Edward Whittemore - Nile Shadows

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.