Sinai Tapestry jq-1

by Edward Whittemore

  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.

  Christ, you say? Yes he was there too. A small dark man younger than you see in the paintings. But the same beard and the same eyes. Carrying a revolver. He shot a man in the head. And the Holy Ghost was there carrying a sword. Weeping, half his body a deep purple. God himself? I didn't see him but he must have been there carrying something. A body or a knife. Everybody was there in that garden.

  Stern?

  Yes, a garden. Now when was that exactly.

  Stern?

  There was an animal sound deep in his throat.

  Right at the very beginning of the new century, that's when it was. Right after the world of the Strongbows and the Wallensteins had died in the First World War. It couldn't survive the anonymous machine guns, their world, and the faceless tanks and the skies of poison gas that killed brave men and cowards equally, the strong and the weak all the same, the good and the bad together so that it no longer mattered who you were, what you were. Yes their world died and we had to have a new one and we got it, we got our new century in 1918 and Smyrna was its very first act, the prelude to everything.

  Stern?

  When, you say. Only twenty years ago and forever, and what a garden lay waiting for us then.

  -20-

  Smyrna 1922

  Stern picked up the knife, Joe watched him do it. He watched him take the little girl by her hair and pull back her head. He saw the thin white neck.

  An Ionian colony said to have been the birthplace of Homer, one of the richest cities in Asia Minor under both the Romans and the Byzantines, second of the seven churches addressed in the Book of Revelations where John also called it rich and said that one day it would know terrible tribulation, which it did when Tamerlane destroyed it.

  But now early in the twentieth century once again prosperous with nearly half a million Greeks and Armenians and Jews, Persians and Egyptians and Turks and Europeans in their various costumes industriously pursuing trade and love, their beautiful seaport surpassing all others in the Levant in the bewildering flow of life's goods.

  The Greeks and Jews and Armenians and Turks still given to living in their separate quarters, but the quarters having come to overlap in time and the rich of every race finding their way into the opulent villas of the European Quarter.

  A city known for its fine wine and frankincense, its carpets and rhubarb and figs and opium, the banks of the streams thick with oleander and laurel and jasmine, with almond trees and mimosa. Famous for its devotion to music, its incessant musicales, particularly in love with the native orchestras that mixed zithers and mandolins and guitars.

  A people renowned for their addiction to cafés and promenades, their fondness for the whispered dramas emanating from backstreets and courtyards, the secret dealings of love and commerce no less than the open acting of the stage.

  Renowned as well for their vast consumption of wines and their insatiable desire to join more and more clubs of every description where they could play cards and gamble and eagerly devour the endless dizzying tales of pleasure and intrigue, forever delighted by the gossip that whirled an afternoon into evening and softly spun away the tipsy buzzing hours of night.

  On the summit of the mountain the old Byzantine fortress with the Turkish Quarter on its slopes, a maze of alleys roofed by vines where men leisurely sucked their hookahs beside fountains while professional letter writers in the shadows composed rampant visions of love and hate.

  From the West chandeliers and crystal, from the East caravans bringing spices and silks and dyes, bells jangling on the packs of the loping camels. The narrow waterfront was two miles long and lined by cafés and theaters and elegant villas with quiet courtyards. Strollers always knew when the train from Bournabat was arriving because the air was suddenly filled with jasmine, brought in great baskets by the passengers for their friends in town.

  Here Stern came at the beginning of September for the meeting he had been planning since that spring, the meeting where O'Sullivan Beare would be introduced to Sivi so the two of them could work directly together.

  On September 9 a creaking Greek caïque drew into the harbor with several passengers on board, one an elderly wizened Arab and another a small dark young man in a ragged oversized uniform from the Crimean War. The caïque tied up at dawn, a Saturday, and even at that early hour the city seemed strangely subdued. O'Sullivan Beare saw a sign facing him across the quay, its black letters two feet high, a new film that had come to Smyrna.

  LE TANGO DE LA MORT.

  He nudged Haj Harun and pointed but the old man had already seen it. Without a word he backed away from the railing and pulled up his cloak to look at the great purple birthmark that curved from his face down over his entire body.

  O'Sullivan Beare watched him uneasily, never having known the old man to take any notice of his birthmark. Yet now he was gazing at it intensely as if a map could be divined in the contours of its shifting colors.

  What is it? whispered Joe. What do you see?

  But Haj Harun didn't answer. Instead he straightened his rusting Crusader's helmet and stared sadly at the sky.

