Jerusalem Poker

You mean the Russians have been intriguing with the French or the English again? They've formed a secret alliance with the Germans?

No that isn't what I mean. Politics aren't involved. This is a straight business proposition and only one man is involved. One man has bought the Ottoman Empire.

But that's impossible, Grandmother.

Of course it is. We've been telling ourselves nothing else for years. Haven't we, girls.

She looked sternly around the room and his mother and aunts and grandaunts and female cousins all nodded vigorously. Then they all began talking at once to each other, loudly and rapidly, not listening to what anyone else was saying.

That's enough, girls, shouted his grandmother. Instantly the room was silent.

So you see, young man, the situation before us is more than staggering. It's critical and perhaps even fatal. The House of Szondi was founded on the basis of Levantine trade and now we find one man has bought the entire Levant. Who is he and what does he want? Why did he buy it? What does he intend to do with it?

You're sure it's a man? asked Munk.

His grandmother snorted contemptuously.

Of course it's a man, no woman would ever act so crudely. Perhaps some substantial and influential role behind the scenes, but not a whole empire in one ruthless grab. That's the work of a man.

Munk clicked his heels.

Yes, Grandmother.

Please don't interrupt again.

No, Grandmother.

Now to continue. We've gone back to the beginning to try to reconstruct events and the best we can do, the earliest scenes we can conjecture, are vague reports of an Egyptian emir and a Baghdad banker and a Persian potentate holding shadowy interviews in Constantinople in 1880, sitting down. Remember that, sitting down. The man seems to have been unnaturally tall, but it's impossible for our informants to say how tall because he was always seated. I say man, rather than men, because it's obvious to us that this emir and banker and potentate, forget the apparent nationalities and the way he paired them up with status for alliterative affect, were one and the same man, a dissembler able to disguise himself cleverly.

And how did he disguise himself? Always as a Levantine, which to us means he was obviously a European being clever again. So the available facts are these. A European of untold personal wealth, a man so unusually tall he feared his height would betray his real identity, remained carefully seated while buying all the wells in Mecca and all the wells on all the haj routes to Mecca, while becoming the secret paymaster of the Turkish army and navy, while buying up all Turkish government bonds and issuing new ones, while consulting with pashas and ministers and laying aside trust funds for their grandsons, while firing and rehiring every religious leader in the Middle East so they would have to answer to him, while consummating a hundred other such deals with the goal of making himself the sole owner of the Ottoman Empire. Now only one European in the last century fits that description. Do you know who he is?

No, Grandmother.

Strongbow. First name, Plantagenet. An Englishman who was the twenty-ninth Duke of Dorset. Seven feet, seven inches tall. He took a triple first at Cambridge in botany and was considered the greatest swordsman and botanist of the Victorian era, but he abandoned plants to become an explorer. In 1840

he disappeared from Cairo after attending a diplomatic reception held in honor of Queen Victoria's twenty-first birthday. And in order to outrage English decorum and sense of fair play, which he so dearly loved to do, Strongbow appeared at that diplomatic reception stark naked, save for a portable sundial strapped to his hip that hid nothing. About forty years later a publication of his appeared in Basle, which is the next time we hear of him, just prior to his appearance in Constantinople in various disguises. But the odd thing is, that publication had nothing to do with business or banking. If it had it might have warned us about what was going to happen in Constantinople.

What did the publication have to do with?

His grandmother smiled faintly. She raised her chin.

Sex. It's a study of Levantine sex in thirty-three volumes.

The old woman paused. Around the room dozens of knitting needles erupted into a cacophony of clicks.

Munk stood at attention staring at his grandmother, who finally lowered her eyes and removed a lace handkerchief from her sleeve. With slow, delicate motions she dabbed at the beads of perspiration that had appeared around her mouth.

Tut tut, young Munk. Tut and ho. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the matter at hand but you seem to want an explanation, and considering what you're going to do for us, I'll give you one. Well then.

Strongbow's study was published in Basle and quite naturally the House of Szondi acquired one. I mean of course we did. Everything having to do with the Levant must be our special concern. We can't afford to ignore even the smallest item of scholarship, and Strongbow's study is hardly that. But since it's been banned, and also because it's rather an explicit work, we felt it best to keep it under lock and key and not advertise the fact that we own a copy.

Munk stared at his grandmother in awe.

You mean none of the men in the family has ever known about this?

That's right, and you aren't to tell them. Such matters could only be disruptive to a musician's work. A musician must have discipline and concentration. He needs order in his life to be creative. And let me tell you the information in Strongbow's study is about as disorderly as anything you can imagine. It utterly defies concentration and leads to a complete breakdown of discipline.

I don't doubt that, said Munk. But do you mean to tell me that all of you here have been reading these volumes in private for years?

Strictly for professional reasons, young Munk. Strictly because we handle the business in this family and there would be no music for our men if we didn't pursue business in a conscientious manner. If the House of Szondi is to continue to prosper, we must all be current with every aspect of the Levant. That is the Sarahs must be. It's our inevitable responsibility. And then too I might add that at the end of a day of hard banking, we find it necessary to take our minds off work. Strongbow's study serves that purpose.

I see. In other words, you mean selections are read aloud here after board meetings?

His grandmother tucked away her lace handkerchief. She straightened in her chair.

That's enough now, young Munk. The agendas of our board meetings are no concern of yours, and all of this has nothing to do with our emergency session tonight. Our subject isn't Strongbow's study but Strongbow himself, Strongbow in Constantinople thirty-three years ago. What sinister game was he playing out there then? Just who does he think he is going around and snatching up the Ottoman Empire?

The old woman was shaking in anger, her voice low and menacing.

Yes. Sinister. More than any man in this family could ever know. We've always protected all of you and shielded you from the harsher facts of life. We've spared you the brutal experiences that go with dealing in money. But life isn't just music, my boy, not just beautiful concerts played by baroque ensembles on summer afternoons. It has its sinister side as well and we see it here in the case of this Englishman, this former duke and explorer and sexologist who always pretended business was beneath him. Beneath him? Why these clever disguises in Constantinople thirty-three years ago when he set in motion the financial instruments to buy the Ottoman Empire? And what he did after that? That's even more sinister.

What did he do after that?

He disappeared again, simply disappeared. I told you a banker shuns notoriety. The less that's known about her the better, the more easily she can function and make deals. But to disappear completely as Strongbow did? Now that's truly sinister, truly the act of an archbanker utterly without scruples. It's a diabolical game he's playing. What fiendish plans does he have? Why does he buy an empire, hiding his hand all the while, and then disappear as if he had no interest in that empire? Well we don't know but we must, and you must find out for us. Young Munk?

Munk clicked his heels and saluted.

Madame?

My yacht is waiting down at the landing for your immediate departure. Like the husband of your great-grandmother, you are embarking on a voyage to the Levant, and I want your reports to be as thorough as his were. Off you go now. Eat plenty of garlic and good luck.

All the women in the room rose. Munk stepped forward and kissed his grandmother respectfully on the cheek. He kissed his mother and went around the kitchen kissing in turn his aunts and grandaunts and female cousins.

They were already beginning to inspect the ovens where a late supper was cooking, by the smell of it nearly ready, when he marched out of the kitchen and made his way down the path to the Danube, smiling as he went over a clear memory from his childhood, his mother calling to say she wouldn't be home for dinner and they shouldn't wait up, the press of business being so great it was keeping the Sarahs working late at the office.

One rainy afternoon in February 1924, more than two years after outsiders had first been admitted to the poker game and subsequently spread its reputation throughout the Middle East, Haj Harun came wandering into his back room where the game was in progress, carrying a ladder.

He placed the ladder against the tall antique Turkish safe, climbed up to the top and sat down. He straightened his rusty Crusader's helmet and retied the two green ribbons under his chin, smoothed out his tattered yellow cloak and gazed thoughtfully straight ahead at nothing.

Cairo and Munk smiled up at him. Joe gave him a wave. But the action at the table abruptly stopped as the other players turned to stare at the wizened figure on top of the safe, his spindly crossed legs swinging in the air.

Is he real? whispered a bewildered Iraqi prince.

That he is, said Joe, studying his cards.

But who is he?

Joe looked up.

Well I guess he could be fate, couldn't he? I mean that would be consistent with a game of chance. Fate keeping watch and all.

Is that what he's doing up there? Keeping watch?

Who's to say? Maybe he's surveying the centuries for some forgotten event that ought to be remembered. Now whose bet is it, gents? Let's get on with the bets.

But what does he see up there? Ask him what he sees.

And why not. Haj Harun? Hello up there, what do you see?

How's that, Prester John?

I was just wondering what might be up there on the rainy horizon today. How's the view?

