Nothing of course. Nothing reaching that sordid little place but the usual cries of the night, the usual meaningless cries to echo in Stern's ears at the end. Just some yells and drunken shouts and bloody wogs and that's it for Stern, and it's as you say. No one knew that bar and no one had any idea who was in it, and no one gave an order and no one knew anything about anything. The whole thing just a case of the night coming around again. . . . Just the night, as Stern said.
Ah well, I guess I had it figured that way, the hand grenade being chance, I mean. I just wanted to make sure I had it right. Stern always was one for knowing his particular patch of the desert, and after all these years of living in a certain way . . . Well I guess you learn to sense things, that's all, and Stern sensed the when, and as for the where, well what can you say about that bar except that it was Stern's kind of place? . . . A poor barren room with bare walls and a bare floor and all of it halfway to darkness, a desolate place and unkind, dreadfully so, but also the sort of place Stern understood. Knew that bare floor and those bare walls, he did, although they'd never been fit for living, as he said. . . . Barren, that's what. Just bare as bare and a cracked grainy mirror for a view of the kingdom and a shabby curtain as the gates to the kingdom, a sordid unkind place. And shouts outside in the darkness and laughter and scuffling and a hand grenade sailing in from nowhere, the darkness coming to meet Stern at last in a roar of blinding light. . . . Light. Stern gone. Yes. . . .
Joe sighed.
All right, so that's the way it was then. But what if those Australian lads hadn't staggered down that particular alley on their way to die in the desert? And what if they hadn't been quite so drunk and so playful and hadn't tossed a grenade at the bloody wogs for the fun of it? What then? Would there have been some other kind of accident for Stern before the night was out?
Bletchley shook his head, his round eye blank and bulging, empty.
No good, Joe, no good at all. That's not a question and it doesn't deserve an answer and you know it.
There are no what ifs in this business, only what is and nothing else. What if is playing with things and you don't do that, and I don't, and Stern didn't. . . . Or are you asking me whether I would have ordered Stern killed sometime, somewhere, if it had been necessary? Well the answer to that is anytime, anywhere. And I'd have you killed and I'd kill myself for the same reason, if it were necessary. I detest the Nazis and I'd do anything to see them defeated.
Bletchley's eye was huge, bulging, overwhelming in its nakedness.
Do you hear me, Joe? Anything. I believe in life and the Nazis wear the death's-head and they are death. So don't play with things here. It's not a game we're in.
Joe nodded.
You're right and I deserved that. The question was out of line. I'm sorry. . . . So that barren cave of a bar and a man named Stern and a stray grenade in the night aside, some things got out of hand during the last few days, I take it? A matter of somebody, Whatley say, pursuing his righteous course in the name of God and goodness? Is that why there were those other killings?
There was a serious misunderstanding, said Bletchley. Mistakes were made but I'm in command at the Monastery, so the responsibility is mine. Nobody else's.
True enough, said Joe. It always does work that way when you're in charge, and Stern could manage that and you can, but I never could. Well, there's nothing more to say about that I guess, but do you think you could tell me what you did have in mind when you decided to get me over here?
Of course, that's easy enough. Some new information had turned up about Stern and it worried me.
By new information, you mean some facts having to do with Stern's Polish story?
Yes.
Can you tell me how that new information happened to turn up?
Bletchley looked at him.
No I can't. And anyway, Joe, the man who came to Cairo to find out about Stern died in a fire in the Hotel Babylon, and his interest died with him.
And so it did, said Joe. A fire decided it in the end. . . . And so this new information came your way and then what?
And it worried me, said Bletchley. I knew Stern wasn't well and I was afraid he was beginning to say things to those who were close to him. I didn't know what might happen and I thought someone from the outside might be able to help, someone who had known Stern in another context, from the past. So I went through his file and your name turned up.
Bletchley looked down at the river and a sad, empty expression came over his face.
If I'd told you more in the beginning it might not have turned out the way it did. But that . . . well, that's not how it was.
How it was, murmured Joe. How it was. . . .
Joe squinted, gazing out over the river.
Bletchley?
Yes.
Listen to me. Don't take so much of this on yourself. You came into this in the middle of things, just like the rest of us. Like me, like Liffy, like David and Ahmad and everybody else. You didn't start it and you did the best you could with what was in front of you, so let up on yourself a little. . . .
Joe paused.
Anyway, he added, I know who told you Stern's Polish story.
Bletchley's head jerked back and he raised his hands, stopping Joe almost pleading with him.
No names, he whispered. For God's sake, Joe, no names. We haven't spoken of this.
Joe nodded.
No, we haven't spoken of it and there'll be no names. I'm merely referring to persons unknown and to their haunting elegy that's half as old as time, an allusive recitation to the stars and a hymn as anonymous as the night. So no names, then, but I want you to know you're not alone here, because I know who told you, and I know why they told you.
Bletchley sat perfectly still, unable to look at Joe. Again Joe paused, looking out at the water. He spoke in a very quiet voice.
Yes, they loved him, and they loved him too much to see him coming apart like that. They just couldn't bear to see it happen because Stern was special for them. You could see it in his eyes, they said, and you could hear it in his laughter. . . . Hope, they said. For he was a man who stood by the river and saw great things, and his eyes shone at the splendor of the gift, like a hungry man brought to a great table.
Precious, they said. Always to be so, they said.
But then they saw him coming apart like the world itself, and he was too precious to them to be destroyed like that, too beautiful by far, so they took his burden from him and spoke to you. . . . We would do anything for him, they said to me. But there's nothing we can do for him now but weep, and so we do that . . . for Stern our son.
***
Joe felt Bletchley move beside him. He looked down and saw that Bletchley had taken something out of his pocket and was holding it in his good hand, slowly turning it over and over.
That looks like an old Morse-code key, said Joe. Worn and smooth with a soft sheen to it, the way things get with a lot of handling. . . . Tell me, what happens to old Menelik's crypt now?
Nothing, said Bletchley. It will stay the way it is . . . locked. The way it was left.
Good. That's something at least.
Slowly, Bletchley turned the worn Morse-code key over and over in his good hand.
I also ought to mention, he said, that someone checked through your room before the fire. All that was found were some clothes and your small valise. The valise had a faded red wool hat in it and a khaki blanket from the Crimean War. Was there anything else?
No, that was it, said Joe. They went the way of the fire, did they?