Jerusalem Poker (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 2)

by Edward Whittemore

  SPEEDIEST FLASH. ARE YOU MAD? GENIES DON’T EXIST AND THEREFORE I ABSOLUTELY FORBID A COMET BEING OWNED BY ONE. MAKE THIS EPIC TELL THE TRUTH OR FACE SEVERE REPRISALS, PRODUCE OR GET OUT. THIS IS MY FINAL WARNING, YOU DEAD SEA FARTS, AND IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME JUST TRY ME.

  NUBAR

  THE TOP

  The top, yes, but he had to be careful all the same. Treachery was everywhere. Betrayal was everywhere. And of course he knew exactly what they were trying to do with their comets and genies and maniacally dancing priests. It was a savage onslaught by the barbarians again with their primitive ideas and their instincts out of control, their profoundly ignorant belief in the superstitions of the heavens and giants to be met in the desert and swaying shamans seen illuminated in a cave, the shadowy figures of primitive brains trying to assault a rational mind. But they wouldn’t get away with it, and if they continued to try to delude him they would soon see where it led.

  A page from the report in his lap floated loose and rose slowly in the air. Up up and away. Nubar watched it disappear somewhere up there in the gloom.

  Drafts. Icy drafts. It was cold in the cellar and getting colder. He needed more light to be able to see in this damp cave beneath the Grand Canal. He needed some heat.

  The pit dug by the footman was at his feet. Despite their savagery even the barbarians had known what to do at the end of the day. A fire surely. A blazing roaring fire to warm the fierce horsemen and cheer them after another day of relentless butchery on the way to Europe. There were thousands of UIA reports here, more than he could ever use. Burn some, why not. Nubar pushed a pile of them into the pit and tossed in a match.

  Light, heat, the flames shot up. This was much better. He pushed in more reports and settled back comfortably beside the crackling pit, able to see more clearly now, able to think more clearly because he didn’t have to worry about the icy drafts.

  Mulberry raki, strong and nourishing. He took a second gulp and thoughtfully chewed some of the wooden canteen.

  A Macedonian Extra, just right. They thought they could wear him down with their lunatic antics but never had a gang of madmen been more mistaken. The barbarians believed in their primitive magic but Nubar knew better. He could handle it all and he was prepared to do just that.

  He smiled shrewdly, not concealing his contempt, and picked up another page.

  And now, sang the baking priest, having seen our genie in the last century, we’ll be on with this epic tale and skip right up into our century, to just before the Great War. Once again your man the elderly item is off on his annual haj, resolutely making his way through Araby, through the wilderness and wastes and wearing his rusty Crusader’s helmet as he does at all times against contingencies, steadfastly trudging through the desert to reach his Mecca, his faded threadbare yellow cloak flaring into a sail now and then to give him a push, a tug, the nudges he so badly needs if he’s going to continue to make headway against the vicissitudes.

  The baking priest pulled open the oven door and peered in. The blast of hot air struck the pilgrim on the floor and flattened him out a little more, if that was still possible. The oven door clanged shut.

  Right we are, all’s well. Now where were we? Oh yes, down in Araby of course and your man has just finished walking all night, and just before dawn, being tired naturally enough, he ducks under a rock to catch a nap, to catch forty nods as they say, his spindly legs protruding out from under the rock and looking like nothing so much as two ancient and exhausted lizards intent on dying. When all at once he hears a noise, a most unusual noise for way out there, a kind of whooshing sound as if something big were moving in the air, and he pokes out his head from under the rock. What might that be? he wonders.

  The baking priest began to spin in front of his oven. Cassock twirling, sandals flapping, around and around he whirled.

  What might that be? Well I’ll tell you what that might be. That just might be the happiest moment of his very long life. It just might be ecstasy for him, that’s what. Because who’s coming down in that place that any other man would call Godforsaken? Any man except him, that is, with his centuries and centuries of faithful service. Who’s descending right there on top of this tattered and battered soul, this starving and exhausted and tottering elderly item? Who’s just dropping in for a look in that remote corner of the desert formerly and normally forsaken?

  Himself, that’s Who, do you follow me? Our Lord God and Creator.

  The baking priest had stopped spinning when he said that. He stopped and crossed himself solemnly and gazed down at the pilgrim naked on the floor.

