Edward Whittemore - Nile Shadows

Once Stern repeated something to me, she said, that I've never quite forgotten. It was an ancient Chinese account of caravans in the Gobi desert, of all things. He'd come across it in some obscure book he was reading, and I suppose the description has stayed with me because the images seemed so haunting. It was written about two thousand years ago, he said. Anyway, it went something like this.

***

A region of sudden sandstorms and terrifying visions. Rivers disappear overnight, landmarks go with the wind, the sun sinks at midday. A timeless nonexistent land meant to plague the mind with its mirages.

But the most dangerous thing that must be mentioned is the caravans that appear at any moment on the horizon, there to drift uncertainly for minutes or days or years. Now they are near, now far, now just as assuredly they are gone. The camel drivers are aloof and silent, undistinguishable, men of some distant race. But the men they serve, the leaders of the caravans, are truly frightening. They wear odd costumes, their eyes gleam, they come from every corner of the world.

These men, in sum, are the secret agents who have always given the authorities so much to fear.

They represent the princes and despots of a thousand lawless regions.

Or is it perhaps that they represent no one at all? Is that why their aspects make us tremble? In any case we know only that this is their meeting place, the unmarked crossroads where they mingle and separate and wander on their way.

As for where they go and why, we cannot be sure of such things. There are no tracks in such a barren waste. The sandstorms blow, the sun sinks, rivers disappear, and their camels are lost in darkness. Therefore the truth must be that the routes of such men are untraceable, their missions unknowable, their ultimate destinations as invisible as the wind.

If the Son of Heaven is to continue to rule with integrity, we must defend our borders at all costs from such men.

***

Maud turned to Joe.

Thus an ancient Chinese description of the Gobi desert. . the unknown. . written two thousand years ago.

She smiled sadly.

But that's enough of that. Let's not talk about Stern anymore. Life is always a gift of faces and a gift of tongues, and I don't mean just those of others. I mean our own. . All the faces we're given in the course of a lifetime. . and all the many tongues we learn to speak in.

***

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

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

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

We were?

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

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

Joe was smiling.

Yes, I do now.

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

Joe nodded, smiling.

Yes.

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

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

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

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

Things he can understand straightaway, after all. Jokes and riddles and scraps of rhymes a lad can take to heart and make his own.

Joe laughed in the darkness.

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

***

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

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

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

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