Nile Shadows

Stern's influence, thought Joe. There's no mistaking it.

And after these friends had tipped away their tea, Joe went on, they would unpack their musical instruments and get ready for the weekly concert that was so dear to the heart of old Menelik. For as that wise living mummy used to say in his five-thousand-year-old tomb—I wouldn't, dream of trying to pass eternity without the music of life. Eternity, old Menelik used to say, just doesn't work without music.

Examine anyone's notion of the great beyond, even the vaguest, and you'll hear melodious strings soaring in the background, or at least a lute being plucked. . . . Thus the concerts those friends always put on for old Menelik when they came to call, Stern quite naturally the leader. Stern tuning his violin and using his old Morse-code key to tap on Menelik's sarcophagus and get everyone's attention, old Menelik himself ecstatic at the prospect, the music soaring as everyone joined in their separate moods. . . . Stern and Ahmad and your father and the Sisters. . . . Your father thoughtful as he played his oboe, that very oboe we now see resting in a place of honor in its case on the wall behind you.

Joe paused.

But your father never had a chance to teach you to play it, did he, David?

No, said Cohen. He never did.

***

Joe sipped arak. Cohen was still as calm as ever, so calm Joe was inevitably reminded of Stern. And in fact from the very moment he had entered the house Joe had felt Stern's invisible presence, which was heartening to him. It meant Stern was loved and cared for here and Joe was grateful for that. But he still had to make it possible for Cohen to trust him enough to talk about Stern, and that wouldn't be easy because Cohen would never say anything that might bring the least bit of harm to Stern. Joe was certain of that and it only increased his respect for Cohen.

Well, he thought, I've made what connections I can with the past and now there's nothing for it but to bring us up to the here and the now and pray he'll tell me some little thing. Pray is all.

Joe reached down for the cylindrical leather case he had brought with him. He unzipped the case and let it fall away, holding up Ahmad's spyglass and extending it to full length.

Cohen, puzzled, stared at the spyglass and then at Joe.

***

And now, said Joe, we come to another excellent and stirring device, also made here in Cohen's Optiks.

Used for enlargement or its opposite, and also useful for just plain seeing things. . . . I hope.

Joe put the large end of the spyglass, the wrong end, to his eye. He gazed through it at Cohen.

It's true, he said, that the world looks exceptionally neat and tidy this way. Ever wondered why?

Why? asked Cohen.

Because small things always look tidy. That's why we try so hard to reduce things and put them in categories and give them labels, so we can pretend we know them and they won't bother us. Order, it's called, the explanation or an explanation, the reason for and the reason why. It's comforting to us, naturally it is, who wants to live with chaos all the time? . . . Well not much of anyone in fact, because it suggests we're not in charge and can't understand everything. So we have this little game we play, rather like children lining up their toys on a rainy afternoon and giving each toy a name, and then calling them by these made-up names and telling them what they are and why. . . . And sometimes we pretend we can do that with life, lining up people as it suits us and telling ourselves what they do and calling it history.

Like children with their toys, making it more comfortable for ourselves by pretending we order the chaos when we hand out names.

Joe lowered the spyglass, collapsed it, put it back in its leather case.

Know what, David?

What?

Life isn't like that. It's just not like that at all and neither is Stern and what he does. A label just won't do for Stern. Ten or twenty contradictory adjectives might be accurate, but how much would that help us to place him?

Joe shook his head.

Not much at all. Because the truth is Stern's as complex and chaotic as life itself. And he's human and he's going to die.

Joe stared hard at Cohen. He smiled.

And yet I know there'll never be an end to him.

***

Joe looked down at the spyglass on the floor.

Good workmanship, that. Made by your father for his friend Ahmad. The same Ahmad who is now a forgotten desk clerk at a Biblical ruin called the Hotel Babylon.

Cohen stared down at the spyglass, confused, unsure of himself.

But why. . . ?

Why did your father make it for Ahmad, you mean? Because Ahmad was the very king of the boulevards in those days, and a king should have the wherewithal to survey his kingdom. So the spyglass was a joke at the time, but now Ahmad uses the spyglass when he goes up to the roof of the Hotel Babylon on Saturday evenings to look for his lost homeland, like the Jews of old. And he takes his trombone with him and he wears his only suit, a flower in his buttonhole and a smudge of polish on his shoes and his dyed red hair slicked down with water, and he peers through his precious spyglass and pretends he can see the great city where he once ruled as king, alone there in the night of his captivity, a desperately yearning and haunted captive of the past.

Cohen lowered his eyes. Joe spoke very softly.

Your father died in the First World War, I know that. He was in the British army. The campaign to take Palestine?

Yes, whispered Cohen.

A young man, then. About your age?

Yes. It was a freakish accident. The Turks had evacuated Jerusalem but a deserter was hiding in the hills and fired off a round. One shot and then he threw up his rifle and surrendered. An illiterate man, a peasant. He didn't know his army had already left the city.

Your father and Stern were the same age?

Yes.

And after that Stern saw to your upbringing, is that it?

Cohen raised his eyes and gazed at Joe.

Why do you say that?

Because that's the kind of thing Stern would do. It's Stern's way.

Cohen dropped his gaze. He spoke with great feeling.

If it hadn't been for him we wouldn't have been able to stay together. He supported my mother and made it possible for us to keep the shop, and then when my mother died he took care of Anna's and my education. . . . Just everything.

Cohen picked up the silver cigarette case.

This was my father's. He had it with him the day he was killed. Stern gave it to me when I was a child. I don't know how he ever recovered it.

Cohen held out the case to Joe. There was Hebrew lettering engraved in the corner.

It was a present from Stern to my father on the day he enlisted. Do you read Hebrew?

No, but I can read that. Life, or your father's first name. Or both.

Cohen took back the case. He looked at Joe uneasily.

Shouldn't you tell me why you're here?

Yes I should, said Joe, and I think I ought to start at the beginning, back when I was much younger than you are and didn't know the smallest part of what you know about the world. Back when Stern and I first met in a mythical city.

Cohen watched him. He smiled.

Where did you say you met Stern?

Joe nodded.