Right. Now as I was saying, my problem is simply this. Bletchley has some kind of standing order out to kill me and I don't see any need for it, but to get the order changed I have to talk to Bletchley, and I can't arrange that by myself. I can't just give him a ring and ask for a chat, because the way things are now he probably wouldn't get the call and certainly wouldn't show up. The fellows who take his orders would.
Those Monks, damn them. See what I mean?
The Major nodded.
Therefore I'd take it ever so kindly, said Joe, if you could arrange a meeting for me with Bletchley. Surely you know I'm not going to go blasting my way out of Egypt these days, couldn't, even if I had a mind to.
Bletchley's my star this night and I have to follow his lead. I need his approval to keep my in transit status, and I think I could get it if I could talk to him. So what do you think? Could you discuss it with your Colonel before the night's out? The way things are at the moment I'm short on time. Officially dead as a matter of fact, which isn't a promising condition to be in for long. Makes me uneasy, naturally.
The Major found his tongue at last.
What do you mean, you're officially dead?
I mean, according to the Monks, said Joe. According to official Monkish reality. So, can you do this and speak to your Colonel for me?
But what if I did? asked the Major. What arguments could I give him for stepping in? Bletchley's operations belong to Bletchley. The Colonel can't interfere for no reason.
True enough, said Joe, but as I see it it's not so much a matter of argument as it is of points of interest, and those interests are Colly for one and Stern for another and me for a third. Your Colonel, like Bletchley, must have respected Stern a great deal, that's a given for anyone who knew the man. And as for Colly, well I wouldn't doubt they both loved Colly, mysterious presence that he always was. And Colly was my brother, which is by way of slipping me into this configuration.
What? Colly was your brother?
Yes, that's who he was. There were a lot of us to begin with and Colly was the next to the last, and I'm the last. But that's an aside. The points of interest here are the Colly and the Stern and only lastly me.
The Major shook his head, completely bewildered.
None of this makes any sense, he muttered.
Joe smiled.
It doesn't?
No. I have no idea what you're talking about most of the time.
Joe smiled more broadly.
You don't?
No. The Delphic oracle and the Sphinx and moonglow, and Colly and Stern and you? What does it all add up to? I just can't seem to get my hands on it.
Joe laughed.
Oh is that all. Well I wouldn't worry too much about that. There seem to be all kinds of things we can't get our hands on in life. What we have to ask ourselves is, does the intangible thing in question have a certain ring to it?
A ring?
Yes. As with a bell mainly, but also as with a circle. Sometimes that seems to be as close as we can get.
I'm lost, muttered the Major.
Joe laughed.
Then just think of everything as being a tentative arrangement for the moment, a set of circumstances that never stops shifting around, confusing only because it is just for the moment. Like you and me, say, with our in transit status in a universe that's also in transit. Or a meeting with Bletchley, say. That's just another tentative thing. He could always change his mind or he could refuse outright.
And what if he did refuse? asked the Major. What would you do then?
Joe shrugged. He looked down at his hands.
Don't know, do I. Liffy used to talk about sitting in empty railway stations late at night, hungry and tired and never sure when a train might show up. Never sure where it might be going, if it did.
Liffy?
Joe opened his hands and looked at them.
Better we don't talk about him. Some things are just too painful and enormous to get ahold of right away, and Liffy's death is one of them for me.
The Major was stunned.
Liffy? Dead?
Yes, God bless him.
But that's terrible. How did it happen?
He was shot and bayoneted and blown up and gassed and knifed and beaten and starved and buried alive and burned to ashes, and the ashes were scattered on the waters of the Nile.
What?
Dead, that's all.
But who killed him?
The war? Hitler? Some army or other? I don't know.
But why?
On the face of it, a case of mistaken identity. But that doesn't tell us much because so many identities are always being mistaken in life. Why then, beneath it all? Simply because of what he was.
I don't understand. What was he?
A sound as clear as a golden bell, whispered Joe. A sound as of a mighty rushing wind. There all right, but never something you could get your hands on.
What?
Yes, that was him. And truly, Major, your question is one that ought to be asked here in the lap of the Sphinx, for the answer to it is the very same answer that solved the riddle of the Sphinx three thousand years ago. Remember how the riddle went? What walks on four legs in the morning, on two at midday, and on three in the evening? And the answer then was a man, first as a baby crawling, then strong in his years, then old with his cane. So a man is the answer to the ancient riddle, now as then and forever. A human being is the answer, no more and no less, and that's why Liffy was killed. Because he was human and because he was good, and it's as simple as that and just as complex.
Joe gazed down at the crumbling stone at his feet.
Major? I need you to help me. Will you do that?
If I can.
Good. I'll call you at noon. You won't be able to speak freely on the phone, but if you use the word Sphinx when we talk, I'll take it to mean there really is a meeting on with Bletchley. And if you don't use the word, no matter what you say, I'll take it to mean there's not going to be any meeting and I'm being set up to be killed. . . . All right? Just between the two of us?
Yes.
Joe talked then about many things, but especially about Stern and himself and Liffy. Finally he rose and put out his hand.
In any case, Major, I appreciate you coming here no matter how it turns out, and I'm glad we had a chance to listen to the Delphic oracle in the moonglow and hear what the Sphinx had to say, and refresh ourselves by recalling Colly and Stern and Liffy. Things do have a way of being passed along, don't they?
Despite even adverse winds and sunspots. Well then. . . .
Joe slipped down to the ground and was quickly gone in the darkness, leaving the Major naked of weapons and lost in thought.
. . . Liffy impersonating Joe at the houseboat and his reasons for doing so . . . Joe's mysterious connections with Stern and others over the years . . . Liffy's feelings for Stern and . . .
But what does it all mean? wondered the Major, gazing up at the calm and battered face of the Sphinx.
***
A light burned in the back of the Colonel's bungalow. The Major went in through the gate and walked down the path to the kitchen door, where he rapped lightly. A voice was humming inside. The door opened.
Morning, Harry.
Morning, sir.
Cup of tea?
Thank you.
He sat at the small kitchen table, his head tipped sideways under an overhanging shelf, while the Colonel busied himself at the other end of the room near the stove. Tipsy unpainted cupboards made from packing-case lumber lurched along the crowded walls of the narrow kitchen, products of the Colonel's fondness for carpentry in his off-duty hours. Every shelf in the cluttered kitchen was askew and the cabinet doors all hung ajar, unable to close. The unpainted kitchen table was heaped with the Colonel's customary assortment of scholarly books on early Islamic calligraphy, medieval Jewish mysticism, the Bahai sect, Persian miniatures, Jerusalem at the time of the Second Temple, archeological finds in central Anatolia. A plate of muffins was squeezed in beside the books and the Major pinched one.