houseboat. Joe was moving and speaking quickly, his words confused as he stumbled around the sunroom of the houseboat bumping into wicker furniture. Even his voice seemed not quite his own.
It was Belle who would recall that later. It was almost as if he had been possessed, she said later.
Both Belle and Alice tried to question him but his answers made little sense, and in any case it was impossible to hold his attention. Joe kept turning away and shaking his head, his voice sinking to a whisper. Occasionally one of the women caught a few words.
They were shocked by the changes that had come over him in such a short time. Shuffling and disheveled, gaunt from lack of sleep, he looked as if he might collapse at any moment. His thin shoulders drooped, his shapeless clothes hung on him. His hands kept opening and closing as he picked up things and put them down again somewhere else, touching objects, touching everything, pointing at nothing and groaning, muttering to himself.
It was as if events had finally overpowered him and he had shrunk into himself, retreating to some private world. For the first time both sisters realized how small he was.
But Joe, what happened to Stern? asked Belle. What happened to Stern?
He moved quickly away to the corner and stood there staring down at the harpsichord and the tiny bassoon resting on the polished wood. A bewildered expression crossed his face and he backed away, abruptly fixing his gaze on the portrait of Cleopatra. He went up to it and pushed his face close, examining the portrait.
What did you say? asked Alice.
But Joe was moving again, hurrying away, retreating to the other side of the room. He bumped into furniture and knocked over a porcelain figure, shattering it, coming to a sudden halt in front of the portrait of Catherine the Great. He shook his head, his mouth working all the while, biting and chewing, his tongue licking his lips.
But what happened to Stern? repeated Belle.
Joe swung around, his face harried and pale, puzzled. A spasm twitched in the taut muscles of his neck.
His hand went to his throat and he gasped, fought for breath.
He reached out desperately for support, caught himself, lurched into the back of a chair. He whirled and knocked another porcelain to the floor, shattering it.
But he couldn't stop, he couldn't rest. He groped through the air in a frenzy and stared wildly around the room, recognizing none of it, muttering to himself.
His mouth fell open, his head slipped to the side. He gaped as images tumbled through his tortured mind, obscuring the room. . . . Wounded animals in the desert and flames shooting high in the sky, trails of wreckage and twisted bodies, ripped tanks and abandoned cannons, sirens and echoes and screaming men lying blind on the sands. . . . And elsewhere to the east, endless columns of trucks winding away into the Sinai, fleeing headlong into the wilderness on the ancient paths that had always led to Palestine and the promised land of Canaan.
Joe raised his hand, as if preaching to some invisible congregation. He whispered.
Whose lives? asked Belle.
Joe staggered, fell to one knee, pulled himself to his feet again with an enormous effort.
Who's leaving? asked Alice. Where are they going?
He uttered a cry and spun around, stumbling toward the tall French doors that opened onto the small veranda beside the river. Alice rose to her feet in alarm but Belle shook her head, stopping her. Joe stood in the open doors gazing down at the Nile.
Alice tried to plead with him.
Joe? Rest for a moment. Sit down and rest, please?
But he was moving again away from the veranda. He stopped in the middle of the room and raised his hand once more as if addressing an invisible congregation, his obsessed eyes staring into the distance, glittering and fixed.
Belle watched Joe's eyes, her face filled with sorrow.
What jewels, Joe? What do you mean?
Look at his eyes, whispered Alice, terrified.
What jewels? repeated Belle, loudly.
Joe murmured, his hand raised, his voice gathering strength.
Joe dropped his hand and turned away, his eyes shining. In despair, Belle shook her head. Alice was ready to break into tears. Belle made a gesture and immediately Alice rose and fled to her sister, holding her tightly.
I'm frightened, whispered Alice. He looks ghastly and it frightens me the way he moves his hands, the way his mouth keeps working. What's the matter with him?
He's ill, whispered Belle. He's not himself.
But his eyes, Belle, the way they shine and the way they stare, it frightens me. What does he see? What does he think he sees? Why are his eyes so strange? Whom is he speaking to?
He may have a concussion, whispered Belle. He may have been struck on the head or been near some kind of explosion.
Shouldn't we call a doctor, Belle?
In a moment. We can't leave him alone now.
Belle tried to comfort her sister, but she was just as disturbed by Joe's strange appearance and his even stranger behavior. Much more than mere physical exhaustion had to be involved, she knew that. It was his jerky movements that disturbed her, the spasms that seemed to seize him every few moments and spin him around, sending his disconnected thoughts careening off in some new direction. And above all there were his eyes, as Alice had said. There was a wholly unnatural luster to Joe's eyes, a feverish glow that was much too bright and seemed to devour everything his gaze fell upon.
Suddenly Belle raised her head. What's that? she whispered.
It was the sound of an automobile stopping nearby. In front of the houseboat perhaps. On the road beside the river.
Belle stiffened.
It's no use. There's no time to try to hide him and he wouldn't go with us anyway.
Joe wandered among the pale white wicker shapes, the ghostly furniture that crowded the room with wispy shadows of other lives and other eras. Again he raised his hand, whispering.