  Two weeks earlier the Greek army
facing the Turks two hundred miles away to the east, fighting for an expanded Greece after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, had been thoroughly defeated. Yet at the end of August life was still going on as usual in the city. The cafes were crowded, the throngs moved slowly along the quays in the evening promenade. Porters bore loads of raisins and figs down to the docks. The opera house was sold out for the performances of an Italian company.

  On September 1 the first wounded Greek soldiers began to arrive by train, the cars so packed men lay on the roofs. All morning and afternoon the trains kept coming, the slumped bodies on top outlined by the setting sun.

  The next day came soldiers less seriously wounded in trucks and handcarts, on mules and camels and horses, in lumbering chariots unchanged since Assyrian times. And then on succeeding days soldiers on foot, dragging each other, silent dusty figures stumbling toward a headland west of the city where their army was to be evacuated.

  Lastly the refugees from the interior, Armenians and Greeks shuffling under their burdens. They camped in cemeteries and churchyards and those who couldn't find space camped in the streets, drawing their furniture around them. By September 5 thirty thousand refugees were arriving every day and now those who came were increasingly weary and humble, the very poor who limped with no possessions at all.

  Finally the Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna began to understand. They boarded their shops and barricaded their doors. The crowds disappeared, the cafés closed.

  The Greek general in command of the city had gone insane. He thought his legs were made of glass and refused to leave his bed lest they break. In any case he had no troops. The garrison had been evacuated along with the army. Kemal's Turkish forces had triumphed absolutely in the interior.

  On September 8 the Greek High Commissioner announced that Greek administration of the city would end at ten o'clock that night. The harbor was filled with British and French and Italian and American warships ready to evacuate their nationals.

  The advance Turkish cavalry rode into the city the next morning, well-disciplined and orderly, followed by infantry units marching in formation. All that Saturday, the day O'Sullivan Beare and Haj Harun arrived in the city, the Turkish forces kept pouring into Smyrna in their confusing array of uniforms, some wearing American army uniforms captured from the Russians.

  Looting began quietly at dusk. Turkish soldiers entered deserted shops and sorted through the wares.

  Turkish civilians carried out the first armed robberies. They came down from their quarter and held up Armenians and Greeks on side streets. But when they saw the Italian and Turkish patrols ignoring them they quickly moved to the larger stores, scooping up rolls of satin and stuffing them with watches.

  Soon the Turkish soldiers had joined them and by midnight houses were being broken into with crowbars. There were some rapes and some murders but loot was still the primary concern. Murders were mostly done with knives so the Europeans wouldn't be alarmed by excessive rifle fire.

  But by the following morning, Sunday, restraint was gone. Gangs of Turks raced through the streets murdering men and carrying off women and sacking Greek and Armenian houses. The horror was so great the Greek Patriarch of Smyrna went to the government house to plead with the Turkish general in command. The general spoke a few words to him and then appeared on a balcony as the Patriarch left, yelling at the mob to treat him as he deserved.

  The mob swept up the Patriarch and carried him down the street to the barbershop of a Jew named Ishmael. He was ordered to shave the Patriarch but when that proved too slow they dragged the Patriarch back into the street and tore out his beard with their hands.

  They gouged out his eyes. They cut off his ears. They cut off his nose. They cut off his hands. Across the street French soldiers stood guarding a French business concession.

  Stern saw two Armenian children sneak out of their ruined house dressed in their finest clothes. Once in the street they smiled and strolled arm in arm toward the harbor speaking loudly to each other in French.

  A refugee woman in black carried her bleeding son on her shoulders, he so large and she bent so low his feet touched the ground.

  An elderly Armenian made the mistake of unbarring his steel door to pass a letter to a Turkish officer. He was a wealthy merchant, he said, who had supplied Kemal's armies in the interior. The letter, signed by Kemal himself, guaranteed protection for him and his family.

  The officer held the letter upside down. He couldn't read. He tore it up and his men stormed inside.

  Stern at last reached Sivi's villa on the harbor. He went to the backdoor and found it hanging on its hinges. In the courtyard the old man lay crumpled on a flower bed, his head covered with blood. His French secretary, Theresa, was kneeling beside him.

  It just happened, she said. They broke in, he tried to stop them and they beat him with their rifles. They're still inside, we have to get him out of here.

  Stern struggled to pull the old man to his feet and all at once Sivi's eyes flew open. He raised his arm feebly and tried to strike Stern.

