She could never have done that even if she hadn’t had the responsibility of Bernini. It just wasn’t in her to squander enough for a month in two days and then go without the rest of the time as he did.
She also thought of his notebooks, the pages filled with neat handwriting, always new illusions deep at night when hope burned in the flame of a candle against the darkness. But the candlelight vanished at dawn and for him Easter would never come.
He knew that, yet the beautiful dreams, the unreal promises, were always there. Why? Why did he do it?
Suddenly she laughed. She had stopped in front of a mirror and was absentmindedly straightening her hair. The face in the mirror was wrinkled, the hair was gray. Where had it come from? Who was it?
Not her. She was beautiful and young, she had just been chosen for the Olympic skating team and was going to Europe. Imagine it. Europe.
She laughed again. Bernini looked up from the floor where he was playing.
What’s so funny in the mirror?
We are.
Who’s we?
Grown-ups, dear.
Bernini smiled.
I know that. I’ve always known that. That’s why I think I’m not going to be one, he said, and went back to building the Great Pyramid.
When the Second World War broke out in Europe, Stern found her a job in Cairo. He was involved in various clandestine work and frequently away from Cairo, but when he returned they were always together. Now the long nights of talk and wine they had known in Athens before the war seemed far in the past when they drove out to the desert and sat silently beside each other under the stars, accepting the solitude, wondering what each new month might bring.
Stern had aged severely in the time she had known him, or perhaps it was just that she always remembered him the way he had appeared that first afternoon by the Bosporus in the rain, hunched and tall and massive beside the railing, his very bulkiness reassuring. Now the bulky shape had gone and his body was terribly wasted. He moved unsteadily with his mouth set in a thin painful line, his speech hesitant, his face ravaged and deeply marked, his hands often trembling.
In fact when Maud first saw him in Cairo, after a separation of nearly a year, she was so alarmed she went to see his doctor. The younger man listened to her and shrugged.
What can I say. At fifty he has the insides of an eighty-year-old man. And there’s his habit, do you know about that?
Of course.
Well then.
Maud looked down at the backs of her hands. She turned them over.
But isn’t there something that can be done?
What, go back? No. Change? He could, but it would probably be too late anyway.
Change what, doctor? His name? His face? Where he was born?
Oh I know, said the man wearily. I know.
Maud shook her head. She was angry.
No I don’t think you do know. I think you’re too young to know about a man like him.
Maybe so. I was young once, I was only fifteen at Smyrna.
She bit her lip and lowered her eyes.
Please forgive me. I didn’t know.
No, there’s no reason why you should.
Two years passed before their last evening together. They had driven out to the desert near the pyramids. Stern had his bottles with him and Maud took a sip or two from the metal cup. Often she talked to keep him from depression but not that night. She sensed something and waited.
What do you hear from Bernini? he said at last.
He rubbed his forehead.
I mean about him.
He’s fine. They say he likes to play baseball.
That’s very American.
Yes and the school’s just right for him, he’ll learn a trade and be able to get along on his own someday. It’s best for him to be over there now doing that and you know I appreciate it. But it still bothers me that you had to send him, when you have next to nothing yourself.
No that’s unimportant, don’t think about it. You would have done the same for someone, it just happened to be easier for me to get the money together.
He drank again.
Do you think you’ll be going home, Maud, after the war?
Yes, to be near Bernini, but it will be strange after all this time. My God, thirty-five years. I can’t call it home anymore, I don’t have a home. And you?
He said nothing.
Stern?
He fumbled for the bottle, spilling what was left in the cup.
Oh I’ll keep on here. It’ll be very different after the war. The British and French are finished in the Middle East. There’ll be big changes. Anything’s possible.
Stern?
Yes.
What is it?
He tried to smile but the smile was lost in the darkness. She took the cup from his shaking hand and filled it for him.
When did it happen? she said quietly.
Twenty years ago. At least that’s what I tell myself. Probably it was always there. Beginnings generally are. Probably it goes all the way back to the Yemen.
Stern?
No not probably. Why should I be telling you lies now? Why did I ever? Well you know why. It wasn’t you I was lying to.
I know.
Always there, always. I was never a match for any of them. Ya’qub and Strongbow and Wallenstein, myself, fathers and sons and holy ghosts, it’s confused but there’s a reason why I keep thinking of that. Anyway, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do any of the things they did. They were too much for me. The Yemen and a balloon, it was hopeless. But that other thing was there too. Twenty years ago was there too. It hasn’t all been a lie.
What made you think of it tonight?
I don’t know. Or rather of course I do. It’s because I’ve never stopped thinking about it. Not a day has gone by. Do you remember me telling you how Strongbow died? Well it won’t be that way with me. Not in my sleep.
Stern, we don’t know those things.
Maybe not, but I do this time. Tell me, when did you first find out about the morphine?
That doesn’t matter.
Tell me anyway, when?
Early on I suppose.
How?
I saw the black case once when you were sleeping over in Istanbul. I woke up one morning when you were still asleep and it was open on the floor beside you.
But you knew before then, didn’t you. You didn’t have to see the case to know.
I suppose so but what difference does it make?
None. I just wondered. I always tried hard to make it seem otherwise.
You didn’t just try, Stern. You did.
He fell silent, lost somewhere. She waited for him to go on but he didn’t.
Stern?
Yes.
You were going to tell me when it happened. What it was.
You mean when I like to think it was. What I’ve always told myself it was.
Well?
He nodded slowly.
Yes. It was called Smyrna. I’d arranged a meeting there. O’Sullivan Beare was going to meet Sivi for the first time. I haven’t told you about Sivi before. He wasn’t just what he appeared to be. The two of us worked together for years. From the very beginning in fact. He was a very close friend. The closest I’ve ever had except for you.
Then that day you saved my life by the Bosporus, the day we met, you had just been to see him?
Yes.
Christ, she whispered, oh what a fool. Christ, why didn’t I think of it.
But Stern heard only the first word. Stern was someplace else, hurrying on.