Haj Harun turned to peer into the crumbling plaster of the corner, two feet from his face. He nodded.

I don't like to say it, but the Medes may be coming.

Are you sure? That rabble again?

They may be.

Bad in the rain, very bad, how are the city walls holding up? Safe and strong as they should be? No gates left open? Better check around so we can breathe easy.

I will, Prester John.

Haj Harun looked back at the wall in the corner. He squinted and his helmet went awry, releasing a shower of rust in his eyes. The tears began to flow.

Why does he keep calling you Prester John? asked a Syrian jewel thief.

Because the first time I walked in here I was wearing a Victoria Cross around my neck, being then in retirement and living in the Home for Crimean War Heroes, and because of that he mistook me for the legendary lost Christian monarch of a vast kingdom somewhere in Asia.

Where in Asia?

I don't know and he doesn't know either. I suppose you could ask the scarab, the scarab's likely to know but I doubt that he's talking today. Generally he sleeps away the winter. Anyway, since I was lost he naturally assumed I'd come to Jerusalem to find myself again. Now whose bet is it, I say?

The Syrian jewel thief giggled.

You're both mad. He's just staring at the wall up there.

Not a bit of it, said Joe. That's not a wall he's looking into, it's a mirror. The mirror of the mind, it's called.

Believe me it's true.

The Syrian went on giggling.

Well who does he think that is? he asked, pointing across the table at Munk.

He doesn't think, said Joe, he knows. Just watch. Hello up there, Haj Harun, or Aaron as the Jews and Christians call you. Who's this article down here who's being pointed at?

The wizened old man wiped the tears from his eyes and peered down at the table.

That's Bar Cocheba, he said.

Hey Munk, seems he spotted you right off, whispered Joe. Seems he nailed you right down in the course of history. Was he right now? What moment in history would it be for this gent called Bar Cocheba?

First half of the second century, answered Munk, studying his cards.

Role? asked Joe.

Defender of the Jewish faith, said Munk.

Future?

Death in combat. Dying in revolt against the invincible Roman legions.

Is that so? Joe called up. Are the Roman legions really invincible? What do you see up there?

Haj Harun turned back to the wall. He smiled.

Only for a time, Prester John. After a time they lose.

There. You see, Munk, you see how it is? The Romans turn out to be vincible after all. Time it takes, naturally. Time as it was or will be. Time is all.

Time is, murmured Haj Harun dreamily from his perch on top of the safe.

See anything more? Joe called out.

For Bar Cocheba, yes. I predict this game of chance will be very profitable for him. After all, there are nineteen years in a lunar cycle.

Joe looked confused.

According to the Jewish calendar, whispered Munk.

And thus, continued Haj Harun, since you began this game in the Jewish year of 5682, Bar Cocheba should do very well indeed.

Joe looked even more confused.

And why might that be?

Because that year was the first year of the three-hundredth lunar cycle, answered Haj Harun. And that certainly sounds auspicious to me, given the fact there were three of you who founded the game.

Joe whistled softly.

Facts, gents, they're just dropping all over the place. And is that a proper lunar evaluation from the top of the safe or not? Fate on target again as usual, there's nothing like it. But hold on now. I think I can hear a less distant moment in time preparing to announce itself.

The chimes attached to the sundial in the front room creaked and began to strike at four o'clock on that rainy afternoon. In all they chimed twelve times.

Midnight, said Joe. I think we better be adjourning in about an hour. Is the time limit agreed?

That's a good idea, said Munk. I'm rather tired tonight.

So am I, added Cairo, suppressing a yawn.

The other players, who had been heavy losers in the three hours since the session began, were on their feet protesting. A wealthy French merchant from Beirut was particularly angry.

Fraud, he shrieked, shaking his fists. How do you know it's midnight? It could just as well be twelve o'clock noon.

Could be but it isn't, said Joe, smiling. The chimes struck off noon an hour before you arrived. What time did you think you got here?

I know when I got here, shrieked the Frenchman. It was at one o'clock.

Well there you are. The chimes have to be striking midnight, couldn't be anything else. Bets now anyone?

We've still got a good hour of fast playing ahead before closing time. Munk, isn't the bet to you?

I believe it is. And since Haj Harun has found lunar evidence for my success in this game, I'm going to take advantage of it by tripling this wager our princely guest from Baghdad had just ventured. Gentlemen, the stakes rise in the cause of lunacy.

Fine, said Joe, very fine. We're off again. No reason to hold back just because there are only three hours between noon and midnight on a rainy day in February. That happens all the time in bad weather. But spring will be coming soon and then we can make up for it.

-6-

St Catherine's Monastery

Choice is the arrow.

Early in 1913, Munk arrived back in the Middle East and traveled widely on his mission for the Sarahs.

Before the end of the year he was able to report to them that although there was evidence someone might have owned the Ottoman Empire once, it was equally obvious no one owned it now, least of all the Ottomans.

The old jade is tottering to her grave, he wrote in a letter to Budapest. Once stately, now exhausted, she laments in the twilight, abused and humiliated on every side. Soon night must take her.

Munk sensed he was also describing the approaching collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, although he couldn't possibly have guessed how quickly that would happen. Yet in the next few years not only did the Empire of the Sarahs disappear but with it the once powerful House of Szondi, both swept away in the First World War.

Young Munk watched it all from afar, no longer interested in soldiering yet still searching as always for a role in life and pondering the question that had been with him since childhood, the mysterious force that had driven his great-grandfather, Johann Luigi, a century ago.

Munk traveled alone during the war years, trading throughout the Middle East and sharing his confidences with only one man, an unlikely friend yet also his closest during that period, a wealthy old Greek satyr who lived in Smyrna.

Unlikely on the surface of it, for Sivi was then a man already in his sixties, nearly forty years older than Munk. But he seemed to have known everyone in his time, having long been intimate with every manner of Levantine intrigue, and despite his notorious sexual excesses he was a wise and gentle friend, who adopted Munk as easily as if that had been his purpose in life.

So Munk found himself returning again and again to Sivi's beautiful seaside villa in Smyrna, an exile now from a European era that would soon cease to exist.

It's almost over, he said to Sivi one afternoon in the spring of 1918. My family has lived in Budapest since the ninth century, but with this war a whole way of life will disappear.

They were sitting in Sivi's garden and Sivi was pouring tea, elegant as always in one of the long red dressing gowns that he habitually wore until after sunset, when he dressed for the theater or the opera.

He paused to admire the large ruby rings on his fingers. As usual a smile hovered around his eyes and there was a touch of mischief in his voice.

How's this, young Munk? You're not surrendering to melancholy, are you? If I were you I'd look at the matter quite differently. Ten centuries locked in the rain and mist of central Europe? Time to make an escape, I should think, and what better season for it than this one? Ah yes, spring and the sea and a distant shore. Exactly what's needed to stir unexpected juices. But you always said you wanted to get away, and now you have. For good, certainly. Still, a touch of nostalgia perhaps?

Munk shrugged.

I guess so.

Of course, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if I may say so, this twinge of nostalgia you feel has nothing to do with a place really, with a sudden longing for Budapest. It has to do with time, I suspect, with having been a child there, innocent and protected. That rare condition can cause nostalgia in all of us. Am I right?

I suppose. It's true I feel I'm getting old.

Sivi laughed wickedly.

As indeed you are, young Munk. Late twenties? An absolutely ancient age. I had a friend once who felt the same way as he drew near thirty. His youth was behind him and suicide seemed the only answer. He asked me to find him the necessary pills and I said I would, but it might take a few hours. In the meantime I suggested he go out and buy himself a new dress and hat, I mean a quite extravagant dress, and position himself in one of the better cafés on the harbor and wait for me there. I told him if he was going to die he ought to look his best when he went.

So he bought the dress?

He did. But by the time I arrived at the café he was no longer there. It seems a handsome young Greek sailor had come strolling by and winked at him, and they had an aperitif together and one thing led to another, and I couldn't find him anywhere for three days. When I did I told him I had the pills. What pills?

he said, I'm in love. And that was that, although of course this occurred around 1880 when gowns were much more lavish than today, and had bustles as well that could give a man an immediate lift.

Munk laughed.

Was this friend a tall man?

He was.

Large and bulky?

More or less.

With an impressive moustache he twirled on occasion?

Indeed, it was probably just such an action that caught the eye of the handsome young Greek sailor as he went strolling by.

How long did the love affair last?

Until the young sailor's ship sailed, a week or so. And my friend was heartbroken when it was over.

Did you consider pills again?

