He lived alone with his secretary, a young Frenchwoman once educated in a convent but long since seduced by the sensual air of Smyrna society and the salon Sivi ran there. Stern's meeting with him, as usual, was at three o'clock in the morning since Sivi's entertainments ran late. Stern left his hotel ten minutes before that and strolled along the harbor to see that he wasn't being followed. At three he slipped into an alley and walked quickly around to the back door of the villa. He knocked quietly, saw the peephole open and heard the bolt slide. The secretary closed the door gently behind him.
Hello, Theresa.
Hello again. You look tired.
He smiled. Why not, the old sinner will never meet me at a decent hour. How's he been lately?
In bed. His gums.
What about them?
He says they hurt, he won't eat
Oh that, don't worry about it, it happens every three or four years. He gets it into his head his teeth are falling out and becomes afraid he might have to make a public appearance without his cigar in place. It only lasts a week or two. Have the cook send in soft-boiled eggs.
She laughed. Thank you, doctor. She rapped on the bedroom door and there was a soft thump on the other side. Stern raised his eyebrows.
A rubber ball, she whispered, it means come in. No unnecessary words. It seems opening his mouth to fresh air might hasten the ravaging of his gums. I'll see you before you leave.
Sivi was sitting in bed propped up by an immense pile of red satin pillows. He wore a thick red dressing gown and a swath of red flannel that entirely covered his head and was tied under his chin. The large olive wood logs crackling in the fireplace gave the only light in the room. Stern pulled aside a drape and found all the windows locked and shuttered against the mild spring night. He stripped off his jacket in the oppressive heat and sat down on the edge of the bed. He felt the old man's pulse while Sivi snifled at a pan of steaming water on the night table.
Terminal?
Surprisingly, no. In fact the flesh isn't even cold yet
Don't joke about it. I may well go within the hour.
How can you breathe in here?
I can't, it's one of my difficulties. The oxygen to my head has been cut off. Who did you say you were?
A laborer. I load tobacco on the pier in front of your villa.
The one to the left or the right?
Left.
Excellent. Keep up the good work but watch out for your back. Heavy lifting can damage the back. Is it day or night out?
Day.
I thought so. I can feel that unhealthy sunshine creeping along the shutters trying to ooze inside. Winter or summer, did you say?
Winter. It's snowing.
Preposterous, I was sure of it, I've been feverish for hours.
You know when your jaw falls off that flannel sling won't be any help.
Nonsense, all illusions are helpful.
You know something else? In your declining years you're beginning to look more and more like that portrait downstairs of your paternal grandmother.
The old man wagged his head.
I wouldn't mind that particularly, it's an admirable proposition. She was a pious and honorable and hardworking woman as well as the mother of one of the heroes of Greek independence, who was a good friend of Byron by the way, you probably know that. But what you don't know is that the last time I was in Malta, I hired as my valet none other than the grandson of Byron's Venetian gondolier, his favorite pimp and catamite. The grandfather, Tito, led an Albanian regiment in our war and then later was stranded in Malta, destitute, through a series of scandalous misadventures involving his former occupations. What, this intriguing news from a Maltese grandson doesn't interest you? Well tell me what's new in the outside world then. I've been bedridden since the Mahdi took Khartoum.
That phallus you're using as a knocker on the back door is new. It's awful.
Sivi laughed happily and sniffed his pan of steaming water.
It does add a touch, doesn't it Well naturally there's no reason to hide the general state of affairs around here and anyway, I have a certain reputation to maintain. My father had a son at the age of eighty-four and although that's not my line, virility is in our blood.
Stern handed him a piece of paper and he fixed his pincenez to study the figures.
Ah, my eyesight is deteriorating.
Degenerating.
Damascus this time.
Yes.
When?
By the middle of June if you can do it.
Easily.
And I'd like to set up a meeting here in September.
I don't blame you at all, it's a lovely place to be in September. Who is going to have the pleasure of visiting here and meeting me?
A man who works for me in Palestine.
Fine, guests from the Holy Land are always especially welcome. Is he on your Arab side or your Jewish side?
Neither.
Ah, from a more obscure region of your multiple personality. Druse perhaps?
No.
Armenian?
No.
He can't be Greek, I'd already know him.
He isn't.
Arab Christian?
No.
Not a Turk?
No.
Well we've accounted for the main non-European elements of Smyrna society so he must be some kind of European.
Some kind. Irish.
Sivi reached down beside the bed and brought up a bottle of raid and two glasses.
Doctor, I thought you might prescribe something like this so I had it ready just in case. You are aware how well the Greek army is doing in the interior?
I am.
And precisely when things are going well, along you come introducing a volatile Irish possibility? Do you have any immediate plans for China? Not that it matters, I wouldn't visit either of those outlandish places.
I'm staying right here on the beautiful shores of the Aegean until I'm cured.
Your granny, said Stern, raising his glass.
Indeed, intoned Sivi, and quite right too. Not only have I never denied it, I wouldn't have it any other way.
In the autumn of 1929 Stern went down to the Jordan, to a small house on the outskirts of Jericho to meet a man he hadn't seen in several years, an Arab from Amman who was active among the bedouin tribes in the Moabite hills. Although he was a year or two younger than Stern he looked far older. Sitting very still, no bigger than a child,
