does yearn for purity, clarity, absolutes. Yearns for it, alas, even though living matter and clarity are opposites, as Einstein said.

And he was right as usual, said Joe. But we human beings seem to be far more confused than any other living thing, and why is that?

Because we think. And there's nothing more ruinous to clarity of purpose.

Ah, said Joe, now that has a ring to it for sure. Is it yours or are you quoting again?

Mine, said Liffy softly, no more than mine. It just came to me here in these ancient ruins of a courtyard, a kind of local aphorism to be contemplated on the journey east. In fact we just might codify it as Liffy's Second Law. To wit. If you want to be sure you know what you're doing, never think. . . . But this whole conversation leads me to suspect that much lies ahead of you, if the truth is ever to come out.

And which truth is that? asked Joe.

Liffy nodded. He smiled.

The truth about Stern, of course. But is it really possible to learn the truth about someone else? Is it? . . .

I've often wondered about that. It was one of those unanswerable questions that used to plague this ancient child of a soul of mine, late at night, back in empty railway waiting rooms before the war.

Liffy smiled gently.

A Wandering Jew does wonder about such things, after all, because in the end that's what his wandering is all about and that's the whole point of his destiny. The mystery of other faces and other tongues—

wonder in all its guises. . . . To behold, as they used to say.

***

They left the courtyard soon after that, Liffy to keep an appointment and Joe to lie down in his room until it was time for his meeting with Bletchley. The blurred feeling had begun to come over Joe again while they were sitting in the courtyard that morning, just as it had the last time when he and Liffy had talked about the Monastery. An uneasy feeling on Joe's part, a shadowy warning from somewhere within him.

Meanwhile, on a roof not far away, an observer lay on his stomach peering down into the narrow courtyard of the Hotel Babylon, his binoculars resting in front of him. Having been deaf for some years, the observer could read lips with ease. Yet he found he was having difficulty that morning with the man called Liffy, because of the way his lips moved continually whether he was speaking or not. Nibbling and chewing, that mouth never seemed to rest for a moment.

The other man, the one called Joe, was no problem at all. But unfortunately it was the constantly nibbling Liffy who had done most of the talking in the courtyard.

They won't like it at all, thought the observer, crawling backward with his binoculars.

Damn that bastard Liffy and his lips that never stop. . . .

***

Later, when Joe tried the door on the far side of the courtyard, he found it locked. He used a key Ahmad had given him and groped his way down the stairs in the darkness to the second door at the bottom.

The cellar was just as he remembered it. A cool oblong room with a ceiling so low he had to stoop. A table with a single naked light bulb overhead, a cord leading down from the fixture to an electric ring where a kettle was steaming. A teapot and a raised newspaper.

But Bletchley seemed to be in a better mood that day, even though Joe was late for their meeting. As soon as Joe walked in Bletchley put aside his newspaper and rose to shake hands, putting out his hand that wasn't crippled.

Now there's a first, thought Joe. He began to apologize for being late but Bletchley waved the apology aside.

No matter, he said, I was just having a second cup of tea. Care to join me?

Joe thanked him and Bletchley reached for the teapot, an ugly expression flashing across his face.

Jesus, thought Joe, he's trying to smile. That piece of ugliness is his way of smiling.

Bletchley was wearing an old set of khakis that day, which gave him quite a different appearance. In a business suit, at night anyway he looked both elegant and efficient despite his bulky black eye patch. But in baggy cotton trousers and a wrinkled open shirt, both badly worn and faded, there was a shabbier quality to the man. His belt was too big for him, gathering his trousers in clumsy folds around his waist, and his shoes were old and scuffed. One of his shirtsleeves was rolled up while the other flapped around without a button. There were even some roughly mended spots down the front of his shirt, rips repaired at home, it appeared. In all he was a much less impressive man than Joe remembered. Certainly not overbearing in any way, rather frail in fact. A slight weary figure with an attentive air about him.

For a moment Joe had the impression of a lonely recluse puttering around in a garden that wasn't his own, embarrassed at being out of place, painfully uncomfortable among plants and flowers he didn't recognize.

Bletchley poured tea.

I dropped in to say hello to Ahmad this morning, he said, and he mentioned that you must have gone out early for a walk. I'm an early riser myself, always have been. Of course I don't sleep much these days anyway. Still no sugar?

Right, thanks. Anything of interest in the newspapers today?

Mostly Rommel as usual, said Bletchley. He's only forty miles from Tobruk and nothing seems to be going right. It's almost as if Rommel knew beforehand every move we're going to make. Damn it, but that's exactly how it is.

Joe blew on the tea in the metal cup. And what if that were true about Rommel? he wondered. What if he did know every British move beforehand? Could anyone have intelligence sources as good as that?

Well what about the personal columns? he asked. Any better news there?

Not really. One man heard from, one not. It's odd but business aside, I've always been intrigued by the personal columns in local newspapers. They give you such a strangely intimate view of a place and people's lives in that place, or at least an illusion of it. Oh by the way, you haven't tried to get in touch with Maud yet, have you?

No. I'm following instructions.

Advice, murmured Bletchley. I'm sure they're not trying to control your every move, I'm sure they want you to go about it in your own way. But it's my impression they feel the more looking around you can do before Stern finds out you're here, the better off you'll be. Yes, that's it. Stern's going to find out soon enough anyway, once you begin moving around.

And when will that be, do you suppose?

Soon. Right away. They've gone slowly with you because of something to do with Stern's schedule, Stern's activities, but now I've been told Stern's leaving tonight on an assignment that will keep him out of Cairo for several weeks. Two weeks at the very least, that's it. So now you should have time for a good headstart.

He won't be in contact with anyone in Cairo?

Not with anyone who could tell him about you. I assume it was arranged that way.

Fair enough, said Joe, picking up his teacup and hesitating, not wanting to burn his lips again as he had the first time he came to the cellar. And he was also trying to decide what to say, because he felt it was important to try to move closer to Bletchley. He looked up now and made a gesture toward the black bulky patch over Bletchley's right eye. Most of the scars seemed old, although some of them, curiously, not that old.

Catch that trouble in the last war, did you?

Yes, replied Bletchley, surprised by the directness of the question.

How'd it happen? asked Joe, gazing over the rim of his cup.

Abruptly Bletchley dropped his stare and went perfectly still. For a long silent moment he looked down at the table, his single eye round and blank and uncomprehending. But when he spoke at last his voice was matter-of-fact, without emotion.

It was fairly early in the last war. I was using a spyglass when a bullet struck the thing and shattered the casing, driving metal and glass fragments into my eye and severing some muscles in my hand. A friend tried to pull out the metal bits in my eye but he couldn't manage it. Then he was killed and I had to lie there for five or six hours until help came. Later they were able to reconstruct the bridge of my nose and fix up the hand a little, but removing the fragments from the eye socket turned out to be a drawn-out process. Months, years, it just went on and on, that's it. For a long time I felt useless.

Joe shook his head sadly. Bletchley was still staring down at the table, his eye wide, uncomprehending.

The worst part about it, then, was that I'd been in the regular army, and of course there was no future in that. When you're young it's hard to accept the fact that you're never going to have the chance to do what you want in life. Most people may end up that way, but at least the disillusionment takes place over time.

It's not like knowing from the start that you don't have a chance.

Joe nodded.

Headaches too, I imagine.

Sometimes, but generally it's just an ugly itching sensation, something gnawing at your brain that's always there, that just won't go away.

Yes.

They sat some moments in silence. Bletchley still hadn't looked up at Joe. He was staring blankly down at the table, a frail figure in worn-out mended khakis. Then all at once he began blinking rapidly and covered his eye patch with a handkerchief, dabbing at something.

There are effusions from the socket, he said. I wanted to have a glass eye put in but the bones around the socket are shattered and there's nothing to hold one. They tried several times but it didn't work. It looked like a glass bead stuck in the corner of my face at an angle. Finally there was nothing more to be done, so I had to settle for a patch.

It covers most of it, said Joe.

Bletchley went on wiping with his handkerchief.

I hate the way it frightens children, especially in this part of the world where they believe in the evil eye.

Children can't stand it. One look and they begin to scream. It makes me feel like a monster.

Have you been out here long?

Not so long here, mostly in India. I grew up in India, we were an army family. After I'd gotten back on my feet I was offered this kind of work, and it seemed the closest I'd ever come to the army so I took it, that's it.

No, he added, I haven't been in the Middle East very long, only since the war started. India is what I know.

I've never been there, said Joe. I'd like to go someday.

At last Bletchley raised his eye from the table and looked at Joe.

Oh yes, it's a beautiful country, the land and the people, all of it. I know the desert appeals to some, but I'll never feel that way about it. To me, India is home and always will be. There's just no other place like it in the world.

Bletchley's face lighted up and he smiled at the thought of his homeland and the memories of his early years there.

At least it was meant to be a smile, but because of the missing bones and the severed muscles in his face, it came out differently. His good eye widened and stared grotesquely in what appeared to be a harsh cold expression, arrogant and disdainful.

The agony it must cause him, thought Joe. He tries to be friendly and his own face mocks him. It's no wonder children scream and run away. He looks cruel and it's not his fault, and they think he's sneering at them and it's not their fault.

But Bletchley's thoughts were far away in his beloved India at that moment, and he was smiling and pushing back his chair and getting to his feet, humming to himself, happy with his beautiful memories of a homeland that he probably already knew would never be his home again.

Well then, said Bletchley, shall we be on our way?

Right, to the Monastery at last, said Joe. And you have to admit that is a curious name for an intelligence unit, even one hidden away in the Egyptian desert. Rather human, isn't it, how we like to make things sound mysterious. . . . And when you finally get to the Monastery in the desert, my child. . . .

Bletchley laughed.

I know, he said. No matter how dull reality is, we do try hard to make it sound exotic. A natural inclination, I suppose, to add a touch of grandeur to our drab little lives. A romantic tendency in all of us, that's it.

So it seems, said Joe. And whether it's to be called romantic or not, I wouldn't know, but surely we do have to dream. If we didn't, where would we be? That much is evident just on the face of things. But of course there are all kinds of dreams, which is what can confuse a man.

***

When he looked back on it, Joe realized he should have known something was wrong with him long before he and Bletchley left the cellar. As they climbed the stairs, Joe missed a step and nearly lost his balance. He might have fallen if Bletchley hadn't rushed up to catch him from behind.

Are you all right?

I'm not sure. I feel a little out of touch.

They stepped into the bright sunlight. Joe's legs were heavy and he didn't seem to have any command over them. As they walked up the alley Joe sneaked a glance at his own hand, mildly curious about its shape, not quite sure it was the way he remembered it.

It may be exhaustion left over from the trip, he said. It's a long way from Arizona to Cairo and I don't know that I've caught up yet.

Your stopovers were short? asked Bletchley.

Yes, after the training camp near Toronto. I crawled into the ball turret of a bomber and crawled out again in Scotland. . . . Fetal position. I don't know how those gunners can manage for any length of time.

Then London was just one briefing after another and it was straight over here.

That's it, said Bletchley, a delayed reaction to all your time in the air.

And that ball turret was terrible, muttered Joe. . . . I just can't seem to get ahold of anything today.

***

Joe's sense of unreality grew more profound as they drove out of Cairo. He sat in a daze, a dream, gazing out the open side of the small desert car, watching the city drop away. Several times he noticed Bletchley sneaking glances at him.

What's worrying him? he wondered.

He wasn't sure whether he'd spoken since the drive started, or even how long they'd been on the road.

He knew he could check his watch but somehow it didn't seem important. They'd left the city behind and now everything was the same, sand and more sand and the hot sun and the glare, Bletchley shifting gears as they drove more deeply into the desert, Bletchley's good eye flickering toward him every so often.

Ever east, my child, thought Joe. Stop look and listen. Mingle.

Ought to mingle and say something, he thought, and was immediately surprised to hear his own voice asking Bletchley a question.

Do you have a family?

Bletchley shifted gears.

What do you mean? A wife and children?

Yes.

No, I don't. I've never been married. I was too young before we went to war the last time, and after that there were those years spent getting patched up. By then I was too accustomed to living alone to be of much use to anyone.

You weren't though.

Weren't what?

Too old to get married.

When?

After you'd been patched up. When was that, a couple of years after the last war? You must have still been in your early twenties.

Chronologically, but in other ways I didn't feel that young. Nothing very chronological about life, after all, it doesn't always follow a logical sequence the way we like to pretend. Some people stop growing in their early twenties. Just stop, say that's enough for me, and get off and sit down beside the road for the duration.

Ever east, my child, thought Joe. And when you finally reach. . . .

Besides, continued Bletchley, I still had hopes. I was trying to have a glass eye put in and when they couldn't do it in one place, I'd try another. Paris, Johannesburg, Zurich, I kept making the rounds. The last operation wasn't that long ago.

Oh.

Just three years ago, in fact. They'd done all the rebuilding they could by then, and the glass bead stuck in at an angle was the result.

The glass bead game, thought Joe. That has to be one of the worst.

So I finally gave it up and accepted the fact that I'd have to be a monster.

Children don't understand things, said Joe. You can't expect them to.

No that's true, you can't. But what about mature men and women? What can you expect from them?

Joe gazed at the desert. The glare off the sand hurt his eyes and he pressed them shut. Bletchley was shifting gears, not waiting for an answer to his question because there was no answer.

On the mesa in Arizona there had been an old woman with a badly deformed face, born that way, so severely deformed she had been hidden away since she was a baby. Throughout her entire life she had never been known to leave the little room where she had come into the world. Many nights Joe had sat up with her in her little room, listening to her sing in the most beautiful voice he had ever heard, a startling voice filled with wonder for all the things she had never seen or known. She sang for hours and when she ended they would sit together in silence for a time, then the old woman would turn her back and Joe would get up and leave without a word. To have said anything would have been cruel beyond belief, for her singing was all she had of the world, her song the flight of her soul.

Hungry? asked Bletchley. I brought some things. I thought we might stop for a bite along the way.

***

They sat on the sand, squeezed into the shade beside the small desert car, Joe with his back against one of the warm tires. Bletchley opened some tins of marmalade and biscuits. There was also a thermos and two battered cups.

Joe took a few bites and all the food tasted exactly the same, a harsh metallic flavor. He fumbled with a cup and finally let Bletchley fill it for him. The liquid, cold tea or whatever it was, also had a harsh metallic flavor. Dully he watched Bletchley spreading marmalade on a biscuit, an action that seemed to go on forever.

What's the matter? asked Bletchley.

I was going to ask you the same thing. You seem to be moving very slowly today.

Bletchley put his hand on Joe's forehead.

You're running a bad fever, he said. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the change in the water. It happens fairly frequently.

Time and change and the water, thought Joe. Not exactly the trouble you'd expect to find out here where there is no water, but it's best never to rely on appearances. And sand and more sand and utter desolation, just as Liffy said. So it's not all green hillsides on the journey to the East, ah no. There are wastelands to cross, my child, before you sleep. Wastelands, bright and deep . . .

***

They were driving again, Bletchley shifting gears, the glare off the sand intense. And for Joe, sinking more deeply into his fever, the sky and the desert had lost whatever boundaries they might once have had.

I've known men who've followed the desert, Bletchley was saying, adventurers who see it as a primeval force, like the sea. But there are dangers in the desert that a seagoing man doesn't have to face. The sea, with its overall evenness, tends to moderate men by suggesting an essential balance to all things. But the desert, with its harsh extremes, can have just the opposite effect by making things seem clearer than they are, so you always have to beware the temptation of idealism. God knows human affairs are murky enough, but out here there's the danger of forgetting that, because everything is so stark, so much itself.

