Nile Shadows

Why can't they be the way they are on the war posters? This is the job, let's get the job done. Why can't life be like that? . . . Oh I just don't know what to do. Can't you tell me there's this and there's that, so I can choose and try to do what's right?

Sadly, Joe shook his head.

I wish I could, Liffy, but you know as well as I do that nobody can do that for us, not when the stakes are so important. Our decisions are always our own, and it begins and ends there. The clamor of the world just goes on and won't let up and still we have to find ourselves in it and find our name in the book of life, as impossible as that is, and nobody can do it for us and if we don't do it it's as if our name had never been there, as if we'd never existed at all. And meanwhile the clamor goes right on all around us and it always says the same thing, that nothing matters, so why decide anything? Stern, me, you . . . what difference does it make? How can one person ever matter? . . . But you know that's not true, Liffy. You know the two of us, right here, now, are the whole world. There's nobody here but us and that's the way it is and we're all of it. . . . But I don't have to tell you that. You know it better than I do.

Silence again between the two of them. Another long moment of silence as Liffy's mouth worked and he stared down at the river.

The man's name is Cohen, whispered Liffy. You could try to see him tonight. He's quite young. I'll tell you what I can about him.

And then Liffy turned and gripped Joe's arm, the anguish in his face so moving Joe would never forget it.

Long after the two of them had parted for the last time that image of Liffy would still be with him, a reminder of a moment on the shores of the Nile, a memory of a terrible war and many things.

Joe? . . . O God have mercy.

Yes Liffy, I know, and truly I wish I didn't have to find out anything at all about Cohen and what he does, and I pray it will turn out all right for him and for all of us.

Liffy shook his head. His hands fell away. There were tears in his eyes.

But it won't be all right, it can't be. We're in too deeply now and I don't mean just Stern and you and me, or Cohen or Ahmad or any of the others. There are too many little spots of light on this vast river suddenly, too many reflections of the stars broken by these immense currents of time at our feet. Too many little sounds in the world that will be lost in the whirlwind forever, too many little echoes that will be removed from the book of life. This time it's not just Stern who won't survive. . . . Many of us won't, and many things.

I know it, he whispered, burying his face in his hands.

Joe said nothing. He put his arms around Liffy and held on to the flesh and bone with all his strength as Liffy wept in the shadows.

PART THREE

-13-

Cohen

It was a dark cobblestone lane with tiny shops squeezed one next to the other, the narrow alley barely lit by weak lights casting a feeble glow. The upper stories of the buildings overhung the alley to provide shade during the day, but at night they obscured the sky and closed in the alley, giving it the oppressive appearance of a tunnel.

The alley was deserted at that late hour, the storefronts dark. Most of the shops in the little quarter dealt in antique coins and semiprecious gems and various artifacts from antiquity. Here and there a thin line of yellow light showed between the locked shutters overhead, shining dimly from the bedrooms that fronted on the alley.

Joe picked his way carefully over the uneven cobblestones. It was an eerie feeling moving through the darkness there, knowing so many people were nearby and hearing the sounds they made, yet without a visible sign of life anywhere.

A pot striking stone. A muffled voice. A bolt sliding into place.

And his own footsteps surprisingly loud in the narrow alley and echoing in the darkness. A hundred eyes could have been watching him and there was no way he could ever have known it. But then all at once he was standing in front of a narrow shop with an old wooden sign overhead in the shape of a giant pair of eyeglasses, the gold lettering chipped and faded.

COHEN'S OPTIKS

He leaned forward and peered into the small shopwindow where a long brass spyglass was suspended on invisible wires, a printed legend beneath it.

Lenses made to order. Fine lenses for all purposes.

To the left was a thick wooden door, not the entrance to the shop but the separate entrance to the living quarters upstairs. Joe raised the bronze hand of Fatima attached to the middle of the door and let it fall three times, causing echoes to boom up and down the alley. He intended to wait several minutes before knocking again, and he was already reaching out for the graceful bronze hand when he suddenly realized a little panel had been opened in the door in front of his eyes.

What is it? whispered a woman's voice in Arabic through the panel.

Joe couldn't see anyone in the darkness. He leaned forward.

I have to see Mr Cohen, he whispered in English.

Come to the shop tomorrow, whispered the woman, this time in English. It was a young woman's voice, he thought.

This concerns something else, he said. Please tell him Liffy sent me.

The panel closed silently, and in another moment the door opened just as silently. Bolt and lock and hinges all carefully greased, thought Joe. A thorough gent, as Liffy said, and this would be his younger sister.

He stepped inside and the door closed behind him. Vaguely, in the darkness, he could make out the upper half of a face.

Wearing a scarf? he wondered. Been out and only just returned?

I don't know anyone named Liffy, whispered the young woman. Who are you and what do you want?

I have some special business with your brother, Miss Cohen. The name's Gulbenkian. I'm soliciting charitable contributions on behalf of Armenian refugees from the massacres in Asia Minor.

You're twenty years too late then, whispered the young woman.

And that's exactly what I would have said until an hour or two ago, whispered Joe, when Liffy told me otherwise. That slaughter is already a couple of decades gone in the past, I was saying to Liffy, and the world has moved on to bigger and more impressive slaughters, so how can your friend Mr Cohen or anyone else be expected to remember the Armenians today? But Liffy smiled and shrugged, you know how he does, and he said your brother's concern for refugees has a way of transcending time, so to speak. He said your brother has a long memory when it comes to just causes, like all the Cairo Cohens.

So please, Miss Cohen, if you could just tell him Liffy sent me I'm sure he'd agree that Liffy's not one to be sending idle visitors around to call at this dark hour of the night, not unless it was important.

I told you, we don't know anyone named Liffy.

That's what I mean. If you don't even know him, his visitors aren't likely to be idle. Of course I could also go rushing ahead and say I'm an old friend of Stern's, but that would be getting down to business straight off and I'm told that's not the way to go about things in the Levant. So now. I'll just stand here and wait in the dark until you have a word with him, if you don't mind.

He could hear her breathing. He was also beginning to be able to see her. She was a tall young woman who stood very straight, her hair falling down from beneath her scarf. She looked as if she had just returned from somewhere.

It's quite all right, he added, it's what I've been doing for most of my life. Waiting in the dark, I mean, for some kind of answer to come to me. Once I even spent seven years in a desert in Arizona, a good half of it in darkness, thinking about Stern and the many sides to the man. Amazing when you get into it, how many sides he does have. Do you mind if I smoke while I'm waiting?

Joe took out a cigarette and struck a match so she would be able to see his face. He was careful not to glance at her. She hesitated only a moment.

Good, he thought. Take the look you're given and come down on one side or the other. Has to be that way when you work alone.

I'll just be a moment, she said.

And I appreciate it.