  And his face was grave as was only to be expected, and the tone of his voice most reverent. Yet the pilgrim saw a twinkle in the priest’s eye even then, even then when he was referring to his Maker. Caused by seven decades in front of an oven in Jerusalem, no doubt, enough to bake anybody’s brains.

  The pilgrim didn’t move. He couldn’t move. He lay speechless, naked on the floor.

  Are you still with me? sang the baking priest as he scooped a load of hot loaves out of the oven and went dancing across the room.

  At this point in his account, wrote the informer, the naked pilgrim on the bakery floor had finally succumbed to heat prostration and begun hallucinating.

  It was impossible to make any sense out of what the pilgrim later that afternoon, between glasses of pomegranate juice at the informer’s fruit juice stand, claimed the baking priest had said after that. Or rather, sung after that. The larger part was incomprehensible gibberish, the remainder incoherent hearsay.

  Nevertheless, for purposes of completeness in UIA reporting, a summary of the rest of the epic was being included.

  Summarized, the subsequent events in the baking priest’s epic tale were these.

  Page 17 of 407 pages, a report relating to the Great Jerusalem Poker Swindle.

  A. Conclusion of the foregoing.

  B. The narrative form is hereby temporarily suspended, for purposes of clarity, in favor of itemized notes.

  1. The man the baking priest has been referring to throughout as that elderly item or article, obviously Haj Harun, prostrated himself in the desert at dawn the moment he poked his head out from under the rock and saw God above him.

  2. God was riding in a balloon.

  3. The balloon descended and came to rest beside the rock where Haj Harun, as still as a lizard, had been about to catch forty nods after walking all night. Needless to say, Haj Harun was now alert and not thinking about forty nods, having waited three thousand years for this moment.

  4. God stepped out of His balloon and saw that Haj Harun was terrified as well as ecstatic. God immediately offered Haj Harun food and water from a supply He was carrying in His balloon.

  5. Haj Harun refused in the humblest of whispers.

  6. God then offered to give Haj Harun a ride in His balloon to the nearest oasis, if Haj Harun were too weak to walk, as seemed likely.

  7. Haj Harun again refused in the humblest of whispers.

  8. God asked Haj Harun if there were anything He could do for him out there in the desert. Haj Harun finally had the courage to rise to his knees, as God had been begging him to do, and speak.

  9. Haj Harun said that he knew this world was a desert compared to God’s kingdom. He said he also knew that God has many names, and that every name we learn brings us closer to Him. He said that he was a pathetic creature who had spent the last three thousand years futilely defending Jerusalem, always on the losing side, as was the case when you were trying to defend everybody’s Holy City. So he had forever failed in his mission, yet he had never given up hope. In fact he was still trying.

  10. Haj Harun admitted it was a sorry effort that deserved to go unrewarded. Yet if God could find any merit in his failure, and would be so gracious as to tell him His name that day, then it would be a blessing to Haj Harun that would make up for all his suffering over the last three thousand years in the cause of Jerusalem.

  11. Apparen
tly God did find merit in Haj Harun’s futile efforts, for He decided to grant the request. He said His name that day was Stern.

  Nubar stopped reading. He was appalled. Stern? Stern? He knew who that was, the name had turned up years ago in a report, and after that several other times. Stern was a petty gunrunner of no importance whatsoever. Moreover, he was a morphine addict. At the time Nubar had immediately dismissed him as inconsequential.

  No, not even that. Dismissed him as nothing, a nonentity. The kind of shuffling forgotten wreckage you could expect to find anywhere in the world. No money, no power, some ideals maybe and a friend or two but going nowhere, just stumbling downhill with his morphine habit. A cipher, nothing, to be dismissed and forgotten.

  So what was he doing turning up here being mistaken for God?

  Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. This simply couldn’t be allowed to go on for another minute. A cable was in order, succinct yet all-inclusive.

  FLASH FROM THE TOP. YOU’RE ALL MAD. GOD ISN’T STERN, STERN IS A PETTY GUNRUNNER WITH A MORPHINE HABIT. WOULD GOD BE LIKELY TO BE RUNNING GUNS ACROSS THE DESERT IN A BALLOON? WOULD GOD BE LIKELY TO BE A MORPHINE ADDICT? NOW WOULD HE? WOULD HE?