Appears to be, that is.

Bletchley shifted gears. They left the paved road for a rougher track.

The fact is, he continued, we're apt to romanticize things we don't understand, what we were talking about earlier. Take that old expression, to follow the desert. It gives an impression of adventure and makes one sound like a wanderer, but the bedouin aren't really wanderers. They always have their home with them, their tent, and their country is always with them, the desert. An outsider, a northern European, will view it differently. But that's because a northern European is accustomed to seeing his home and his country in a different light. Less of it.

Joe nodded. Puffs of smoke had appeared on the horizon, followed by a spatter of dull muffled booms.

In another moment they had rounded a dune and Joe could make out a battery of British howitzers parked off in the wastes, raising great clouds of sand as they methodically fired into the desert. The front lines, he knew, were many miles away.

What are they doing?

Bletchley turned his head to get his eye on the battery.

Shelling the desert, he yelled above the booming salvos

The empty desert?

Looks that way.

But why?

Who knows, maybe they thought they saw the enemy. It's impossible of course, but they might have thought they saw something.

Just thought they did? wondered Joe. Well why not. It could be a case of right you are if you think you are, the desert as you like it.

But as they drove along above the camouflaged battery, Joe sensed there was something even more out of place than the vast stretches of barren desert separating the howitzers from the nearest German units.

He concentrated as best he could and at last it came to him.

They're facing east, he shouted. Isn't that the wrong way for them to be fighting the war? The Germans are to the west.

Bletchley snorted, yelled.

The wrong way? But how can there be a right way to slaughter people? And anyway, mirages are common enough in the desert. I don't have to tell you that.

Correct, thought Joe, you don't. But all the same it still seemed strange to him as he gazed down on the howitzers, watching them fire and recoil, fire and recoil. The cannon crews were moving quickly, hurrying back and forth as if they had a certain number of rounds to fire off that day.

What do you think? he shouted. Are they working against a quota of rounds they're supposed to expend?

Very likely, yelled Bletchley. Supplies have to be regulated for maximum effect in wartime, so naturally quotas and rationing are the order of the day.

Joe nodded, still groping in his mind for a rational explanation to this furious and relentless artillery barrage, aimed at nothing.

But aren't they wasting a lot of valuable ammunition? he shouted. Just firing off into the empty desert like that?

So it seems, yelled Bletchley, but no one has ever claimed war is a force for conservation. It spends and consumes and destroys, that's all. The only reason we seem to have it around is because there's a streak in man that finds it exhilarating. Or more accurately, the idea of it. Not one of our nobler streaks, but there you are. And I think it would also be safe to say the nature of that exhilaration won't bear very close scrutiny.

Agreed, thought Joe. It won't and doesn't. Because that streak is the killing of people and the exhilaration in that is just plain unspeakable, a blackness at the bottom of the soul. Very deep is the blackness, may we not call it bottomless?

Better try again, thought Joe, put it some other way to Bletchley. There has to be some explanation for behavior, even when it's idiotic. It may be human nature to want to bombard an empty desert, but someone as smart as Bletchley would have to have some kind of reasonable reason for it. The greater good? The grand design? The missing link and the unknowable universe?

Listen, shouted Joe. If you feel that way about it, the uselessness of war and so forth, why did you want to make the army a career? Family tradition aside.

I suppose because the army provides a form and a structure, yelled Bletchley. A regulation for everything. Not a reason for doing something, but a clear order that it's to be done. As human beings, we like that. Gods provide the orders for some people, political systems for others. But without orders and commands and regulations, the chaos of being is simply that. Chaotic. And that tends to be too hot a situation for most people to handle.

Too hot to handle, hummed Joe, recalling a bawdy line from one of Liffy's music-hall tunes, watching the artillerymen slam home shells and slam closed breechblocks as the howitzers puffed and recoiled, the air crackling and the dust billowing in the unending cannonade.

Hold on, yelled Bletchley. There's rough going here.

Joe lurched forward and grabbed hold of the handle in front of him. Rough going here, he hummed, recalling another line from one of Liffy's bawdy tunes. Off in the desert ahead he spied what appeared to be a railway boxcar coming into view. The boxcar was undersized and lying on its back, its wheels in the air with no railway tracks in sight.

How did that get out here? he shouted.

Bletchley was staring straight ahead, concentrating on the driving, unable to take his eye off the rough roadbed.

What is it? One of those old Forty and Eights?

Looks like it, shouted Joe, remembering the term that had been used in the last war for a small French freight car, so named because it had been able to carry forty men or eight horses to the slaughter at the front. But of course the French hadn't been fighting in the Egyptian desert then, they'd been dying back home in muddy trenches. Joe hummed, It's a long way to Tipperary.

Wouldn't it have been more logical to call those boxcars Forty or Eights? he shouted. After all, that's what they were.

Nothing very logical about war, Bletchley grimly yelled back.

All true, thought Joe. No arguing with that one.

In fact when you look back at the last war, yelled Bletchley, the whole thing seems utterly senseless.

Joe nodded and looked back at the endless barren wastelands. The overturned French boxcar had dropped out of sight, but now there was an overturned chariot standing on the horizon. It was of a heavy primitive design, its huge wooden wheels capped with iron that had rusted very little in the dry desert air.

I've seen one of those before, thought Joe. In pictures anyway. The Assyrians used them back at the beginning of the Iron Age when they were a-thundering out of the north, taking their turn as the much a-feared barbarians of the day.

Which last war were you referring to? he shouted.

How's that? yelled Bletchley.

I said, which last war? Whose? The one you said was utterly senseless when we look back on it?

Oh, well anybody's. What difference does it make? Don't all last wars look pretty much the same when you look back at them? Murder and mutilation and wreckage, and all for what?

For what? thought Joe. What? It's a regular Whatley, that's what.

Bletchley glanced at him sideways.

Are you all right? he yelled.

Not particularly, shouted Joe, but listen. What are you really afraid of, Bletchley? Can you tell me that?

What do you mean? In what context?

Personal context. Deep down, right there where you are in this world. What are you really afraid of?

The Germans winning the war, yelled Bletchley. I'd do anything to keep that from happening.

And that's surely reasonable, thought Joe, surely sound and sane and then some. The man doesn't want to let the Mongols in. Of course that anything of his is a warning to me in regard to Stern, but who would argue with keeping out these mechanized barbarians who go by the name of Nazis?

Bletchley? he shouted. Have you ever wondered why the Germans make so much out of defending the Eastern Front against the barbarians? National destiny, holy assignment, racial mission and so forth? Why is it the Mongols of this world always tell us they're defending us against the Mongols?

Human nature, yelled Bletchley. Men always justify wars by claiming they're fighting the barbarians. What they don't bother to add is that the reason wars are continuous in history is because the barbarians are inside us. Have you ever been in a crowd when it's transforming itself into a mob? There's a Genghis Khan on every side of you. Give any one of them a horde of men on horseback and you'd see the thirteenth century in flames again.

And that's the truth, thought Joe. And Bletchley is just plain sound today, his thinking as clear as a bell.

***

Soon they were passing other strange relics cast off in the wastes.

An abandoned battery of Napoleonic muzzle loaders loomed up beside them, facing south toward the heart of the Dark Continent, stubby three-pounders mired in the sand, the debris of another civilizing adventure in Africa. But apparently the muzzle loaders had been no match in their day for Lord Nelson's swift barkentines, one of which had brilliantly outmaneuvered Napoleon's cannons and was now resting comfortably on its side behind them, clearly commanding a superior field of fire.

A barkentine way out here in the desert, thought Joe. Extraordinary when you think of it, even though the winds of the Mediterranean have always been known for their treachery. But what can match man's, and I wonder what the local bedouin make of the sight? Probably they think Europeans are a little daft.

A single arch from an ancient Roman aqueduct came into view, a magnificent arch fully one hundred feet high and leading east or west as the case might be, barren desert stretching off in both directions. While not far away the solid surface of a well-engineered Roman road emerged from a sand dune and traveled at least ten feet before being swallowed up in another sand dune. There were also whole fleets of glittering sunspots on the sand, although they didn't seem to be going anywhere either.

Lord Nelson also had one eye, thought Joe.

But by far the most awesome spectacle Joe saw was an enormous siege machine bristling with fire buckets and catapults and battering rams, covered with animal skins in receding tiers so that it had roughly the shape of a pyramid, an eagle's nest at the top, a superb lookout for a mad tyrant to look down upon the nonexistent city he was about to destroy in the desert. Or a superb lookout for looking down upon all nonexistent cities in the world for a thousand years, why not. The thousand-year Third Reich in the wastes of nowhere . . . in all its stunning glory.

Leaders are a wondrous invention, thought Joe. What would we ever do without them? How would we ever get the slaughter done?

Bletchley shifted gears. As they rattled along Joe's thoughts kept returning to the primitive siege machine they had passed, that huge deathly apparition all by itself in the desert, waiting to lay siege. The image of it haunted him and he couldn't get it out of his mind. Was it because there had been a suggestion the machine was made of human skulls? A pyramid of skulls? The Nazis' final solution to life, as Liffy had said? Or was it simply because of all the monuments reared by man in those desolate sun-blasted wastes, it was the only one that didn't look abandoned and out of place?

Joe shivered.

It's ghastly, he thought. Ghastly.

The air snapped. Bletchley was shifting gears.

How are you feeling? It's not much farther.

Good, I couldn't go much farther. It's exhausting out here, frightening too.

Bletchley slowed.

Because it's all bleached bones and illusions, thought Joe.

They stopped. The engine died.

Call of nature, said Bletchley quietly. I'll only be a moment.

***

They started off again. Joe drifted around in his seat, occasionally humming one of Liffy's tunes.

Was the Monastery ever actually a monastery? he shouted at some point.

You mean before we took it over? yelled Bletchley. Well St Anthony is known to have spent time in this part of the desert, but since St Anthony had visions, I don't think anyone could say with any certainty where he was abusing his flesh all the time. It might be that one of his caves is down in the bowels of the Monastery somewhere, but who knows? St Anthony's chains were of the invisible kind.

The water got to him, thought Joe. Bad water or no water or even a change of water can bring on an advanced case of hallucinations out here. Or visions, as saints raving in the wilderness used to call them.

Joe drifted off. A moment later his head snapped back. The track was climbing, Bletchley shifting gears.

What's that up ahead?

We're there, yelled Bletchley. That's the gate to the back entrance. Most of the Monastery is up above, you can't really see it very well from down here.

They drew up in a small paved courtyard where other military vehicles, were parked. High walls of rough masonry reared above them, narrow slits cut into them. The walls overhead receded away from the courtyard, so that it was impossible to guess how far up they went.

Not all that far, whispered Bletchley, it's not really that big a place. It just looks big because it was built around the top of a small mountain, a hill really.

Round hill?

Yes.

Probably shaped like a head, thought Joe. Bowels and intestines and other internal organs in hiding down below, along with St Anthony's memories and Whatley's maps.

This way, whispered Bletchley.

Bletchley unlocked a wooden door and they passed through a short tunnel into another courtyard, this one larger and unpaved, with cloisters running along its sides. Men with long staves in their hands appeared languidly from amongst the shadows under the colonnades, strolling up to take a look at Joe and then retiring out of sight somewhere, while still others went on milling around the courtyard rather like pilgrims who had arrived unexpectedly at some way station on their journey, ahead of schedule, and were unsure what to do next. The pilgrims seemed to be wearing every conceivable kind of costume, both uniforms and civilian clothes, some dressed as lawyers and businessmen and bankers and professors, others as commandos or balloonists or even bedouin. But all of them without exception, the moment they caught sight of Bletchley, turned away and withdrew slightly, showing only their backs.

The multitude of tall staves carried by the pilgrims was particularly striking to Joe. Gently the staves waved to and fro as stalks of grain might toss in the wind, protected and enclosed, touched only by the mildest breezes.

It must be about time for the refectory to open for early tea, whispered Bletchley. Otherwise you'd never see such a large idle gathering of agents milling around out here.

Abruptly Bletchley seized a startled pilgrim at random, grabbing the man by the arm, spinning him around.

The pilgrim looked so frightened he was ready to deny anything.

What's for tea? demanded Bletchley.

Three kinds of sand . . . sand . . . sandwiches, stammered the man. Including cucumber. They said we could choose the kind we like, so long as we don't all choose the same one.

And which are you going to choose? demanded Bletchley.

I was hoping for cucumber, whispered the pilgrim, but I'll gladly eat anything.

Bletchley released the nervous man, who immediately faded back into the milling crowd. From somewhere high above, the opening chords of Bach's Mass in B Minor came booming down over the courtyard.

That man seemed afraid of you, said Joe. Why is that?

Bletchley smiled.

We'll just step this way, he whispered.

Bletchley unlocked another door and Joe followed him down one dimly lit corridor after another. All the chambers in the Monastery seemed to be kept in perpetual near-darkness, which was cool and soothing after the strong sunlight outside. As they padded along, the distant strains of organ music faded and lapsed, only to surge anew from some unexpected quarter. They descended stairs and more stairs and finally entered a small cell lit by a single candle. There was a folding camp table with a huge swivel chair behind it, sumptuously padded in dark leather. Bletchley pointed at the comfortable leather chair.

Just sit down and make yourself at home, he said. I'll let Whatley's aides know we've arrived.

Joe collapsed in the swivel chair and swung slowly back and forth. In a corner stood an apparatus on wheels which he knew he should be able to recognize, but in his fever he couldn't quite place it. The apparatus consisted of several tank cylinders and various hoses and gauges. Bletchley, meanwhile, turned the crank of a military telephone and whispered into the mouthpiece.

Whatley's on his way down, he announced. Now then. . . .

Bletchley wheeled the apparatus over to a position behind the huge leather chair. He leaned down and studied it, testing a valve or two. Joe had swung around to face him.

What is it? asked Joe.

Nitrous oxide. Laughing gas.

What's it for?

For your interview with Whatley.

Bletchley went on tinkering with valves. There was a long low hiss and he smiled.

Nothing to be alarmed about, he murmured, spinning dials. It's just laughing gas. Dentists use it all the time.

I know they do, but what's the point of using it on me?

Standard Monastery procedure, that's all.

But why?

Wartime, murmured Bletchley. Ours not to reason why and so forth. But look at it another way.

Wouldn't you rather face what's coming with a comforting cloud of nitrous oxide inside you? Wouldn't any man at war? Just to make matters seem a little more reasonable? Not quite so idiotic as they actually are?

Bletchley laughed.

To be honest, there's not an agent up there in the cloisters who wouldn't love to be on nitrous oxide at this very moment. Of course they wouldn't want to be down here, but life's like that, isn't it? Gas is enjoyable, certainly, but we always have to take what goes with it.

Which is Whatley, thought Joe, shivering and staring dully at the apparatus. A tune ran through his head, one of Liffy's, but he couldn't quite remember the words. Tarry in caves but beware of local bats, was that it? Beware of bats, my child?

So the point is, Bletchley was saying, the gas will help you relax and be receptive in these unfamiliar surroundings, even though you're not feeling too well today. And it also serves as a security precaution.

You'll be able to hear everything Whatley says and ask whatever questions you may have, but afterward your impression of Whatley's voice will be just a little distorted. As the chief here, he prefers it that way.