Certainly not. I'd learned what to do. I went out and bought another extravagant gown and positioned myself once more in one of the better cafés. Within the hour events had taken a turn as they will, and a whole new adventure had begun to unfold. You see there's a moral to this tale, although of course it doesn't apply to everyone. I contemplated suicide because I felt my youth was behind me, but the solution was much simpler. All I had to do was put another youth behind me.

Munk laughed again as Sivi happily wagged his head.

That's terrible, Sivi. You're unspeakable.

True. But I've continued to follow this wisdom and it's kept me going quite well.

Sivi delicately raised his teacup and sipped.

And what news do you have from the Sarahs, Munk? Have they been making any plans for after the war?

Yes. They've decided to emigrate.

What? All of them?

Yes, all of them.

Extraordinary. Where to?

A few to Canada and Australia and the United States. Most of them to South America.

Sivi sighed.

A new Diaspora, they seem never to end. Yes, well, I guess it isn't all that extraordinary. The banks are finished, I take it? The war has been that hard on them?

Yes.

Sivi nodded gently.

It happens, of course. The Old World becomes too old for some. I have cousins in Argentina whom I've never met. And what of the men in the family? Will there now be all-male Szondi baroque ensembles in various corners of the New World, mostly South America?

Not for a while, I would think. They'll have to give up music and go back to running discount dry goods stores to support the Sarahs. Petty local trade again, only this time in Sao Paulo and Sydney and New York.

But surely only for a time, Munk. The Sarahs are too clever not to get something going again before long.

I imagine.

Oh yes, they'll fare well, we know that. It's you I'm concerned about. Dare I be frank?

Munk smiled.

You old sinner. Have you ever been anything else?

Sivi wagged his head appreciatively and examined the flow of his dressing gown, straightening a fold here and there.

Well not for the last four or five decades, in any case. Not since I decided at an early age to recognize the creature I saw leering at me every morning in the mirror. But then too, I had the advantage of growing up in beautiful Smyrna where the light is so pure and the sea so sparkling, well, all things seem natural, even me. So it wasn't that difficult to admit that the lascivious beast I saw in the mirror wasn't a beast at all, just me, basically harmless and in love with love, merely insatiable when it comes to the pleasures to be found on a secluded stretch of beach when the sun is high and the white sand softly burns your skin, and the brilliant blue sea whispers now and later, now and always, love and life and the all-healing sea.

Munk smiled. He held his left hand out to the side and strummed with his right in front of him, reciting a verse.

Gaily the troubadour touched his guitar,

as he was wandering home from the wars.

Singing from Palestine, hither I come.

Lady love, lady love, welcome me home.

Sivi laughed.

Quite, he said. The aging troubadour forever wanders, forever singing that sins aren't sins when seen naked in the sun, singing that only darkness and despair can twist an act of love into regret. But we were talking about you, young Munk, and I was going to be frank. Well it's simply this. It's obvious you want something and don't know what it is. I mean something more than an occupation, a home and a family and friends or whatever. That's so, isn't it.

Of course.

Yes, blood tells. Mine is that of the ancient Greeks who reveled in their lucid sunlight, yours is that of your remarkable great-grandfather, Johann Luigi Szondi, his very name suggesting contradictory antecedents, a mysterious explorer whose tireless journeys you've never been quite able to comprehend.

All that in only eight short years? Penetrating Medina and Mecca and measuring Rameses' ear? Eating dates in Nubia while covering nine hundred miles a month? Gazing upon the stones of a deserted rose-red city half as old as time? Yes, astonishing exploits.

I don't want to leave, announced Munk abruptly, the words said with such force they startled Sivi.

Leave? Indeed, nor do I. But what are we referring to? Life? Smyrna? This garden with its spring flowers in bloom?

This part of the world, added Munk.

Sivi relaxed in his chair.

Ah, of course, the Eastern Mediterranean. No one in his right mind would want to leave it. But who ever suggested such a preposterous notion?

You did.

Me? said Sivi, even more startled than before. Me? Impossible. Out of the question.

Yes you did. You were talking earlier about spring and the sea and a distant shore, but I have no intention of going to America or anyplace like that.

Sivi tipped his head and laughed happily.

Oh, is that all. It seems you missed my meaning completely, young Munk. Come along and I'll point it out to you. As it happens it's only a few yards away.

Munk followed Sivi across the garden and into his villa. They walked to the second floor where Sivi threw open the doors to the balcony. The sun was slipping toward the harbor, which was still busy with boats. Strolling crowds thronged the quays in the evening promenade.

There, young Munk, that's the sea I had in mind. The Aegean. And you're already on its distant shore, cold damp Europe is far away to the north. So you see you've already set sail, here and now in sun and light, that's all I was suggesting. It's true, isn't it?

Sivi smiled. Munk smiled too.

Yes it's true.

Good. Now I'm told you're very successful at a special kind of trading, commodity futures are they called? Well then, if you're already trading in futures, why not trade in your own?

Trading doesn't mean anything to me, said Munk. You have your dream of a greater Greece. But as you've said, I don't know what I want.

Sivi laughed. He spread his arms as if to embrace the sea.

What you want? Of course you know what you want. You want a dream like anyone else. But a dream, is that all? Just look out there at what lies at your feet, look and be reassured. For was there ever a man who stood on these shores and didn't dream? This is the Eastern Mediterranean, young Munk, the birthplace of dreams. The men who gave our Western world its gods and civilizations came from here, and with good reason.

What is the reason?

I thought you'd never ask. Odd how the young disregard the wisdom of age in order to discover things for themselves. It's almost as if matters of the spirit could never be transmitted, only experienced. The reason, Munk? Light. The purity of the light here. In this light a man senses there are no limits for him in the world. He can see forever, and that vision intoxicates him. It fires his heart and makes him want to go and do, never to stop but to go farther, to go deeper, more. Thus the curiosity of the Greeks of old and their fearless explorations of the soul. Never has man surpassed the dramas enacted on these shores twenty-five hundred years ago, three thousand years ago. That was laughter, that was tragedy, and it is what we know of life. Even today we know no more. And strangely, modestly, they attributed their laughter and their tragedy to the intervention of the gods. But it just wasn't so. The miracle of it all was theirs. It was them. They stood on these shores and wept and laughed and lived those lives.

The old man smiled and stroked his moustache.

Well now, what do you think of that?

You're shamelessly romantic, Sivi, that's what I think.

It may be so. Yet all the same the light here is different. It's a palpable thing and its effect is inescapable, which is why Greece has always been more of an idea than a place. When the modern nation was founded in the last century, Alexandria and Constantinople were the great Greek cities in this world, and Athens was but a lonely plain where a few shepherds grazed their flocks at the foot of the Acropolis. But no matter. An idea doesn't die. It only slumbers and it can always be resurrected. Tell me, would anyone have ever heard of the Dorians if they'd stayed up there in the north puttering around the Danube? Just one more minor central European tribe three thousand years ago, passing the time with their crops and domestic animals and setting out for an occasional foray a few miles downstream? Exactly, and enough to put anyone to sleep. But the Dorians didn't stay up there. They had the luck or good sense to come trotting down here where they could learn to dream, and dream they did, and the result was ancient Greece in all its splendor. Ah yes, Munk, the Dorians should be a lesson to you. By the way, when you were on your mission for the Sarahs, how far were you able to trace Strongbow?

South of the Holy Land, that's all. Nothing more specific than that.

No? Well it was the Yemen where he ended up, and died.

Strongbow's dead?

Yes, four years ago, just before the war broke out. Appropriate, wasn't it. One of the towering figures of the nineteenth century, and the successor to the explorations of Johann Luigi Szondi in this part of the world, dies on the eve of the Great War that will bring an end to his century.

How did you find that out?

How? murmured Sivi. Don't I have a reputation for knowing everyone's secrets? Well so I do, but in this case it was simpler than that. Strongbow's son told me.

His son? I didn't even know he had a son.

He did, but the son's identity is a confidence I can't reveal. He's always gone by a different name.

Munk laughed.

Is there anyone at all in this part of the world who hasn't come to you with their confidences at one time or another?

They had returned to the garden. Sivi uncorked the bottle of ouzo standing on the table and sniffed it. He nodded approvingly and filled two glasses.

Tea won't help us now. Ouzo is definitely wanted, a substantial measure over ice to cloud the clear liquid, the better to clear our minds as evening falls. As for people confiding in me, there must be some who haven't yet, but then I wouldn't be surprised if they were getting ready to do so this very evening, after dark of course. You see the truth is, a juxtaposition of facts in my case tends to reassure people. On the one hand it's known that my father was a leader of the Greek war for independence and a great friend of Byron. Masculine heroics, in other words, the sound of the bugle and the charge against the oppressor, flowing capes and drawn swords and fierce eyebrows, the poet-warrior in a headlong gallop and all that.

