Jerusalem Poker (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 2)

by Edward Whittemore

  Oh, said Joe, pretending to make another face. The whole point, is that all? Well of course I was getting around to it. I was just sort of sizing up the countryside along the way. What’s the point of taking a trip if you don’t see the sights? What’s the point of sitting down to a stew if you don’t sniff it and savor the aroma and sip it slowly around the edges first to get a hint of all the flavors? What would you have me do? Boil down the stew and reduce the trip to one word?

  Haj Harun does, said Cairo, beginning to laugh again.

  Well of course he does but that’s because he takes the long view, as I was saying, unlike you and me. Now Munk here’s different from us, he’s got his cause to take him up the mountain. And sure there it is coming right on, I can see the future now. Haj Harun and Bar Cocheba together again fending off the Roman hordes and their monstrous siege machines, rolling and rumbling machines, simply monstrous. The two of them manning the ramparts against the enemy and racing along the walls and jogging around and around through the alleys of the Old City, resolutely so, keeping on the move for sure because a moving target is harder to hit than a stationary one, I can see it now for sure. And here come the Romans hurling their monstrous boulders and insults at the city, I can see that too.

  Joe, hold on there. Where are you going this time?

  Me? No place. Who ever suggested such a thing? You mummy ghoul, how can you say that when you know I’m just sitting here as sober as can be. It’s just that I don’t like to see an era ending, that’s all. I enjoyed this poker game.

  Munk laughed.

  That’s enough from the two of you. What’s the one word? Why are we going out with Haj Harun tonight?

  Joe sighed.

  I guess it’s the same with you both, nothing but facts and down to business, straight and dry facts and nothing else. Won’t allow a man to properly savor his stew. Well anyway, Munk, you know the one word already but just to make it official, just to sum it all up at the end of twelve years of poker, we’ll have it formally proclaimed by the source. An official announcement that the game at this table is officially over. Haj Harun, guardian of the past and the future?

  Yes?

  You’re sitting up there on top of the safe with a better view than the rest of us. What’s the one word that sums up Jerusalem?

  Haj Harun straightened his faded yellow cloak, his spindly legs dangling. He adjusted his rusty Crusader’s helmet and gazed at the nonexistent mirror in the crumbling plaster of the wall.

  Dreams, he said happily.

  Yes, sighed Joe, and so it is. And the reason we’re going out with Haj Harun tonight, to look up these two senior citizens, is because it just so happens they secretly keep this city on the mountaintop going. The pacing muttering man at the top of the stairs to the crypt and his partner in time, the garrulous cobbler? The one unspoken and the other unfound? Well you see, Munk, tonight they have a dream, a special dream, and we have to wish them well with it. Tonight they dream there is a Jerusalem. And because they do, it will be here when we wake up tomorrow, dreamed into existence for another year. So there you have our task on New Year’s Eve, if you want it in a word.

  Munk nodded. Haj Harun stirred on top of the safe.

  Prester John? You mentioned earlier that I haven’t been able to locate the cobbler’s cubbyhole for some time, but tonight I have a curious feeling I just may find it. In fact I think there’s a very good chance I’ll remember where it is tonight.

  Well of course there is. I never believed anything else.

  And you’ll like him, the cobbler, you’ll all like him. He has amusing stories to tell and he’s much better on dates than I am, and also he goes back much further, having already been a man when I was still a boy.

  I know we will. Certainly we will.

  Haj Harun smiled distantly.

  Well I think I’ll come down now. I think it’s time we began our rounds.

  Truly, yes do that. According to the once portable sundial in the front room, it’s almost o’clock.

  18. Bernini

  They’ll all tell you that, straight

  off and no question about it. We go right on in the lives of others and there’s no end to it for sure

  ON A LATE WINTER morning so brilliant it could only be found in Attica, the flat white sunlight hard on the glittering sea, a small dark man made his way slowly down a beach near Piraeus to the spot where a small dark boy stood scaling stones out over the water. About five yards away the man sat down on the sand and shaded his eyes.

