Edward Whittemore - Nile Shadows

I couldn't imitate your voice, whispered Joe.

You wouldn't have to. Whenever I call him I use a different voice. It's a kind of game between the two of us.

Joe nodded. Liffy's gaze was still fixed on the fresco overhead.

Joe? What will you do if Menelik's crypt doesn't work out? If you have to find another place to hide?

Where will you go?

I've been thinking about it and I suppose I might have to try the houseboat. The Sisters would take me in all right, the trouble is Bletchley would think of it. I know no harm will come to them, I'm sure they're right about that, Bletchley wouldn't dare. But the houseboat just sits there on the water and if Bletchley's men came looking, well, they'd find me soon enough.

And so?

And so I'll just have to hope old Menelik can keep me hidden down there in his five thousand years of murky history.

Liffy looked at him.

I know, whispered Joe, it's a hope that doesn't make much sense. History doesn't hide you, just the opposite. Gives away your hiding place, if anything. But what other hope is there?

Liffy didn't answer.

And when they question you, added Joe, remember, just tell them the truth. You know I talked a lot with Ahmad, and that I talked with David once, and that I went to see the Sisters last night. But you don't know anyone else I might have seen and you don't know what the Sisters might have told me, and that's the truth. You don't know, Liffy, that's all. It's not your affair. This business is between Stern and me, and Stern and me and Bletchley, and that's the way it's been from the beginning. So just tell them the truth and Bletchley's not going to give you any trouble when he understands how things are. There's nothing wrong with Bletchley, it's just that he's got his own job to do and we're sitting in different places. So just the truth, Liffy, and it'll be all right.

Liffy nodded, distracted. He opened a little leather pouch which was hanging from his neck and placed a key in Joe's hand.

Menelik's crypt?

Yes.

Liffy stared at Joe, then whispered again.

There's one thing I have to know. Is Stern. . did it turn out to be. . is it all right? Did he know in the end, Joe, did he have it right? You have to tell me the truth for Ahmad's sake, for David's. . ours.

Joe smiled.

We never doubted that, Liffy. Deep inside, neither one of us ever doubted that. Stern's on the only side there is, the right side. Life. Hope. The right side. And we knew that, Liffy, we knew it. Do you remember what you told me about Stern the first time you ever mentioned him? How the two of you used to go to poor Arab bars late at night and just sit and talk about nothing, and in particular, never about the war? And you said he liked your imitations, they made him laugh. And you said that meant a great deal to you, bringing laughter to a man like Stern, knowing the life he's had. It made you happy, you said. Do you remember?

Yes.

And then you said something else, Liffy. Do you remember?

Yes. I said it was an unusual kind of laughter. I said it was gentle, and I said his eyes were gentle.

That's right, said Joe, and so they are. And so there's nothing to be afraid about now because it's going to be all right.

Joe smiled. Liffy looked at him. And, of course, there was that last question lingering between the two of them, when would they meet again, and where? But they understood each other too well to bother with that, and instead they made their final arrangements and sat a few minutes in silence, gazing around the tiny church with its little dome and its darkened fresco of the Paraclete, the Intercessor, sharing the coolness and the quiet of the place, a moment of calm for both of them.

Finally, reluctantly, Joe squeezed Liffy's arm and slipped off his throne.

I have to be going now, he whispered.

Liffy drifted along with him toward the door. There was a small stand for prayer candles and Liffy stopped to light two of them, one for Ahmad and one for David, and they stood looking down at the candles before they embraced. And that was where they parted and where Joe left him, a frail man in a tattered cloak with his matted hair streaming around his face, a sorrowing hermit from the wilderness crouched over the flickering candles of memory, of love.

Liffy silently weeping for Ahmad and David in the somber light of that little cave. Liffy once more the haunted prophet of old, a frail man stricken with the terrible knowledge of the names of things. . his ancient dusty face running with tears that glistened like tiny rivers come to water the desert.

— 17-

Mementos

The vast bands of homeless pilgrims roaming the outer circles of the Irrigation Works seemed to keep no regular hours.

They were also all said to be in search of water. Or at least that was what they claimed whenever they were stopped and asked what they were doing, those milling bands of Slavs and Rumanians and Danes and Greeks, Belgians and Armenians and Dutch, some determined and some merely dazed, others wild-eyed or tame by turns as they chaotically croaked their messages and banged their long staves on the floor, pilgrims far from home swaying as stalks of grain in the wind, those confusing groups of Maltese and Czechs and French and Norwegians, Cypriots and Hungarians and Poles, the many stateless wanderers and the occasional homespun Albanian.

According to Liffy, they kept no regular hours in the outer offices of the Irrigation Works. But in the inner offices where Maud worked, the practice was to take an hour or two off in the afternoon, to escape the heat, before returning to work into the evening.

Thus, after taking many precautions, Joe was sitting in the living room of Maud's small apartment when the front door opened that afternoon. He heard her put down some packages and walk along the corridor, quietly singing to herself. The room where Joe sat was shuttered against the sun and the heat.

Maud stepped into the room and stopped singing. She stared.

She was smaller than he remembered, close up like this. She put her hand to her mouth, startled, wonder and astonishment playing on her face. Joe took a step forward and reached out.

It's me, Maudie. I didn't mean to scare you.

She stared, her hand at her mouth. A familiar smile came to the corners of her eyes.

Joe? It's you? It's really you?

He took another step, reaching for her hands, her green eyes brighter than he remembered. Sparkling, stunning.

I didn't want to just turn up, Maudie, but I couldn't write and there was no other way to let you know.

He smiled more broadly.

It is a surprise, isn't it. Twenty years later and here in Cairo, whoever would have thought it?

She watched him, intensely curious. He glanced around the room in his embarrassment.

It's nice, it's a nice place you have. How are you? You look fine.

She was still staring at him. At last she found some words.

But how?. . why?. . what are you doing here?

Joe nodded, smiling.

I know, it's strange, you just walking in like this and me just sitting here. It's as if we'd seen each other last month or last winter or something. How are you? You look fine.

Suddenly she laughed. He remembered her laughter but not the astonishing richness of it.

I'm fine, but what are you doing here, Joe? Are you in the army? I thought you were still in the States somewhere. You've hurt your ear. Here, let me look at you.

She pulled away and studied him, still holding his hands. She laughed and wrinkled her nose, a beautiful little movement that surprised him at first, but then he remembered that too. She used to do it when something unexpected pleased her. It was just that he hadn't seen it in such a long time.

He looked away, embarrassed. She was still studying him.