Clear, cool, no wind.
Lovely, yes. Best time of the day really. People haven't had time to muck up the camp and the air's sweet and everything tastes delicious. Later it's all just one stale pipe. No cheese for you?
Not at the moment, thank you.
No? Well the tea's almost ready. Been out for an early turn in the desert, have you?
The Major nodded, waiting. The Colonel maneuvered his false leg into a more comfortable position and poured tea. After they had added sugar and stirred, and sipped, the Colonel fell to studying the plate of muffins on the table. He pinched one.
Hm. I thought I'd picked those up this week, but it must have been last week.
The Colonel glanced at one of the open books on the table and raised his eyes.
Well now. You've been to consult the Sphinx?
He's Colly's brother, the Major blurted out.
Colly's brother, repeated the Major.
The Colonel's eyes lit up.
Is that true?
Yes.
What's his name?
Joe. Joe O'Sullivan Beare. He still uses the full family name. From the Aran Islands by way of a dozen years in Palestine and more recently a tour in America as the shaman of an Indian tribe in the Southwest.
He seems to know everyone from his days in Palestine. Stern and Maud and all kinds of people Stern used to work with years ago. I haven't heard of most of them but you probably have.
The Colonel's eyes flickered brightly.
Well well well, and here's more than a chapter or two from the past turning up unexpectedly. . . Colly's brother, of all people. What's he like?
Nimble, speaks quickly sometimes, seems to have an odd way of expressing himself. It's hard to describe.
The Colonel beamed.
As if things were a bit off-balance, perhaps? As if you were in a small boat at sea and the sky and the land and the water were all moving around? Up, down, sideways, never quite still?
The Major nodded eagerly.
That's it exactly. As if nothing were ever able to find a safe place for itself.
The Colonel laughed.
Colly, on the nose. His brother must be just like him.
And there's also something strange about the way he views time, continued the Major. It seems to be all of a piece to him with no past and present and future particularly, just one big sea with us upon it. The dead, for example. No one seems to be really dead to him. But it's not as if they were still out there somewhere, or off somewhere, it's very different from that. It's much more concrete and seems to do with thinking of them as being within us, a part of us, not dead in that sense. Alive because we've known them and therefore they're a part of us.
Hm. You had that feeling with Colly sometimes, but not as much as with his brother, apparently.
The Colonel smiled.
You were taken with him, weren't you?
I suppose I was.
Yes, well, it's not surprising. Colly was a man of great charm. There was something out of the ordinary to him, another dimension. And if his brother is like him only more so, and meeting him for the first time at the Sphinx as you did, under a full moon . . .
The Colonel broke off, humming happily to himself.
Colly's brother, he murmured. How astonishing.
He gazed down at the crumbling piece of cheese in his hand.
Yes, curious. What does he want?
A meeting with Bletchley.
That's all?
Yes, that's all. He says Bletchley has a standing order out to kill him, so he can't arrange a meeting by himself.
Bletchley? A standing order to kill Colly's brother?
Yes, and Liffy's already dead. Killed because he was mistaken for Joe.
The Colonel was shocked.
Yes.
But that's not
It certainly isn't. And Ahmad is also dead. The desk clerk at the Hotel Babylon.
Ahmad? But he was a delightful fellow, perfectly harmless. What's going on here?
And a young man named Cohen, said the Major. David Cohen.
Of the Cairo Cohens? Cohen's Optiks?
Yes. He was a Zionist agent apparently, and a close friend of Stern.
Well of course he was a friend of Stern, all the Cohens were. That goes way back to Stern's father's time. But what in God's name is going on here? Has Bletchley lost his mind? How could his men have mistaken Liffy for Joe?
It seems Liffy was passing himself off as Joe. On purpose.
Why?
To give Joe time to recover after the hand-grenade explosion and Stern's death. To give Joe time, a chance, to save himself.
The Colonel frowned.
Why did Liffy do that?
Because Joe knew Stern so well and Liffy felt Stern's life was. . . what shall I say? Of great importance somehow. More important to him, to Liffy, than anything else. Even more important than his own life.
Is that true?
Yes.
And Ahmad and young Cohen? Why were they killed?
Because they'd talked to Joe about something, or at least the Monastery thought they had.
The Colonel frowned deeply and poked at his pipe, his mouth working. The Major had no idea what connections with the past he was making, and he knew it was useless to ask. Finally the Colonel heaved himself forward and planted both elbows on the table.
So Liffy sacrificed himself in order to save Joe, is that it?
Yes.
But why? What's it got to do with Stern? I don't understand what you're trying to tell me.
Well I don't have it too clearly in my own mind yet. But it seems that above and beyond whatever Joe was trying to find out about Stern, above and beyond all that, it seems Liffy felt that Stern, Stern's life . . .
Well it's hard to describe without sounding mystical.
The Colonel's tone was suddenly curt, impatient.
Never mind how it sounds, Harry. Just say it.
Well it seems Liffy felt there was some kind of special significance to Stern's life. In his peculiar background and his sufferings and his failures, in the ambiguities and paradoxes of the man. That just all of it, everything having to do with Stern, added up to a different kind of life. Something more than . . .
The Major gazed into his teacup.
. . . It's almost as if to them, to Joe and Liffy and the other people Joe spoke of . . . almost as if Stern's life is a kind of tale of all our hopes and failures. Living and trying as he did, failing and dying as he did.
Ideals that may lead to disaster and yet still contain within them . . . Oh I don't know what.