  Hello there.

  Hello yourself.

  Good day for that. The sea’s just right.

  That’s what it is.

  What’s your record then?

  Nine so far but I’ll get up to eleven or twelve, I always do. Say, what’s that funny old uniform you’re wearing?

  Officer of light cavalry, acquired in the wars.

  Must have been a long time ago to look that old and ragged and have so many patches on it.

  It was. I was just thinking so myself as I was walking down the beach.

  And the uniform doesn’t even fit you. It’s too big in the chest and you’ve had to roll up the sleeves.

  I know it. Maybe I was bigger once.

  You mean you’ve shrunk?

  Well as a matter of fact it wouldn’t surprise me at all to hear that I’ve shrunk or grown, one or the other perhaps, but both is far more likely. After all, genies do that so why shouldn’t we? They go from being great huge giants striding across the earth from Timbuktu to the Hindu Kush, talking to everyone along the way more or less, to being so small and quiet they can spend seven full years in a tiny Sinai cave, speaking only once in all that time and then only to a mole. Sure, that’s what they do.

  The boy laughed. He scaled another stone out over the water and held his breath. He clapped his hands.

  See that? Eleven, what’d I tell you.

  A good one all right. You’re getting there.

  That’s a funny accent you have. Is that from the wars too?

  Sometimes I think it is, one war or another. Seems likely don’t you know.

  Do you always talk like that?

  How?

  Kind of around and around.

  Don’t know that I do, can’t say that I don’t. Must be that I circle things sometimes, because it’s hard to get your hands on them. Tell me now, would you happen to be knowing the woman who lives in that small house up there on the edge of the beach? Maud’s her name.

  Of course I know her, she’s my mum. You work in town with her or something?

  No, I knew her a long time ago. In Jerusalem it was. Yes that’s right, lad. I’m your father.

  Bernini’s hand held a scaling stone in the air. He smiled and there was nothing but joy in his face.

  Are you really Father?

  I am, lad. The very one.

  Bernini shouted and laughed. He lunged toward Joe who swept him up in his arms and swung him around. They fell together on the sand, laughing and breathless.

  I knew you’d be coming soon. I didn’t say anything about it but I knew.

  Of course you knew it, lad. What else would I be doing?

  Were you famous in the wars? Is that where you’ve been?

  Nothing of the sort. When I was fighting, back before I met your mother, nobody knew my name or even knew I had one. I wore a flat red hat then, and a green jacket, and shoes that had buckles on them, and I stayed up in the hills of southern Ireland with my old musketoon, talking to no man, hiding during the day and on the run through all the hours of darkness. And because of that, you see, they thought I was one of the little people when they chanced to catch the barest glimpse of me far far away in the distance at dusk or dawn, and because I was at least getting on toward being the size of a man, as I still am, they came to call me the biggest of the little people. The little people have no names, you see, and the farmers didn’t know who it was up there in those hills who was helping them out by arching bullets into the air
from a great distance, in the manner of a howitzer, so that the bullets came down to strike the enemy from above, thereby putting the very fear of heaven in the hearts of the enemy, maybe even the fear of God if they believed in one. No, the farmers didn’t know who it was, but they certainly liked what that unseen presence was doing, so they paid me a great compliment and called me that.

  But who are the little people really, Father? Are they elves?

  Well they wouldn’t take kindly to being called merely that, because they’re so much finer and grander and cleverer than any elf could ever be. Who are they then? They’re wondrous beings and spirits with the most mysterious of manners. And besides that, behind and beneath it all, they really run the land and the country.

  Any country?

  Joe looked thoughtful.

  I’m not so sure about that. I wouldn’t say all that much, I don’t believe. But they do run the land and the country where your forebears on my side came from. Secretly of course. I don’t have to tell you that.

  Why secretly?

  Because that’s the way of the world, lad. Isn’t it always so?