Being distorted? asked Joe. Why?

Now then, murmured Bletchley, just breathe normally through your nose.

Bletchley fitted a small rubber mask over Joe's nose. Joe sat there listening to a rhythmic sigh, growing stronger. After some moments had gone by, a door opened. A man with only one arm, immaculately dressed in starched khakis, was moving around on the edge of Joe's vision. Was that really the notorious Whatley at last, in the flesh?

Ah, said a voice from far away. And this must be our new Purple Seven Armenian who has traveled all the way from a mesa in Arizona to be with us. No please, Joe, don't bother to get up. You look quite comfortable where you are. And I believe you take your tea without sugar, is that right?

Joe nodded. Beware of bats, he thought.

Yes, continued the voice, it's a pleasure to have you with us at last. Now let's not waste any time, let's get right down to the bottom of things immediately. We're here to talk about Stern—the man, the agent, everything. Yes, everything. . . .

Xx×

Most of Joe's memories of the Monastery were a blur after that. Later, after the briefing in the huge leather chair with the gas mask had ended, he did remember finding himself on a narrow stone terrace.

The terrace must have been quite high up in the Monastery, for there was a beautiful view of the desert.

He and Bletchley were sitting alone there, side by side in canvas deck chairs. A camouflaged canvas awning provided shade and there were potted palms along the walls. The skin of a Bengal tiger was hanging at one end of the terrace. From the color of the sky, Joe guessed it must be almost twilight.

. . . and for those reasons, Bletchley was saying, I don't think you should be upset by the violence of Whatley's language when he speaks of Stern. Passions run high in wartime and poor Whatley has never gotten over losing his right arm to the Germans. In fact he told me once he can still feel the fingers on his missing hand twitching late at night. The forefinger especially, his trigger finger. It just never stops twitching, he said.

Nor will it, thought Joe. Not if it's missing.

He had no idea what the conversation was about or where it had started. There was a half-empty glass in his hand and he sniffed it. Quinine water. Bletchley was leaning forward and leisurely adding gin to his own glass, stretching and smiling, relaxing. All at once Joe had the sensation of being on a passenger liner bound for the East, for India. He and Bletchley were chance acquaintances sitting together on deck, chatting and having drinks before sundown, passing the time before they went in to dress for the late sitting

Tarry in open spaces, my child, thought Joe.

At least you must feel better after your nap, said Bletchley.

I do, but I'm still disturbed. Disturbed by Whatley, what?

Well I could see that, but I don't think Whatley was being intentionally evasive. I'm not privy to that much of it, but my impression is he wants you to come in fresh, without preconceptions about Stern and Stern's role in this affair. Strictly from the outside, so to speak.

Stern, muttered Joe, gazing out over the rolling desert. Someone from the outside, you say?

Exactly.

Or someone from the other side perhaps? added Joe. Wouldn't that be another way of putting it? What if the Germans suddenly took a special interest in Stern? What could the Germans come up with? What could they uncover?

I suppose it's something along those lines, said Bletchley. I don't know specifically what the nature of the operation is, but my impression of its general drift is about the same as yours.

That's it, thought Joe. The Monastery's having me play a part similar to a German agent's. Look into Stern's activities from the point of view of the other side, and see what I can come up with. But why?

They've got more than enough to do out here running operations against the Germans. Why go to the trouble of running an operation against Stern, one of their own men? The information he has must be very important. Even crucial, as the three men in white linen suits said back in Arizona.

A thought struck Joe.

And could it be that this information concerns the Monastery? Is that why these Monks are so tight-lipped about everything? Because they're afraid for themselves? Because Stern knows something about this place that nobody else knows? And if the Germans were ever to find out . . . ?

Bletchley sipped from his glass and began to talk about sunsets at sea. Once more they were on a passenger liner bound for the East, for India.

Changing the subject, thought Joe. Bletchley doesn't want me to become too curious about Stern's specific piece of information. Report back on Stern in general, that's all. Not recognize the nugget when I come across it. If I do.

Joe found himself drifting away again, losing touch.

We'll have to be leaving soon, said Bletchley. I don't like driving at night. It bothers my eye.

You don't like it but you do it, thought Joe, an image flashing through his mind, something Liffy had mentioned in passing. Liffy accompanying Bletchley to meetings with agents at night in an automobile, Bletchley in front acting as merely the driver while Liffy was in disguise in back with the agent, debriefing the man according to Bletchley's instructions. The agent concentrating on Liffy, giving Bletchley the opportunity to listen and to observe the agent through the rearview mirror. A simple trick and an old one, but effective.

Well the game's elaborate all right, thought Joe, but at least we know now why we're sitting up here on the captain's bridge with our hunting trophies and our potted palms. Bletchley's the real skipper out here and he's the one who's in charge of this operation and in charge of the Monastery for that matter, and Whatley's just someone on his staff, his deputy probably. . . . But why is the game so elaborate? These Monks have a war to worry about and Rommel's out there with his panzers churning closer all the time, so what's going on? Why are they so deathly afraid of Stern at a time like this? . . . One man after all, no more.

Have you ever heard of the Sisters? asked Bletchley.

Joe tried to think.

The Weird Sisters, you mean? That old expression for the Fates?

Bletchley laughed.

No, this has nothing to do with folklore. I was referring to two women who used to be the reigning queens of Cairo society a while back. They're twins and rather reclusive now. They live in a houseboat on the Nile, I'm told.

Oh. No I haven't heard of them, said Joe.

But surely the name Menelik Ziwar means something to you, doesn't it? That Egyptologist Stern used to know? He was also quite a society figure once . . . in his way.

Yes, I've heard of old Menelik, said Joe. What about him?

Bletchley didn't answer. He got to his feet and stretched.

We really must be leaving, he murmured. I don't like driving at night. It bothers my eye.

***

Joe didn't remember the drive back through the desert with Bletchley, or arriving in Old Cairo, or Ahmad helping him up to his room. Nor did he know that Liffy had come that evening to take up the vigil, Liffy quietly humming to himself as Joe tossed with fever and the night swirled more deeply over that decaying ruin known as the Hotel Babylon, as all the while down below the taciturn Ahmad sat erect on his high stool in the gloomy corridor that passed for his office in life, the yellowing sheets of a thirty-year-old newspaper spread out in front of him, opened as always to the society page.

-8-

Maud

She locked her back door and started down the outside stairs to the alley, where her neighbor's children were still out playing despite the late hour. As soon as they heard her footsteps in the darkness they came rushing up, laughing and shouting and trying to guess which of her hands held candies for them. And then their mother was leaning out of one of the narrow windows of yellow light on the alley, and Maud had to speak to her before she looked in their open kitchen door to exchange a few more words with the grandfather of the household, who was always proud of a chance to display his meager French.

In the quiet little square at the end of the alley, tucked away behind busier streets, there were other neighbors to greet, working people out for a stroll or simply standing around in small groups chatting and enjoying the evening breezes off the river, so welcome after the fierce heat of the day. The waiter inside the door of the little restaurant on the square was all smiles when he saw her.

No, he said, there'd been no mail for her that afternoon. And yes, his son was doing very well, already a help in the kitchen at the age of ten. Another few months and he was going to begin training the boy to set the tables. . . . The waiter leaned closer, a trace of graveness in his voice, a hint of intensity around his eyes.

You'll be coming to dinner soon? Perhaps this weekend?

If we can manage it, she said, knowing what he meant.

Oh good, good. I'm so glad. . . .

She crossed the cobblestones to the small outdoor café, taking a table at the back. The waiter there was also a friend who had to tell her his news while he wiped the table three or four times, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

We have some special pastries tonight, he added. Shall I put one aside for you?

That would be kind, she said, and the waiter beamed. Since she never ate a sweet when she was alone at the café, he knew she was expecting her friend. Abruptly his manner also became intent, confidential.

Are things going well? He's . . . everything's all right?

Yes, said Maud, smiling.

Oh well, that's just fine then, praise be to God. . . .

The man left to bring her coffee, muttering to himself, and Maud gazed up the little square toward the street where the traffic passed. She never ceased to wonder at the concern people felt for Stern and his well-being, even people who hardly knew him. Yet the suggestion was always there, the suddenly alert tone and the almost anxious question which could have been an everyday pleasantry, but wasn't. . . .

Everything's all right? . . . You'll be coming for dinner soon? . . . Which meant, Is he all right? Will he be coming back soon?

And the smile of relief when she answered yes. And the deeply felt whispers. . . . Oh good, good. . . .

Praise be to God.

She sipped her coffee, happy to be alone in a place where she belonged, enjoying the nighttime sounds and rituals of her neighborhood. Then all at once she heard his voice above the murmur, deeper than the others, and there he was making his way between the tables and greeting the waiter and saying something to a group of old men which made them laugh, causing their cups to rattle. . . . Stern at last. The great dark head and the mysterious smile, the sweeping eyes and the hands that never stopped feeling things, that were always reaching out and touching, touching. . . .

He slipped into the chair beside her, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder.

. . . I was hoping to get away in time for dinner, but you know how it is these days for a clerk at the office. Nothing but more and more work on the ledgers. Sometimes it seems that contrary to what God says, accountants are going to inherit the earth.

He smiled and drank off the arak the waiter placed before him, still holding her shoulder with his other hand. The waiter seemed reluctant to leave and Stern made a remark in Arabic which made the man laugh, the slang too complicated for Maud to understand. Stern nodded, smiling up at the man.

. . . another? Why not. Now what did I do with my cigarettes?

He let go of her shoulder and felt his pockets.

. . . must have forgotten to pick some up, I'll just step up to the kiosk around the corner. But you're having a sweet, aren't you? Shall I tell him to bring it now? . . . I'll only be a moment.

Stern walked inside and spoke to the waiter, lingering with the man for a moment, neither of them acting out of the ordinary, then turned and left the café and went striding quickly up the square to the street.

Two or three minutes later and he was on his way back, this time resting his hand on hers when he sat down. He always touched her when he was with her, it was a habit he had. His fingers moving ever so slightly, gently. Caressing, feeling. . . . And for some reason, this time, her eyes fell on his disfigured thumb with its cruel scars, made a few years ago when his thumbnail had been ripped away in some foolish accident.

Once he had told her how it had happened . . . trying to fix something and his thumb slipping, catching, the thumbnail tearing away and tearing flesh with it ... she couldn't even remember the details now. In fact she had long since ceased even to notice that thumb with its scars, because it was just another part of Stern now. But all at once she did notice it at that moment, and it almost startled her. The contrast of those brutal scars and the gentle strokes of his thumb on her hand . . . all at once it seemed unbearably poignant.

Stern smiled warmly, happily, his eyes breathing her in.

. . . so good to be with you, he whispered. So right, the way life should be.

While they were talking, he reached up and stroked her hair. There was nothing unusual about the gesture and from a distance no one would have seen anything out of the ordinary, any change in his manner, but Stern was now whispering in an obscure Greek dialect native to the mountains of Crete. He used the dialect only when they were in a public place and he had something private to say. Maud didn't speak it as well as he did, but she understood it easily enough.

. . . I don't want you to worry but I'm not quite alone tonight. I'm being followed.

She felt a twinge inside. How long has it been going on? she asked, and watched him shrug.

. . . a few days.

But who are they, Stern? Is it all right?

. . . oh yes. Just some fellows from the Monastery.

Just that, she thought, aware of his hands ceaselessly moving, stroking her and touching the table and touching his glass, his cigarettes, her ring. Feeling the world around him now more than ever, as if he were afraid of losing it. Not wanting to let it go, touching. . . .

But why, what does it mean, Stern? Do you know?

. . . well I'm due to leave town later tonight and they probably want to make sure I get safely on my way.

He laughed harshly.

. . . you know, in hopes I won't come back.

She frowned at the remark, thinking how his humor had become bitter lately in a way she didn't like, but Stern seemed not to notice her frown. His eyes were moving around the square as he took out the old Morse-code key he always carried and began to turn it over and over, his other hand holding her shoulder.

What is it, Stern?

. . . oh. Well you haven't noticed anyone around, have you?

No.

. . . and the family next door to you, the grandfather, he hasn't mentioned seeing anyone?

No, but are they watching me too? Is that what you mean?

. . I'm afraid they may be, so I'm told . . . but not that closely and there's no danger involved, it's just something to do with me.

She looked at him. None of it made any sense to her, but of course there was no reason why it should.

Stern had always been careful never to talk to her in any detail about the work he did for the Monastery.

Yet lately he had been alluding to his work more openly, which she found disturbing in itself.

. . . so it might be better, he added, if you didn't say anything about this at your office. It doesn't concern the Waterboys and they don't know anything about it, so why upset them? And you've seen nothing yourself so there's nothing to hide. Of course if something should seem out of the ordinary, it might be wise to mention it to the grandfather next door. He's around all the time and he knows everyone, and he would . . . but anyway, it's strictly between the Monks and myself and . . .

Stern didn't finish. He smiled his mysterious smile and changed the subject and they talked of other things, Stern drinking heavily all the while. Then too quickly midnight was near and their moment together was over. Once more it was time for Stern to leave.

I know you have to rush, she said, but there's still one thing you haven't told me tonight. How are you?

The question cut through Stern's restlessness. He slumped forward and looked down at the table, a weariness coining over him, his powerful eyes still for once, even his hands at rest.

. . . tired, Maud . . . exhausted. But it's not so much the physical part as . . . it's strange, you know. I always thought the body was supposed to give way first, especially when you have the kind of habits I do. But no, it seems the other illusions . . . it's not so much the armor of the soul as . . . well anyway, I'm going to be away for about two weeks, so . . .

She reached out for him and he held her tightly, silently trying to say all the things he hadn't been able to say in words, smiling as he stepped back and squeezed her hand a final time, quickly then moving off up the square . . . the restless stride and a nod or a word here and there to the late stragglers of the evening, turning and waving to her, the great dark head against the midnight sky of the city as he reached the corner and looked back, catching a final glimpse of her. . . .

Gone. She took a deep breath, gazing after him. How odd it is, she thought. For years the partings were always so hectic for us, wrenching in some painful way. But now when there's a war and the danger is greater than ever, it's almost quiet between us. Peaceful even.

Why? she wondered. Because so many of the decisions are no longer ours to make? Is that really the only way for life to be less tormenting? To have its choices taken out of your hands, its decisions taken from you?

***

She sat up late that night on her little balcony, the way she always did when Stern was leaving again. Two weeks this time, he had said, but who knew what that meant? Who could ever know with a man like Stern who was forever leaving on some dangerous new mission for the Monastery?

Mission. The Waterboys always used that term and so did the Monks. Everyone else always spoke of going on missions, but Stern never did. Somehow it was too grand a word for him and he spoke, instead, of traveling. . . . A man on his travels . . . I have some traveling to do.

Stern . . . Joe . . . how very different they were in so many ways, yet the two of them had once been very close, years ago in Jerusalem. Joe had often talked to her then about his great friend Stern, and she remembered how surprised she had been when she and Stern had finally met much later, in Istanbul, after all three of them had taken their separate paths.

She didn't know what she had expected, probably some kind of genie after the way Joe had talked about him. Certainly not the Stern she had come to know, so much like other men when she saw him as she had tonight, hunched over a table in a small café and talking of little things, laughing and silent by turns, the two of them so much like everybody else in the way they reached out for each other and quietly held on as best they could, enjoying their brief moments together. Stern in the shabby suit of a clerk, pushing back his hair and joking about ledgers and making light of working late at the office. . . . Save for his restless eyes and his hands that were never quite still, the same as anybody else passing an hour in the little square at the end of her alley. Tonight at least for a moment . . . the same as anybody else.