  Sivi for God's sake, it's me.

  I won't have it, he whispered. Get Stern here. We must fight back, call Stern.

  His head fell forward onto his chest. The two of them dragged him across the courtyard and out into the alley. Theresa was remarkably calm although rifles were going off all around them. Stern was surprised at her control.

  My convent training, she said.

  In the alley Stern had to stop for breath. He propped Sivi against a wall and closed his eyes trying to think. A soft Irish voice spoke behind him.

  The address checks out but what's this little game here? Taken to robbing and kidnapping old men then?

  Having a go yourself now that the Black and Tans have set things up to have some Saturday night fun?

  He turned and saw O'Sullivan Beare grinning, a revolver tucked into his belt. With him was an elderly Arab wearing an antique helmet. The Arab's face went white but Stern didn't see that.

  Help me carry him, we've got to move him to another house.

  But before Joe could move, the elderly Arab jumped forward, his face radiant.

  If you will, my lord, allow me to help.

  Jaysus, muttered Joe, what next. He can hardly carry himself.

  If you will, my lord, repeated Haj Harun ecstatically, his eyes fixed on Stern.

  Look, said Joe, I'll do the heavy lifting and you guard us from the rear. We need a reliable warrior back there to make sure some cutthroat of a Crusader doesn't try to sneak up on us.

  Indeed we do, said Haj Harun, stepping back and proudly straightening his helmet, his eyes still on Stern.

  Between the two of them they managed to carry Sivi up through the alleys away from the harbor. Bodies were everywhere. A girl was hanging from a lemon tree. They went in through the back of a deserted house and laid him out on a couch. A trail of blood ran across the floor to a cupboard. Joe looked inside and quickly closed it. A corpse was stuffed in the cupboard, a naked girl, one of her breasts cut off.

  Theresa worked on the gashes in Sivi's head. She seemed to see nothing else. Stern turned to O'Sullivan Beare.

  Where did you get the revolver?

  The Black and Tans, where else. As usual they've got the goods. An officer he must have been, the troops carry rifles.

  What happened to him?

  A strange occurrence, I don't deny it. All I did was go up to him and salute and tell him I was reporting in for duty on the Crimean front, and what did he do but take one look at me and do a fast tumble. The medals it must have been, awed by all that brass I guess. Anyway he took such a dive he busted his head on the cobblestones before I could catch him. At least it seemed pretty well busted when I requisitioned his revolver so it wouldn't fall into the hands of some dangerous bloody belligerent.

  Stern looked at him in disgust.

  Go out front and see if we can reach the harbor. When it gets dark the fires will start.

  That they will, general, that th
ey certainly will. Come along, he added to Haj Harun, who stood rigidly in the doorway unable to take his eyes off Stern. At the front of the hall the old man gripped his arm.

  What is it? whispered Joe.

  But don't you know who he is? Once just before the war I saw him in the desert.

  Hold it. Which war would we be talking about? The Mameluke invasion? The Babylonian conquest?

  No no, the war that just ended, the one they call the Great War. Of course he doesn't recognize me.

  Joe was about to answer that he bloody well knew who he was. He was the bloody fake of an idealist who had been trying to play father confessor to him for the last two years while he was smuggling useless rifles to countries that didn't exist and never would, who had gotten them into this mess in the first place by having them come to Smyrna to meet an ancient Greek queen who was now either deranged or dying.

  But he couldn't say any of those things and his face was respectful.

  Saw him did you? Just before 1914 in the desert? In person and all?

  Yes I truly did. I was on my annual haj and he deigned to manifest himself from the skies at dawn and speak to me.

  Speaking you say? From the skies? Manifesting himself? Well that's an event by any account. And who might he have been then?

  Haj Harun's lips quivered. Tears trickled down his cheeks.

  God, he whispered in a hushed voice.

  Joe nodded gravely.

  Oh I see, the very article himself. What did he have to say?

  Well I mentioned that I knew God has many names and each one we learn brings us closer to him. So I asked him if he would tell me his name that day and he did. Apparently, although it's been a total failure, he must have found some virtue in my attempt to defend Jerusalem over the last three thousand years.

  Good, very good. What name did he give then?

  Stern, whispered Haj Harun reverently. It was the moment in my life I will always cherish above all others.

  O'Sullivan Beare staggered against the door and hung there.

  Stern? Out of the sky? Stern?

  Haj Harun nodded dreamily.

  God, he whispered. Our most gracious Lord descending gently from the heavens.