  I don’t know. I thought kings and parliaments and presidents ran countries.

  So it seems from afar, but that’s only for the sake of appearances, only on the surface of things. In actual fact the little people are in charge, always have been and always will be. But you don’t ever see them, so much as experience them. When you’re out in the woods you hear them whispering and dancing and playing their games, but you daren’t go investigate the event right then, because they wouldn’t like it. They don’t take kindly to people peeking in on their revels and games, that just won’t do. So you tiptoe away and come back the next day to have a look around in that glen or dell, and one glance is enough, one glance tells all, you know immediately they’ve been there. You can see that all right, but of course you haven’t seen them. And so it goes, and that’s the way it always goes. Never in your whole life do you actually see them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not always out there, just out of sight, whispering and humming and singing and carrying on in general, playing away and mischievously passing the ages the way their kind does, feasting and dancing and holding their hurling matches brazenly on the strand, at night of course, in the soft moonlight, when you’re at home in bed falling asleep and can’t catch them at it. And they’re not alone out there. There are pookas and banshees and the whole lot of them, all of them passing the ages in the ways that amuse them. But tell me something frankly, lad. Before I ever mentioned them, didn’t you already know about them?

  Bernini smiled.

  Why do you say that?

  Just wondering, just guessing. Well?

  I’ve never told anyone, whispered Bernini seriously.

  Of course you haven’t.

  It was a secret.

  And it’s a good one. Well?

  Bernini nodded. He smiled.

  You’re right, I did know they were there. I didn’t know that’s what they were called, and I didn’t know what they wore, but I knew about them.

  Well it’s a pretty outfit, isn’t it. Just right for ones so fine and grand and clever, so mysteriously watching over us in their pursuits. Although it’s also true the ones you know may wear quite a different costume. There’s no limit, of course, to how they can carry on.

  Bernini was smiling rapturously now.

  Will you tell me all about them, Father? About the games they play and the dancing and the singing and all of it?

  I will, lad. From beginning to end we’ll discuss their sly mischievous ways, always off where they can’t be seen having their fun and winking at the sky as they tip their heads so gaily and set their feet to flying in a whirling whirligig so fine, so grand, the very sunshine itself flutters and laughs.

  Bernini clapped his hands.

  Oh yes, just whirling and whirling in their flying shoes with buckles. But what’s this uniform then? This queer old one you’re wearing?

  Ah, lad, another whole place and time. We’ll get to that too. The man who owned this one before me is known as the baking priest, as fine an item as ever walked in the streets of the Holy City. Saved my life, he did, when I was on the run and arrived in Jerusalem starving and penniless, a fugitive from injustice and the youngest by far of the Poor Clares who were making that dreadfully shocking pilgrimage that year.

  What’s a Poor Clare?

  A nun, lad, a nun from the strictest of orders. That’s why the pilgrimage was so shocking. Because normally Poor Clares can’t even leave their convents, not ever, let alone travel to a place like Jerusalem with its unlimited sights and sounds and smells. Anyway, I went to the Holy Land as a nun.

  But a man can’t be a nun, can he?

  That’s right, he can’t. He simply cannot. But apparently Himself decided to make an exception that year so I could escape from the city of Cork and be transported to the Holy Land in order to fulfill a prophecy made by my father.

  Who’s himself?

  God. Chose to intervene, He did, the baking priest told me all about it when he made me a hero of the Crimean War and awarded me the first Victoria Cross ever given, which until then had been his own. Here you see it. A Victoria Cross for defending Ireland against the English.

  So you’re a great rich man now?

  Not at all, none of it. I’m just a poor fisherman’s son from the Aran Islands who’s been adrift and afloat in our Holy City for fourteen long years. Just one O’Sullivan Beare who found himself in Jerusalem by chance, although it’s also true we’re known as the O’Sullivan Foxes on occasion, for what reason I can’t imagine. But with a name like Bernini now, with a fine name like that, you’ll be going on someday to build fountains and stairways to heaven and beautiful colonnades for the pope. Good lad. If it had been up to me I might have called you Donal Cam, and that’s not half so ringing.

