Edward Whittemore - Nile Shadows

Why we're here together, I mean?

The Indian reached under his blanket and scratched himself.

Feel free to consult among yourselves, he said. I'll just retire inside my head and you can give me a whoop whenever you're ready.

The Indian closed his eyes and began to snore. His three visitors exchanged glances and one of them cleared his throat. Instantly the Indian's eyes flew open.

How's that? What did you say?

We weren't sure how to address you, answered one of the men.

Oh is that all. Well as the wind carries you, is the answer. The Hopi are great believers in echoes. The way they hear it, everything in the universe is a sound coursing through everything else. So much so that most of my job as the resident shaman here is listening, no more. Straining to hear those echoes, don't you know. But as for me, well. . why don't you call me Joe?

Fine, said one of the men.

The Indian nodded, smiling.

Yes, simple but fine. And you needn't bother to run out those cover names you must have packed along for yourselves, Gaspar and Balthazar and Melchior, or whatever strange ring the exotic names may have.

Since we're way out here in a desert of the West, I'll just put you down as the Three Wise Men from the East, traditional figures that a man can comprehend and sense, if not know. So tell me, have you turned up bearing those merry gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh, as you are said to do in the traditional tales?

We can provide gold, answered one of the men.

And I'm sure that's so, but unfortunately I don't have any use for it. What a medicine man needs is medicine, the kind that helps the soul. Now then, with everybody's credentials established, suppose we get down to the particulars of this era. You've made a long journey way out here because you must want me to do something for you. Where, I wonder?

In the Middle East.

Ah yes, I've heard of it. Said to be as dry as here but better-known to history. Where in the Middle East, I wonder?

Cairo.

Ah yes, I've heard of that too. It's in the ancient land of the pharaohs, said to be a place for pyramids and mummies and lost secrets in general. Known far and wide for its great river of life, and also for those steamy fleshpots that always seem to pop up along any river of life. But I don't know Cairo at all. I've never even been there. And that has to mean you need an outsider to poke around and look for something, either in the fleshpots or in a pyramid or two. But look for what, I wonder? A lost secret perhaps? A wandering pharaoh? A mummy who refuses to take you to his leader?. . Just what might it be you want me to find, directly?

A person. A man.

Joe reached under his blanket and scratched. His face was thoughtful.

The one of you is American, another British, and the third speaks somewhere in between. Canadian?

Yes.

Then it's pretty much of a high-level international delegation I'm facing, which isn't my level at all, and that means one of two things. Either I know this man and you don't, or you know him and I don't. Which is it?

You know him. We're only acquainted with him through the files, and through others.

Joe stroked his chin.

I could grow a beard again. Indians don't do with beards and it hurts to pluck out your whiskers one at a time. But there's another angle. Did any of you know that Hopi means peace? Well it does, and although there aren't many of us left, that's what we are, the people of Peace. Our religion forbids us to harm anyone, to molest anyone, to kill anyone. We just can't do it and that's the shape of our sky, and also why we're so few. The Navajo are fierce and all around us and they've been plucking us off for years. So what do you say to that?

We wouldn't ask you to do anything that's against your beliefs, said one of the men.

I know it, no one ever does. It's just that others have a way of shifting your beliefs around a bit to make themselves more comfortable with them.

Joe pushed a forefinger into the earth at his feet.

Well I think it's time we had a name here. Who is it you're looking for?

Stern.

Joe's face grew serious. For several long minutes he gazed at his finger in the earth and said nothing.

When he finally looked up there was a deep sadness in his eyes.

I knew that would be it. The moment those men arrived here a couple of weeks ago, all secrecy and mystery, I knew it was the beginning of something that would lead to Stern. All they said was that I was going to have some important government visitors, but I knew. He's not missing, though, is he? That isn't what you meant by finding him?

No.

No, I didn't think so. Your problem is that Stern knows a thing or two, and you're not sure what.

Something like that.

Well what exactly? He's working for you, I'd imagine, and he's also working for the other side. But you always thought he was really working for you in the end, and now all at once you're not so sure. Is that it?

Yes.

And naturally it's important that you know. How important?

Very. It's crucial.

Crucial? Stern? You're not exaggerating?

No, not at all. We can't emphasize it strongly enough.

Joe looked from one face to another and the three men somberly returned his gaze.

I see, said Joe. Crucial, then. And yet Stern used to be known as a petty gunrunner with a morphine habit, so how could it be that such a nobody as him is suddenly upsetting the war in the Middle East? Or should I remind myself that almost everyone who has ever been important in history was nobody to begin with, and that maybe the most important ones of all always stay that way?. . Invisible, don't you know.

Like a voice speaking the truth.

Joe's gaze drifted off into the distance. He stirred, scratched the side of his face.

Of course anyone who knows Stern at all would never think of him as a petty gunrunner with a morphine habit. That's just the way he might appear from a distance. Up close there's a whole secret world to Stern and one way or another he's always been in my life, just there, a big shambling bear of a man with a mysterious smile and an awkward way of moving sometimes, a bit of clumsiness about him from all the batterings through the years, and maybe even no shape to him you might say. . or all shapes to him.

That's another way to put it. But just substantial and bulky and there with his soft voice and his kind touch and that gentle way he has with people. Helping them, that's what he does. Stern has this quiet way of helping people when they don't even know it, when they don't even suspect what he's doing, and he never says a word about it himself. Years can go by and maybe just by chance you happen to come across something he did once. Changed a life. Saved someone's life. Sure. . And as often as not a stranger's.

I remember an incident like that from years ago. Somebody else told me about it, not him of course, not the woman involved either. It was a dreadful rainy afternoon by the Bosporus and the light was dying and a desperate woman was standing by a railing getting ready to die herself, to throw herself in the water, and along came this big awkward man shuffling out of the rain, a stranger, Stern, and he went up and stood beside the woman at the railing and gazed down at the dark swirling currents with her, and he began to talk in that honest halting way he has, just nothing but the truth, and some time went by and pretty soon he'd talked her right back into life. . One little incident a long time ago. Just one that I happen to know about.

Yes. And I know there's no knowledge without memory, and certainly I remember every twist and turn of my times with Stern as clearly now as when they happened. It was right after the First World War when we met, in Jerusalem naturally, Stern's beloved myth of a Jerusalem. And I didn't know much of anything then, and Stern took me in and taught me things and I loved him dearly in the beginning, loved him with all my heart. . He can have that effect on you easily enough. His ideals, don't you know.