And Joe? Why had she thought of him tonight? Or did she always think of him at this time of the year especially . . . remembering their long-ago trip to the Sinai and their month together in a tiny oasis on the Gulf of Aqaba. Brilliant waters and sands that burned and the stunning sunsets of the desert bursting over them, and the breezes of the all-healing sea, the eternal stillness of dawn in the beginning of love. . . .

Yes, that must have been why she had thought of Joe tonight. It was the time of the year and Stern leaving once more as Joe had left so often when he worked for Stern long ago in Jerusalem . . . some coincidence of little things in her mind. The tricks of memory mixing the years together as she sat up late on her narrow balcony, gazing out over the great restless city and thinking of many things but above all of Stern.

The voice, the eyes, the incessant touching . . . could it really be that he was finally coming apart like the world itself? Stern with his lifelong dream of a great peaceful new nation in the Middle East the vision shaken in the monstrous slaughter of the First World War only to be shattered in the madness of the Second World War. Nothing left for Stern now because no one wanted to hear of his hopeless dreams, not the Arabs and not the Jews . . . no one. And yet Stern had known all of that for years, so why did he go on doing what he did? Why did he struggle endlessly when there was no end for what he sought?

In the darkness Maud suddenly laughed at herself, laughing at her own musings.

Why does he? . . . but why do any of us? Why do we go on trying when what we hope for will always be beyond us? When we can never more than touch the lives of others in passing? When even our own life must forever be tentative and incomplete and out of reach, no more than a shadow of what we long for?

So perhaps it wasn't that hard in the end to understand why people felt so strongly about Stern, even men like the waiters in her little square, chance acquaintances who knew almost nothing about him. Quite simply, they saw in Stern something they wished they had been able to see in themselves. A refusal to accept the pathetic limits of life, a defiance to the pathetic failures of hope. . . .

We have to be more, he used to say. It's no longer enough to be what we were. We're dreaming creatures who have learned to reach beyond ourselves, unlike any other animal, who can therefore decide what we will become. And no matter how it terrifies us, there's no other way for us to be now. . .

.

And the great dark head thrown back as the mysterious smile came over his face.

. . . so it isn't true any longer that we can just create ourselves. Now we must. Our childhood as a race is over and there's no going back, no escape into barbarism, no way to lose ourselves in the mindlessness of our animal past. Now we have to be free in order to be at all. The child within us prefers its instinctual cage, and the wars of this century are the final tantrums of our childhood's end, but the wars can't go on and on and we all sense that. Our killing toys have become too clever and our killing fields have become the entire earth, and now we either have to put aside our childish ways or refuse to, and in refusing, renounce life. I mean destroy ourselves utterly. . . .

Oh yes, she thought. Stern and his invincible dreams and the legions of little people who seize hope from the fires that go on consuming him in the dark places of his soul, Stern with his alcohol and his morphine and the crumbling defiance of his vision. . . . Tired, he had said. Exhausted, he had said.

From her little balcony Maud gazed out at the soft lights of the restless city, thinking of the wilderness not many miles away where great armies were slaughtering each other across the barren sands, as ferocious as blind animals ripping and clawing in the night.

Poor Stern, she thought, poor all of us. And have we really become like him . . . too grand a dream to survive?

-9-

Menelik

Joe awoke in his tiny room in the Hotel Babylon on a Sunday morning, having been lost in fever since Friday night. Liffy was still sitting at the table beside him, keeping watch, as he had been for most of that time. While Joe recounted the strange tale of his trip to the Monastery, Liffy squirmed uncomfortably and his face grew more and more pinched with pain. Finally he opened his mouth and let fly with a thunderous clap of gas, followed by an explosive barrage of gurgles and sighs. He smiled weakly, patting his stomach.

How's that, Joe? The Bletch, you say? Well it's ominous all right but I can't say it surprises me particularly, only because nothing having to do with war surprises me. An all-seeing one-eyed Bletch in charge of the Monastery? It's madness, that's all. It's all madness and I try not to think about it. . . .

Liffy's stomach went on rumbling noisily. Joe asked him if he had ever heard of the two women known as the Sisters, whom Bletchley had mentioned.

Heard of them certainly, said Liffy, but that's no help to you. Anyone who's spent any time in Cairo has heard of those social lionesses of yesteryear, the two of them so old and famous it's rumored they might once have been on intimate terms with the Sphinx back before he was turned to stone, as so often happens with good ideas. But that was yesteryear and now the fabled Sisters live in seclusion in a houseboat on the Nile, watching time go by, a counterpart to the Sphinx in the desert. . . . But what, pray, does it all amount to? Has Bletchley suddenly gone philosophical on us? Just lost his grip and decided that the darkest hour of a dark war is the time to do some serious brooding over the enigma of the Nile and the Sphinx? Somehow it seems unlikely.

Joe nodded.

It does, all right, but Bletchley has a way of not appearing to say much when in fact he's saying a great deal. Now the last thing he mentioned at the Monastery was old Menelik and the Sisters, almost in the same breath, but why? And what's the connection between them, and what's that got to do with Stern today?

Liffy grew thoughtful.

Today, he muttered. The here and the now. . . . That's always a confusing matter, isn't it, because who knows what's here or now in someone else's mind? . . .

Abruptly Liffy smiled, whistled.

Wait, don't move. When you and I saw Stern in the eye of the Sphinx, it was in a lookout old Menelik had fashioned for himself in the last century. But that wasn't the only secret place that was dear to the old sage's heart, was it? There's also his crypt right here in Cairo beside the Nile, that ancient mausoleum beneath a public garden where he lived his last years. Now what about that, Joe?

Joe rubbed his eyes and gazed at the bottle of gin on the table.

It sounds fine to me. What about it?

Ah well. Today, Ahmad uses that crypt as his secret workshop, the place where he keeps his printing press and his engraving tools and so forth. I'll get to that. But first, didn't Bletchley make some comment when he mentioned old Menelik and the Sisters? Some attribute they had in common? You alluded to it .

. . what was it exactly?

Joe frowned.

You mean the fact that old Menelik was also something of a society figure in his day?

Liffy's hand shot out and he pointed at Joe.

Precisely. And who, by chance, just happens to be the expert on all Cairo social matters having to do with yesteryear? . . . Who, you say? Why Ahmad, of course. Ahmad, none other. The society pages of thirty-year-old newspapers are his specialty. . . . So then. What Bletchley seems to be saying is that to find out the truth about Stern, you must first find out the truth about old Menelik and the Sisters. And the key to that must be an excursion into Ahmad's past, because it is Ahmad who holds the key to Menelik's secret crypt today. Of course. Who else? This is Ahmad's clandestine workshop we're talking about, his underground truth.

Liffy laughed.

Too roundabout for you? Too devious and obscure? Well it wouldn't be for Bletchley and his Monks, I'd wager. Because lastly there's the fact that you're the only person staying in the Hotel Babylon, other than Ahmad himself, and that didn't happen by chance. That had to be arranged that way, by Bletchley of course. So whatever enigma Bletchley's brooding over, it starts right here in the Hotel Babylon with our local hermit-in-residence. And clearly, at this point on your journey east, all paths lead to Ahmad.

Liffy nodded thoughtfully.

Yes. That's exactly what Bletchley seems to be saying in his cryptic Monkish way. . . . Your journey now involves time, my child, not space. Not rivers and mountains and deserts to be crossed, but memories to be explored. For the moment has come to stop look and listen while tarrying in caves and open spaces, those of the past, and while marking well the local aphorisms. Ahmad's, no less. For now you must behold the very notion of this crumbling hermitage where you find yourself, this mythical Babylonian retreat which you share with only one other human being deep in a Cairo slum. . . . In short, what is the Hotel Babylon, my child? And who is Ahmad and what on earth is someone like him doing in these crumbling ruins while a terrible war rages across the world?

Liffy laughed, then turned serious.

In a way I envy you, Joe. I've never gotten to know Ahmad well, but I've always sensed there are whole worlds to be explored there, perhaps even a whole secret universe. And it may be that old Menelik is somehow at the center of this distant hieroglyphic past, a kind of black sun around whom many lives once revolved in some mysterious underground way. And although Ahmad has a strange ability to move from this world to others and back again, perhaps for that very reason you can't expect a coherent narrative for what you seek. Because it's Ahmad's memory that you hope to explore, isn't it, and memory never flows from beginning to middle to end, does it? It's always in transit in the middle of things, all of it is, and it deals exclusively in glimpses and suggestions, or shards, as Menelik might have called them.

Fragments, in other words. Odd bits and pieces from which we must try to reconstruct the cup that once was, the fragile vessel that once held the wine of other lives in other eras. . . . Fragments, shards, yes.

The elusive materials of the Egyptologist gut after all, we're in Egypt so that's only natural, I suppose.

Only to be expected, I imagine.

Joe watched him. He smiled.

My God, Liffy, your imagination has found a lot for me to do this Sunday afternoon.

Liffy looked up and nodded eagerly.

True? While I'm exploring a totally different kind of reality? But let's consider your business first, since yours is business and my plans involve nothing more than straightforward outright debauchery, merely erotic tumbling at its sweatiest. . . . Now then, how can I help? What can I tell you about Ahmad or the Hotel Babylon or the music of time? But wait, I have an idea. Why wouldn't a pianola be as good a way as any to get things rolling? . . .

***

Liffy snorted. He laughed.

You've seen it, I know you have. There it stands under decades of dust at the far end, the dark end, of the corridor downstairs, a pianola of all things. And what in God's name could it possibly be doing there?

Joe moved as if to stand up and Liffy immediately whirled and glared at the bottle of gin on the table.

Is there a genie trapped in that bottle? he asked.

It seems likely, muttered Joe.

And you want to let him out? Set him free?

It seemed like not such a bad idea.

Liffy frowned, shaking his head vigorously.

Business first, Joe. The pianola takes precedence. Now then. Every Sunday morning, after Ahmad has his coffee and his sesame wafers on his high stool behind the counter, he strolls back there into the gloom and ponderously plays the pianola for an hour or so. Peddling the past, he calls it, perhaps because the pianola only has one roll. Home Sweet Home. You might say Ahmad has a delicious nostalgia for bygone eras.

Liffy looked thoughtful.

Of course he also has his trade which he pursues in old Menelik's mausoleum, currently Ahmad's secret workshop. Down there Ahmad's a master forger second to none, said to be the best in Egypt. Money is his specialty, great heaps of counterfeit currencies for the use of fanatical Monks who have taken the vow of poverty. Spurious millions in the cause of bogus appearances, don't you see, rather like life itself. But Ahmad also turns out identity papers and other scraps of this and that, such as those coupons good for free drinks. Don't you remember me flashing one at the airport? Say Ahmad sent you and you'll never be sorry?

You mean those coupons actually work? asked Joe.

Always. Anywhere in Cairo.

Why?

Liffy smacked his lips.

I thought you'd never ask. They work because Ahmad's father, also an Ahmad, was once a famous dragoman in Cairo, the leading guide and interpreter for tourists in these parts and something of a patron saint to those in the pimp and alcohol trades. It seems they still revere his name because he was one of the forerunners of modern Egyptian nationalism, by way of the dragomen's benevolent society, which he founded. Anyway, Ahmad père used to hang around the verandas of tourist hotels, leering up business for himself in the last century, and one winter he chanced to have a torrid affair with a young German woman who was down for a holiday, and Ahmad fils, our Ahmad, has been a fiercely anti-German vegetarian ever since.

Why?

Because that young German woman became his mother. Soon after Ahmad fils was born, you see, she abandoned both Ahmads and returned to Germany. She thought it was best for all concerned, but certain political enemies of Ahmad père spread a rumor that she'd buzzed off home because she couldn't live without a daily chomp on the long thick blood sausages of her fatherland. Our Ahmad heard this malicious rumor while still a sensitive youth and took it as a personal insult, reading some kind of sexual innuendo into his mother's reputed craving for large Germanic blood sausages. He never forgave the poor woman for preferring them to him. In fact he has never forgiven women in general, or Germany in general, or meat. . . . Once more the meat problem looming large in human affairs, I'd say, and it does have a way of doing that, doesn't it, old horse? Meat, I mean. Meat, that's all. The meat of the matter, pure and simple. Even when someone's as spiritual as Ahmad is, it's just extraordinary how often meat can be fundamental to what ails us. . . . Yes, meat, my child. Consider it well while tarrying in spiritual caves and open spaces. . . .

Liffy sighed.

As I well know. As I know as well as anyone. . . . But in any case our Ahmad is generally referred to locally as Ahmad the Poet, although no one has ever seen him write any poetry. A matter of disposition, perhaps. And it's safe to say that on top of everything else, Ahmad's very keen on the Movement.

Which movement is that? asked Joe.

My dear fellow, the Movement. Is there ever more than one? The Movement may be defined as whatever explains history to the individual concerned. The Movement is revolutionary in nature, a dazzling innovation that no one has ever thought of before, again, save for the individual concerned. The Movement smashes through the old order of things and updates us, a kind of political trolley used by some to transport them from being young and no one, to being older and someone. I'm sure you've heard of people dedicated to the Movement, even if you haven't met one recently. L'homme engagé, for example, remember him from the '30s? Dashing French fellow in a beret who was always chain-smoking dramatically? Who used to turn up behind the intellectual barricades in moments of crisis to sum it all up by saying, Life is absurd or Life is a Cambodian, that sort of thing? But if all of this seems confusing to think about, why not relax and leave the thinking to Ahmad? I'm sure he'll tell you everything you could ever want to know about the Movement, and I do mean everything. Followers of the Movement are like that. . . . But what's the secret of the pyramids, master? Everything, my child. . . .

Liffy nodded to himself, his face thoughtful.

I should also add that Ahmad has been well described as an Egyptian gentleman in a flat straw hat who stands at a slight angle to the universe.

Who describes him that way? asked Joe.

The retired belly dancer up the street, replied Liffy. That very nice woman who sells tender young roast chickens for a living, as well as serving as the official hum-job historian for the rue Clapsius. She always says that about Ahmad.

Oh I see.

Yes. And the reason Ahmad never takes off his boater, his hat, she says, is because it's a memento from an earlier and quieter age when Ahmad served as the stroke and captain of a racing crew rivered by the dragomen's benevolent society against the British navy. In those days there used to be a ferocious rowing competition known as the Annual Battle for the Fleshpots of the Nile, and in 1912, I believe it was, Ahmad's crew won, the only time the British navy was ever beaten at its own game on the Nile, and by riffraff at that. The touts and pimps had done it at last. . . . And never, notes the former belly dancer, did the rue Clapsius hum with so much verve as it did that night. It was a heartening triumph for all true Cairenes, naturally, and a banner day for Egyptian nationalism. So the boater Ahmad wears is a precious memento from that fabled victory of yesteryear.

Liffy frowned.

But that was yesteryear and now he's quiet, Ahmad is. He's like a huge solemn cat silently licking his memories. So although all paths lead to Ahmad, according to Bletchley's clues, I'd still go gently with him when introducing Stern's name. Years ago the two of them were very close, but there was some kind of betrayal involved and it's still a touchy subject. I've never gotten to the bottom of it.