  Who was Donal Cam?

  The famous bear and fox among your ancestors on my side, known in his time as the O’Sullivan Beare. Some centuries ago he walked a thousand of his people out of the south of Ireland to the north, in the dead of winter and fighting all the way, escaping the English and starving too, just as I was doing three hundred years later as a nun. Well he limped and he fought and he led his people, and after two weeks they arrived where they were going. And they were safe now, the thirty-five who had survived out of the thousand. So he was a hero because of what he did. But for all that, I still like Bernini better as a name.

  Your name’s Joe.

  That’s what it is, that’s mine, as simple as can be. And after that the names of half a dozen other saints, same as my father who had the gift.

  What gift?

  Prophecy. To see the world as it was and shall be. He was the seventh son of a seventh son, you see, and when you are you have the gift. While me, I was just the thirty-third son and last.

  Bernini’s eyes shined when he heard the numbers. Joe gazed into them and saw something. A shadow flickered across Joe’s face.

  Good with figures are you, lad? Quick, what’s five plus eight?

  Eleven or twelve, said Bernini.

  Is it now. And how’s that? How can it be both?

  Because some days I scale a stone eleven times and some days twelve. I know Mother says that’s not the way you’re supposed to do arithmetic, but that’s the way I do it. At different times, to me, different numbers answer better. When I have a feeling about one, I use it. But then if I don’t have a special feeling, a number turns up anyway. Do you know what I mean?

  Joe gazed at his son and his frown slowly changed to a smile.

  Do you tell me so. Is it always that way with you? In other things besides arithmetic?

  Yes, I’m afraid it is. Does it make you angry?

  Nothing of the sort, lad. I’m here to love you and accept you as you are. And it strikes me you just might be a poet, did you ever think of that? In poetry all things slip and slide, just as they do when you’re hearing the whispers of the little peopl
e, and knowing they’re there behind the wall all right, but not seeing them.

  Well I don’t think I’m a poet, most of the time I don’t seem to be anything. Do you know? Most of the time I’m just here by the sea. And even when I’m not, I still am really, down here looking at the sea and listening. Do you know where it goes?

  Sometimes. And sometimes I’m also just like you. I just sit and look at it and listen. I used to do that a lot down on the coast of the Sinai, in a little oasis on the Gulf of Aqaba. I used to fly my Camel down there and sit for days listening and watching, just keeping watch through the hours of light and dark.

  Bernini laughed.

  You flew a camel? The same way they have flying carpets in the stories?

  Does sound strange, doesn’t it. But that’s also the name of an airplane, you see, a Sopwith Camel it’s properly called. Now tell me, do you like that looking and listening more than anything else?

  Yes.

  Joe knelt on the sand and put his arms around Bernini’s waist.

  Well lad, then I’m surely glad I found you here. Right here on this very spot by the sea.

  Bernini put his fingers in his father’s beard.

  I’m glad too, for a special reason. I knew you’d be coming soon but not just today, and that’s a wonderful surprise. Today I mean. It’s my birthday.

  I know it is, lad, that’s why I’m here. Thirteen years ago you were born on this very day in Jericho, a place of sunshine and flowers near the River Jordan, another kind of oasis it is. And our little house was near the Jordan, on a path to it, we weren’t far away from it at all. So close it was then, that river of miracles, so close it seemed, nearly at our feet it seemed. Ah it’s true what the old man says. The years, they just slip away and slide together.

  Why are you crying, Father?

  Not crying really. Just happy to have found you, here by the sea. Just happy. That’s all.

  Who were you talking about who says that?

  The old man? Someone like no other. A friend I had in Jerusalem. He showed me the world and showed me what it’s all about. Haj Harun is his name. So gentle and frail, you wonder how he’s ever done it.