I suppose you'd have to say it wasn't a life with any particular surprises to it, for good or for bad, and there weren't going to be any great accomplishments to come from it, I know that. But it was a decent life and he was a good man, and there didn't seem to be any reason why he had to end it like that, all alone down at the pond on a cold night, drowning himself in the darkness.
I've just never understood that kind of thing. Summer would have come again, he was the one who always used to say that. And it's not enough to call him weak because I'm weak, no one has ever been weaker than I am. And I'm foolish too, which Uncle George never was.
I just don't understand it, Belle, I've never understood it. Why did he do it?
Belle looked at her sister. She shook her head.
I don't know, Alice, I truly don't. But why do any of them do what they do? Why did Stern? Why did Joe? Why are there all those tens of thousands of men out in the desert right now doing what they're doing? Doing the same things that were done in the same places a hundred years ago and a thousand years ago and five thousand years ago? How does it help? What does it change? What's the point of it all? How can. . . .
Belle stopped. She turned abruptly in her chair to stare at the shattered French doors, at the narrow veranda beside the water.
What is it, Belle? What did you hear?
Nothing. I was imagining it.
Alice's voice had dropped to a whisper.
Please, Belle, you know I don't hear well. What was it?
It sounded like something scraping. A piece of driftwood must have gotten caught.
Belle gripped the arms of her chair and began to pull herself forward, her mouth set.
Don't you dare get up, whispered Alice. Don't you dare go over to those doors. That's where it happened.
I have to see what's making that noise.
Don't you dare, whispered Alice. I'll go.
But she didn't move. She sat on the edge of her chair, staring at the open shattered doors, her hands clasped tightly together. The sound was louder now and Alice could also hear it, wood bumping against wood.
Alice gasped. An apparition had appeared in the moonlight, a looming chalk-white shadow of a man rising up out of the river and crouching on the small veranda, the ghastly face masklike, the whole pale figure as insubstantial as a spirit risen from the grave. Alice put her hand to her mouth and silently shrieked. Belle stiffened, her gaze unwavering.
Stop, commanded Belle. Stop right there. I refuse to believe in ghosts.
A smile appeared on the white dusty face.
And so do I, said a soft Irish voice, and not for a moment and not a bit of it. Of course it's also true that on nights such as this I've heard the odd pooka puttering around in the moonlight on occasion, muttering his jokes and his riddles and his scraps of rhymes the way their kind are wont to do. But that's only natural and pookas aren't ghosts anyway, they're just like the rest of us only more so.
The apparition grinned and hopped from one foot to the other, nodding encouragement, but Belle's stare remained defiant.
Leave, she commanded. Leave, o shade, and return whence you have come.
Oh I can't do that, said the ghostly figure. There's no going back in this world, as we well know.
Suddenly Alice found her voice.
Did he say he's a pooka, Belle? What's that?
A kind of spirit, replied Belle. One of those odd little creatures the Irish believe in.
Oh, squeaked Alice, one of those? . . . An odd little creature, she added shyly, peeking through her fingers.
And I don't have to tell you, continued the spirit, that I'm sorry about climbing in on you like this, just rising up out of the river and all. But the moonlight was right tonight and for once the Nile was going my way, so I borrowed a dinghy and here I am straight from the crypt.
The crypt, shrieked Alice. Odd little creature or not, he's straight from the dead and still wearing his shroud.
The figure took another step and stopped. He looked down at Alice cowering in her chair.
Here now, what's this terrible thing I've done? Why do you look at me like that?
You're dead, whispered Alice in horror.
The ghost's smile faded.
Dead, you say? Me?
A puzzled expression came over the dusty masklike face as the ghost stood there with his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides, his dusty jacket too big for him, his dusty baggy trousers gathered in at the waist.
Not that I know of, he said in a quiet voice. I could have been but I'm not . . . I don't think. But don't you recognize me at all? It's me, Joe.
Belle's face was set. She spoke calmly and with complete conviction.
Joe's dead. If you're Joe, you're dead. We saw it happen with our own eyes, right there where you're standing.
Me? Here? . . . I don't understand.
Right there, right on that very spot, we saw it with our own eyes.
They came here right after you did and they burst in and they shot you. It was all over in an instant. Then they carried your body away.
He frowned and wiped at the dust coating his face, forgot what he was doing, held his hand in midair. He turned and looked at the shattered glass of the open French doors, noticing it for the first time. He looked back at the room.
He was moving slowly now, as if in a dream. Some profound emotion was working within him, causing his face to change rapidly. He felt his short dusty beard.
They? Who's they?
The ones who came after you, they must have been Bletchley's men. It was all over in an instant.
A kind of wild despair seemed to grip him. They could see him trying to resist it but he had begun to tremble. He pushed at the air with his hand again and again, a pathetic gesture.
The man you thought was me, what did he look like?
Alice was no longer peeking through her fingers. She was straining forward in her chair, her face filled with wonder.
Joe? she murmured. . . . Joe, is it you? Have you really come back?
He looked just like you, whispered Belle, shaking her head. He looked just like you and he talked the same way and he dressed the same way and he moved the same way. It's uncanny. The only thing different about him was that he was so distracted he seemed to be in another world.
Joe was losing hold now, they could see that. He had begun to sway back and forth and his hands were opening and closing, grasping at nothing. He seemed to be sinking, his frail body giving way beneath him.
Desperately, he whispered.
But what did he say before they shot him? What did he say, for the love of God?
He spoke of everyone leaving, answered Belle. And he spoke of the Nile turning to blood and of those who were going to the land of their pilgrimage. . . .
Belle lowered her eyes.
And he named jewels and called them precious, she whispered, and he called them beautiful, twelve jewels in all he named. And he said they were the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their number. Every one with his name shall they be, he said, according to the twelve tribes....
Oh forgive us, whispered Belle. It's all so clear now but at the time we thought he was raving and hurt somehow, wounded somehow, and didn't know what he was saying.
Joe sagged as if from a blow. He sank to his knees and raised his hands, pleading.
And what else did he say? What else, for the love of God?
He said their lives had been bitter with bondage and he knew their sorrows. And he spoke of a ransom of souls and he said an angel had been sent before thee to keep thee in the way, and to bring them into a good land and large, flowing with milk and honey. . . . And lastly he spoke of a golden bell and a pomegranate. Upon the hem of the robe, he said, a golden bell and a pomegranate round about. . . .