Edward Whittemore - Nile Shadows

No, I don't mind. We loved him a great deal and we both like to talk about him now. It didn't used to be so easy. . He was our mother's brother and he was the only relative we had, the only family. He ran the pub in the village where we grew up. It wasn't much of a pub but that's what we used to call it. When Belle and I were children we cleaned up for him there. We mopped the floors and carried in the firewood and did the washing up. We always thought it was very exciting to be in such an adult place.

You were English, then, originally?

Yes, from a little village near York. Our father had worked in a factory and he was killed in an accident when we were babies, so Mother took us back to her village. The only thing we ever knew about our father was that he was a laborer and drank a lot because he was unhappy. Mother never talked about him, Uncle George told us what we know. Apparently our father used to beat Mother when he drank, we overheard Mother and Uncle George talking about it once. And then after he died Mother made quilts and things like that to sell, but it was really Uncle George who made life possible for us. He was a bachelor and he helped out with our food and our clothes and other things, and the presents Santa Claus gave us at Christmas, and the presents we received on our birthday, were always from Uncle George.

It was Uncle George's cottage that we lived in when Mother took us back to her village. It was small so he moved out back into the shed and let us use the cottage. He made wonderful things with his hands, mostly for us, but he must have been unhappy too because he also drank a lot. He was a kind man and very gentle and he was always so good to us. When we were children, there wouldn't have been any Christmases for us without Uncle George.

Little Alice gazed down at her hands.

He drowned himself in the millpond one New Year's Eve. He went down there alone in the darkness and drowned himself and they found him on New Year's Day. He would have been forty that year. And after that Mother said she wanted to leave the village forever, she said she just couldn't live there anymore.

Well she had her own dreams, Mother did, and she wasn't just like other people, and there was a little money from the cottage and from Uncle George's share of the pub, and she used that to take us to Italy, which was an unheard-of thing to do in those days for people like us, common people who were poor and uneducated and didn't know anyone. But she was a brave woman and she wanted her daughters to make something of their lives, so she took us to Italy because she loved the sun, and an Italian man she met gave us singing lessons, Belle and me, and that's where it all began for us. All of it.

Little Alice tipped her head.

It's strange, isn't it, those exotic tales people tell about Russian princesses and Hungarian actresses, and Venice and Paris and Vienna and all the rest of it. Of course, I'd be speaking less than the truth if I didn't tell you we used to encourage that sort of thing when we first came here.

Little Alice looked up at Joe.

Two little girls, she whispered. Two little girls mopping the floor of a pub in a village near York, a long time ago. And then later the singing lessons, and eventually appearing as slave-girls in the first performance of Aïda that was ever given anywhere, just tiny parts for two young girls. And so it all began, and so it goes.

Suddenly her smile was gone and she was gazing up at Joe with a childlike face, in a questioning way.

So it's no wonder, is it, that we never left? That we stayed in Cairo, in faraway Egypt?

No wonder at all, said Joe. After all, not everyone has the chance to be Cleopatra beside the Nile.

Little Alice stared at her cramped gnarled hands.

Oh yes, she whispered, oh yes. And that's what I always used to tell myself when I sat in my box at the opera and everyone looked at me and envied me for my diamonds and I felt nothing but rage and sorrow because I could never get married. And later when I was home again in whatever villa it was, and the man had left to go home to his family and the servants were in bed, and it was very late and I was all alone again and crying and crying in bed because I knew I could never get married, that's what I used to tell myself. Ten thousand times I must have said it as I cried myself to sleep. We can't have everything in life, so remember how lucky you are. Think of the good things you have and just remember. Remember .

. . Or as Uncle George used to say, You can take what you want from life. All you have to do is pay for it. .

Joe reached out and plucked a tear from her cheek.

There now, he murmured, there now. And so we do remember, and so we do pay. And what a beautiful night it is to be here with the two of you in this wondrous room, the stars so bright and magical upon the river.

***

Big Belle cleared her throat by the door, a noisy growling sound. Slowly, she came limping back into the room, smiling broadly.

Here now, what's this? Are the two of you holding hands already? I'm gone for no more than a minute and my little sister is already flirting with some gentleman caller?

My fault entirely, said Joe. We got to talking about the past and I'm hopelessly sentimental, I have to tell you that.

You're Irish, thundered Belle.

Well that's right.

Well don't be redundant then, we heard you the first time. Now let me take your glass and refill it for you.

It's getting late and we have some talking to do.

Alice moved away to her chair. Belle returned with the new glass of whiskey.

Will that do?

It will. A mite large as before, but then.

But then, life should be large, boomed Belle. Otherwise, what's the point? Now you've been sitting here patiently letting two old sisters carry on the way they're used to doing, and you've hardly said a word, which must mean you're out looking for things. My guess is you have some questions to ask. Do you?

Yes, as a matter of fact.

Fact? thundered Belle. Fact, you say? Well since Alice and I have lived a total of almost two hundred years, and gossip being what it is in Cairo, and men being what they are anywhere, Alice and I have come across a few facts in our time. But first, tell me this. Do you work for this man Bletchley?

In a way, I do. But in a way, not.

What do your questions have to do with, then?

Joe looked from one sister to the other. Straight out and straight ahead, he thought. They drink their gin straight here and they serve their whiskey straight and they call a Dimitri a Dimitri, at the dinner table or anywhere else, so it's not a time for niceties now.

Joe looked from one sister to the other.

Stern, he said. My questions have to do with Stern.

Belle's knitting needles stopped clicking. Immediately the two sisters were on guard and a silence settled over the room.

Stern is a very dear friend, Alice said quietly after a moment.

I'm aware of that, replied Joe. That's why I'm here.

Do you know him well? asked Belle.

I did. I haven't seen him in a few years.

Where did you know him?

In Jerusalem, it was.

In what connection?

I worked for him for a time. Later we became just friends.

Worked for him? Doing what?

Smuggling arms into Palestine. For the Haganah.

Big Belle stirred. She seemed to be recalling something.

Do you know anything about scarabs?

One only, answered Joe. A giant stone scarab with a mysterious smile carved into its face. A great huge and hollow giant stone scarab. That's what I smuggled the arms in. Stern had set me up to pass myself off as a dealer in antiquities.

When exactly?

After the last war.

Belle studied Joe more closely.