Sinai Tapestry (29 page)

The hakïm, a huge presence sitting behind a trembling young man at dawn somewhere in the desert half a century ago, telling the frightened man to turn and face the emptiness in all its vastness, to fix his eye on a distant eagle swooping in the first light of day living a thousand years, tracing the journey of the Prophet, the footsteps a man takes from the day of his birth to the day of his death, suggesting the swirls of the Koran shaping and unshaping themselves as waves in the desert and saying Yes, the oasis may be small but
yes,
we will find it,
yes.

The Arab was struggling to get to his feet. Stern jumped up to help him and led him to the door.

It was over. Hurrying back and forth and meeting for an hour, fifteen years gone, leaving again unknown to each other. The man had started as a scholar and would have liked to have ended as a healer but here was his end.

I envy your faith, whispered the man. What you want. I couldn’t conceive of it on earth. We won’t see each other again. Peace brother.

Peace brother, said Stern as the man limped away in the night toward his river, no more than a hundred yards away but lost now in the blackness, so small and narrow and yet so famous because of events washed by its currents over millennia, and shallow here as well as the earth began to swallow it toward the end of its brief and steeply falling course from the soft green heights of Galilee, rich in gentle fields of grain and kindly memories, a promised stream plunging down and down to the harsh glaring wilderness of the Dead Sea where God’s hand had long ago laid lifeless the empty cities of salt.

A few years after that, searching for an explanation of world events, the Arabs in Palestine began to weave the first of their elaborate fantasies around Hitler. One theory was that he was in the pay of the British Secret Service, which was aiding Zionism by having him expel Jews from Europe in order to increase emigration to Palestine.

Or more incredible still, that Hitler himself was a secret Jew whose sole aim in Europe was to undermine the Arabs in Palestine by sending more Jews there.

So Stern’s vision of a vast Levantine nation embracing Arabs and Christians and Jews came apart, and the effect of the cascading rumors and swirling events on his dreams might well have been shattering if he hadn’t retreated to the memory of a peaceful hillside in the Yemen and begun to take morphine on the eve of his fortieth birthday.

The ghostly jogger of the Holy City surviving and surviving.

E
ARLY ONE HOT JULY
morning in 1932 O’Sullivan Beare arrived at Haj Harun’s barren shop and found the old man hiding in the back room, cowering deep in the corner behind the antique Turkish safe. The rust from his helmet had fallen into his eyes, streaking his face with tears. He was trembling violently and the look he gave the Irishman was one of total despair.

Jaysus, said Joe, easy man, get ahold of yourself. What’s going on here?

Haj Harun cringed pathetically and wrapped his arms around his head as if expecting a blow.

Keep your voice down, he whispered, or they’ll get you too.

Joe nodded gravely. He moved in closer and gripped the old man by the shoulders to try to stop the pitiful shaking. He bent over the crouching figure and spoke in a low voice.

What is it man?

I’m dizzy. You know how I always feel dizzy first thing in the morning.

Jaysus I do and no wonder. After what you’ve seen out there in the last three thousand years anybody would expect you to be dizzy when you suddenly had to take another look at it. A new day is always trouble so that’s all right, calm down and give me a whisper of the problem we’re facing.

Them. They’re still out there.

Are they now. Where exactly?

In the front room. How did you manage to get around them?

Sneaking on my tiptoes along the wall, a mere shadow of myself. How many did you say there were?

At least a dozen.

Bad odds. Armed?

Only daggers. They left their lances back at the barracks.

Well there’s that at least. What sort of cutthroats?

Charioteers, the worst kind. They’ll cut a man down without thinking twice about it.

O’Sullivan Beare whistled softly.

Bloody bastards all right. Which conquering army are they from then?

The Babylonian, but I don’t think any of them are regular Babylonian troops except perhaps the sergeant. He may be, he’s arrogant enough.

Irregulars are they? Working for loot like the Black and Tans? There’s no meaner bunch.

Yes they’re mercenaries, barbarians, by the looks of them hired horsemen from the Persian steppes. Medes, I’d say from their accents.

Medes, are they? Now there’s a scruffy lot. When did they break in?

