He blew out the match.
***
The two of them sat in a back room on the ground floor, in the small workshop where fine lenses were ground for all purposes, as the sign out front said.
Cohen was tall and lean and angular, a generation younger than Stern. A dark lock of hair slipped over his forehead and he pushed it back. There was an unmistakable air of elegance about him, even when he was in shirtsleeves and worn slippers, surrounded by the buffers and trays and grinding wheels of his profession. Part of it was the graceful way he held himself, especially the way he moved his hands. He himself was so handsome women would have probably said he was beautiful.
Cohen smiled pleasantly, touching a long thin forefinger to his brow. Now that, thought Joe, would be devastating to the young ladies in the cafes, if he ever had time for cafes.
Well well, said Cohen. Here we are past midnight and at last I have a chance to meet a man called Gulbenkian. My sister tells me you're the new chief of the British Secret Service in the Middle East, or of Section A.M. for Asia Minor or After Midnight or whatever it is. Who can possibly stay current with all the vague intelligence units that keep popping up in this part of the world? I certainly can't. As your friend Liffy says, it seems to be a case of distorted images and refractions receding into infinity. All very mysterious and incomprehensible, according to Liffy.
How's that, Mr Cohen? I don't believe Liffy has slipped that one by me yet.
No? Well he was referring to the glare of the sun on the desert. It produces a multitude of little worlds, he says, which are all separate. Reflections, he calls them. But which world might yours be, and what might that have to do with me?
Well if the truth be known, said Joe, I came to discuss a magnifying glass your great-grandfather made in the nineteenth century.
Cohen laughed, relieved.
Is that all?
Yes. Only that, just imagine. But you see it was a very powerful magnifying glass, so powerful it has a way of letting us look right down through the years, from way back then when it was made, right up until the present. So powerful it can tell us who you are and who I am and why we're sitting here consulting together late on a clear Cairo night.
I wasn't aware we were consulting.
Oh yes, said Joe, no question about it. Now this magnifying glass I'm talking about is so powerful, mind you, that when a man puts it to his eye, his eye becomes a good two inches wide behind it, which is an eye so big it probably sees a good deal. Now your great-grandfather, who founded Cohen's Optiks right here where we sit, made this glass for a friend of his, an English botanist who happened to be skulking around these parts in the nineteenth century, one Strongbow by name. All right so far?
Cohen smiled.
Yes.
Good. And this man Strongbow wasn't an everyday fellow by any means, no more than was his friend Cohen, but one at a time. Strongbow started out as a botanist all right, but before long his wanderings got the best of him and he became an explorer, exploring just about everything in this part of the world and using his powerful magnifying glass to get a better look at the sights along the way. Then after doing that for about forty years he decided it was time for a change and he became an Arab holy man, whereupon he gave away his worldly goods as holy men tend to do, having no use for them on the paths they travel.
And since his magnifying glass had always been so precious to him, he decided to pass it along to another of his dearest friends, who was also a great friend of your greatgrandfather, a black Egyptologist by the name of Menelik Ziwar. Still all right?
Yes.
Fine. Now this Ziwar person was able to put the powerful glass to good use, using it to decipher the ancient mutterings in stone that he was always examining underground, hieroglyphs as they're called. And he did so until he died and the magnifying glass was laid to rest on his chest, in the sarcophagus where this Ziwar intended to pass the ages in a crypt beneath a public garden beside the Nile, right here in Cairo. This Ziwar you see, this old Menelik, was accustomed to talking to mummies as a result of his lifelong profession, but since his eyesight had been failing in his later years he thought it advisable to make his eternal voyage with a magnifying glass firmly in hand, the better to peer down through eternity without missing the details. So that's what he did and that's what lies on his chest today, that excellent and stirring device given to him long ago by his old friend Strongbow, which had originally been devised by another great friend to the both of them, a superior craftsman by the name of Cohen. . . . Your great-grandfather.
Cohen smiled and touched the corner of his mouth. Right, thought Joe, devastating to the ladies if only he had time for them.
Excellent and stirring? asked Cohen. Isn't that a peculiar way to describe a magnifying glass?
It is, said Joe. But this magnifying glass was excellent because your great-grandfather, its first owner, had made it that way. And then it was stirring on top of that because its second owner, this botanist turned explorer turned Arab holy man, Strongbow, and its third owner, this black former slave turned archaeologist, Menelik Ziwar, because all three of these great friends had an uncommon way of stirring up time to savor a new result of their own making, which was an Irish stew of history so to speak, although none of them was Irish.
But you're Irish, aren't you, Mr Gulbenkian?
That's right, and more so on some occasions than others. The weather seems to affect it, like an old wound. When it gets very dark out you begin to feel this stiffness at the base of your skull, and pretty soon it sneaks up toward your eyes, a sort of creeping paralysis of the mind, and drink seems to be the only way to waylay it.
Would you like a drink? asked Cohen.
Don't mind if I do, now that you mention it.
Cohen reached into a cupboard and brought out a bottle and a glass.
Is arak all right?
Thanks. Just by itself is fine.
Cohen poured and placed the bottle on a table beside Joe.
An Irish Gulbenkian, murmured Cohen. That's remarkable.
Joe raised his eyebrows as he sipped, his face lighting up with a kind of hope.
Do you think so? Still, we're much better at wishing and dreaming for things than at having them happen.
Like most people, I suppose.
Then you're not really soliciting charitable contributions for Armenian refugees from Asia Minor?
Well I'm doing that too in a way, over the long haul, but I admit tonight it was just a bit of amiable subterfuge meant to get me in the door. Cover, Liffy calls it. Secret agents are always using one kind of cover or another, according to him. Again, like most people. But you used the word
Joe sipped again, his face thoughtful.
In those days, he said, those three friends used to get together every Sunday afternoon in a cheap Arab restaurant they'd found for themselves on the shores of the Nile, a pleasant filthy place they'd taken a liking to, and there they'd feast and drink and carry on, telling each other all the things they were going to do in this world. And when the afternoon was coming to an end and they were as drunk as lords, over the restaurant railing they'd go, just leaping into the Nile to drift away on the great swirling currents with contented smiles on their faces, enjoying the last good rays of the sun and belching and bubbling and snoozing ever so happily, just effortlessly pissing away their troubles so to speak, lords of the noble Nile for a moment in their youths. . . .
Cohen's long thin hands drew graceful shapes in the air. He smiled and shook his head.
I'm sorry but you must be mistaken, he said. You must have three other men in mind, because I know for a fact my great-grandfather always dined at home on Sunday. It was a family tradition.
***