  NUBAR

  GOD AS HE SHOULD BE.

  Nubar rubbed his eyes wearily. Another page of the report was floating away in the gloom. He reached out and grabbed it as it tried to escape. He was getting tired of this. Why not be done with it once and for all?

  FINAL FLASH FROM THE TOP. YOU’RE ALL FIRED, EFFECTIVE LAST MONTH. NO SEVERANCE PAY, NO RETIREMENT BENEFITS, NO MORE UIA, NO MORE NOTHING. DIE DOWN THERE ON THE DEAD SEA FOR ALL I CARE, AND DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU. MY PATIENCE IS GONE, YOU DROVE ME TO THE LIMIT ON THIS ONE.

  ONE OF GOD’S SECRET NAMES IS STERN? IF YOU CAN BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN BELIEVE ANYTHING. ASSHOLES.

  NUBAR

  ALONE AS

  ALWAYS.

  That made him feel better. He decided to read a few more pages before he went upstairs and fired all his servants as well. He didn’t know what time it was but it must be getting on toward the hour for a baked chicken wing. Ah yes, here he was.

  12. While talking to God, Haj Harun had noticed something about His eyes that reminded him of the giant good genie, seven and a half feet tall, whom he had met in this same desert while on a haj in the nineteenth century.

  13. Thus Haj Harun understood at that moment that God and the genie were father and son.

  14. Haj Harun thanked God profusely for telling him His name that day and wept with joy. He backed away from God on his knees and continued in this manner for the rest of the morning, until God and His balloon were no longer visible beyond the sea of sand.

  15. Nearly a decade later Haj Harun met God again, this time in Smyrna during the fires and massacres in 1922. To defend the innocent and protect God’s children, Haj Harun had transformed himself into the Holy Ghost and carried a sword, in a smoky burning garden, God’s children at the time being named Theresa, Sivi, and O’Sullivan Beare.

  16. Before the massacre in Smyrna, Haj Harun had already survived the sacking of the Holy City by Assyrians and Babylonians, Persians and Greeks and Romans and Crusaders, Arabs and Turks, encouraging the citizenry as best he could.

  17. (As you can see, there was a good reason back at the beginning of this report for indicating that the number of my fruit juice stand would be 18, if the shop had a number which it hasn’t, being located in a dead-end alley too small for numbers.

  It should also be noted here, if the UIA hierarchy is unaware of it, that 18 means life in Hebrew.)

  18, then. In addition to everything else, Haj Harun claims he witnessed the original Bible being written in his youth, say around 930 B.C.

  The primary author of the Bible was a blind storyteller who recited tales in the dusty waysides of Canaan in exchange for a few copper coins from those who tarried to hear him. During the recitals these tales were recorded by a friendly imbecile scribe, who was the blind man’s traveling companion.

  However, what the blind storyteller didn’t know was that he wasn’t the sole author of those Holy Scriptures. The imbecile, being friendly, had also wanted to play a part in the production.

  Haj Harun, as a little boy, had peeked over the scribe’s shoulder.

  And yes, sure enough, the imbecile scribe was happily adding a few thoughts of his own to the pages.

  Nubar lay on his makeshift couch with his hand on his heart as water dripped down on him from the Grand Canal. His heart was palpitating and he felt dizzy. An unfocused pain moved back and forth behind his eyes. He had barely begun the report in his lap but he knew he was far too weak to go on with it.

  He tossed the report into the fire.

  Weak, yes. As weak as a flower, a frail Albanian flower withering away in an icy subcellar underneath Venice, driven there by marauding hordes of barbarians bent on destruction and chaos, once there repeatedly and savagely assaulted by the ravings of primitive minds insanely out of control in Jerusalem. Weak from hunger, close to starvation. Was there anything left in his canteen?

  He reached into his rucksack and pulled out what was left of the canteen itself, now about the size of a small drinking cup, holding perhaps half a cup of mulberry raki. He drank the raki and chewed the little cup around the edges, nibbling in nervous bites, gnawing his way to the bottom of this last relic from Gronk, the kind of canteen used by peasant boys when they were out working in the fields.

