That's right, you heard it correctly. I met him in a mythical city.
Slowly then, Joe smiled too.
And now like a child with his toys, shall we give it a name? Shall we call it Jerusalem?
***
Joe spoke quickly. When he had finished he leaned back and sipped from his glass, giving Cohen time to absorb it all. Cohen sat with his elbows on a workbench, his chin propped up in his hands, deep in thought.
I like him, thought Joe, continually recognizing little things that reminded him of Stern. I like him and why not, he could almost be Stern's son.
Finally Cohen moved.
But why not get in touch with him? Speak to him directly?
Could you arrange that?
Yes. He was here yesterday but that was a personal call. There's a way I can leave a message for him though, and he'd contact me within twenty-four hours. Isn't that soon enough?
It might be, said Joe, but I'm not sure that's the way to go about it. You know how Stern is. If I spoke to him now he'd probably thank me for the information about Bletchley and then be up and on his way, not wanting to cause me any trouble. He'd keep his problems to himself unless I could show him I was already part of the game.
Well do you trust this man Bletchley? asked Cohen.
To do his job. And his job right now is Stern.
But you don't know what part of Stern's work he's interested in.
True enough, said Joe. All I really know is that Bletchley's deathly afraid of something Stern knows, or something he thinks Stern knows, same thing. Yet Stern's been working with Bletchley's people for years and why this suspicion about him all of a sudden? What triggered it?
Joe shrugged in answer to his own question.
No matter. There are any number of possibilities and an informer's just one of them, but that's neither here nor there now. Bletchley's made it clear he's not going to tell me why he has a case against Stern, and that's something Stern wouldn't tell me either. So I have to find it out myself, elsewhere, or I won't be able to help Stern because he wouldn't let me. He'd try to keep me out of it, and I didn't come here for that.
But what is Bletchley after? asked Cohen. Could it have anything to do with Stern's work for us?
Joe shook his head.
Not strictly speaking, not Palestine or the Jewish Agency directly. The British concern is the war and it has to be something to do with the Germans. Just for openers, let's begin with Stern's Polish story.
Cohen looked puzzled.
Do you mean the time he disappeared just before the war broke out?
Yes. I assume you know he escaped from a prison in Damascus in order to get to Poland when he did, but did you know that escape almost cost him his life?
No. I had no idea it had been that dangerous.
It was. Didn't you notice his thumb later, when he got back to Cairo? The way he'd ripped it up?
Yes of course, but that was an accident of some kind. He explained it to me but I don't recall exactly . . .
Not an accident, said Joe. He did that clawing his way out of prison, and the strange thing is he'd been due for release within twenty-four hours. But Stern just doesn't take chances without a reason. Did he ever talk to you about that trip to Poland? Why he had been in such a desperate hurry?
Cohen frowned.
All I really remember is that he was very excited.
Excited?
Yes. As if he had taken part in something very important, almost as if there had been some kind of priceless breakthrough. You know how quiet Stern is about what he does. Well that time when he finally turned up again, he could barely contain his excitement. I remember Anna mentioning it, saying how wonderful it was to see him as his old self again. So exuberant and lighthearted, so enthusiastic. It was the way we'd always remembered him from before.
Before?
Yes. Back before all the changes came over him during these last years. Back before everything began to weigh on him so heavily.
Ah yes, thought Joe, back when Stern was so lighthearted and exuberant. Back when he was
. . . .
And for a moment, Joe found his own memories slipping back through the years.
***
Of course it wasn't just that Stern had changed since David and Anna were younger. It was also that the two of them had ceased to be children and had learned to see more deeply, to sense Stern's complexity and the contradictions in what he did, what he believed in.
Then too, as children they wouldn't have known about his morphine addiction and all that implied. As children they would have seen only Stern's kindness and love, not the despair that went with it in the bare rented rooms where he passed his nights in one dreary slum after another. Not the worn old shoes, sad reminders of journeys to nowhere, of the battered suitcase which held all he owned in the world, tied together from year to year with the same old piece of rope which was forever being carefully knotted, carefully unknotted, when it was time for him to move yet again. As children they would have known a very different Stern, as had Joe's own son, Bernini. When Joe had seen him in New York, Bernini had talked a great deal about Stern as he always did, recalling Stern in a very particular way from his childhood. . .
Bernini had smiled rapturously.
A great bear of a man who was always smiling and laughing when they had gone to meet his ship in Piraeus. The gangways clanging and noise and confusion everywhere as people rushed back and forth, and then all at once there was Stern in the midst of all the shouting passengers, laughing and waving and struggling down the gangway with his arms full of gifts, Stern's wondrous presents from everywhere.
Trinkets and charms and incense and a little sheik's costume for Bernini to wear, and the Great Pyramid made of building blocks, complete with secret passageways and hidden treasure chambers. And lovely gifts for Mother too, as Bernini had said, rare wines and delicacies and a beautiful thin gold bracelet, the bracelet making a special impression upon Bernini because Maud seemed so touched by its simplicity.
And then back at their little house that afternoon, after all the presents had been admired, Stern opening the first of the bottles of champagne and banging around in the kitchen as he began to conjure up the feast they always had on the night of his arrival, Stern laughing and dashing spices here and there as his cooking filled the house with delicious aromas from all the lands of the Mediterranean.
Bernini had smiled happily.
Stern's feasts? There had never been anything like them.
And it would go on like that for two or three days, nothing but champagne and delicacies and one treat after another, until finally the hectic visit was over and once more little Bernini would be standing with Maud on a pier in Piraeus, the crowds solemn now as they waved good-bye to the passengers along the railings, Stern a little apart from the others but waving and smiling as always . . . laughing, as always.
And that was what Bernini remembered. Unaware, as he was, of all the things Stern and Maud had talked about late at night in the candlelight of the narrow garden by the sea. Unaware, as well, that Stern had once again squandered all his money, spending what little he had on others as he always did. . . .
Stern?
Oh yes, Bernini knew Stern. He was a big jovial man whose sudden appearances always meant laughter and toys and feasts, and above all, magic. The exquisite magic of tales that spoke of the infinite wonders a child could one day discover and make his own. . . . So it was no surprise to Joe the way Cohen and his sister remembered Stern from their childhoods, from the time when Stern had been exuberant and lighthearted, as Cohen said. When he had still been his old self, as Cohen said, and had not yet grown somber under the weight of his burdens. For
