How are you and Liffy getting on these days?
We get along well, replied the Major. I think if he wanted to help someone, to give them a contact here, he'd think of me.
I see.
The hand-grenade explosion in the bar, Colonel. You said that if it was the work of the Monks, it was probably intended for the Armenian as well as for Stern.
Yes, I believe I did suggest that.
But the Armenian got away, said the Major. He wasn't killed, he escaped.
Yes, so it seems. But the Sphinx, you say? That certainly seems a bizarre place for a meeting with Liffy.
The Colonel smiled to himself.
Unless, he thought, Liffy has finally decided to go all the way and do that impersonation.
Yes, quite, he murmured. But if one were to go to such a meeting, how could any backup men be taken along without them being seen?
No backup, said the Major. The caller was specific about that.
Oh he was, was he? That sounds rather arrogant to me.
Or cautious perhaps, out of necessity. He implied it was the Monks he was concerned about.
The Colonel looked shocked.
You mean he mentioned Monks on the phone?
No, not directly. He made an allusion to St Anthony as the founder of monasticism, although he didn't come out and say that directly either, and he said something about fifteen hundred years in the desert being a danger to a man's health. Or to his spiritual balance, as he called it.
The Colonel smiled despite himself.
Erudite fellow, it seems, and rather accustomed to alluding to things. Colly was like that.
He also said he'd call back in fifteen minutes, added the Major, looking at his watch.
The Colonel's smile faded.
What on earth for?
To find out whether I'm coming or not. He said that given the nature of competing bureaucracies, as he put it, not directly again, he imagined I'd have to check with you before I could agree to come.
That's not just arrogance, muttered the Colonel, that's a perverse sense of humor. How could he have known I'd be here?
He said he assumed it. He said that in perilous times, as he put it, the old man tends to work late.
Definitely a perverse sense of humor, muttered the Colonel. He seems to have said quite a lot in his indirect way.
He was speaking quickly.
Yes, I can see that. Tell me, do you ever take walks alone in the desert at night? To clear your head and get things in order a bit?
I have, replied the Major.
Ever go out to the pyramids just to take in the majesty of the place?
I have.
Well these days, said the Colonel, I'd go well-armed if I were you. And other than that all I can say is Bletchley's business belongs to Bletchley, and if I were to interfere he'd have my head in twenty-four hours, and rightly so.
I understand, said the Major.
It was bad enough that I sent Jameson to check into a killing where a Purple Seven was involved. But to do anything more than that is out of the question. I couldn't authorize it and I wouldn't. Moreover, if I knew anything about it I'd have to put a stop to it immediately.
I understand, said the Major.
So I'm sorry I missed you tonight, the Colonel went on, after our discussion earlier on Jameson's findings.
I'm leaving to get some rest because I haven't been sleeping well lately. I fall asleep but then some damn worry wakes me up at three in the morning and I can't get back to sleep. I pass the time as best I can but it would certainly be much pleasanter to share a pot of tea with someone then, if someone had some late business and chanced to drop by after it was over.
The Colonel glanced around the office, his hand on the door.
I enjoyed reminiscing about Colly this evening, he added, but we do have to keep in mind that Purple Sevens aren't everyday sorts . . . Not at all. That's why they have the designation.
***
And beyond the rumbling chaos of the city it was an eerie night of luminous stars and strange wan moonlight full upon the reaches of the Nile. In the rambling houseboat of the Sisters, in that pale airy sunroom that had once rung with gaiety and laughter and was now filled to overflowing with empty furniture, in that gently familiar place where faded voices and small unbroken melodies came to mingle in the delicate half-light, there in the stillness Big Belle and Little Alice sat gazing at the Nile, at their own restless currents of memory. The night was too bright for candles so they sat with only the moon and the stars as their guides, occasionally one of them stirring, speaking.
Little Alice touched her hair.
There's no end to it, she murmured. They go right on doing the same things, claiming it serves some purpose. I remember Uncle George used to say when things went wrong that it didn't matter, because summer was coming. He so loved summer. But then when he ended his life it wasn't summer at all, it was the dead of winter.
And cold, said Alice. Such a cold New Year's Day when they found him, all the people in the village gathered down at the pond. At least it seemed like a great crowd then, everybody standing around with somber faces, not even shuffling their feet the way they did in church. I remember that.
And they made a great show of standing in front of us and holding us back so we wouldn't see. Poor dears, they were whispering, poor little dears. But I peeked while they were leading us away and I caught a glimpse of him, just the barest glimpse when they were laying him down on the ground, before they covered him up.
Oh I didn't really know what it meant then. All those whispers and those arms around us gently pulling us away, and the solemn staring faces and Mother crying and crying and trying to be so brave, trying to hold back her tears as she squeezed us and pressed us to her.
It was all so confusing and I began crying too, not for Uncle George, because I didn't understand that yet. But for Mother, because she seemed to be in so much pain, and because of the way everybody else was acting, whispering first their father and now this, and looking at us with such sad faces I wanted to cry for their sake.
No, I didn't understand it at all, not even the funeral and the words they said under the heavy sky at the cemetery. I don't think I even heard what they said, but I can still see that sky and the hill beyond the cemetery, against it, as if it were yesterday.
And then there's something I remember that happened after that. It was warmer by then so it must have been late spring, not long before we left for good. I was playing out back and I went into the shed where Uncle George had lived, where Mother had forbidden us to go after he died, to protect us so we wouldn't think of him.
I didn't have anything in mind really. I just tried the door without thinking and it opened, so I walked in.
And the sun was streaming in the window and the air was warm and dusty and close, and there were cobwebs everywhere, and the room looked so small and empty.
Most of his things had been taken away, but the little tarnished mirror still hung by the window and the pegs were still in the wall by the door where he used to hang his clothes, and his paddle was still up on the rafters where he'd always kept it, the one he'd used when he went fishing. So those things were still there, but they just seemed to make the room look smaller and emptier than ever. . . . So very empty, so terribly empty, I've never forgotten that. It made me sad because it looked as if no one had ever lived there.
Little Alice gazed down at the floor. She touched her hair.
Belle? Why do you think Uncle George did that? He had a place in the world and people liked him, and he had his job and things to do in his free time. Certainly Mother loved him and he always seemed to enjoy having us around. He was always joking with us and showing us how to do things, how to make little things.