Yet on the other hand, it's equally well known that when I attend the opera and take off my evening cape, the gown and jewels I will be wearing will be so elegant no woman could possibly hope to match them. I am, in short, an embodiment of life's bizarre contradictions. Therefore trustworthy.

Munk laughed.

What brought Strongbow to mind, Sivi?

Dreams, of course. The dreams we have when we're young.

Ah yes, mused Sivi. My dream at your age was to become a great scholar, and all because of Strongbow's study.

What? You're not going to tell me you own a set too?

Certainly. Thirty-three volumes on Levantine sex and I shouldn't own them? Is such a thing conceivable?

But why me too?

It turned out the Sarahs had a set. None of the men in our family ever knew it.

Sivi chuckled happily.

Is that so? Well apparently life wasn't as bleak up there as I'd thought. It seems there were certain diversions on rainy evenings by the Danube when the Sarahs had to stay late at the office. But they were probably just being sentimental. The study isn't exactly what people think. Two-thirds of it, in fact, is devoted to describing a love affair Strongbow had with a gentle Persian girl when he was nineteen, the most complete love story ever told and a pastoral idyll that could make any woman swoon. Anyway, what I wanted to do was compose a companion study on Byzantine sex. Levantine is one thing, but Byzantine? It could have been truly arresting.

What happened?

I did a two-page outline and began to have doubts. Strongbow rightly notes that there are nine sexes, and being only several of them, how could I attempt to be accurate overall? No, I realized I couldn't be so I abandoned the project. Such grand designs seem to be no longer possible. Now Alexander the Great would have been much better prepared for such an undertaking. We know he loved several women and a number of boys, his horse, a male companion or two and at least one eunuch. And if we know all that, just imagine what we don't know. Indeed, a person could be more comprehensive in those days.

Sivi laughed. He raised his nearly empty glass of ouzo and tipped it, gazing at the milky liquid left in the bottom. Munk shook his head.

You're not just a shameless romantic, Sivi. You're a shameless aging romantic and that's the very worst sort. To be young and romantic is understandable. But at your age? After all the grief and torment you've seen in the world?

Sivi nodded. He stroked the end of his white moustache.

It's true. I used to try to fight it, to get up each morning prepared to curse and be gloomy. An ache here and a pain there? Neither mind nor body functioning as well as the day before? Evidence, you would think, that the world is indeed a dreadful place to live. Yes, I had my good intentions of a dark nature, but as it happened they never survived the bedroom where I found myself that morning, no matter how sordid the place might appear at first glance. I'd wake up and look around me and think, Oh my God, what have you done now? What have you gotten yourself into this time? How could you possibly have behaved that way last night? Yesterday at this hour you were a total wreck, but to have sunk even lower? It's unimaginable. This is the very end.

And so on. Darkness at dawn, in other words. Terminal despair at dawn. The worst thoughts to be found in the land of the living. But then what did I spy as I lay there beyond hope in that ghastly place? What else, a window. Even the most wretched bedrooms in Smyrna have windows. So over to the window I'd go and raise the shade and stick my head out, what little was left of it, and what do you suppose was waiting for me out there? The Aegean, and the light of the Aegean. And at that moment I knew any attempt at despair that day could only fail. There was too much to see out there, and to feel and hear and smell and taste. So in time I stopped fighting it. I had no choice but to accept my love of life, and of love, as incurable.

Then too I was lazy, which was the real reason I never got on with a massive scholarly study. It would have meant giving up too many things, added Sivi, wagging his head and staring lasciviously at the thin milky dregs in his glass of ouzo.

Munk laughed.

In your hands everything becomes obscene.

Not so, said Sivi. Merely observed in its true light, which is essentially sensual.

I'm afraid the sun with its true light has already set, you old rogue. Put down your suggestive glass.

Almost three years passed before Munk found his dream as Sivi had predicted he would, not by the sea but in the desert. And he did so, curiously, through the unexpected intercession of his old friend from the hectic weeks of the first Balkan war, the diminutive officer who had been the Japanese military attaché in Constantinople.

Then Major, now Colonel, Kikuchi had returned to Japan before the First World War. Toward the end of the winter of 1921 he wrote an urgent letter to Munk from Tokyo saying he had just learned that his older twin brother, the former Baron Kikuchi, an esthete and collector of French Impressionist paintings, had converted to Judaism while visiting Jerusalem on his way home from Europe. He was now residing in the town of Safad in Palestine.

The colonel explained that his brother's health had always been delicate and he was concerned about living conditions in postwar Palestine. Furthermore, in the last months his brother's letters had taken on a new feverish quality that disturbed the colonel, remembering as he did the virulent diseases that had stricken foreigners exposed to Turkish meat during the days of the Ottoman Empire.

Is the situation still as dangerous as before the war? wrote the colonel in his precise hand. Or have the Allies cleaned up the meat in the Middle East? When my brother was a Buddhist he never ate meat, of course, but now that he's a Jew I don't know what he might be eating. Please, dear Munk, could you possibly go to this town of Safad, which looks pitifully small on the maps, and see if my twin brother is well?

Munk cabled that he was on his way and left for Safad immediately. With his affectionate memories of Colonel Kikuchi he would have gone in any case, but the circumstances particularly intrigued him.

In Safad he learned that the former Baron Kikuchi had pursued rabbinical studies there, specializing in medieval Jewish mysticism. He was now known as Rabbi Lotmann, a highly respected but eccentric figure in occult circles. It seemed he had left Safad a few weeks earlier, although no one could quite remember the day. Nor could anyone say when he might return, or where he had gone. As Munk questioned the scholars it became obvious they were being evasive.

Why? What were they afraid he might discover?

You know I'm Jewish, said Munk, and of course they did, the Szondi name having been made famous by the Sarahs. Yet still the scholars would tell him nothing. Finally Munk went to the chief rabbi of Safad to try to find an explanation for the way he had been received.

In the case of Rabbi Lotmann, answered the old man solemnly, the fact that you're Jewish isn't enough.

It's not?

No.

Why?

Because there's more these days. But I'll say nothing more.

Bewildered, Munk went on to Jerusalem hoping to find another man he had met during the first Balkan war, an Arabic Jew named Stern who ran guns against the British and French in the Middle East, an agent who knew a great deal about clandestine affairs in Palestine and elsewhere.

Fortunately Stern was in Jerusalem. As usual he asked Munk for money and Munk gave it to him. Munk then explained whom he was seeking and what he had been told in Safad.

Stern nodded. Slowly he smiled.

The Japanese rabbi? Yes, I've heard of him. He's an underground Zionist. Newly involved but very active.

Munk was astounded. Stern's smile broadened.

I agree, Munk. Stranger things may have happened lately but none that I'm aware of. There was a possibility the British had begun to watch him so it was decided he should go into hiding for a while.

Where? Turkey? Europe?

Stern shook his head.

Not that man. Hiding, yes. Running away, no. He's still here, he's in the Sinai. St Catherine's monastery.

And I'd advise you to approach him in a circumspect manner. They say he's an expert archer. He can hit a shilling at a hundred yards.

What?

Stern laughed.

Zen and archery, Munk, the way of the Japanese warrior. It seems the former Baron Kikuchi had an old-fashioned upbringing. And take a coat with you if you're going down to the Sinai. The nights are still very cold down there.

It was Munk's first visit to St Catherine's. He learned that Rabbi Lotmann was using his Japanese name at the monastery, to avoid the possibility of informers identifying him with the Lotmann occultist in Safad whose clandestine Zionist role was under suspicion. Accordingly, he had presented himself to the Greek monks of the place as a Nestorian Christian from China on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, his wish to stay at St Catherine's motivated by a special interest in praying on Moses' mountain.

Being unfamiliar with Oriental names in that remote setting, and oblivious to transitory historical matters, the monks had readily accepted the presence of a pious Chinese Christian called Baron Kikuchi, unaware the name couldn't be Chinese, unaware as well that the Nestorian community in China had ceased to exist centuries ago.

During the hours of daylight, Munk was told, the Chinese pilgrim removed himself to the far side of the mountain to pray in solitude at a collapsible altar he carried over there in two parts, setting up collapsible altars on holy mountains evidently being a Nestorian custom.

Upon returning at sundown the Chinese pilgrim ate his evening meal and then sat up late in his cell praising God by playing music on an unusual stringed instrument that lay flat on the floor, evidently another Nestorian custom. This peculiar form of nightly Oriental worship, said the Greek monks, went on for at least three or four hours every evening.