  Nubar gazed at the fire. Barbarians were surging forward on every side threatening civilization, yet still there was no reason to fear what he had just read, none whatsoever. It was all meaningless fantasy, a web of buffoonish tales having nothing to do with reality.

  A Zoroastrian operator of a fruit juice stand in the Old City? A naked anonymous pilgrim sprawled on the floor of a convent bakery? A maniacal baking priest piling up bread in four shapes?

  Ludicrous.

  Then too, the time span was considerable. From a hot August day in Jerusalem in 1933 to Smyrna in 1922, from God in His balloon just before the Great War to a genie-astrologer in Arabia in the first half of the nineteenth century. Finally all the way back to the dusty waysides of Canaan in 930 B.C.

  Absurd.

  And the ultimate source of all this, none other than Haj Harun. His epic tale weaving up and down the alleys of Jerusalem over the millennia, passing from beggar to beggar in the bazaars with new variations added each time it was retold by another thieving layabout, another shifty-eyed Arab or unscrupulous Jew or hallucinating Christian in that unreal city on the mountaintop where the real Sinai Bible lay buried.

  Nubar squeezed his fists in a frenzy.

  Lies. All lies.

  God in the twentieth century, Stern? The genie in the nineteenth century, Strongbow? The two of them having something about the eyes that showed they were father and son?

  And worst of all, that vision of Haj Harun in 930 B.C. Haj Harun as a little boy, peeking over the shoulder of an imbecile scribe and noting that the scribe was happily adding a few thoughts of his own to the original Bible.

  Nubar clenched his fists and exploded. He staggered to his feet, shrieking.

  Lies and more lies. They think they’ll get me but they won’t. I’ll get them.

  In a fury he hurled more reports into the fire that was raging in the pit at his feet. The smoke swirled around him and he fell back weakly on the couch.

  So weak after fighting everybody for years, especially those three evil criminals who had set up the Great Jerusalem Poker Swindle to deprive him of immortality. Why had there been that disaster in Gronk simply because he liked to dress up a little? Those three depraved criminals in Jerusalem dressed up, he had read about it in reports long ago. They all dressed up and had their fun, so why had it been wrong when he wanted to wear a uniform? And why did he have to fight everybody in life? Fight endlessly?

  Nubar’s roving fingers found the tin of rouge and the tube of lipstick in the pocket of his housecoa
t. He took them out and began to play with them idly, applying a little bit here and there, wondering what Paracelsus would have done in this damp murky cellar on an evening such as this. Ignored the icy drafts and the water dripping on him and gone on to repeat his mercury experiment a thousand times in search of the unique set of circumstances? Two thousand times? Three thousand times?

  Breathing those heavy mercury vapors anew on a gloomy winter evening in Venice? Yet again inhaling his beloved fumes beneath the Grand Canal? At last dreaming his way into the philosopher’s stone of immortality?

  Nubar’s gaze fell on a crate that had surfaced from under the stacks of reports he had dumped into the fire, a crate with a vaguely familiar shape. He crawled over and opened it.

  Cinnabar. Mercury ore.

  A whole crate of cinnabar from his alchemist’s workshop in the castle tower room in Albania. Left over from the days when he had performed mercury experiments, shipped here as part of the UIA archives. Odd that it should happen to turn up in front of him now, just when he was thinking about mercury.

  Alchemy in the steps of the master. Six years ago, only that?

  Happy days and nights then, he remembered them well. Long hours spent alone at his workbench in his castle tower room, communing over mercury with the master, Bombastus Vonheim the Celsus of Parahohen.

  Was that right or was it Bombastus von Ho von Heim?

  Parabombast? Paravon? Paraheim and Paraho?

  No no, it was Parastein of course, Nubar Wallencelsus Parastein. The incomparable Parastein. What had happened to him in six short years? Where had he gone?

  Nubar pushed the crate of cinnabar over to the pit and watched it tumble into the roaring fire. Smoke, fog, dreams. Mercury vapors. Swirling new fumes in the subaqueous archives of the Uranist Intelligence Agency.

  Nubar found the medallion depicting Mussolini and the Virgin Mary in his housecoat and turned it over and over, looking for a similarity between the two faces. He found the three one-lira coins and put them into his mouth to suck. He pushed more reports into the fire.