Edward Whittemore - Nile Shadows

Ahmad stared at the dead fire.

But I refuse to believe Stern is acting this way because he knows it will get him killed. What I fear is that he may be cracking up, and that terrifies me because Stern has always been hope to me. Just knowing he's out there and will come back someday, the way he did when we were young and he went off into the desert, just that means everything to me.

In the shadows of the little courtyard, Ahmad reached out toward the dead fire.

Hope . . hope. We can squander all of the gift of life and even more than that can be taken from us. But not hope. We must have hope or the heavens will spin silently and it will be as if we had never lived. . a nothingness of nothing.

***

In the stillness of midnight Ahmad stirred and tipped his head, listening to a distant clock toll the long hour.

It's difficult to speak of all that is, he murmured. Silence is what I know best, whereas Stern. .

Ahmad stopped and adjusted his flat straw hat.

What I mean is, the two of us have taken such different paths in life. Out of failure, I sought the secret adventures of order and the pale consolations of solitude, as did my father before me. But even though Stern's failures have been far greater than mine, because he dared to risk so much more, still he has never turned away from the chaos and futility of life. . What I have forsaken, just that has he embraced.

Ahmad looked at Joe.

I'm not used to speaking to people, that's what it comes down to. I'm not used to trying to make sense, because when we're alone with ourselves we never have to do that. But still, it is difficult to speak of all that is, even when we're trying to describe only one single moment, as I've been trying to do with you.

These long nights, Joe, these hours deep in the desert in this little oasis we've found for ourselves. . and every single thing I've said to you since first you approached my shabby counter in the Hotel Babylon, a way station on your journey, and asked directions for a path that would lead you to old Menelik's crypt, every word I've spoken to you. . But tell me, have you sensed by now that all of it has to do with only one single moment? One actual, specific moment in time?

Joe glimpsed a movement in Ahmad's eyes, a glitter, a play of lights. . It may be now, he thought.

Yes, Ahmad, I think I have sensed that. For a moment can have so very many things to it and in it and behind it, can't it, making it what it is? Just as we do, as you just said. And trying to locate all those things that go into a moment, and give them a size and a shape, while leaving nothing out. . Well that's an immense task surely. As immense as this midnight sky above us.

Ahmad nodded solemnly.

Yes it is, and so I'm going to try again. But this time, for once, I won't begin with all the things within and behind this moment of which I have spoken again and again, which I have approached in a thousand tentative ways because it haunts me like no other. This time I'll begin with the moment itself. Just there.

Naked.

A smile came to Ahmad's face.

But first you must tell me, Joe, whether I've managed to circle it at all, for even a failed poet can have a touch of vanity hidden away somewhere. . So then, this moment of mine. Has there perhaps appeared a where or a when or a what to it, for you?

I think so, said Joe, I think I've begun to get a sense of that too. . And the where would be old Menelik's crypt, and the when might be a while ago, not last month but not too many years ago either.

And the what, well that has to be Stern, and it might be Stern together with his Polish story. But above all, the what is you. Because that's the center, the eye on the universe that we've been talking about here.

. are talking about now. Your moment, Ahmad. You.

Ahmad gazed at Joe. After a while he turned to the fire and set his hat at some new angle. As if in a trance, his words ebbing and flowing, he began to whisper.

. . it was just after the war started, toward the end of 1939 Stern and I were in the crypt and it was that afternoon when he tried to justify himself to me and I so cruelly shouted him down. . We all die alone and unjustified, I shouted, cleverly turning his own words against him, mocking the poor wounded creature with something he himself had once said. And the rest of it, everything that came before then, was just as I've described it to you. It was after that, that the moment came.

. . he'd injured his thumb when he'd escaped from the prison in Damascus that summer, ripped it up horribly. By then, in the crypt that afternoon, the healing had gone on for some months and the dark purple streaks in his flesh were turning to scars. Ugly scars. Deep. It was the first I'd seen of Stern in quite some time, but a new wound was no surprise. Stern was always turning up with something. . a cut and a bruise from some new battering, another part of him nicked away, a new clumsiness caused by an arm or a leg that wasn't working properly. . always something. But he never took any particular notice of those things, nor did I. It was part of the way he lived, that's all, so there was nothing unusual about him appearing with a ripped thumb that afternoon. Not for him, not for me. It was merely another mark from his arcane travels. Simply a small memento from his latest sortie, this Polish adventure of his. An obscure footnote, perhaps, to the beginning of the Second World War.

. . although in addition to the coincidence that Poland was where the war had started, there was also the fact of Damascus. Something profound indeed had happened to Stern since I'd seen him last, but not on the road to Damascus, rather in getting away from Damascus. Forgive a literary man his conceits, but the irony of that parallel hasn't been lost on me either. In retrospect, naturally.

. . in any case, inexplicably at the time, Stern's small wound caught the corner of my eye that afternoon, and held it. All the time he was talking those dark purple streaks were somewhere on the edge of my vision. . ugly, deep, hardening into scars just beyond my conscious thoughts. And he talked and I shouted my disgustingly selfish things at him, and he sagged and said no more and the encounter seemed over. Reluctantly he was gathering himself up to leave. . broken, weary, alone. And I was raging inside and feeling terrible, already overwhelmed with regret and shame, feeling I'd damned myself by what I had done. . When all at once Stern stopped near the door of the crypt. Made some gesture near the door.

A little thing, I think he raised his hand toward an old sign that's hanging there.

. . and that was the moment. Somehow that thumb of his was there in front of us, and our eyes met and we both understood. We both knew . .

Ahmad sat immobile before the campfire, a large somber figure utterly still. The silence around them grew and grew and Joe, suddenly, was afraid Ahmad's mood was slipping away.

You knew? he whispered.

. . knew, I tell you. Our eyes met and we knew. And then Stern reached out and gripped my shoulder and his hand was strong upon me like the good side of his name, stern and resolute and unyielding in the face of what can't be evaded or escaped in life. Unyielding, strong, I can feel the grip of that hand on my flesh even now. . the hand with the ripped thumb. And he looked into my eyes and smiled that smile of his, so powerful and enduring despite the wretchedness we both felt, a sad yet mysterious smile I've always known in my heart, always, and he nodded. . Yes, he said. . Just that one word. No more.

And then the moment was over and his hand dropped away and the door to the crypt opened, closed, and he was gone.