And abruptly an image came to the Colonel from before the war, during the Arab revolt in Palestine. An image of Colly arriving at night at a Jewish outpost manned by settlers above Galilee, near the Lebanese border, Colly turning up in one of his disguises to train the settlers and to organize what would later become the Special Night Squads of the Palmach.
A taxi with its headlights off, its taillights on the front of the car to confuse the enemy. And Colly's two young future deputies, Dayan and Allon, approaching the mysterious taxi and seeing a small lean figure come jumping out of the car with two rifles and a Bible and a drum, an English-Hebrew dictionary and five gallons of New England rum.
He smiled at the memory, then thought of Joe and lost his smile, recalling a saying Stern had once been fond of repeating.
Finished, he thought. What a shame. It's all over for Joe and Liffy died for nothing, but of course there can't be any other resolution to the Stern case. With the secret of
The Colonel closed his door and leaned against it, recalling the strange account of a voice that had come booming out of the Sphinx under a full moon.
Well the Sphinx surely, thought the Colonel. The Sphinx finally, but which one out of all of them was really the Sphinx in the end? Or is everyone, finally. . . ?
-22-
Bernini's Bag
They sat on the narrow shaded balcony that opened off Maud's living room, on the far side of the building away from the fierce sinking sun, a promise of twilight gathering in the corners of the alley below.
. . . and when the Major let me know there was truly a meeting on with Bletchley, said Joe, I couldn't stop myself from doing a little dance in place for about five minutes. I tried to call you here but there was no answer, so I made my way back to the public garden where old Menelik's crypt lies buried, and I found a sheltered little spot to sit in the shade by the river, and that's what I did. Just sat and watched the currents and let my mind drift.
Joe's hair was wet from the shower he had just taken. His left ear was newly bandaged.
But it wasn't just anyplace by the Nile, he went on. It was the very same spot where Strongbow and old Menelik had once spent a silent afternoon together toward the end of their long lives, just before the First World War, the place where there had once been a cheap open-air restaurant with beautiful trellises and vines and hanging flowers, with a pool where ducks paddled and a cage where peacocks squawked, that very same rendezvous where Strongbow and old Menelik and Crazy Cohen had met for their dreaming and drinking bouts on Sunday afternoons so long ago, when they were three young men starting out. A place for forty-year conversations and then some, the same spot where a famous sign had stood years later in the midst of emptiness, all by itself in a vacant lot . . . THE PANORAMA HAS MOVED. And I guess I got to thinking about that sign and its worlds within worlds, and before I knew it I'd just dozed off to the murmuring spell of the river.
There hasn't been much sleep for me lately, he added, despite my being officially dead. . . . A case of the restless dead, I guess you'd have to call it.
Maud smiled.
Was that really where the sign used to be?
Oh that was the spot all right. Stern pointed it out to me when we were leaving the crypt that night. So I dozed off without meaning to, and by the time I woke up it was late afternoon, so I came straight here.
The Colonel told me I might have a visitor waiting for me at home. Oh Joe, I was so excited. I was sure it meant things were going to turn out all right for you.
And was that all he said?
Yes, but it was enough. I knew what it meant.
Well I'm glad you did, but it was still cryptic of him and that's the trouble with this business. Nobody says more than he has to and you miss a lot that way. Me, I just wanted to shout because I was alive again.
Maud laughed.
Can I get you something to eat? she asked. You must be starved.
I must be, but I don't feel it. I think I might have a drink though.
Have it then. Do you want me to get it?
No, don't bother yourself, I can manage. Where do you keep it?
In the kitchen. In the cabinet over the broom closet.
Swept away, said Joe, and disappeared inside.
Maud heard the cabinet door bang in the kitchen. It swelled and stuck sometimes in the heat, and then flew back against the wall unless you were expecting it. She heard Joe muttering to himself. Glass clinked and there was the sound of ice being broken out of an ice tray.
I forgot to mention the cabinet door, she said when he came back.
Joe smiled.
It makes a racket all right when there's somebody as clumsy as me around. It just goes to show I'm not cut out for this kind of work. The moment I feel a little safe I go crashing around as if I didn't have a care in the world.
He took a long drink from his glass and sat down on the low wall of the balcony. Maud was bent over her knitting. She spoke without looking up.
You seem to drink a lot.
I do, yes.
Does it help?
Yes, I'm afraid it does.
Well that's good then, I guess.
No it isn't, Maudie, it's a kind of weakness surely, but it eases things. So often the world seems such a dark and unyielding place that anything that stills the whispers inside seems to have its uses, even when you know it's a false quiet.
Could you stop, do you think?
If I had to. Human beings seem to be able to do about anything if they have to. Even those things they're doing right now out in the desert.
Maud bent her head, a sudden uneasiness coming over her. She was trying not to let him see her concern, but he felt it anyway.
Are you really sure Bletchley's going to let you leave?
Not sure, no, but it seems likely. If it were going to be otherwise I don't think he'd be handling it like this, giving me the afternoon off and telling your Colonel to give you the afternoon off, too.
But you said he's having you followed again.
Just company, Maudie. I suppose Bletchley doesn't want anything to happen to me between now and tonight. Besides, I was the one who gave him the opportunity by going back near Menelik's crypt, which I knew he'd be having watched. I didn't have to do that.
Why did you then?
So he'd know where I was today and know there was nothing to worry about.
But why didn't you just stay out of sight until tonight?
Well for one thing, I wouldn't have been able to see you then. And anyway, it seemed like the time had come to get some things out in the open. After the way the Major went on last night about Stern and Colly, Colly in particular, it just didn't seem that Bletchley would have gone to all the trouble it must have taken to get me over here, just to do me in in the end.
But does the Major's opinion count? Does it really matter that he happens to have such a high regard for Colly's memory? Bletchley may feel very differently about it. About everything.
He may, but I doubt it.
But how can you be sure?
