Shouts. Laughter. Bloody wogs.
Joe stunned and reeling across the floor, not yet realizing that Stern had reared back and struck him full in the chest with all his strength, knocking the air out of Joe and sending him tumbling backward across the room, Joe knocking over chairs and glasses as he went slamming into the wall, into a corner. Joe with his back to the door, not having seen the shabby curtain pulled aside and the hand grenade that had come sailing in from the darkness, no one in the room moving except Stern. No one knowing what it was except Stern.
Bright blinding light then in the mirror behind the bar. A roar pressing Joe into the corner and glass shattering and debris falling and men screaming as they rushed to escape. Joe staggering to his feet in the smoke and staring at the spot where Stern had been a few seconds ago, before the hand grenade had exploded in his chest.
And even fiercer shrieks in the alley and yells everywhere and running feet, the barren room quickly emptying and the anonymous soldiers who had thrown the grenade disappearing in the darkness, people running and screaming and a roar ringing in Joe's head. Amidst the screams of terror, one cry higher than the others and eerily floating in the clear night, taken up again and again and passed on in the darkness A beggar's been killed, a beggar. . . .
The cry leaping through the alleys and piercing the stillness of midnight, haunting unlit doorways and dark stairwells and tiny rooms where people huddled against the night in the slum, listening to the sudden cry of death.
A beggar . . . a beggar. . .
Joe standing in the corner in the smoke, in the haze, staring at the spot where Stern had been, Stern gone now in the roar of shattering glass and blinding light and the echo of disappearing footsteps. Joe smiling and whispering to himself.
He knew in the end. It was in his eyes.
The cry outside already so distant it seemed but an echo. And dust and chaos and Joe struggling to breathe, a sudden stillness to the world as the roar in his ears crowded out all else. Joe smiling, the thin cry far away now in the darkness dying, its moment over in the night.
A beggar . . . a beggar. . . .
PART FOUR
-19-
A Golden Bell and a Pomegranate
Tobruk had fallen. The panzers of Rommel's Afrika Korps were little more than fifty miles from Alexandria. The routed British army was digging in to try to hold the line at El Alamein, but if that last resistance failed the Germans would overrun Egypt and seize the Suez Canal, and perhaps the entire Middle East.
Nearly all the British troops had left Alexandria. The streets of Cairo were jammed with vehicles pouring in from the desert. Civilians with money and documents were leaving for Khartoum and Kenya, South Africa and Palestine. Long columns of trucks retreated in the direction of Palestine.
The British fleet had sailed for the safety of Haifa. Military and civilian staffs were being evacuated. Huge crowds of European refugees stood in lines seeking transit papers and an escape to Palestine.
***
Belle and Alice weren't surprised to see Joe, but they were surprised to see him turn up so soon again at the houseboat. Joe was moving and speaking quickly, his words confused as he stumbled around the sunroom of the houseboat bumping into wicker furniture. Even his voice seemed not quite his own.
It was Belle who would recall that later. It was almost as if he had been possessed, she said later.
Both Belle and Alice tried to question him but his answers made little sense, and in any case it was impossible to hold his attention. Joe kept turning away and shaking his head, his voice sinking to a whisper. Occasionally one of the women caught a few words.
Danger. . . escape. . . .
They were shocked by the changes that had come over him in such a short time. Shuffling and disheveled, gaunt from lack of sleep, he looked as if he might collapse at any moment. His thin shoulders drooped, his shapeless clothes hung on him. His hands kept opening and closing as he picked up things and put them down again somewhere else, touching objects, touching everything, pointing at nothing and groaning, muttering to himself.
Escape . . . the exodus. . . .
It was as if events had finally overpowered him and he had shrunk into himself, retreating to some private world. For the first time both sisters realized how small he was.
But Joe, what happened to Stern? asked Belle. What happened to Stern?
Gone . . . everyone's leaving. . . .
He moved quickly away to the corner and stood there staring down at the harpsichord and the tiny bassoon resting on the polished wood. A bewildered expression crossed his face and he backed away, abruptly fixing his gaze on the portrait of Cleopatra. He went up to it and pushed his face close, examining the portrait.
The panorama's moved. . . .
What did you say? asked Alice.
But Joe was moving again, hurrying away, retreating to the other side of the room. He bumped into furniture and knocked over a porcelain figure, shattering it, coming to a sudden halt in front of the portrait of Catherine the Great. He shook his head, his mouth working all the while, biting and chewing, his tongue licking his lips.
But what happened to Stern? repeated Belle.
Gone and gone, even him . . . and by day a pillar of smoke, by night a pillar of fire.
Joe swung around, his face harried and pale, puzzled. A spasm twitched in the taut muscles of his neck.
His hand went to his throat and he gasped, fought for breath.
Joe?
He reached out desperately for support, caught himself, lurched into the back of a chair. He whirled and knocked another porcelain to the floor, shattering it.
Joe, Belle called out. Stop, for the love of heaven. Sit down, rest for a moment.
But he couldn't stop, he couldn't rest. He groped through the air in a frenzy and stared wildly around the room, recognizing none of it, muttering to himself.
A ransom of souls . . . a crypt and a mirror. I and Thou. . . .
His mouth fell open, his head slipped to the side. He gaped as images tumbled through his tortured mind, obscuring the room. . . . Wounded animals in the desert and flames shooting high in the sky, trails of wreckage and twisted bodies, ripped tanks and abandoned cannons, sirens and echoes and screaming men lying blind on the sands. . . . And elsewhere to the east, endless columns of trucks winding away into the Sinai, fleeing headlong into the wilderness on the ancient paths that had always led to Palestine and the promised land of Canaan.
Joe raised his hand, as if preaching to some invisible congregation. He whispered.
Their lives have been bitter with hard bondage. . . .
Whose lives? asked Belle.
Joe staggered, fell to one knee, pulled himself to his feet again with an enormous effort.
They're leaving. . . .
Who's leaving? asked Alice. Where are they going?
To the land of their pilgrimage . . . a good land and large, flowing with milk and honey. . . .
He uttered a cry and spun around, stumbling toward the tall French doors that opened onto the small veranda beside the river. Alice rose to her feet in alarm but Belle shook her head, stopping her. Joe stood in the open doors gazing down at the Nile.
And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood . . . and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. . . .
Alice tried to plead with him.
Joe? Rest for a moment. Sit down and rest, please?