From its description Munk recognized the stringed instrument as a koto, the ancient Japanese harp he had heard Colonel Kikuchi play in Constantinople during their rare moments of leisure. As for the collapsible altar in two parts, Munk understood what that was when he saw Rabbi Lotmann returning to the monastery that first evening with a cylindrical red lacquer case slung over his shoulder and a light thin canvas case over six feet long swinging in his hand.

A samurai bow and quiver.

Evidently the former Baron Kikuchi was taking advantage of his stay at the monastery by practicing his archery.

After the evening meal Munk joined the Greek monks in the dark corridor outside of Kikuchi's cell, where they regularly gathered each night to sit on the floor and listen to Kikuchi's exotic music. The selections that evening ranged from sacred Japanese court music to Noh drama. Sitting very erect in a formal kimono with his feet tucked beneath him, Kikuchi announced each piece beforehand to the assembly of totally baffled Greek monks.

The closing selection was especially beautiful to Munk's ear's, a thirteenth-century kagura used for the most solemn Japanese religious rites. Maintaining his disguise, Kikuchi had referred to it as a weird Chinese composition. In any case the Greek monks found it incomprehensible.

At the conclusion of the concert the Greek monks crossed themselves and drifted away. Only then did Munk step forward from the shadows into the doorway of Kikuchi's cell, which was lit by a single candle. He had decided to speak in German so they wouldn't be understood by any monk who might still be lingering in the corridor.

Baron Kikuchi, that was lovely.

Thank you, sir.

And I suspect it may be the strangest music ever heard at St Catherine's.

I suspect you may be right.

Especially the last piece you played. Your weird Chinese composition, as you called it.

Weird, murmured Kikuchi. That's what it is all right.

Because of its semitones?

What?

Yes. In fact there were semitones all evening.

Now I think that's definitely weird, said Kikuchi. But why do you think so?

Because I've been told Chinese scales don't have semitones. Japanese scales do.

Is that so? You mean that although I'm a Chinese pilgrim, my music is Japanese? This is certainly getting weirder all the time. Do you think there could be some sort of divine influence radiating from the holy mountain above us and splitting my tones? Just halving them on the spot, so to speak?

Kikuchi laughed gaily.

Well it's weird all right. Weird. I picked the right word. By the way, where did you learn about Oriental music?

From a friend. A hero of the Russo-Japanese War who saved his company on a barren Manchurian plain by piling up the dead horses of the Cossacks as a barricade against their incessant attacks. Later, I might add, when we were both serving as military attachés in Constantinople, the meat served by the Turks was just as bad as any rotting Cossack horse.

The little Japanese aristocrat jumped to his feet.

Are you Munk, then? My brother often spoke of you.

Kikuchi, delighted, shook hands. Their conversation lasted most of the night and the next morning they went out to walk across the hills together, talking all the while, Kikuchi occasionally pausing to take aim at some distant patch of sand and fire off an arrow.

Gentle in manner and tiny in stature, the present Rabbi Lotmann had been born the hereditary leader of a powerful landowning clan in northern Japan, but both his title and his numerous estates had passed to his younger twin when he embraced a foreign religion. To anyone this would have been a striking testament of faith, but what most impressed Munk was that Kikuchi had then gone on to become a passionate Zionist.

Munk himself, although recognizing the appeal of Zionism to the oppressed Jews of eastern Europe, had never taken any particular interest in it himself. Somehow it had seemed irrelevant in the Empire of the Habsburgs before the war.

Yet here was an aristocrat from an utterly alien land halfway around the world, a rich esthete from a unique ancient culture who had devoted the first thirty-five years of his life to archery and painting, now pacing the foothills of Mt Sinai eagerly quoting Der Judenstaat from memory to prove the absolute necessity of a Jewish homeland.

Munk was astonished. The tiny man's fervor was undeniable, his arguments were entirely persuasive.

Munk found himself being drawn in more and more deeply.

On his third day at the monastery an incident occurred that he would never forget. It was late in the afternoon and the two of them were walking along a lower slope of the mountain, a broad descending sweep of sand. A sharp wind had risen and was buffeting them from the east.

By now Munk was more than a little dazed by their hours and hours of conversation. The wind distracted him and he found himself listening to it. Kikuchi, noticing this, had been silent for some time.

All at once Kikuchi stopped in the middle of the expanse of sand and began tracing Japanese characters with the tip of his bow. He worked quickly, scrambling up and down the slope slashing away at the sand, leaving behind him long columns of intricate curves and crossed lines and softened angles that flowed effortlessly from one complex to the next. When he was finished he came sliding down the slope and stood beside Munk once more, leaning on his bow and smiling up at his handiwork.

It's a cursive script, he said. Not much used anymore, I'm afraid. Difficult even for us to understand.

What does it say? asked Munk dreamily.

Kikuchi laughed.

Several things. At the beginning up there to the right is a haiku, written by a poor poet upon the death of his youngest daughter. He had twelve children and they all died before him, but that little girl was his favorite. It translates, The world of dew is a world of dew, and yet. And yet. Beneath it is the name of a famous Shinto shrine in northern Japan where our ancestral lands are. Up at the top again are some technical terms used in esthetics. Below that the name of the seventh Taoist sage, below that my mother's name, she taught me to play the koto. The next column is breakfast.

Breakfast? said Munk.

Yes, the breakfast my brother and I always ate as boys. Rice and pickles and a certain kind of white fish, grilled, served cold. Lastly, lower down and off to the left, are two signatures. Baron Kikuchi and Rabbi Lotmann. The hillside is me, in short. Watch.

He fitted an arrow to his bow and took aim. The arrow sped up the slope and buried itself deeply in the middle of the swirling characters. Munk stared at the arrow standing there in the sand. After a moment Kikuchi touched him on the sleeve.

Well?

I'm sorry, I must have been lost somewhere. What did you say?

The hillside, Munk. What do you see?

Munk gazed up at it. The wind was blowing away the characters, filling the lines with sand. Already they were mostly obliterated. Only a few dissolving strokes remained here and there. Kikuchi was laughing loudly, tugging at his sleeve.

So quickly and nothing but my arrow is left? What happened to my delicate script? All those beautiful suggestive characters with the myriad meanings and memories they hold for me. Where have they fled?

By the time the former Baron Kikuchi had retrieved his arrow the sandy slope was bare again, swept smooth by the wind. The present Rabbi Lotmann snorted and laughed as they turned back toward the monastery.

When you told me about your great-grandfather, Munk, the one who was an explorer, you implied that some mysterious force had driven him to do so much in only eight years. But I don't think it was mysterious at all. I think he decided he wanted to drive an arrow into the hillside and he did so. Your family remembers that arrow as the love letters he sent to his wife. But as marvelous as they were, and as important as they became to your family, I don't imagine it was exactly that way for him. For him, the pride he took in those eight years was his arrow.

Kikuchi snorted, he laughed.

Yes. Despite the ultimate mystery of the universe there's still one small truth we can live by. Choice.

Never merely to take what we are given or inherit, but to choose. It may not seem like much but it's the difference between meaning and memories that disappear in the sand, and something that doesn't. Choice is the arrow. For then, at least, we play a part in making ourselves.

The next morning Munk said he was going away for a few days to be with himself. In answer Kikuchi merely nodded, his face expressionless.

The nightly koto concert was already underway the evening Munk arrived back at St Catherine's. Quietly he walked down the corridor to Kikuchi's cell, with a chair and large case, and sat down in the doorway.

The Greek monks looked at him in surprise but Kikuchi seemed not to take any notice.

The first notes from Munk's cello blended uneasily with the koto, but after a few minutes the two men found their way together and the music from their instruments mixed richly in accord.

Kikuchi smiled happily up at him.

A wise decision, Munk, an arrow in the hillside. There is never any better cause than a homeland for people who lack it. And tonight, I think, we are definitely hearing the strangest music ever played at St Catherine's.

After he had begun his Zionist activities in Jerusalem, Munk returned to St Catherine's to visit Rabbi Lotmann. He could see the Japanese wasn't well and Lotmann finally admitted he was suffering from some severe unknown ailment that caused him to pass excessive water. Medical treatment in Palestine was inadequate and his condition had worsened in recent weeks. Munk urged his teacher to return to Japan to receive proper care. Reluctantly Lotmann agreed it was the best course.

On the last day of May the two men stood on a pier in Haifa. There were tears in Munk's eyes but Lotmann's face was impassive.

I'll be back soon, he whispered.

Of course.

No later than the beginning of the year.

Good.

Tiny Rabbi Lotmann reached into the cart that held his luggage and removed the quiver made of red lacquer and the familiar long thin canvas case.

I've never been without these, said Kikuchi. I'm not sure exactly how old they are, they've been in my family a very long time. But now that my true home is here, I'd like them to stay here. You'll keep them until I return?

