Stern was very calm now. He was smiling his peculiar smile and listening to Joe, watching him, his face intent.
I'm not sure, said Stern quietly. Perhaps, you can see it more clearly than I do, Joe. The tale of a man who wanted to believe? Who tried to believe?
Did believe, Stern. Does believe. And there should be no more of this talk of trying anymore, that's all behind you. Who sent that prayer to Eleni, have you forgotten that? And who took a frightened Irish kid on the run in Palestine and gave him his first lessons in life? And what about Belle and Alice, and David and Anna and their father? And Liffy and Ahmad and Maud and Bernini, and all the others I don't know anything about? Where would they have been without you? Don't you know you're the stuff of dreams to Bernini, don't you know that? You are dreams to him, you're what can be done in this world. Forget the secret codes and what you've done in the desert, the apparent Enigma. That aside, do you have any notion what you've given to people just by being who you are? Do you remember Sivi's first words that horrible night in Smyrna? When he was raving? Do you remember?
No.
Find Stern, he said. Call Stern. That's what Sivi was saying when he was going mad that night and not coming back. That's what he was reaching for on his way down. For you, Stern, and don't you know it, man? Don't you know it by now? Don't you know it's always been like that for so many people?
Stern was staring at the counter. He frowned and moved his finger through the water, tracing circles and fighting his weariness, struggling with himself. Joe could see it. .
And somewhere outside a commotion was slowly beginning to gather in the darkness. . Shouts and curses and drunken laughter, the victorious yells of men out celebrating an escape from death, some kind of triumphant drunken brawl working its way through the night.
Men turned nervously to glance at the shabby curtain hanging in the doorway of the bar, all that separated the half-lit room from the alley outside. The owner of the bar stopped what he was doing and turned uneasily to look at the curtain. Even Joe swung around to see what was happening, but Stern didn't both to look. Stern went on staring down at the counter, tracing circles of water with his finger.
What is that out there anyway? asked Joe, irritated by the interruption.
Nothing, whispered Stern. Probably some soldiers back from the front, happy because they're alive. .
Well? said Joe. You do know how much you've done, don't you? You don't really feel it all comes down to trying to no end, do you?
Sometimes it does seem that way, whispered Stern, despite what you say. Other people and how they feel. . well you know other people can never justify our lives for us. We have to do that for ourselves.
I do know, said Joe. You taught me that a long time ago. And as for the blackness sometimes, this dark and unyielding part of us that's always inside just waiting for us to give it a name and a dominion out there, well I'd certainly agree with you now with this war around us. And I'd also agree if we were talking about great peaceful new nations that should exist and don't, in this part of the world or anywhere else.
But that's politics, Stern, and the temporal kind at that, and politics have never been more than a cover name, words, a code for systems which aren't systems at all and can never be that, because the stuff in them, of them, is us. Not an abstraction but us, and we can't be reduced to systems through words, codes, covers, any of it. . In fact if there's one part of your thinking I'll never understand, it's how you could ever have mistaken that cover for reality. You, who've spent your life with these things and know about codes and covers and disguises, and what's real and what isn't. .
The shouts and the screams and the shuffling outside were louder now and moving closer. More of the men in the bar were watching the curtain that separated the room from the night. Joe swung around to look again, saw nothing, turned back to Stern. His voice was urgent, intent.
A place on the map, Stern, a country in that sense? Is that what you really wanted? Border guards and visas and customs officials in uniforms? Is that really what your dream comes down to? You, who've spent your whole life crisscrossing every conceivable kind of border and proving they're fictitious, arbitrary, meaningless? Other people may be confused by reality, Stern, but you know. How have you gotten yourself into thinking that real estate has anything to do with anything? Is that what those ancient Greeks went in search of? Place names? Is that why they launched their ships? The soul was their sea, you said that, and your whole life testifies that it's what's inside people that's important. Not the code names or the cover jobs or the uniforms, not the colors on a map or the words in passports listing conflicting names of God. . Just look at yourself in those rags, Stern. Don't they show you haven't failed? Don't they prove the land you sought is in men's hearts? And isn't that what your beloved Jerusalem is and always has been, a dream of peace for all people? Touch a human soul and you hear despair and hope, and although this real estate may be the world to us, it's still just a speck of dust lost somewhere in an unknown corner of an unfathomable universe. So arrogance aside, there can be no certainties, and hope is what you've always given people. Always, Stern. .
More screams and laughter and muffled shouts outside, moving nearer. Drunken curses and the sound of breaking glass, a window shattering somewhere up the alley in the darkness. Stern was sitting sideways on his stool now, looking at Joe and the curtain beyond Joe's shoulder. Joe spun around again, glanced at the doorway, turned back to face Stern.
Damn that noise.
It's nothing, Joe, just the night. Men celebrating because they're alive. .
I know, I know. So the point is, even good causes conflict and oppose each other, as you've often said.
Just as love can oppose itself, even love. But don't you feel it, Stern? Don't you really know beneath and behind it all what you've done? Who you really are?
In answer Stern smiled his peculiar smile, and all at once he did seem truly at peace. There was a serenity in his gaze, a powerful enduring strength.
What a strange and paradoxical man, thought Joe. As mysterious and yearning as life itself.
And as Joe sat there looking at this elusive man whose secret he had sought for so long, he was reminded of the moment when he had passed Stern by without recognizing him at the top of the little street where Maud lived, Stern sitting in his rags at the end of the day keeping watch over one he loved, a solitary beggar who was homeless and stateless and who was yet the ultimate prize for all the great armies. .
anonymous in the end. A man alone in the dust at twilight surveying his limitless kingdom, a beggar of life from nowhere who would one day return whence he had come.
Joe held Stern's arm. There were tears in his eyes.
Ah that's good, Stern. You do know, I can see it. So it's been a clear night for us to see things after all and you've done it, Stern, and you know you have.
Stern nodded gently. He smiled his strange smile.
Maybe I have, Joe. And it's true we make our heavens and hells and spin them grandly in our hearts, sparing no extravagance or excess, no act of memory too daring and no disguise too extreme, every vista in the vast dream fashioned by us alone, out of love. .