Last night when I was grinding my teeth and trying to fall asleep. They took me by surprise and I didn’t have a chance to defend myself. They threw me in here and they’ve been out front ever since drinking and gambling over their spoils and bragging about the atrocities they’ve committed. I’m exhausted, I haven’t had any sleep at all. They brought a sack of raw liver with them and they’ve been gorging themselves on it.

Do you say so. Why this particular article of meat?

To arouse their lust. The Medes have always believed the liver was the seat of sexual desire. Now they’re talking about loin pie and they say they won’t leave until I hand them over.

After them are they. Bad, very bad. Hand what over?

The boy prostitutes.

Ah.

They’re terribly confused. They think this is a barbershop.

Jaysus they are confused.

Not so loud. It’s true, barbershops in Jerusalem used to be a place to procure boys but wasn’t that a long time ago?

More or less I’d say but the important thing now is for me to send them packing.

You’ll have to be careful. You can’t count on Medes to listen to reason.

I’m not and I won’t. Just keep under cover here.

O’Sullivan Beare marched to the door between the two rooms and snapped to attention. He saluted smartly.

Sergeant, emergency orders from headquarters. All liberty’s canceled, charioteers to return to barracks immediately. Carnage on the southern flank, the Egyptians have just launched a surprise attack. What? That’s right, the squadrons are grouping already. To your lances man. Double-time it.

Tell them you’re Prester John, whispered Haj Harun urgently from behind the Turkish safe.

No need to, whispered Joe over his shoulder, they’re going anyway.

What about the drunken one who passed out in the doorway across the alley?

The sergeant’s giving him some bloody sound kicks, that’s what. They’re leaving, it’s safe to come out now.

Haj Harun crept out of the corner and tiptoed timidly over to peek into the front room. He tiptoed to the front door and peered up and down the alley.

Gone, thank God. Do you think the streets are safe?

They are. I saw that whole rabble of an army racing out through Jaffa Gate on my way over here.

Haj Harun sighed and his face brightened.

Wonderful, what a relief, let’s take a walk. I need some fresh air, last night was a nightmare. I’ve always detested the Babylonians.

With reason I’d say. Well which route will we be taking today among the many?

The bazaar perhaps? All at once I’m thirsty.

The bazaar, you’re right. So am I.

They passed down several alleys, made a turn and entered the bazaar. Haj Harun’s mood had changed abruptly with his release from captivity. Now he was robust and smiling and talkative, exuberantly waving his arms as he pointed out the sights.

Hundreds of sweating shoppers jostled each other and squeezed in front of the open shops where hawkers cried out their wares. Haj Harun absentmindedly picked up a handful of juicy fresh figs from a stand and pressed half of them into O’Sullivan Beare’s hand. Peeling and munching, their mouths dripping, they made their way slowly through the dense crowds, edging around loaded donkeys and pushcarts, putting their heads together and shouting to be heard above the noise.

See that shop that sells loquats? yelled Haj Harun. A very grand place in its day, the best cabaret in Jerusalem. Run by a former grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire who introduced the cabaret acts and led the applause at the end. Curious how a man of his former importance could be reduced to such a shabby role in life.

Curious, yes.

What?

Always thought so, shouted Joe.

And this corner here was where I was fined for public cheiromania in Hellenistic times.

What’s that?

The man on the corner now? It’s hard to say. Either he’s had too much hashish or he’s gone into a religious ecstasy.

No, I mean that offense the Greeks pinned on you.

Oh that, shouted Haj Harun with a laugh. An obsession with the hand but not what you’re thinking. Palmistry without a license was the problem, I used to be quite a good palmist. See that old building there? I was in jail there once.

They stepped up off the cobblestones into a fruit juice stand and Joe ordered two large glasses. Together they stood sipping their pomegranate juice and gazing at the building, Haj Harun beaming and laughing as he reminisced.

That was during the great evil eye epidemic we had here. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of it?

It strikes me that I haven’t. When was that?