Certainly.

Lotmann smiled and took a tiny gold pocket watch out of his vest. He placed it in Munk's hand.

I found this some years ago in an antique shop in Basle. What appealed to me was the extraordinary miniaturization. Can you imagine how small the parts must be to fit inside this case? But look, they're even smaller than you think. There's more going on inside this watch than anyone could ever suspect. Like the universe?

Kikuchi laughed and pressed the button that opened the lid. Munk found himself staring at a blank enamel face. Lotmann pressed the button again and the blank face clicked back to reveal another watch, the face normal in appearance but with the minute hand moving at the speed of a second hand, the second hand a blur. Kikuchi pressed the button once more to reveal a third face, also normal in appearance but with both hands seemingly stationary.

They're moving, said Lotmann, but very slowly. Depending on the temperature and tides and your mood, it takes the second hand two or three hours to make a full traversal.

He snorted and laughed.

You'll also keep this for me, Munk? I've always been fond of it and it would make me happy to know it's here waiting for me. For my return.

The ship's whistle blew. Kikuchi went on board and stood by the railing. As the ropes fell and the ship drew away from the pier, Munk thrust the samurai bow in the air in salute. For a long time he stood there watching the ship become smaller, the tiny gold watch clicking all but inaudibly next to his ear, rendering time slow and fast and nonexistent.

An antique shop in Basle.

One of the masterpieces of miniature clockwork constructed long ago by the father of Johann Luigi Szondi?

That summer Lotmann wrote that he had been diagnosed as a diabetic and confined to his home in Kamakura. There he lived for the next quarter of a century, translating the Talmud into Japanese and eagerly awaiting Munk's monthly reports on Zionist progress in Palestine.

But the gentle Kikuchi twins seemed destined for violent ends. In 1938 Munk learned that General Kikuchi had been grotesquely murdered on the night his army occupied Nanking. And then late in 1945

the general's widow wrote that Rabbi Lotmann had died in an American fire-bomb raid toward the end of the war, a mysterious passing that consumed him and all his translations in a sudden ball of fire while leaving his house and the garden where he was working untouched.

To Munk, Lotmann's death was inevitably reminiscent of the chariot fire that had carried the rabbi's favorite prophet, Elijah, to heaven in a whirlwind.

The wind was whistling through the alleys of the Old City early one March morning in 1925 when the Patriarch of the Syrian Greek Church in Aleppo rose from the poker table. The other three visitors to the game, a wealthy Sumatran slaver and two Belgian embezzlers of food relief funds from Flanders, had dropped out shortly before dawn. The session had begun at noon the previous day and everyone was exhausted. Both Cairo and Munk were slumped in their chairs with their eyes half closed.

Most curious, murmured the Patriarch, a large man with a massive gray beard and watery eyes. Joe had risen respectfully with the Patriarch and now stood with his head cocked, sipping from his glass and listening attentively.

How's that, Father?

The symmetry of it. Those three men who left all lost a great deal of money, but by amounts differing as much as several thousand pounds. Yet the three of you here have come out winning almost exactly equal amounts, while I've ended exactly even. How strange it was. I admit it seemed to be heading that way some time ago, but I just couldn't believe it.

Game of chance, Father. No way of foreseeing how the cards are going to account for themselves.

Divine intervention in my case, mused the Patriarch. The neutrality of providence. It was uncanny.

It may be so, Father. Me, I wouldn't be knowing about such higher designs and all.

A veritable heavenly design, mused the Patriarch. God's very hand at work, showing me the futility of this way of life. Telling me to put this affliction behind me.

Affliction, Father?

Gambling. Throwing away the Church's money on cards. At a wicked table like this, using the contributions meant for the poor to pursue my own evil gratification. For years I've sinned in this manner but I never will again.

Oh I don't know, Father. As far as I can see cards just come and go like that wind outside. Pure chance in the alleys of Jerusalem is all I see.

The Patriarch smiled dreamily through his watery eyes.

Perhaps it's that way for you, my son, but no longer for me. This night, through His mercy, I have been freed from my vice forever. Divine intervention was at work here. The Almighty's hand was upon me.

Too lofty for me, Father. But this is certainly a blustery March morning on the heights of the Holy City.

Sign of a new season, I suppose.

A new season for the soul, mused the Patriarch. My soul.

Cairo scratched himself. He seemed to have been growing increasingly restless during the conversation.

Curled up on his shoulder, as so often, was a furry white little creature apparently asleep, its head and tail tucked away out of sight. A loud fart suddenly cracked against Cairo's chair when the Patriarch said my soul. Cairo looked up and grinned.

You know what I think, Father? I think some people's souls must resemble monkeys. Yours, for example. Ridiculous.

The startled Patriarch, in his new state of grace, recovered from the insult almost immediately. He smiled benignly in answer and made the sign of the cross over Cairo's head.

No thanks, Father. And speaking of monkeys, I own one. He helps remind me what people are up to when they're sounding high-minded. Bongo, say hello to this pious crooked freak who calls himself a patriarch.

Upon hearing its name the ball of white fluff on Cairo's shoulder erupted. Instantly the little albino monkey leapt to its feet, its bright aquamarine genitals thrust forward, and began masturbating itself vigorously with one fist and then the other, alternating hands every few seconds to maintain speed, not missing a single furious stroke.

The Patriarch reared back in horror. Munk laughed. Joe took the Patriarch by the arm and quickly steered him toward the door.

May God have mercy on that man, murmured the Patriarch.

Never mind, Father, said Joe, you can never tell what sort of horrid elements are going to turn up at a poker game. You're best out of it and that's for sure. There are people who've missed the path, that's all, I mean hopeless cases. A crazed Arab with a white monkey on his back? Obviously he's got troubles, both of them have, or they wouldn't be carrying on like that. Forget about it, I say, you can't save them all. Some have to drop by the wayside and that's the truth. Lost cases, hopeless. There are a lot of wrecks like that around here, especially here, Jerusalem seems to attract wrecks. They're looking for the cure of course, deathly ill in their heads and in need of a fast miracle in the Holy City. Depraved, that's all, better to forget it. Back in Aleppo things will be different, better, looking up. Sure.

Joe eased the Patriarch out into the alley and came back and collapsed in a chair. The little albino monkey had curled up again on Cairo's shoulder.

A disgraceful deception, said Munk, smiling. His merciful hand? As I recall I saw the Almighty's hand hoisting a glass of illegal Irish spirits only a minute ago.

By God and not a bit of it, where's your heart for grace this morning? Are you of the same opinion, Cairo?

It took three hours longer than it should have, muttered Cairo. He should have been out of here before dawn with those other scoundrels.

Well of course, said Joe, I know that and I'm sorry. But that large sneaky article with his watery eyes just refused to see the light before dawn. Staying on here like he did, still hoping his luck was going to go up or down while your local bogman was dumping contrary evidence all over the table. Well he came around in the end, but Christ it's hard maintaining that kind of balancing act.

How much was the difference? asked Munk, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

His money you mean? Twenty hours from arrival to departure and he left two shillings ahead. But that's what he paid for mineral water, so your man came out exactly on the line. Not a ha'penny above or below.

Marvelous, Joe.

But was it worth those three extra hours? asked Cairo, also yawning.

My God it seems to me it was. Seems to me that any bloody Church situated in a thieves' den like Aleppo, and finding itself both Syrian and Greek in the bargain, needs all the honest help it can get, and especially at the top which is where we started. Seems to me the devious machinations going on in such an enterprise must be staggering. Syrian tricks and Greek tricks and God as a front for the two of them?

Frightening, I say. Perversity itself and just crying out for reform at the top.

Cairo smiled. Munk laughed. As they slouched in their chairs, too weary to rouse themselves to leave, an eerie baying sound, soft and distant, suddenly swelled and filled the room.

What was that? asked Munk.

Of course it was the wind outside, said Joe quickly, sitting up and whistling. Hear it? Just the wind outside but with the twists and turns of the alleys throwing it off-center.

It didn't seem to come from outside, said Munk. I swear it sounded as if it were in here.

From the corner, added Cairo.

Yes I thought so too, said Munk. The corner where the safe is.

The safe? asked Cairo.

I swear it.

Inside the safe, Munk?

It sounded that way to me.

Here here, said Joe. I do believe we're all so exhausted we're hearing noises in our heads. Next thing that giant stone scarab is going to start talking to us from the other corner. Could it be so? Let's tip an ear in that direction.

Joe cupped his hand over his mouth and a rasping voice rose from the corner where the huge squat scarab watched them with a sly smile carved on its face.

Ah ha, doomed mortals. Did you really believe you could learn the scarab's secret? Never, I say.