Liffy stood up. His face brightened.

Anyway, I have to tell you I telephoned Cynthia last night, hoping for a reconciliation, and she said she might take notice of me if I turned up on her doorstep as someone suitable this afternoon. I was considering playing the part of a Free French officer with the colonials. You know, a darkly handsome spahi officer of Algerian cavalry. They wear swirling red cloaks. . . . Irresistible on a Sunday afternoon, wouldn't you think?

Devastating, said Joe, smiling.

If you've recovered, that is, and don't need me. . . . And by the way, Bletchley seems to have someone keeping an eye on you. I spotted a young fellow hanging about up the street. He's missing most of his fingers and he may just be looking for a tender young chicken for lunch, or then again he may not be. Are you interested?

Not yet, said Joe. It's too soon.

Liffy laughed.

It is? Strange, but that's what Cynthia always says when we get into bed. It's too soon. Talk to me first.

And do you?

Liffy nodded vigorously.

Indeed, I tell her erotic tales from my travels. Would I be one to deny the myriad sexual acts mounted by spahi officers over the years in the desert? Beneath the swirl of a red cloak on Sundays?

Ha, and now I'm off to taste adventure, boomed Liffy, happily sweeping out the door and clattering down the rickety stairs.

***

At the foot of the stairs, behind the small counter tucked away in the shadowy corridor that led to the street, the enigmatic Ahmad sat silently playing solitaire, a thirty-year-old newspaper open at his elbow.

From what Joe had seen, solitaire and thirty-year-old newspapers seemed to be the man's sole pastimes when he was not engaged in his professional duties as a deskman at the Hotel Babylon or as a forger in Menelik's mausoleum.

Ahmad was a large man, his appearance bizarre even by rue Clapsius standards. In addition to the battered flat straw hat that was always on his head, he wore great round tortoiseshell glasses, securely attached to his ears by pieces of red thread tied in identical bows. His hair was also a bright red, obviously dyed according to his own prescription, for the color was much too bright and uneven to have been the work of a professional hairdresser.

Although his massive face was far from young, it had remained smooth and unlined and was rooted in an enormous thrusting nose. The size of his hands was remarkable and the general impression he gave was of great muscular strength in repose. There was even a childlike eagerness to his face, as if his impressions of life were still new and not yet fully formed, with the result that he looked less like an older man and more like a boy who had aged.

Up until that Sunday Ahmad had always been withdrawn in Joe's presence, never saying more than was necessary. But Joe had guessed this might have to do with a natural shyness on Ahmad's part, and in fact Ahmad's manner changed completely, as Joe had hoped it would, when Joe leaned on the counter and mentioned in an offhand way that he had once heard many stories in Jerusalem about the masterly Egyptologist and revered black sage unknown to the world as Menelik Ziwar, dead now these many years.

Of course the fact that the mere mention of Menelik Ziwar's name could dramatically alter the nature of an afternoon, any afternoon, wasn't surprising. It was true that only a few people had ever heard of this fabled Cairene of the nineteenth century, even when he was still alive. But to those fortunate few he would forever remain an astounding man of unsurpassed accomplishments, a hero of legendary proportions.

And unforgettable in every respect. Joe only knew what he had been told about Menelik Ziwar a decade earlier in Jerusalem. But Ahmad's connection with old Menelik was much more personal, as it turned out, and inextricably entwined with his own most intimate concerns

***

Menelik Ziwar had begun life as a black slave named Boy, born in the Nile delta early in the nineteenth century. At the age of four he was tossed into a cottonfield and told to pick, and under normal conditions that is what he would have done for the rest of his days, about two decades at best, before dying of dysentery or cholera or typhoid. But somehow Boy managed to learn to write a few words, including Ziwar, the name of the rich cotton-fat family that owned him, and soon he was proudly inscribing this name as a kind of graffiti on every available surface on the plantation where he lived.

Before long one of the Ziwars took note of this ubiquitous salute to his name and was flattered by it. He had Boy transferred from the fields to his mansion, to service his opium pipe on a daily basis. Boy now had time to dream, and with his imagination fired by the rewards of literacy, he quickly went on to learn to read as well as to write. That accomplished, Boy felt he had earned the right to a better name and immediately chose Menelik for himself, after the mythical first emperor of Ethiopia, the only country in Africa not ruled by Europeans at the time.

When Menelik was freed his success was even more startling. He moved to Cairo as a young man and learned the European tongues in order to be able to support himself by working as a dragoman, while quietly launching his study of hieroglyphs between backstairs assignations with tourists. He then turned his attention to archeology, at the same time cornering the opium market in Cairo as a way to finance his expensive digs elsewhere, and soon became the leading Egyptologist of the century, a wizard of subterranean life.

Yet the habits of anonymity acquired in his youth stayed with him, and Menelik always allowed the dissolute young men of the Ziwar clan to take credit for his remarkable discoveries, preferring instead to remain invisibly in the background, sagely advising others where to dig and how much opium to smoke while doing so, the better to appreciate these splendid treasures hidden by the ages.

Menelik's career of unsurpassed brilliance continued until he was well into his nineties, but long before then he had gone underground completely to live out his days in even greater obscurity, choosing one of his own discoveries as his retirement home, a spacious ancient tomb now to be found beneath a busy public garden beside the Nile. There old Menelik had graciously held court until he died, royally entertaining the few people who knew he existed. And it was this same mausoleum beneath a public garden in Cairo that Ahmad now used as his secret workshop, forging spurious millions for the Monks, as Liffy said.

And thus had ended an astonishing life begun so simply in a child's graffiti of long ago, on that fateful day in the nineteenth century when a little black slave named Boy had dared to raise his eyes on the cotton plantation where he labored, thereby exuberantly defying law and order, and had dared to write on a wall those slashing bold words that were to set free the magic of his yearning soul forever.

HAY.

EYES TIE-ED DRAGIN COTTUN ROUN.

COTTUN AINT FAYROW,

EYE EM.

(s) ZIWAR UF DA DELTER. MI, ZATS ALL.

-10-

Ahmad

But it was only one tiny part of old Menelik's career that seemed to appeal to Ahmad, not his phenomenal life in general.

Ahmad's intense admiration for the old Egyptologist was focused entirely on that extremely brief period when the young Menelik had worked as a dragoman one winter in Cairo, in order to support himself while beginning his study of hieroglyphs. For it was during that long-ago winter that Menelik and Ahmad's father had conceived the idea for the first dragomen's benevolent society, a forerunner of twentieth-century Egyptian nationalism.

Such vision, said Ahmad to Joe. And what heroic battles they had to fight to get the struggle out of the cafés and into the streets. In those days a dragoman could only find work during the winter tourist season. The rest of the year he had to do without, as did his neglected suffering children, the poor little waifs. For a dragoman in those days, it was rut or perish. During the winter, rich Europeans clamored for a dragoman's services and were willing to pay almost any price to get their hands on him. And then?

What did happen then? asked Joe.

Spring, thundered Ahmad. The crudest season. And not only spring, but spring and summer and autumn.

The tourists stopped coming to Cairo because it was too hot, and those same dragomen who had been the hottest items in town were suddenly rendered cold. Whereas before, a world-weary dragoman had hardly been able to set foot on the veranda of a tourist hotel without being pounced upon by wealthy Europeans in search of the rumored depravities of the Levant, now these same poor slaves to the lusts of foreign exploiters were summarily scorned. Jeered at. Made the butt of rude Italian gestures and abruptly tossed off hotel verandas as if they had become so much superfluous hanky-panky.

But they changed all that, boomed Ahmad. And if you think Trotsky and Lenin set the world on its head, you should have seen what old Menelik and my father did right here in Cairo decades earlier. Fearlessly they went from café to café, convincing their fellow dragomen the time had come to stand up, to shriek, to speak out against these intolerable forced vacations that stretched on from spring through summer to autumn. Oh it was a time of fervor, all right. A time when there was electricity in the air.

I'm beginning to feel it, said Joe. It sounds like a regular spring thundersquall bursting over Cairo, with intellectual lightning just everywhere.

Ahmad whirled on him, his eyes afire, his voice crackling with emotion.

Ram it, he thundered. Up until then dragomen had always been mere rams for hire during the winter season, while being scorned during all other seasons. But no longer. Not after old Menelik and my father launched the Movement. And how did the idea for this great revolutionary crusade begin? This secular jihad to free the toiling masses of dragomandom?

Small, I bet, said Joe. That always seems to be the way.

Ahmad was somber, thoughtful.

Would you believe me if I told you it began in a small way? But always my father was passionately hammering away at the same inspiring theme. . . . You have to get out of the cafés and into the streets, he said. If you want your power to be felt, organize. If you want to make them listen to you, organize.

There's only one way to change history. Organize.

Straight ahead through the centuries, said Joe. But was old Menelik really so interested in politics as a young man? I'd always heard he was only a dragoman for a winter or so, to make ends meet while he was getting his hieroglyphs together. Do I have it wrong?

Abruptly Ahmad's face darkened.

Menelik went underground, that's all. Down into tombs. But he continued the struggle there.

Oh I see.

And his heart was always aboveground with my father and the cause, said Ahmad, who then began offering up a host of elaborate excuses to explain Menelik's speedy departure from the Movement which made it clear Joe hadn't been wrong at all.

In fact although the idea for a dragomen's benevolent society had originally been Menelik's, the black scholar had lost interest in café agitation almost at once, due to his increasing fascination with buried graffiti and forgotten facts and subterranean reality in general the everyday spadework of Egyptology.

What Ahmad had been referring to when he admitted that the black scholar had gone underground.

But it was also apparent that Ahmad didn't like to dwell on this subterranean aspect of Menelik's life.

And the reason Ahmad couldn't accept these underground truths, refusing even to acknowledge their existence beneath the shifting sands of Egypt, was because he wanted so desperately to believe the founding of a dragomen's benevolent society in Cairo had been the most dramatic event of the nineteenth century, and therefore the most significant cause that anyone could have taken part in then.

And all because that was what his father had done.

Democracy in action, boomed Ahmad, all his old enthusiasm returning. My father and his fellow dragomen discussed everything under the sun as they lounged away the hours in cafés, and there were superb speeches and vivid manifestos, not to mention all the poignant true-life stories that were constantly being retold and retold. The times were alive then, and there was even talk of founding a new nation or a new world-order dedicated to pure dragomanly ideals.

And so we had verandaism, thundered Ahmad. And we had radical nocturnalism and revolutionary hotel-lobby restructuralism, and a revisionist humanist wing with no furniture, and the inevitable backroom lobby filled with cigar smoke, for the disabled. . . . Oh it was all there. And each faction had its hour of shrill ascendency as the final truth took shape, and then finally the enraged shouts erupted and the fighting slogans were unwound, and the downtrodden dragomen of Cairo rose up as one angry man and marched out of the cafés and into the streets. They just weren't going to take it anymore, and thus was born the International Brotherhood of Dragomen and Touts. Or simply the Brotherhood, as they were known to their supporters. Or the DTs, as their detractors so viciously referred to them.

There's never been any respect for minorities, said Joe.

Ahmad's massive nose flared. He sighed, gripping his powerful fists together.

I have to tell you things didn't turn out well for my father, he said in a quiet voice. In his later years my father became increasingly bitter and eventually refused to see anyone at all, even Cohen and the Sisters, and that's shocking when you think of it. For hadn't their midnight sails on the Nile once been the very talk of Cairo? Those bawdy tender nights when the four of them had dressed up in costumes and drifted riotously on the currents of the great river, drinking champagne from alabaster cups of pure moonlight?

Singing their songs to the stars and caressing the night with sensual laughter?

Oh yes, the four of them had been famous friends once, yet there came a time when my father stopped going out and refused to see even them. . . .

Ahmad lowered his eyes.

Underwear had always been my father's trademark in his professional life, the finest erotic underwear imported from Europe. But when he stopped leaving his rooms, he also stopped wearing underwear. At home, with just me around, he refused to wear any at all. The fantasy's gone, he used to say. My illusions have departed like an ancient scroll rolled up.

Ahmad hung his head.

And it was all because he felt the Movement had betrayed him. It's grown fat, he used to say. It's just not the same anymore, it's not what it used to be. And in his bitterness he began smoking more and more hemp, which increased his appetite so that he ate more and more, which made him fat.

Ahmad glowered.

Bloat. Revolting. The dragoman's anathema.

Ahmad's scowl deepened.

My father had worn a beard all his life, ever since he was a sleek young man. But when he rashly decided to shave it off thirty years later, what did he find lurking beneath his beard, time's cruel reward for his decades of selfless sacrifice on behalf of the Movement?

My God, said Joe, what did he find?

Wattles, thundered Ahmad. Deplorable. I have wattles, he confided to me one evening, his face all bandaged up to hide the fact, so heavily bandaged he looked like a mummy. In those later years people got into the habit of referring to him as Ahmad the Fat, and quite naturally they called me Ahmad the Thin. And since everyone else was using those names, we picked up the habit ourselves.

How is the fat one today? I would ask. Bitter and lonely, he would answer, and how is the thin one? . . .

Meaning me.

Ahmad shook his head sadly.

Sometimes when you feel defeated the world just seems to bear down on you, insulting you and humiliating you. I saw that happen to my father and it was terrible. He became a recluse and there was nothing I could do to make it any better for him. He played solitaire and read old newspapers and kept his face bandaged like a mummy, and he smoked hemp and never wore underwear and never stirred from his rooms. At least a game of solitaire can't betray me, he used to say. At least thirty-year-old newspapers can't lie.

Ahmad sagged heavily against the counter, his voice sinking.

Toward the end, the only thing that gave him any pleasure was listening to donkey bells. There were donkeys everywhere in Cairo in those days and he loved listening to the gay tinkling sounds of their bells.

Nothing else could ease his terrible loneliness.

Ahmad looked away.

The end came in the autumn. The Nile was still red with the topsoil of the Ethiopian highlands, and the nights were cool and no longer filled with desert grit. But the great river was ebbing swiftly and with it my father, a lonely beaten man with the life going out of him. He'd had an operation on his throat by then and he couldn't speak, so he penciled notes for me on a pad of paper he kept by his hand.

Raise me up off the pillows, he wrote that last evening. Let me hear the lovely bells one final time. . .

.

And that was the end. He died in my arms.

Slowly Ahmad raised his eyes and looked at Joe, his huge boyish face tormented, his voice a whisper.

Don't you see? I only pretend the Movement was important in order to honor my father's memory, even though in my heart I know it was nothing more than a farcical oddity once used by someone to justify his life. . . . Every life has its Movement, of course it does. But what does it matter in the end? Who cares? .

. . But what I really can't understand is why my father didn't spend his life with donkey bells? Why didn't he make them or sell them or do anything while riding around on a donkey, when he loved those gay tinkling sounds more than anything in the world?

Ahmad's lips quivered. Pain creased his massive face.

Why don't people do what would make them happy? Why do they let themselves get trapped into things? Why don't they just? . . .

But Ahmad was unable to go on. His whole body sagged and he covered his face with his hands, softly beginning to weep.

***

Noisily, Ahmad blew his nose.

Please forgive me that outburst of realism, he muttered. I try to keep them down to a minimum, given the way things are.

Ahmad blew his nose again and drew himself up on his high stool. His face brightened.

But see here, may I offer you an aperitif in some interesting attractive place, by way of apology?

You must be able to read minds, said Joe. Are you going off-duty then?

