And the El Alamein line? asked Joe.
It depends on several factors, supplies for one. Ours and theirs. If Rommel has the fuel to keep pushing, well, we'll flood the delta and lose the Canal and take what we can to Palestine and Iraq. The implications are unthinkable and that's what we're thinking about now.
I see.
Joe glanced at the newspaper.
What about the personal columns? Any better news there?
Bletchley's face twisted into a kind of blank stare, his eye widening. An expression of sorrow, Joe knew.
This isn't being reported yet, so don't say anything about it. All right?
Yes.
Bletchley hesitated.
We had a large-scale operation under way behind their lines, paramilitary units, special strike forces, that kind of thing. We were trying to get at some of the more important bases they've been using to raid Malta, to stop our supplies from getting through. Well it was an absolute failure from beginning to end.
They were waiting for us. . . . Waiting for us, that's it.
Bletchley stared blankly at his metal cup and the two of them sat in silence for a time. Joe had made his report, such as it was, not mentioning the Cohens and not really going into any detail about Ahmad.
Bletchley had listened in only a half-attentive way, and his questions had appeared to be more concerned with Joe's impressions of Old Cairo, rather than with Stern. It seemed peculiar to Joe, but then, he always found Bletchley's manner peculiar. Something to do with Bletchley's mask, a face that never reflected what the man was feeling or thinking.
Bletchley was moving his metal cup around, nudging it a few inches to one side, a few inches to the other.
The scraping noise made by the cup was the only sound in the room.
Night, thought Joe. Everything happens under cover of darkness when you're dealing with the Monks.
You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, Bletchley said finally. After all, you've only been in Egypt a little over two weeks, which is nothing for an assignment as complicated as yours. No one expects results right away and two weeks is barely enough time to learn your way around.
Joe nodded.
I know, but somehow it seems much longer than that. Probably because of where I'm staying. . . .
Bletchley scowled. Thoughtful, Joe reminded himself.
It is an odd old structure, Bletchley murmured in a noncommittal way.
He looked up from his cup.
Does your ear still itch?
Yes.
Isn't that supposed to mean someone's talking about you?
I hope not, said Joe. I'm supposed to be an unknown visitor here, just A. O. Gulbenkian in transit.
Bletchley continued to scowl.
A strange cover, said Joe. Whose idea was it anyway?
I'm not sure, answered Bletchley, still preoccupied. But don't try to expect too much from yourself too soon. Two weeks is nothing.
Why does he keep saying that? wondered Joe. What's he talking about? Rommel's getting ready to overrun Egypt and he keeps saying there's all the time in the world. It makes no sense, or isn't he worried about Rommel reading the British codes anymore? What's changed that I don't know about?
Bletchley was pushing his cup back and forth. The meeting seemed over. Joe got to his feet and lingered beside the table, not sure whether Bletchley had anything more to say.
Well I'll be on my way then. . . .
He started toward the stairs. Bletchley was still staring down at the table, his eye wide, empty.
See here, Joe, I could find you another room. This accident of yours, this isn't always the best part of town to be in. What do you say?
Joe shrugged.
Oh I don't think it matters. We are where we are, I guess, but thanks anyway.
Joe climbed the narrow stairs and stepped into the alley. Later he would often recall that quiet moment in the small bare cellar and Bletchley's concern, Bletchley's sorrow, his questions about Joe's welfare and his offer of another room elsewhere. At the time it had sounded like such a little thing, but had Bletchley meant something more by it? Something a great deal more important?
Could it even have made a difference and saved a life?
Two lives? Three lives?
***
As soon as Joe stepped into the night he heard the rumble of trucks in the distance. Everywhere now there were trucks moving into Cairo, pouring in from the desert with wounded soldiers and stragglers who had lost their units. Guns of all sorts and RAF wagons and recovery vehicles, armored cars and countless lorries crammed with exhausted sleeping men, crowding the roads outside the city beyond the pyramids, transports rolling in from the wreckage of the long campaigns in the Western Desert.
And smoke above the British Embassy where documents were being burned. And huge crowds in front of the British Consulate where refugees waited silently, hoping for transit visas to Palestine. And rumors that the British fleet was already preparing to sail from Alexandria to the harbors of Haifa and Port Said, to escape Rommel's advancing panzers.
Unmistakable signs, thought Joe. The fingerprints of war. And everywhere in Cairo the same whispered question.
When will he arrive? When will he get here?
***
But Joe had no thoughts for Rommel. It was Bletchley's melancholy remarks that obsessed him, the failure of the special operation behind enemy lines which Bletchley had talked about. For that must have been the mission that was going to have kept Stern away from Cairo for two weeks, and its collapse meant that Stern's last mission for the Monastery had officially ended.
Hours ago? Days ago?
In any case, Stern was now due back in Cairo so far as Bletchley was concerned, and whatever Stern had been secretly doing was now finished and at an end. Bletchley would see to that. Bletchley who did his job well, and who seemed to have arrived at a new sense of calm despite the news from the front. So for Joe there was very little time left. And sadly, as he had known all along, the outcome would be the same for Stern no matter what he learned now.
Indelibly the same, Stern's passage, Stern's fate, the mysterious weaving of Stern's journey over the years. Even Liffy had finally come to realize that when he had found Joe limping down the alley to the Hotel Babylon that morning, before daybreak. Liffy rushing up to help Joe after having waited all night in the shadows for Joe to return from his visit to the Cohens, fearful and more, frantic that something might have gone wrong.
As indeed it had. Dreadfully wrong. A small cry escaping Liffy then, when he had learned what had happened.
That's not like David, Liffy had said of the blow that wounded him so deeply.
Violence, Liffy had whispered with a shudder. It's terrifying. Even when we abhor it, it can seize us.
And then he had fixed Joe with his eyes there in the alley, gripping Joe and whispering urgently and looking for all the world like some tormented prophet of antiquity who had just seen a vision of the coming destruction of his beloved Jerusalem.
Whatever Stern has done, Joe, you must prove it's right for the sake of all of us. It doesn't even matter if you and I are the only ones who ever know the truth, or if just one of us does, even that would be enough. For I have this haunting feeling that unless Stern's right in what he's done, with all he knows, there can be no hope for any of us in this monstrous war without end.
-15-
The Sisters
Flowers, boomed Ahmad. . . . Flowers are the keys to this particular queendom, therefore you must select the makings of your nosegay with special care. These two old dears are shamelessly sentimental and always have been.
Ahmad raised his head and solemnly sniffed the air, considering the matter further.