And that's when the smallest thing can make all the difference. I owe Maud a letter, she must be expecting a letter. She hasn't heard from me in months. When you're off somewhere and everything seems black and hopeless, even a thought as small as that one can be something to hold on to. Maybe even the difference between living and dying.
Pride, Maudie. When we have it it's no more than the air we breathe and the sun overhead. But when we don't have it, God have mercy. To give it to even one person is a beautiful thing, because what is it after all but the laying on of hands, the human act. What can be done when we learn to think about more than just ourselves. And you do that, Maudie, and people know it and feel it deep down.
How you do go on, she said.
Joe laughed.
And that's true too, talk's always been my affliction. Long thoughts standing around like pilgrims outside an oasis, leaning on their staves and restlessly waiting to be spoken to life. Talk, the poor man's gold. The thirsty man's water.
She looked up at him, her face suddenly serious.
Then tell me something, Joe? Why are the letters always from so far away? Why are they always from some distant place?
Ah well, because your life has been like that, I suppose. Because you've looked so hard for your place, and that's led to moving and to wandering.
Too much, she murmured. Too much, it seems. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever find a place of my own, yet it's not something so special I want, not something unusual. . . . Well, someday maybe.
Of course someday, Maudie. After the war. There's no question you'll find it, no question at all.
She pushed back her hair.
Yes, she whispered. After the war. . . .
Joe felt her uneasiness. He was sitting on the low wall of the balcony again, looking out at the little buildings and the rooftops and the laundry hanging out to dry, not far from the little square with its neighborhood restaurant and its neighborhood café and its everyday people with their everyday concerns, that little place so far from the war where he had seen Stern sitting in the dust not too long ago.
In rags then, a beggar, a solemn quiet man sitting in the dust at the end of the day.
In the alley below, a little farther along, some children were playing. They had scratched figures on the hard baked earth of the alley, circles and squares, and they were following some complicated set of rules to advance from figure to figure, hopping on one leg. When one of the children reached the end he had to start again at the beginning. They were shouting and laughing as they played, but they also seemed to be going about it very intently.
I hope it's not some kind of war game, said Joe.
What's that?
The children playing down there.
Maud leaned forward and looked over the balcony. She smiled.
Don't you recognize it? It's Greek hopscotch.
Is it now? And how could they have learned that, I wonder?
Maud laughed.
I can't imagine. Some old Greek spinster must have taught them.
More likely a younger woman than that, given the leaping and hopping going on. But do you know them well then?
Yes, I know the family. Most of them are from the same family. That doorstep down there where the cat sleeps is the door to their kitchen. Is he there?
The cat? Yes indeed, soundly asleep. What's his name?
Homer. That's his place before dinner. The grandfather of the family lived in Turkey once and he likes to talk about it, and the children are fascinated by descriptions of any foreign place. I'm afraid I spend more time at their kitchen table than I should, they've practically adopted me. Sometimes the wife sneaks over here in the afternoon when I'm home and has a cigarette. She looks at my little mementos and imagines all sorts of grand things, having no idea how tattered my life has been. But then before long she has to leave again because of all the things she has to do . . . all the people who are waiting for her and need her.
Maud looked into the distance.
Sometimes when I leave their kitchen in the evening I take the long way around, strolling through the alleys and just listening to the sounds of the night, people talking in low voices and getting ready to go to bed. The soft yellow glow in the little windows always looks so inviting. I know the people inside may not be content with what they have, but that's never the feeling I have when I walk by.
She was silent for a moment.
I've been to see Anna, she said. It's very difficult for her because she and David were so close, just the two of them for so many years. And Stern going at the same time makes everything worse. But she's a strong person and I'm sure she'll manage. We've talked about some things that might make a difference.
Maud paused.
I'm not supposed to mention this, Anna wasn't supposed to say anything about it. . . . It seems Bletchley is being very helpful and doing a great deal for her, papers and money and so forth. It rather surprised me when she told me. It's not the kind of reputation he has at all.
No I guess it isn't, said Joe, but I'm certainly glad to hear it. Have you known her long?
No. I met the two of them once with Stern three or four months ago. At the time it seemed like an accidental meeting, but later I realized it wasn't. Stern had planned it of course, without telling either them or me. Anna and I figured that out.
Yes.
And I also intend to follow your suggestion about looking up Belle and Alice. I've already sent them a note explaining who I am and asking if I could come to call some evening. If there's time. If I'm still here.
That was thoughtful of you, Maudie. They haven't had many visitors in recent years and I know they'd appreciate it. They'll like you, and it would mean a lot to them because you knew Stern so well.
Good, she said, and fell to studying her knitting.
It's in the silences, he thought. When you're close to someone they speak to you in the silences and the feelings just tumble out.
But there was still one presence softly echoing through all their thoughts, a man who had to be spoken to life between them before they parted. And so as the darkness gathered, Joe told her about his last evening with Stern.
. . . and I realize, he concluded, there's no way for us to know, ever, whether that peace I saw in Stern's eyes in the end was because he was at peace with himself, finally, or simply because he saw the hand grenade coming . . . death. But we do know the last word he said before he spoke my name and struck me and saved my life.
Maud sat very still.
Yes, she whispered. Love. . . .
***
Joe muttered something about his glass. He walked inside and a light went on behind Maud. She heard him rattling around in the kitchen and then the light went off and he was back again, resting his hand on her shoulder before he moved away to sit on the low wall of the balcony.
Once Stern repeated something to me, she said, that I've never quite forgotten. It was an ancient Chinese account of caravans in the Gobi desert, of all things. He'd come across it in some obscure book he was reading, and I suppose the description has stayed with me because the images seemed so haunting. It was written about two thousand years ago, he said. Anyway, it went something like this.
***
A region of sudden sandstorms and terrifying visions. Rivers disappear overnight, landmarks go with the wind, the sun sinks at midday. A timeless nonexistent land meant to plague the mind with its mirages.
But the most dangerous thing that must be mentioned is the caravans that appear at any moment on the horizon, there to drift uncertainly for minutes or days or years. Now they are near, now far, now just as assuredly they are gone. The camel drivers are aloof and silent, undistinguishable, men of some distant race. But the men they serve, the leaders of the caravans, are truly frightening. They wear odd costumes, their eyes gleam, they come from every corner of the world.