No, not exactly. But my town house is so conveniently situated, duty is no problem at all, said Ahmad, slipping off his high stool and disappearing down behind the counter. Joe thought Ahmad was retrieving his sandals, so he raised his voice.

A town house, you say? Does that mean there's a country house too?

Not now, Ahmad called up. But before the war I had a little cottage on the edge of the desert. The last war, that is, not this one. My war. The cottage was a delightful little hideaway where I could replenish my soul on weekends. In those days I not only wrote poetry and played tennis, I was also a champion cross-country tricyclist. I owned one of the first racing tricycles in Cairo, one of those swift machines you don't see anymore, the front wheel almost as tall as a man. And there I would be in my sleek racing goggles tearing down some road by the river at all hours of the day and night, the two white discs of my goggles reflecting the sun or the moon as I sped along laughing, a regular Sphinx on three wheels, just flying. . . . Oh yes, I was speed itself in those days. Hold on to your hats, they used to say, here comes Ahmad.

Is that what they used to say? Joe called out.

Always. Down by the river. But you have to picture the holiday crowds eating their grilled pigeons and their tehina salads in those cafés you find in limp gardens along the Nile, where clumsy birds of blue and gray hop along the red earth in front of you, taking flight at the very last moment with angry cries. Where kites and crows wheel black and slowly in the polished skies, the scarlet flamboyants in bloom and the sacred white herons dead still on the branches of the sagging trees. A holiday race, in other words, from the pyramids to the Nile. And picture the excitement rippling through the crowds by the river, and every head in every café turning, and a triumphant cry going up as the first tricycle came looming out of the desert. And screams and more cries as the thundering chant was taken up by one and all.

Hold on to your hats . . . here comes Ahmad.

I can see it, said Joe.

Speed, muttered Ahmad. Power. More and more speed and more and more power, I could never get enough of it.

He paused.

I also took great care with my clothes in those days. My appearance was important because I was not only an interior decorator but a leader of café society, which meant all kinds of people were always coming to me for advice and counsel. There used to be a saying in Cairo in those days. When in doubt, ask Ahmad.

Ahmad was still down behind the counter, apparently having trouble finding his sandals. While Joe listened he watched a large scruffy cat which had taken up a position just outside the front door on the cobblestones. The reddish cat was licking its paws and sunning itself. Suddenly it stopped and stared directly at Joe.

Your desert retreat must have been lovely, Joe called down.

Oh yes, Ahmad called up, his voice muffled. Cool nights and hot days, just like that song Liffy sings. But then a freak sandstorm came along and blew everything away, and I arrived at my hideaway one weekend to find there was no there there.

You decided not to rebuild?

I wasn't given the choice. It happened during the war, the last one, and tastes were changing and everything was changing and my interior decorating business was going from bad to worse. In fact I could no longer earn a penny. New people were coming along and I was out of fashion.

Joe jumped.

Ahmad's head, just his head, had appeared above the counter. He gazed solemnly at Joe for a moment from beneath his battered flat straw hat, then sank out of sight again, his voice drifting up from behind the counter.

I know it must be difficult to imagine when you look at me today, he called up, but I was quite fashionable before my troubles began. For a while I managed to keep up appearances with the help of friends, but life was changing drastically for them too, as it was for everybody. Some of them took up something new while others just wandered away and were never heard from again. While a few, like myself, could be seen still haunting the old spots, hoping to see a familiar face. . . . It's like that in wartime, even when the battles are thousands of miles away. Suddenly the world you knew is no longer there and you find yourself off in some little corner where nothing is quite right, not quite what it used to be, and a sad loneliness steals over your heart. . . . Sad, because you always thought your little world would go on forever. Because you never really understood how fragile it was . . . how fragile anything important is, because so much of it always exists only in your own imagination. But then all at once the dream is shattered and you're left with little bits and pieces in your hand, and an emptiness as vast as the night creeps into your soul. . . .

A sigh rose from down behind the counter.

I used to have long talks about it with a friend named Stern. . . . Quite simply, I'd failed in life and I didn't know what to do. A lonely time and long ago. . . .

***

Silence for a moment down behind the counter, then Ahmad began again, a lighter tone to his voice.

And what did I do? Well briefly I tried my hand at no-nonsense capitalism. Loot was my goal, nothing else mattered. Orphans and starving widows be damned. Let those whining misfits grub for their keep like the rest of us. If Carnegie could choke the poor and make ten million a year while throwing dimes to the mobs and being revered for it, why couldn't I? . . .

Instinctively, Joe jerked away from the counter. All at once the top of Ahmad's head had loomed up into view and was just sitting there, his enormous nose resting on the edge of the counter. He had removed his straw hat and was holding it aloft in some kind of salute only the upper part of his head showing.

Fish and chips was the business, said Ahmad. Greasy fish and Levantine chips. Have you ever seen that old van Liffy drives sometimes?

Of course, said Joe. The Ahmadmobile.

Exactly. Well that van belonged to me before it was acquired by an unnamed secret service. Originally it had been an ambulance in the First World War, cheap to buy because it was war surplus, as I was myself. Well I had the van cleverly fitted out with a vat for deep-frying and an icebox for fish, and my goal was to be a self-made success. Strictly one man alone oozing his way to the top, the Carnegie of greasy fish and greasier chips. And when all was ready, off I drove through the rutted back streets of greater Cairo, merrily clanging my ambulance bell, ready to relieve the housewife's dinnertime burdens with tasty orders cooked on the spot. I was the originator, you see, of the modern fast-food business in the Middle East.

That's amazing, said Joe.

And I was also the instigator, from a religious point of view, of what might be called the Moslem movable feast of the contemporary era.

That's even more amazing, said Joe.

Well it seemed so to me, and for a time I thought the Ahmadmobile might become a household word in the back streets of greater Cairo. But what's that famous Latin expression for the inevitable changes of fate? Sic semper Ahmadus?

A look of profound disdain came over the upper half of Ahmad's face, the part that was showing above the counter. His huge nose twitched, as if assaulted by some disgusting smell.

What a greasy way to make a living, he said. In fact when you really put your nose in it, capitalism is a very greasy concept. Poetry and boiling oil just don't mix. But I suppose you Europeans must have already discovered that at least by the time of the Inquisition.

You mean you didn't have much luck? asked Joe.

Well I went around clanging my ambulance bell, making every effort to think of myself as an irresistible Pied Piper, and I tried every conceivable trick to cut expenses. I even lived in that smelly van for weeks on end, sleeping in the stretcher rack like any victim from the battlefield, hoping to get a better feel for capitalism. But all I ever felt was greasy, and between the rack and the fumes, my spirit was broken.

Choked. Even though I oozed grease from every pore, I just had to accept the fact that I'd never be another Carnegie.

Weakly Ahmad waved his straw hat a final time and dropped out of sight below the counter. Joe breathed deeply several times, clearing his lungs. The large reddish cat was still staring at him from the cobblestones.

My visionary instincts were right, Ahmad shouted up, but since they were visionary they were ahead of the times, which meant I was wrong. People are comfortable with the way things were done yesterday, but uneasy about whatever may be done tomorrow. Which is why vision never pays off, and why poetry never brings in any money. If you want to make money, the best thing to do is to repeat after others.

Whatever they say, just keep repeating it. Others like that and they pay you for it.

Or better yet, said Ahmad, muttering to himself down below, repeat something that was done a very long time ago. Three or four thousand years ago, for example, the way Crazy Cohen did. That can really bring in the money.

Excuse me? Joe called down.

I was saying, shouted Ahmad, that my real problem with fish and chips was that I wasn't able to master the secret of capitalist success in this part of the world.

What's that? asked Joe. The secret?

Slimy suspicion, boomed Ahmad. Subterfuge as the supreme code of conduct.

Again a part of Ahmad's head abruptly reared into view. He rested his nose on the counter, his glasses bouncing up and down. He seemed to be laughing silently.

Because in his heart, every true Levantine knows that if the rest of the world is half as devious as he is, then the rest of the world bears very careful watching. In other words, we have much in common with the great leaders of the world, both those of the West and of the East. Hitler, Stalin, Genghis Khan. . . .

Ahmad sank out of sight, chuckling as he descended.

***

Joe was moving restlessly back and forth in the shadowy hallway, wondering why this strange conversation seemed to go on and on with Ahmad down below the counter. Certainly Ahmad seemed talkative enough, surprisingly so. But why was he hiding down there? Was he really so shy he could only talk with someone if he stayed out of sight most of the time?

What happened after that greasy failure? Joe called down.

Very little, Ahmad shouted up. I was in debt and there was no money coming in, and it didn't take long for me to realize there was no future in that. Specifically, I knew it one evening when I walked into a café where I used to go, and not a soul there recognized me. It had always been our special place and Cohen and I and Stern had always gone there, surrounded by our circle. And then not to be recognized by even one person? . . . I wasn't only embarrassed, I was ashamed and humiliated. I was nothing and I knew I was nothing.

Ahmad groaned down behind the counter.

Well the next morning I took a temporary job that normally I would have considered a ridiculous joke, but the joke turned out to be permanent and the beginning of my own Great Depression, foreshadowing the world's. As usual, I was ahead of my time.

Again Ahmad seemed to have lapsed into silence down below the counter.

What was the job you took? asked Joe.

A position as counterman in a sordid brothel in decline, later to be acquired by an anonymous secret service, this rotting structure we now see around us, absurdly named the Hotel Babylon.

Ahmad's head abruptly surfaced above the counter. He rested his chin and stared at Joe, his face expressionless, his battered straw hat tipped forward at an angle.

Since then I've come to terms with my lot, however, and occasionally I'm even able to muster a little humor. But all things considered, it's been a long captivity for me here. My own sort of Babylonian Captivity, as I realized long ago. He smiled as his head sank out of sight.

***

More time passed.

This is impossible, thought Joe, and finally leaned over the counter to see what Ahmad was doing.

Ahmad was down on his hands and knees with his back turned, removing screws from a panel in the wall. The panel was covered with dirty fingerprints and its edges were badly worn. Joe pulled back his head.

You might have been wondering, Ahmad called up, why I never supported myself through forgery. I could have, since I'm quite good at it. Ask anyone around town and he'll tell you no one makes better money than Ahmad the Poet. Crisp clean lines and well-defined details, accurate portraits and artful images. . . .

Joe jumped. Once more Ahmad's face had suddenly appeared above the counter, grinning this time, the straw hat on the back of his head.

Were you wondering that? asked Ahmad. Why I didn't just forge my way to stupendous wealth long ago?

Ah, yes, said Joe, looking first at Ahmad and then at the large reddish cat still sitting outside in the sun, immobile, watching him.

Ahmad nodded eagerly.

I thought so. But to me, you see, forgery is only money for art's sake, and I wouldn't feel comfortable spending such money. So the lot destiny seems to have cast me in this world is poverty in the midst of counterfeit riches. Genteel poverty when I'm able to relax with my music, humiliating poverty the rest of the time. And that pretty well describes the life of Ahmad the Poet.

He stared at Joe, his chin resting on the counter.

Now then, it's time for our aperitif so please come down to my level in life.

Excuse me?

The swinging door under the counter, whispered Ahmad. You are now on the threshold of the lower depths, or what used to be called in Gothic novels, the Secret Behind the Wall. Just get down and join me here please, on the floor.

Joe looked at Ahmad, then crawled under the counter. The panel with its worn edges had been removed from the wall, revealing a square opening large enough to admit a man. Ahmad had lit a candle and was holding it in front of the black hole. A smile of boyish delight lit his face as he began to whisper.

This mysterious closet you are about to enter is left over from the old days when the hotel was still a brothel. Call it the local treasure chamber, if you like, and follow me but be warned. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. And also, duck your head or lose it.

Ahmad laughed.

Avanti populo, he whispered, there's no turning back in life. The descent into the underworld begins.

***

Ahmad's secret closet, as it turned out, had played a significant part in the history of the Movement in the nineteenth century.

One of the very first rights won by the Brotherhood, whispered Ahmad, thrusting his candle into the blackness. It was here that dragomen the world over began their long struggle to free themselves from the bedrooms where they had been virtual prisoners.

How did it work? whispered Joe.

Well when the police came around to raid the district, the Nubian porter in the lobby went to the pianola and pedaled Home Sweet Home at full volume, alerting the dragomen on assignment upstairs in the bedrooms, who immediately flung aside their customers and grabbed their flowered nightshirts and rushed down here to hide in safety behind the wall, passing the time with gin and parcheesi until the all-clear was sounded. That way they couldn't be arrested on some trumped-up charge.

And the customers didn't mind being arrested alone?

The customers were wealthy foreign tourists, whispered Ahmad, so naturally the magistrates let them off.

Smiles for tourists with loot and bugger the wogs. The usual double standard.

Ahmad chuckled and crawled through the opening, Joe going in after him. The chamber turned out to be quite large for a closet, although it was still no more than a small windowless room. Ahmad's regular living quarters were in the basement, he explained, and this was but a private hideaway he used for listening to music and doing his exercises. The walls of the little chamber were stacked with dusty piles of newspapers, the most recent ones dated 1912, from what Joe could see. There was clutter everywhere, dozens and dozens of dusty Victorian and Oriental objects of every size and shape. A vague lavender scent permeated the cave and a chinning bar hung from the ceiling. Between the stacks of dusty newspapers, there was just enough space for a large man to stretch out and do push-ups.

Ahmad smiled happily.

My own little lair, he said, pulling out two tiny canvas stools for them to sit on. Joe nodded, dazed by the astounding clutter in the room. Ahmad, meanwhile, went on clearing his throat, apparently rehearsing what he was going to say. He seemed much more nervous than he had out front and when he finally spoke, there was a thin attempt at bravado in his voice.

Well now, so you've come from America, have you?

Yes, murmured Joe, his eyes drifting around the room in a trance.

Well now, isn't that a strange coincidence? The world is really very small. It just so happens I once was given a complete edition of the collected letters of George Washington, some thirty-odd volumes in all, and they certainly added up to some fascinating reading.

They did?

Oh very. Let's see now. Did you know, for example, that Washington's false teeth were made from hippopotamus teeth? He also used teeth made from walrus tusks and elephant ivory and even cow teeth, but he always preferred hippo. He claimed it gave him a superior bite and chew. With hippo, he said, even peanuts and gumdrops were possible.

Even peanuts and gumdrops? murmured Joe. President Washington?

So he stayed with hippo whenever he could.

And wisely so, I'm sure, murmured Joe, who was still so overwhelmed by the clutter in the room he couldn't concentrate on what Ahmad was saying. Again Ahmad cleared his throat.

Serious tourism began in Egypt around 700 B.C., mumbled Ahmad so it's perfectly understandable you'd want to come and see the sights. But beware, nostalgia is deceptive. Nearly everyone in nineteenth-century Europe had syphilis, and if we forget that then the fainting spells and the dim lighting of the Victorian era become mere quaint oddities.

Quaint, said Joe. That's true.

Or to put it another way, added Ahmad, the Vikings were once the most ferocious marauders in the world, but only a short millennium later most male Danes seem to be ballet dancers.

A nostalgic dance, murmured Joe. That's true.

Ahmad quickly cleared his throat, a suggestion of panic spreading across his face.

And speaking of ballet and the dance, were you wondering where the best belly dancing in Cairo is to be found? Of course, my information may be a little out of date, but before the last war the best belly dancing was to be found in the . . . what shall I call it, the gut of the fish-market district? . . . Well in the fish-market district then, in the little drinking places there. In those days belly dancing always came with the smell of fish. It was considered suggestive. . . .