It's locked here in my black heart for all time, still as stone in the smiling scarab of eternity.

The voice trailed off in cackling laughter. Munk and Cairo groaned. Joe nodded thoughtfully.

Well what do you make of that? Quite plainly we're all in need of some rest after a long thing night at the gaming table. Now I was the one who kept you here so it's only right I do the cleaning up while you both go home to the comfy rest you're deserving. No that's fine, no objections, I know my duty when I see it.

Here we go, my Munk. Give us a hand there, Cairo lad. My God but the two of you are dreadfully heavy when not in motion.

Joe got them both to their feet and pushed them out into the alley. He stood there smiling and waving as they walked away, but the moment they turned the corner he slipped back inside and closed the door.

He dropped into a chair and put his feet up on the table, muttering to himself.

By Christ, that was too close by far. Another minute and the great skin would have surfaced and we'd have been for it, the secret of the caverns done and finished and no return.

He sat up. The handle on the tall antique Turkish safe was turning. Hinges creaked. The door opened and Haj Harun stepped out into the room carrying a pile of neatly folded laundry, his ram's horn under his arm.

Oh hello, Prester John. I thought you'd be home in bed by now.

Thought so too but I got carried away last night, divinely intervening with a merciful hand and so forth.

Is something the matter? You look upset.

Just with meself I am. We nearly had a disaster here.

What happened?

There were early morning rumors that the Crusaders were coming back.

What? Again? And we're just sitting here? Quick, we must sound the alarm and go to our posts.

Hold on there, it was a rumor merely and it turned out not to be so. Isn't that lovely?

Haj Harun sighed and his helmet went awry, releasing a shower of rust into his eyes.

It certainly is. What a relief.

Precisely my feelings.

Well tell me about it

About what?

The rumor.

Oh yes. Well it seems the sightings were real enough. The Crusaders had set out all right, over their heads in clanking armor and monstrous horses and lumbering siege machines, swords banging and clubs swinging and studded maces and heavy lances all clanging together, the full regalia it was.

Tears had come to Haj Harun's eyes.

Please, he whispered. I know what they look like.

Hey I'm sorry, of course you do. Well what happened was that these noble Christian knights got as far as Constantinople and decided to take a break there and maybe give that good Christian city a good Christian sack, and the sack turned out to be so much fun and the killing and burning so satisfactory, dividing all that Christian loot so enjoyable, such a good game all around up there, that they just called it a day and never left to push on down to Jerusalem.

That was the Fourth Crusade, said Haj Harun, wiping the tears out of his eyes, smiling now and fully recovered.

Exactly. It was.

And the Fifth through the Ninth Crusades will amount to very little.

I'm glad to hear that. It means you and I will have some time to ease up around here and get some rest.

Well I see you're carrying your reliable ram's horn. Some blast that was, the number you gave us a few minutes back.

I was at the end of the tunnel approaching the ladder.

I see. Were you just treating yourself to a toot or was there deadly intent behind the signal?

I thought I saw someone lurking behind a rock.

Ah.

But it was only my imagination.

Only that, you say?

Yes, it was a shadow cast by my torch.

They do that, I know it. And how was it down there? Anything special to report?

No. I was just doing my laundry down on the Persian level.

Why that era precisely?

Their mountain water is very fresh and sparkling.

I see.

And then I was waiting for it to dry. I like to hang my laundry out overnight.

Do you now. And why might that be?

It gets much whiter.

So it does. But why?

The moon.

Of course, I forgot.

Laundry gets much whiter in moonlight, you see.

I do now although I didn't before. Fresh facts have a way of just popping up.

Look here, Prester John. Have you ever seen dishcloths as white as these?

Surely never. Remarkably white they are.

Thank you. Would you like to go for a walk?

Fine, very fine. I do sense the need for fresh air, to clear the mind after a smoky night at the table. A walk, yes, that's the job wanted.

They locked the ram's horn in the safe and left, Haj Harun taking his dishcloths with him and proudly holding them up to show to the people they passed on the street.

That's it, thought Joe, the evidence is continuing to mount in the cause of lunacy. Just no holding it back as time goes on and comes around. Striking, it is. Impressive, it is. More so every day I live.

-7-

Haj Harun

It wasn't my physical condition that caused me trouble during the Persian occupation. It was the fact that as a result of those sexual experiences, I was incoherent for the next hundred years.

Haj Harun and O'Sullivan Beare were strolling through the Moslem Quarter in a generally easterly direction.

Just ahead, said Haj Harun, is a famous Crusader church. Do you know it?

St Ann's, you mean. I do.

And have you visited the grotto?

Birthplace of the mother of our Blessed Virgin. I have.

Haj Harun nodded pensively.

Then perhaps you can tell me why so many important events in the Gospels took place in grottoes. Why was that so? Why did everything happen in caves? Was it more comforting?

Caves, muttered Joe. It started out as an underground religion, like most I suppose. But listen, why is it you talk so little when Cairo and Munk are around? Don't you like them?

Oh yes I do, said Haj Harun shyly. In fact I like them very much. They're kind and gentle and I admire their determination. They're good men.

And so? Why don't you feel you can talk around them?

Haj Harun turned to Joe and opened his mouth. Most of his teeth were gone, only a few stumps remained.

Rocks, he whispered. For two thousand years people have thrown rocks at me and run after me yelling insults because they said I was a fool. Well maybe I am.

Joe put his arm around the old man's shoulders.

Here now, what's this all of a sudden? You're not a fool, we know that. The city depends on you, it's survived because of you. You're the one who patrols the walls and guards the gates and sounds the alarm when the enemy's coming. If you weren't here who would rebuild the city after it's destroyed? How would the mountain keep growing higher? Who would take care of the caverns?

Haj Harun lowered his head. He was weeping quietly.

Thank you, Prester John. I know I've always failed but it still means a great deal to me to have someone know I've tried.

Not tried man, said Joe, you did it. Now get ahold of yourself and let's forget this nonsense.

Haj Harun wiped his eyes. As he did his helmet tipped and released a new shower of rust in his face. The tears began to flow again.

Thank you, he whispered. But you see it's going to take me time to get used to having friends again. To be able to trust people again. After so much ridicule and humiliation, and the slaps and the kicks and the punches that go with it, you can't help but be afraid. When we met and you believed what I said rather than beating me when I said it, that was wonderful, the best thing that had happened to me in two thousand years, ever since I lost my credibility in Jerusalem. But I don't want to rush things with Munk and Cairo, I have to have some confidence in myself again. I'm so afraid they might think I was mad and it's terrible when people think that, it hurts much more than the slaps and the kicks and the punches. You can understand that, can't you? Please? A little?

Of course I can, all of it. Now then, let's both of us stand up straight. It's a March morning and spring is coming and we're walking through the streets of your city. Let's smile too.

Haj Harun tried to smile and a shy little twisted grin flickered across his face. Two well-dressed young men were going by and he tentatively held up one of his newly laundered dishcloths to show them. With a single glance they took in the dishcloth and the old man's faded yellow cloak, his spindly legs and bare feet, his rusty Crusader's helmet with the two green ribbons tied under his chin.

As if on command the two young men noisily coughed up phlegm and spat into the gutter. They both turned their heads away as they went striding by, one holding his nose and the other making an obscene gesture.

Haj Harun dropped the dishcloth to his side and shrank back against the wall, cringing pathetically. An enormous sigh escaped his lips.

You see? he whispered sadly. The younger generation doesn't believe in me at all. They think I'm just a useless old man.

What? said Joe. Those fat werewolves from the merchant class? Who cares about them? They've already taken a turn on their morning hookahs and they're so dazed they couldn't believe in anything. The hell with them, we were talking about Munk and Cairo, two very fine gents. I mean I don't think you have to worry with the likes of a Munk or a Cairo.

Maybe I don't, but I still feel shy around them. Anyway a time will come, Prester John, and I'd rather wait until I feel easy about it. I do like them though. Isn't that enough for now?

It is, certainly, so let's be on our way. Say, did I ever tell you I used to have a regular name before I came to Jerusalem five years ago?

Everyone always has other names before they come here.

I believe it. But how would you like to call me by this other name once in a while?

Haj Harun looked puzzled.

Why?

Just so I won't be confused, just because it was the name I was born with. Sometimes I do get confused when we're together. You know, time and all, it can be a jumble.

Time is, murmured Haj Harun.

By God I know it, but just occasionally. O'Sullivan Beare's the name. Or just O'Sullivan if that seems too long.

That's Irish.

That's what it is all right. Now can you use it now and then so I can keep myself straight?

If you wish.

Yes, that would be nice.