Early in the Assyrian era. For some reason everyone in the city was suddenly terrified of the evil eye. People imagined they saw it everywhere and no one dared go outside. The streets were empty, the shops closed, all commerce stopped. Jerusalem without commerce? Impossible. The city was dying and I knew I had to act.

Joe wiped the sweat off his face and tried to dry his hands on his wet shirt.

Of course you did. What acts then?

Well first I tried baking bread.

Good, always useful, bread.

Yes I thought that would do it. Sexual organs are known to be one of the best defenses against the evil eye because they fascinate it and divert its attention, thereby keeping it from doing harm. Well I reasoned that if bread were baked in the shape of a phallus and eaten plentifully throughout the city, that would provide a sound internal safeguard people could have confidence in.

Joe wiped his face again. It was terribly hot. In the blur of the cloudless sky he caught a glimpse of himself sneaking around Jerusalem one dark night painting evil eyes on doors. The next morning there would be an Assyrian panic and he would suddenly appear with the miraculous loaves of bread, sell them at an enormous profit and make a fortune. But how was he going to get the baking priest to bake the special shape? Tell him it was the arm and fist of God? No good, the arm of Allah was too common an expression here. The ancient Franciscan would think he had succumbed to the heathens and refuse to fire his oven.

A total failure, laughed Haj Harun. Bread was too subtle. People needed a visible safeguard, not a digestible one, so I went around painting phalluses on walls. That helped a little, at least people began coming outside again. When they did I harangued them, urging them to paint phalluses of their own to reassure themselves and they did that, covering lamps and bowls and every other article they owned, even weaving them into their cloaks and wearing specially carved rings and bracelets and necklaces and pendants. Soon Jerusalem was a city of ten million phalluses. Of course you have to remember all this happened back in the days when I still had influence here and people not only listened to me but believed what I said.

Joe tried to pull his shirt away from his chest and let a little air in but he couldn’t, it was glued there.

Are you remembering? asked Haj Harun.

I am. Keenly.

Yes. Well for the next stage of my plan I needed the assistance of menstruating women.

I see. Why this unusual convolution?

Because at that time menstruation was a very powerful agent. It was effective against hail and bad weather in general and could destroy vermin in crops, not to mention withering cucumbers and cracking nutshells.

Very good.

I thought so but then it turned out I couldn’t persuade any women to expose their private parts on the street when they were menstruating. Home on their farms at night to help their own crops, of course they’d do it then, but not in Jerusalem in public even though it could have assured the safety of the city. I argued and argued with them in the squares but they remained adamant, claiming it would damage their reputations. Can you imagine? People being as vain as that when the whole city was endangered by a crisis? I tell you, people can be selfish.

True.

And ignore the public welfare.

Very true.

Even to the point of thinking only about themselves while everything around them is going to ruin.

Very very true.

Haj Harun laughed.

Well that was the case then, so obviously there was only one thing to do. One final dramatic act was needed to break the impasse, to enlist the entire citizenry in the fight against the danger we were facing. Unquestionably I had to take an extreme religious position against the evil eye, no matter how unpopular and flamboyant it might appear to be, and through personal example show the people what was necessary to save us. There was simply no alternative. I had to do it and I did.

Of course you did. What was it?

Haj Harun grinned at the building across the way.

I took off my loincloth and went striding boldly through the streets and every time I came upon an evil eye I whipped up my cloak and gave it a flash.
Ha.
I flashed and I flashed and each time I did the evil eye’s hold over us was weakened and Jerusalem was that much closer to total recovery.

Joe reeled back against the counter of the fruit juice stand and quickly ordered two more glasses of pomegranate juice. His head was spinning and the centuries were making him thirsty, Assyrian centuries, the sight of Haj Harun as a vigorous young man still confident and influential, still respected for his credibility in those far-off days, boldly striding through Jerusalem in 700
B.C.
whipping up his cloak to defeat the evil eye at each dramatic new encounter, striking out alone through the streets to do battle with the epidemic that was threatening to lay waste to his Holy City, flamboyant and selfless, shunning vanity and undeterred by any possible damage to his reputation, marching on and doing his duty as he saw it,
Haj Harun the fearless religious flasher of antiquity.