Ahmad grinned broadly, but at once his grin faded. He rubbed his enormous nose and stared down at the floor in embarrassment.

It's hopeless, he muttered. I just can't do it anymore.

Joe stirred and looked at this large gentle man slumped over on the other little camp stool.

Forgive me, he said, I'm afraid I was distracted by all the things you have in here, it's almost like being inside a person's head. But what is it you can't do? What seems impossible to you?

Ahmad made a gesture of futility.

Trying to talk, he whispered. A simple little thing like being polite and making you feel comfortable. I'm very happy to have you here, it's just that I don't seem to know what to say, here among my things. It's not what I'm used to, it's not like being out front at the counter. This is all I have in here and I guess I'm not accustomed to sharing it with anyone. Not that I don't want to, I do very much. But I seem to have become clumsy in some terrible way over the years and everything I say comes out wrong, not what I really mean. It's just that it's been so long since anyone . . . well what I mean is . . .

Ahmad clenched his fists and stared at the floor, his voice trailing off. Joe reached out and touched his arm.

I know the feeling well enough, he said, but there are always things to talk about. Even here, where everything means so much to you.

Ahmad's face twisted in pain and the words burst out of him.

But what? I don't want to be another fool lost in the past. What could I possibly talk about that would be of interest to you? To anyone? What?

Ahmad buried his huge fists in his lap.

Do you realize, he whispered, that the adventures of my life are now limited to forays up the street to the greengrocer's? That I actually have to plan my daily trip to buy vegetables and prepare myself for whatever contingencies may turn up? And that when I'm home again safely, I say a little prayer of thanksgiving because no harm came to me? And that when I wash and chop and cook my little pile of fresh vegetables for the evening meal, those vegetables represent the sum total of my accomplishments for another day?

Ahmad stared at his lap.

Greengrocery espionage, you might call it. And if the accomplishment seems meager, I can only say that for some of us even a trip to the vegetable stand is a dangerous journey to make in daylight, a torturous undertaking which requires every bit of courage we possess.

Ahmad shook his massive head.

For the same reasons I only venture downtown at night to do my forgeries. Because the streets are deserted then and I can slip through the shadows unseen by the failures that crowd my life.

Ahmad made a small sound deep in his throat.

But I'm sure you understand my situation by now. And with everything the way it is, what can I possibly talk about that would be of any interest to you?

Well there were those times back before the last war, said Joe. That's a whole world that's gone now, just as there's another world ebbing away at this very moment, and that's always been intriguing to me, how things change and why. Couldn't you tell me a little about that? About those times you used to have with Stern?

Ahmad shrugged.

I guess I could, if it really interests you. . . . Actually there were three of us who were always together back then in the beginning. Three of us who were the nucleus, but even then Stern used to drop out of sight from time to time. For a day or two you'd notice him growing restless, then one morning he'd be gone. Where's Stern? someone would ask, and the answer was always the same. He's off to the desert but he'll be back. And like the night and the day, Stern always did come back. Another morning or another evening and there he'd be at one of the tables in our little café, smiling and laughing and carrying on in his usual outrageous manner.

Ahmad paused.

That was before he became so involved with political ideals, you understand. Before he began to travel in connection with his political work. This period I'm talking about was back when he was still a student, when he'd just arrived from the Yemen, where he grew up.

But he used to talk to you about these sudden disappearances? asked Joe.

Oh yes, because we were so close, and also because of my little retreat out on the edge of the desert. He used to ask me if he could stay there sometimes, during the week, when I wasn't using it, and of course I was more than happy to have him there. He didn't have much money in those days and it was the least I could do for a friend.

In those days? mused Ahmad. The truth is Stern has never had any money, he can't abide it. When a little comes his way he spends it at once on friends, he's always been like that.

Ahmad smiled, gazing into the distance.

Empty hands and eyes whispering of hope, as Cohen used to say. And Stern never slept in my cottage when he went there. Instead he'd tramp off over the dunes and camp out in the wilderness like a bedouin, taking almost nothing with him. But still, there's never been anything simple about Stern. People used to think they understood him when they didn't, because there are things in Stern that won't mix. It's always been that way. . . .

Once more Ahmad paused, and this time he seemed to falter, as if he was afraid he was losing himself in the past. He even sneaked a timid glance at Joe, who smiled, trying to encourage him.

And that was Stern, said Joe. And who was the second member of your inner circle?

Ahmad nodded eagerly.

Well that was Cohen of course. Not the one of my father's generation, not the one who went for midnight sails on the Nile with the Sisters and my father, but his son. He was Stern's age more or less.

And what was he like?

Oh he was a colorful rascal. Very elegant and witty and a great favorite of the ladies, they couldn't resist those long dark eyelashes of his. He was a very gifted painter too, a trifle morose on occasion but that only made him more appealing to the ladies. The handsome and moody young artist, you know.

And then there was you, said Joe.

Yes, lastly there was me. Much clumsier than them in almost every respect, in everything save for music really, yet somehow I was able to provide a certain rawboned paste to their mysterious leaven. And mysterious it was, magical even, when the three of us were together. Everyone remarked upon it and we were always mentioned in the same breath, because we did seem inseparable. And oh how we carried on in the grand tradition, roaming the boulevards with a word here and a smile there, the three of us in swirling cloaks and cocked hats in the dramatic manner of Verdi, our eyes afire for whatever mischief might suddenly leap into being in front of us, whatever gaiety might swoop our way on the amazing sidewalks of life.

Ahmad smiled gently.

Later Cohen dropped out of our group to get married and raise a family. Odd, but the men in his line always seemed to be doing that.

Ahmad laughed, rubbing his knees with pleasure.

And what a line it was, those infamous Cairo Cohens. . . . But see here, what kind of a host am I today?

Where is your aperitif and where is our music? Forgive me, I seem to have forgotten myself.

Ahmad jumped to his feet, laughing. He dug behind a stack of newspapers and came up with a dusty bottle of banana liqueur, to all appearances as old as the newspapers. A little digging somewhere else and he found two small glasses, then busied himself over a dusty pile of primitive phonograph records, all of them warped by time. When he found the one he was looking for he placed it on an old-fashioned phonograph with a wind-up crank and a flaring sound trumpet. He vigorously worked the crank and a faint voice screeched from far away. Immediately Ahmad went into a crouch, his straw hat askew, one ear almost inside the gaping mouth of the sound trumpet.

How lovely, he said with profound satisfaction. It's Gounod's Faust and the Bulgarian who sings the part of Mephistopheles is superb. What do you suppose ever happened to him? . . .

***

On the wall facing Joe, a large heroic poster from the time of the First World War advocated membership in the Young Men's Moslem Association.

WE WANT YOU, said the authoritative mullah depicted on the poster, as he pointed a bony forefinger out at the viewer. Behind the mullah a group of plumpish Moslem youths lounged beneath a flowering tree in the courtyard of an imaginary Cairo mosque, happily admiring each other's large gold wristwatches. In the distance rows of sturdy industrial smokestacks puffed thick white smoke into the air, while overhead a small primitive triplane came racing in above the pyramids, bearing the morning mail to Cairo. In all, life was humming and exceptionally clean in the poster.

Ahmad glanced up from his crouching position next to the sound trumpet. For a moment he too contemplated the poster.

What do we get from the art that obsesses us? he shouted.

I firmly believe, he shouted again, that most abstractions are simply our pseudonyms, and that we are therefore time. For surely it is in our fancy, not in reality, that the basis of our lives is to be found . . .

He laughed.

Which can only mean that in addition to everything else reality is, it's also unreal.

At last the faint scratchy aria came to an end. Ahmad switched off the phonograph and held up a bottle of lavender liquid he had found somewhere, an atomizer attached to its top. He pumped and great clouds of sweet-smelling mist shot in every direction.

Disinfectant, he said, sitting down again. These old buildings, you know. But to tell you the truth, I'm completely indifferent as to whether the ruler of the world is called Anthony or Octavius. What does interest me, and what I've always strived for, is a purity of heart which forgives and justifies and includes everything, because it understands. . . . Yes, but like all people who ponder life, I often feel frightened and alone.

Ahmad gazed at the floor and lapsed into silence.

Do you still write poetry? asked Joe.

Ahmad sighed.

No, I'm afraid I don't. For a long time I tried to fool myself, but the words would never come to life no matter how hard I labored over them. Then after that I thought I'd accept second-best, so I started work on a poetical dictionary. But I didn't even finish the letter A. The last entry I worked on was Alexander the Great. Somehow it was just too painful sitting out front at the counter night after night, contemplating all the things Alexander had done in such a brief lifetime.

Ahmad turned to Joe. He smiled sadly.

I think I recognize my condition. Quite simply, I'm a poet who can't write poetry. I was given the soul and sensitivity for it, but not the talent. So when all's said and done my profession remains that solitary one known through the ages as the failed poet. And there must be many people like me who live alone in their little corners, knowing they've never been anything but ordinary, and it's not that we can't contribute to the world in some minor way, for of course we can. The sadness comes from the fact that we can't contribute as we'd like to and create even one little moment of beauty that might live on in someone's heart. . . . But do you know what the real tragedy of the profession is? It's that we get used to it. It's that we go beyond self-pity and beauty and simply endure in our little caves.

Solemnly, Ahmad gazed around the tiny room.

Surrounded as always, he murmured, by a little universe of things we understand. . . .

He lapsed into silence again.

***

I've often wondered, said Joe, what it must be like to have grown up among all these wonders of antiquity, the pyramids and the Sphinx and all the rest of it. How does it affect you?

It affects your taste, said Ahmad.

You mean you tend to take less notice of passing fashions?

Well I don't know about that, I was being more specific. What I meant was the taste in your mouth.

Oh.

The fact that you never know who or what is going to blow into your mouth next.

Oh.

Yes. There you are walking down a street and suddenly some hot dry dust swirls into your mouth and coats your tongue, but who or what is it? Some deserted corner of the desert being sent to you on the wind so you can taste its desolation? All that's left of some ancient tomb? Or is this grit on your teeth the final remains of a unicorn of the XVII Dynasty? Or is this new unsavory coating on your tongue the very last memory of the Hyksos, who were always an obscure people?

Ahmad smiled.

Dust to dust, he said. In the desert only a part of the past gets buried and forgotten. Another part always gets eaten, and although we like to pretend we can forget that part too, we don't really.

Ahmad frowned.

So the past is always with us and never more so than during a war, when so much of the past is seemingly being destroyed. Just look at that old cardboard suitcase in the corner. I bought that suitcase thirty years ago in a hurry one evening when I was on my way to Alexandria for a night of pleasure. Then I was young and strong and not yet ugly, and for me that flimsy suitcase will always bring to mind the memory of a boy in a cinnamon-colored suit, shabby because he was so poor, who then revealed mended underwear and a faultless body.

And do you know what's in that suitcase now? Two folders of my useless poems, a collection of scribbles once meant to be more, a forgotten footnote to the conscience of the race. My life, in other words. . . .

Ah Cairo, Cairo, this sultry place of half-light where the windows have to be shuttered until sunset for most of the year, where white-tiled terraces violently throw back the heat and the hoofbeats of horses pulling old carriages clatter reassuringly in the darkness. This Cairo with its radiant winters and its glowing springs with their winds from the desert bringing the terrible heat of summer, yet also bringing cool nights and breezes off the river. . . .

Yes, my Cairo, my life. In the end all grand schemes of order are private, and all the systems which we pretend are universal have but the dimensions of my closet. And thus we never find new places, nor do we find another river, for the city follows us and we grow old in those byways where we wasted our youths.

Ahmad stared into the distance.

Wasted . . . so many things in so many places. And now there is but this body, this worn and tarnished locket hung upon my soul. How many thousands of times have I celebrated the glory of its treasures and the wonder of the gift, the blessing . . . the burden? And lamented them, surely. How many times in these byways where I wasted my youth? . . .

Joe watched him. He shook his head.

Wasted, Ahmad? That's not what I've seen here. That's not what I've heard at all.

Ahmad stirred.

What do you mean? What have you seen, what have you heard?

Joe laughed. He spread his arms wide to take in the small crowded cave where so much of Ahmad's life lay heaped around them in dusty piles.

Ah yes, Ahmad, a world of your own making is what I've seen and heard, and what poet could hope for more than that? And when I look to the heart of that world I see a great wide boulevard with three young men striding down it. And their talk swirled into the night, for they were great companions in those days and they always made their rounds together, elegant and witty and matchless in their joy and laughter, three fearless kinds of the Orient of old. And one of them was a painter, and another a poet, and the third an extravagant dreamer from the desert. And people flocked to hear those three kings' of old, to catch even a glimpse of their outrageous performances. For they were Cohen and Ahmad and Stern and they laughed and wept with the very gods themselves, for the world was an opera then and the sidewalks of life were rich with poetry and color and love, and they were the masters of the boulevards in those days and everyone knew it. Knew it. . . . Everyone who ever set eyes upon them.

And that's what I've seen, said Joe. And that's what I've heard.

Ahmad stared into space, his face solemn behind his great round tortoiseshell glasses, his enormous head swaying defiantly in an imaginary breeze, his battered flat straw hat standing at a slight angle to the universe. Gravely then he nodded to the left and to the right, as if welcoming the companions of his youth, his hand all the while straying down the wall to where an ancient dented trombone rested amidst the shadowy piles of debris. Solemnly Ahmad drew the dusty instrument to him and caressed it, blew a tentative note, rose to his feet.

And sounded a melancholy blast on the trombone, a powerful glissando, his hand sliding slowly downward in a lingering salute to the majesty of a lost world.

-11-

Trombone

When night fell they moved from Ahmad's cave to the courtyard behind the Hotel Babylon, where Ahmad built a small campfire and served a vegetarian supper, expertly mixing grains and spices and vegetables in an array of little dishes that Joe found delicious after his three days and two nights of fever.

As for Ahmad, he was delighted to have an excuse to cook for a guest again, having not really done so, he said, since his tiny cottage on the edge of the desert had been swept away in the windstorms of the last war, along with the rest of his early life.

And so they camped like wandering bedouin in the narrow courtyard where vines and flowers had come to take root beneath the single palm tree, the two of them huddling around the glowing coals of their little campfire in the remote oasis they had found for themselves in the slums of the great city, whispering together under the stars and sipping endless cups of strong sweet coffee as the night deepened and Ahmad gently reminisced, his recollections ranging wide through the silent play of shadows that suggested other lives just beyond their small circle of light, Ahmad quietly conjuring up odd corners of memory in the reassuring darkness, in the vastness of that clear Egyptian night.

In addition to the bizarre curiosities of his own life, Ahmad talked especially about Menelik and the Sisters and the clan known as the Cairo Cohens. In one way or another, all of them had been intimately connected with Stern in the past, and it wasn't long before Joe had begun to sense a network in Stern's life. And not so strangely perhaps, as Joe recalled Liffy's prophecy that the moment had come for him to embark on a journey in time, this network of Stern's spanned more than a century, its members not all among the living, yet their presences still so powerful they echoed restlessly through other lives in a shadowy web of doing and feeling, that most profound of all secret human codes.

