Smuggling arms into Palestine. For the Haganah.
Big Belle stirred. She seemed to be recalling something.
Do you know anything about scarabs?
One only, answered Joe. A giant stone scarab with a mysterious smile carved into its face. A great huge and hollow giant stone scarab. That's what I smuggled the arms in. Stern had set me up to pass myself off as a dealer in antiquities.
When exactly?
After the last war.
Belle studied Joe more closely.
What does the Home for Crimean War Heroes mean to you?
It means a charity in Jerusalem, said Joe, where I lived when I first arrived in the city. I was on the run from the British and in disguise, and I lived there until I met Stern. They gave me a used khaki blanket which I still have. Their standard award of merit, it was.
Little Alice was becoming so excited she could hardly sit still. A smile was growing on Belle's face.
Do you play cards? asked Belle.
I don't now but I did once. Poker. Twelve years of it in Jerusalem.
Big Belle suddenly beamed. She whooped as a crescendo of chirping noises erupted in Little Alice's corner.
That Joe, thundered Belle, the Irishman who lived on a roof in the Old City. Free the serfs. Annex the Crimea and the hell with the Turks. Why didn't you say you were that Joe and not just some odd rowing companion of young Ahmad? We've heard a good deal from Stern in the past about that Joe.
Happily Belle grabbed the gin bottle at her elbow and upended it, taking a drink straight from the bottle.
Little Alice's mouth fell open.
Belle. What on earth?
Big Belle smacked her lips. She sighed noisily and licked her lips with an enormous smile.
I know, dear. Forgive me.
But Belle, realll-ly. I haven't seen you do that in sixty-five years.
Belle laughed.
Sixty-seven, dear.
Not since that very first time when you were going to spend a night with Menelik, said Alice. Not since that afternoon when we were somewhere together and Menelik sent a note around just begging you to spend a quiet candlelit evening with him in his sarcophagus, to celebrate his retirement from his digs in the field.
I know, dear, and what a grand invitation it was to a young woman not much more than twenty.
Hieroglyphs engraved on a heavy slab of stone, no less, in Menelik's very own hand, with accompanying translations engraved beneath it in demotic Egyptian and ancient Greek. Menelik's very own Rosetta Stone of love. Just think of all the time and thought it must have taken him to turn that heavy basalt slab into an invitation. No young woman in her right mind could ever have responded to that with anything less than a resounding, Yes I said Yes I will Yes.
I remember, mused Alice dreamily.
Indeed you do, said Belle, and so do I. It isn't often that a suitor presents his case to a woman with words actually written in stone.
To the woman of my dreams, the incomparable Belle.
Dearest:
Today I retire from a lifetime of active archeology and go underground for good and forever.
Won't you please help me inaugurate my future life in the crypt by the Nile that is to be my new home? Among its many delights is a most spacious sarcophagus, cork-lined, which is to serve as both my bed and bedroom, and which will simply take your breath away. Large, my dear, as well as timeless, and need I add that they don't make them like that anymore?
Until an hour after sunset then, my most beautiful Belle, for a time we will both cherish as the night of a lifetime.
Easily. Clearly. And until that moment when I hear your sweet knock on the door of my anonymous crypt, I remain,
Your most ardent and devoted of admirers above or beneath the sands of Egypt, both ancient and modern,
All my love,
(s) Menelik Ziwar.
P.S. Don't bother to dress. After a life of determined Egyptology, all of history is at my disposal and we can wander wherever we choose, adopting such costumes and manners and methods as may suit our purposes, our moods, our tastes, and above all our grand designs for lovemaking throughout eternity.
Belle sighed. She smacked her lips.
No, she said, you don't see invitations like that anymore, no more than you meet a man like Menelik.
Menelik was different, and his unusual invitation was just the beginning of the unusual delights we were to know together that evening. One might have thought a sarcophagus would be a trifle cramped for the tour through history Menelik had in mind, but that was beforehand. Before Menelik got his hands moving and the champagne flowing and started peeling grapes and dipping them here and there.
Belle. I just don't know what to say. I mean, realll-ly. What can Joe possibly be thinking?
I know, dear, but Menelik was an out-and-out contortionist and there's no use denying it. I've never known anything like it, he was just everywhere at once. It must have been all those years he spent excavating ancient tombs, bending himself around in tight quarters. Not to mention doing so in the dark much of the time, when he had to depend on his fingertips to do his seeing for him. Oh, Menelik's fingertips. It makes me shiver to think of them even now.
Belle? Are you sure you're all right?
I am, dear, perfectly, I haven't felt so good in sixty-seven years. It's also that first rush the gin gives you when you gulp it straight from the bottle, there's nothing like it. I never could abide sipping from glasses in order to appear ladylike. Menelik used to say there was only one way to deal with a bottle of gin. The same way you deal with me, he used to say. Just grab the fellow firmly and upend the rascal and swallow for the life of you.
Belle.
Big Belle smacked her lips. She laughed.
Now he was a man, Menelik was. Who could ever imagine such a thrilling night in a sarcophagus? And a sarcophagus that had originally belonged to Cheops' mother, of all things? Oh yes, there was never a moment's rest when you were with Menelik and he was mulling over five thousand years of Egyptian history. Just when you thought all that coming and going through the ages might have tired him a little, he'd twist himself around somehow and all at once he'd be whispering in your ear again. Do you know what they used to do, he'd whisper, back during the XII Dynasty? No? Well it's rather clever. All you do is move this leg a little like that, and your left hand here, and your other hand . . . oh yes. Oh yes. Oooooo.
. . .
Belle. Please.
Big Belle sighed. She licked her lips and beamed.
And then there was that specialty Menelik used to claim had been invented during an even earlier dynasty, but which was really nothing more than a very elaborate hum-job with a few sacred props thrown in. . . . Oh, Menelik. It's exhausting just to think of him. Perhaps I ought to have one more, all at once I'm feeling thirsty. These memories. . . .
Abruptly Belle hoisted the bottle of gin and drank again. She sighed and placed the bottle back on the table.
But why didn't you tell us you were that Joe? That Joe, just imagine. . . . Well all right then, all right. On to business.
Belle's knitting needles began to click in the stillness. Alice glanced at her sister and straightened her shawl, going through a final flurry of flutters before subsiding quietly into an alert position. Belle cleared her throat