And so Ahmad went on conjuring up shapes from the shadows of the firelight, in the darkness, and again the next night they returned to sit up until dawn in their tiny oasis, the two of them once more traveling through long solitary silences as Ahmad searched his memory for turnings along the path, Joe gazing at the fire and trying to decipher the connections with Stern as Ahmad whispered back through the decades.

For there seemed to be clues in everything Ahmad said, quiet footfalls and unsuspected hints that were only to be recognized later, when Joe had traveled further in his attempt to uncover the truth about Stern.

When the day had come to look back and ponder the weaving of Stern's wanderings, the network that would finally reveal what Stern had sought, the unique figure traced by every man on the infinite landscape of time.

***

Alone and exhausted in his room as the great city was awakening, before he fell asleep, Joe drowsily reflected upon these odysseys through the night.

Ahmad? . . . Stern?

Surely a journey in time, as Liffy had said. Not mountains and rivers and deserts to be crossed, but memories to be explored.

From the beginning he had noticed the changes that had come over Ahmad as they had moved from the gloomy corridor of the Hotel Babylon, Ahmad's apparent station in life . . . to Ahmad's secret musty lair tucked away behind a wall . . . and finally to the flowering courtyard outside the hotel, so naked to the immense Egyptian night. . . . Ahmad opening his heart more with each new descent of the darkness, each evening when the last of the sunlight died and the hour returned for them to camp anew beneath the stars.

Buy why, all at once, was Ahmad opening up like this? Joe wondered.

And the more he thought of it, the more it seemed there could be only one explanation . . . Stern. Ahmad knew how much Joe cared for Stern and obviously he felt a need to talk about Stern, to tell Joe something. But why did Ahmad feel that need so strongly now? What had suddenly caused him to abandon the habits of years, his decades of silence?

Memories, thought Joe, the past. . . . Fragments and shards on the journey, as Liffy had said. To be examined in retrospect in an attempt to reconstruct the cup that once had been . . . the vessel that once had held the wine of other lives in other eras.

Yes, in time, thought Joe. In his own erratic way, through glimpses and suggestions and his own peculiar rhythms, Ahmad will find where we have to go.

And meanwhile Joe listened through the nights and slept and pondered Ahmad's fragments during the days, trying to immerse himself in Ahmad's memories in order to grasp the span of Stern's network over the decades.

So elusive . . . time, thought Joe. And Stern's life has been so vast, and now with the war and everything disrupted, dying. . . .

As it turned out, he and Ahmad were to spend no more than a few nights together in the debris-strewn courtyard of the Hotel Babylon, that former brothel crumbling beneath the stars. Yet when Joe looked back on those few nights, they would expand into many worlds so distant and remote it was as if they had been scattered across a universe.

Ahmad's secret universe, as Liffy once had called it.

***

Joe learned that Ahmad had first met Stern, through Menelik, when Stern was a young student of Arabic studies in Cairo, before Stern had gone on to Europe and acquired his lifelong dream of a great new nation in the Middle East, made up of Moslems and Christians and Jews alike. And that Ahmad had been a witness to those early stirrings of conscience in Stern, so boyish and exuberant, that had later made Stern a dedicated revolutionary whose devotion never wavered.

Joe was fascinated. As well as he knew Stern, this early period of Stern's life had always been a mystery to him. And after all these years of knowing Stern in a particular way, he found it strange to try to picture him as a bumbling young man struggling to find himself, bewildered by others and making foolish mistakes. Or the young Stern sulking because his childish vanity had been wounded. Or acting with ludicrous bravado when it was obvious he had failed at some little thing. Joe listened to Ahmad describing these scenes from long ago, and even as he relived them with Ahmad beside the campfire he knew he would never be able to take them to heart, because the Stern he knew was such a different man It's curious, he thought, how the past of someone older, someone we love and respect and admire, so often appears mysterious to us and out of reach. As if they saw life more clearly than we do and weren't as confused and frightened as we are. As if life for them were more than the endless little things, the revolving wheel of little moments, that purs is.

A natural yearning, it seemed to Joe, within the universal mystery sometimes given the name of history.

Man's past. Those little moments of infinite beauty and infinite sadness falsely ordered in retrospect to give life continuity, a recitation of finite moments that in fact had never existed.

And then an even more curious thought struck Joe.

What if it was this very yearning in man that caused his conceptions of God . . . of all the gods in men?

Cruel and profane and vicious, as well as holy?

***

The war? mused Ahmad one evening. Frankly I take no particular notice of it. There's always one going on in this part of the world.

As for the Germans, it's impossible to think of them as anything other than the barbarians of our era, the Mongol hordes at our moment in time. And unfortunately barbarians do seem to serve a purpose in history, for when we have them as enemies at our gates we no longer have to judge ourselves. For a brief moment, anyway, our innate savagery is safely out there beyond the city walls and we can rejoice in our self-righteousness, and be smug in our petty civic virtues.

But refined barbarians? Men and women who listen to Mozart between murders?

We may think that's an innovation of our modern sensibility, but it's not. The beast has always been within each of us, born there a million years ago. Most of us make it as easy as we can for ourselves by ranting about the barbaric monsters at the gates who never stop threatening us, but as for myself, I'm glad I've never been in any position of power. With my fears and compulsions that would be dangerous, and I know it.

Ahmad smiled.

In other words, heaven save us from people who dream, especially failed artists, the worst of the lot. All tyrants seem to be failed artists of one kind or another. . . . But then, so are most of us in our souls.

***

People change so, said Ahmad on another evening. It always astonishes me how much people can change. Stern used to talk about poetry and opera and the important things in life, but then these changes came over him and now he seems forever preoccupied. Busy. Rushing from one place to another with no time to think.

You still see him then? asked Joe.

Oh yes, he'll send a note around and I'll go meet him in the crypt and we'll have an arak together and talk about the old days. But the place seems so empty now when we're there together. I don't mind being there alone, in fact I rather like it. But when Stern shows up there on a Sunday it makes me sad somehow, and he must feel it too, I know he must. He talks about Rommel and codes and those things he has on his mind, and it's just not the same. It's lonely for both of us.

Do you mean old Menelik's crypt? asked Joe.

Yes, old Menelik's mausoleum, my workshop now. The place where I keep my printing press and do my forgeries. Of course Stern still has his key to the crypt and he doesn't need me to let him in, and sometimes he goes there by himself on a Sunday. I can always tell when he's been there because some little thing will be out of place, some little thing only Stern would think of. It's his way of letting me know he's paid a call . . . his way of telling me he remembers too.

Remembers what? asked Joe.

Ahmad sighed. He gazed at the fire.

Those Sundays of long ago. Those wonderful afternoons when we were all there together.

All of you?

Yes. Cohen and myself and Stern and the Sisters and the one or two others who would show up. In those days people of Menelik's stature always had a time when they were at home, as we used to say, a time when friends came to call. Well Menelik's at homes were Sunday afternoons and the crowd was always a young one. Of course Menelik was very old by then but he liked young people. The Sisters were an exception, but they've always been an exception in everything they've done.

A boyish grin crept over Ahmad's face.

Open tomb every Sunday, a charming social event with all the amenities observed. I can still see Menelik sitting majestically in his huge sarcophagus, which was also his bed in his later years, thoughtfully dispensing tea and wisdom as we sat around him in a circle. For all of us, it was the highlight of the week.

And you all had your own keys to the crypt?

Ahmad abruptly began to chuckle.

Keys? Oh yes, those of us who made up the inner circle. Menelik had arthritis and he didn't like to crawl out of his sarcophagus to answer the door.

Ahmad went on chuckling. Joe smiled.

What's that? What you were thinking of just now?

I was reminded of Menelik's underground stories, said Ahmad. They were really quite naughty, you know, shameless even. He claimed he'd picked them up from the hieroglyphic graffiti he'd been reading in pilfered tombs all his life. In other words, Menelik's dirty jokes were four or five thousand years old. He also added the disclaimer, sly man that he was, that the stories lost something in translation. But if they did we never noticed it. Quite frankly, he was a very funny man. Definitely on the ribald side, but funny.

Joe smiled. He nodded.

Off-color hieroglyphs from over the millennia, he thought. Inevitably a trifle coarse now. And keys to the crypt of the past once held by an inner circle, Stern still in possession of one of those keys.

And the others?

***

Ahmad grew somber, his memory jarred by his recollections of those long-ago Sunday afternoons in Menelik's subterranean home.

In the crypt, he murmured, back on those lovely afternoons in the tomb. And after an hour or so Stern would unpack his violin and that would be the sign for all of us to get ready. Stern would give us our note and we'd tune our instruments as Menelik sat in his sarcophagus, straightening the folds of the mummy's shroud he affected, a rapturous smile on his ancient face because that was what he'd really been waiting for all along, he so loved music. And then Stern would take out the old Morse-code key he always carried, his good-luck charm, and he'd rap it against the sarcophagus to get everyone's attention, and then he'd draw the first notes and Cohen and the Sisters and myself and the others would all join in, and off we'd go on one of our Sunday musicales . . .

Beautiful, murmured Ahmad. Harmonious and exquisite back before the war. The last one.

Ahmad shook himself. He poked the fire.

But you see how time interferes? How could any of us have imagined then that Stern would go on to do things that would land him in prison? Or that he'd risk his life escaping from prison?

When was that? asked Joe in a quiet voice.

In the summer of 1939 just before the war broke out. And that reckless escape was the prelude to what I've always thought of as Stern's Polish story. To me, a tale that sums up not only Stern but the very war itself. Desperate. Incomprehensible. A kind of madness. . . .

Ahmad began to twist and turn where he sat by the fire, as if he were drawing near to some uncomfortable truth about himself, some irrevocable confession.

It may be, he said, that I've given you the impression my failures in life have been of the material kind, but that just isn't so. My failures of the spirit have been far more profound and painful. And to what do I refer?

Ahmad gripped his fists together in a fierce pathetic gesture.

To Stern, of course. Doesn't everything always come back to him?

Ahmad's knuckles bulged and there was despair in his voice.

I committed a crime, he whispered. I've always been a sensitive person and I know there are certain things you don't do, especially to someone you love. When you act as I did with Stern, you shatter something deep inside a person. And when you do that. . . .

Ahmad faltered, clenching his powerful fists more tightly.

What I mean is, you can't humiliate someone you're close to, you can't do that, because it's more than we can bear as human beings. We can be defeated forever but we can't be insulted by someone we love, and the failure to give love when it's needed, needed, must always be one of our darkest sins. For in failing that we violate our very essence as human beings and cast ourselves out, and become no longer qualified to be called human. . . .

Again Ahmad faltered, and this time it seemed he would be unable to go on. He busied himself adding sticks to the fire, then carefully adjusted his flat straw hat to some new angle, then changed the subject.

Slowly slowly, thought Joe. But at least Ahmad was finally beginning to circle the forbidden subject Liffy had referred to as a betrayal of some kind, the cause of the old poet's irreparable rupture with Stern, now linked in some mysterious way with an adventure that Ahmad, his voice shaking with emotion, insisted on calling Stern's Polish story.

***

I know why they brought you to Cairo, Ahmad whispered one evening. No one has told me anything, but I know.

Joe looked at him and said nothing. Ahmad's face was troubled as he went on poking the fire, casting new shadows over their flowering oasis in the darkness. A shower of sparks shot into the air, once, twice, a third time. Ahmad watched them go out, then finally whispered again.

It's obvious, Joe, to me anyway. The Monastery called you in because they're afraid of Stern's secret connection with the nationalists in the Egyptian army, the Free Officers who want the British out of Egypt.

Ahmad glanced nervously around the debris-strewn courtyard. For several moments he listened intently to the night, then leaned closer to Joe.

Oh I've known all about that for some time, and I've always assumed the Monastery knew about it too and overlooked it for their own reasons, because Stern's so valuable to them. But now they must have this new fear that Stern has gone too far and joined the nationalists in some Egyptian-German conspiracy, some plot to turn the British codes over to the Germans. Well there's no use denying Stern could probably lay his hands on such information. After all these years of doing the kind of work he does, Stern has contacts at every level of Egyptian society, and given Stern's nature, a good many of those people must be indebted to him. But even if they weren't, Stern's knowledge of people is so great he could easily find a way to get what he wanted.

Again Ahmad glanced nervously around the little courtyard, and this time his whispers were even softer in the firelight.

Listen to me, Joe. Once or twice in the last months Stern has mentioned something called the Black Code in front of me. I have no idea what it is but I assume it must be some highly secret British cipher, because Stern also implied that much of Rommel's success comes from the fact that the Germans can read this Black Code. Now none of that means anything to me, but you're a friend of Stern's and you care about him, so I want to warn you it's more complicated than you think, perhaps even more complicated than the Monastery knows. The Zionists also want the British out of the Middle East, and as much as Stern has always done for their cause in Palestine, there are still Jewish extremists who would be glad to see Stern out of the way, because they distrust Stern's kind of cooperation with the Arabs. And as for the Germans . . . and the Monastery. . . .

Somberly, Ahmad shook his head.

It's dangerous, Joe, all of it. Monks . . . Rommel . . . Arab fanatics and Jewish fanatics . . . they all have their reasons for wanting to see Stern dead and gone, and he just has nowhere to turn, don't you see? So it may not matter what you do now. I hate to say it, but it's probably too late for anything.

Ahmad looked sadly at Joe, shuddered, looked away. Joe touched his arm, holding his hand there.

I know that, Ahmad. I do. But as Stern himself used to say, we have to try anyway. Even if it makes no difference, even when it's to no end, we still have to try. . . . Because what else is there, Ahmad? What else . . . ever?

***

And there were moments of unexpected revelation when Ahmad came out with some remark that suddenly illuminated his entire life.

Sometimes I try to think of my mother, he once said, as simply the person she was. And I wonder then if this obsessive concern I've always had for her, for what she thought of me, has been enough to justify all these years of loneliness I've known, these decades of eccentric behavior.

By all accounts she was a plain and simple woman, an uneducated farm girl who chanced to come to Egypt one winter as a servant to a German family, and chanced to become pregnant, and then corrected matters as soon as she could by returning home to lead a regular life. Not a remarkable person in any way, nor was there anything exceptional in what she did. And it certainly would have been a mistake for her to take me with her. A brown baby on a small farm in Germany would have assured a dreadful life for both of us. Yet because this girl was my mother, and because of what happened, my entire life has taken a particular course.

Deep within us, it seems, we begin life with the false notion that our appearance in the world is of monumental significance, and so we assign universal meanings to the threads and colors of our early lives, assuming them to be a unique tapestry of mysterious import, rather than merely one more shoddy human patchwork in one more tiny corner of the world. There's nothing rational about the way we look at it, and perhaps because the belief is irrational, it takes much of our lives to unlearn it. But by the time we do unlearn it, that small commonplace irony may have grown into monstrous proportions. For by then we have long since stumbled out into life in such-and-such a manner, and our course may well be irrevocably set.

Consider.

If I were to meet a person such as my mother today, or even my mother herself as she was when she abandoned me, the ultimate cause of my obsession, would I suddenly find myself in a human presence so powerful, I could imagine it determining a man's whole life?

Ahmad's laughter boomed and thundered, then all at once his face was creased with scars.

No, a ridiculous notion . . . but the joke's on me. All you have to do is to look at me to know that. And seeing what you see before you, would you ever dare claim that some peasant girl from the backwoods of Germany, harboring thoughts no more complex than the blood sausage to be enjoyed next Saturday night, could conceivably fashion this complex brooding creature who now whispers to you deep in these Hanging Gardens of Babylon?