They walked into the garden in front of St Ann's and sat down on a bench. Haj Harun untied the two green ribbons under his chin, removed his rusty helmet and held it out to Joe.

Do you see these parallel dents on each side, O'Rourke? I got them one day five or six hundred years ago when I was on my way out of the grotto in this church.

A fight to the finish, was it? You were emerging from the caverns and the Crusaders had the exits blocked?

Oh no. That is, I was emerging from the caverns but there was no one around at all, unfortunately for me.

You remember how low the ceiling is on the stairway up from the grotto? Well my torch had gone out and it was night and I kept banging my head with every step I took. Finally I became so angry I butted the ceiling and got stuck.

Stuck?

My helmet did, O'Banion, in a cleft between two rocks in the ceiling. And then I lost my footing and there I was hanging in mid-air by my helmet. I felt like the top of my head was coming off.

Awful, I know the feeling. I have it some mornings myself. How did you escape?

I didn't. I had to hang there the rest of the night. The next day a group of pilgrims came along at last and freed me by pulling on my legs, which was terrible. Then I really felt as if the top of my head was coming off.

Haj Harun stirred uneasily.

O'Donnell?

Yes?

O'Driscoll?

Still here as best I can be.

You know all at once my mind seems to be a perfect blank.

Why?

I can't imagine. I'll have to think about it

Good.

But that won't help, will it, if my mind's a perfect blank to begin with? Oh dear, I just seem to be going around in circles today.

Suddenly Haj Harun laughed.

I know why it is. It's because we're here. This is a very special place to me.

The old man chuckled and put his helmet back on his head. He drifted over to the church where a part of the wall attracted his attention. He examined himself carefully in a small nonexistent mirror, then stepped back to examine himself again in a full-length, nonexistent mirror. All the while he was humming and smiling and raising and lowering his eyebrows.

Seems unusually concerned with his appearance, thought Joe.

O'Brien?

Yes?

I've never seen a helmet with more dents in it than mine, and isn't that just like history? Always new blows to the head? Inevitable blows it would seem?

Seems so, yes it does.

But there are other moments in life, O'Connor, truly unforgettable moments. Here in this garden, for example, in my youth.

Your youth? A journey, I'd say. How far back are we going?

To the Persian occupation. Oh those were the days, you can't imagine.

Haj Harun laughed softly.

Such long lazy afternoons, O'Dair. I ate garlic incessantly during the Persian occupation and always wore my leather bracelet, the one with the right testicle of a donkey inside it.

Do you say that. Why these customs?

To increase my sexual powers.

Ah.

Yes. And when it was necessary I induced abortions through the mouth.

By way of, you mean?

No, out of. That could still be done then.

I see.

And I had to do it frequently because I was very active with the ladies. Feverish days, O'Casey, when the Persians were here.

Feverish?

Sex. Just sex and more sex. Rampant sex. I was insatiable.

Groin fever in other words. Couldn't get enough of it?

No, never. Not until the princess finally accepted me as her lover. I even remember the year. It was 454

B.C.

True? Garlic and a donkey's right one doing the job in 454 B.C.? That strikes me as uncommonly precise dating for you. Generally an era is as close as we get.

But I'm not in error on this one. My experiences that year were wholly unique. Let me show you where it started.

Joe followed him across the garden. Haj Harun kept stopping to admire flowers, referring to each one as a Solomon's-seal.

How can that be? asked Joe. They're all different. Don't they have different names?

Not here. Here every flower is a Solomon's-seal. Do you see that pool, O'Nolan?

Oh nullify me, I do.

Well that's where I met her, right there. And she was holding a Solomon's-seal in her hand.

Who?

The princess.

Where's the sun gone? said Joe. Why is it looking like rain?

Joe sat beside the pool rolling a cigarette while Haj Harun roamed around the edge of the water, absent-mindedly straying into the mud. Every so often he paused and shouted.

Right here, O'Ryan. The pool was also called Bethesda then, did you know that?

O'Ryan am I now, muttered Joe. A constellation prize if that's any help when Jerusalem time is out of control. Daft heavens above and a daft gathering of the clans below in the Holy City, everybody's Holy City.

He leaned back against the bank and closed his eyes.

It smelled like rain but it was a good time for a nap all the same. Late game last night persuading a patriarch from Aleppo to see through his watery eyes. And too much poteen for sure so forty winks, why not

The cigarette fell out of his hand. His head rested on the grass. From far away a faint wail came to him in his sleep.

I'm sinking, O'Meara. Sinking.

And so he is, thought Joe, and so are we all. Hour by hour and day by day, that's what's happening to us.

O'Boyle, clay feet, wailed the voice, louder now and much closer.

That's it all right, thought Joe. That's what we have and none other.

O'Halloran, please

A voice of desperation? Joe opened his eyes and saw Haj Harun stranded in the middle of the pool. The old man had wandered in to see his reflection in the water and gotten stuck in a mudhole. He was in up to his knees and unable to move. Joe scrambled around to find a pole and pulled the old man out.

A close call, whispered Haj Harun.

No it wasn't that bad, said Joe. The water's not very deep.

Not very deep? Two thousand four hundred years ago is not very deep?

Oh that's right, I was forgetting. Now just sit down here beside me where you'll be safe.

Haj Harun smiled and did so.

It's just as well, he whispered. I shouldn't have been over there shouting in the first place. It wouldn't do to have other people overhear. It might excite them too much. I mean sexual exploits like that are unheard of today.

All true.

Well, whispered Haj Harun, where shall I begin?

At the beginning I suppose. Right here by the pool where you met her.

All right, said Haj Harun proudly. And will you keep in mind that I was quite a different person in those days?

I will.

Not at all what you see today? Strong and energetic in my youth? At the peak of my sexual powers?

The very peak, yes.

Well then, I met this Persian princess here and she was so beautiful I immediately fell in love with her. I told her so and she was also taken with me. But first, she said, she wanted to be sure I could truly satisfy her. Of course I already had a great reputation in such matters but still she wanted to be sure, given the fact that she was a princess from Persia while I was just a youth in conquered Jerusalem.

Given. And so?

And so she said she would set three tasks for me to accomplish. The first task was to come to her castle on the next full moon and deflower eighty virgins from her court, in one night, without ejaculating.

Saints preserve us. You were at a peak in those days.

And that was only the first task of three. Are you still with me, O'MacCarthy?

I am in one guise or another, some as unheard of as the sexual adventures of your youth. Now please to proceed. How went this heroic effort?

As required. Fortified by garlic and wearing my leather bracelet and bursting with love for the princess, I did what was necessary.

The donkey's right one was there on the job, I can see that.

Indeed it was. And then the next morning the princess presented me with my second task. I was to spend one full month standing naked in her court with a full erection, and the ladies of the court were to come and go as they pleased in any state of undress, fondling me as they might as frequently as they might, while I was neither to ejaculate nor go limp in all that time. I was to begin this task, O'Gara, on the next full moon.

I sense a lunar presence in all this too. Next?

The full moon came and I took up my position. It was agony but so great was my love for the princess, I managed it. The month was over at last and the princess was growing eager, I could see that.

I can too.

Awed even.

And no wonder, I say. The third and last task then?

She was secretive, she wouldn't tell me what it was going to be. Return at the next full moon, she said, for a deed that will take forty days to perform.

Lunar presence confirmed and a surprise performance surfacing. How to prepare for such a chronic sexual task of unknown nature?

Haj Harun smiled.

Garlic.

Ah, I was forgetting.

I ate garlic.

You did, it's true.

Whole bowls of garlic.

Of course you did.

Then I ate more.

I see.

And more. Yes.

More still.

Good.

Yet more.

Fine.

And more and more and more garlic, just on and on and on.

Oh God that's enough man, my stomach's on fire already, let's go to the event. The night finally came, the full moon was overhead. What state of mind?

No mind, whispered Haj Harun. I was too hot inside. Fires raged within me and flames shot from every orifice, I swear it.

You don't have to, I can see it happening. You were roaring to explode when the princess presented you with your third and final task.

I was, I truly was. Love had overwhelmed me.

Oh Christ man, on with it. Three hundred women? All at once? I can't stand it.

No, whispered Haj Harun. I was ready for something like that but it turned out I was going to be with only one woman.

One? True? Is that all?

Yes, but that was enough, O'Donoghue. In the princess's court, it seemed, was a very large woman who was round and thick in every part, with a measureless treasure and an inexhaustible appetite to have it filled. All day she lay with half-closed eyes thinking of nothing else, and why? Because this large and round and thick woman, sadly, had never had her treasure filled and her appetite slaked. Never once.

Can you imagine her physical and emotional state?

No I can't. It was a case of many having tried, yet never had the large round woman's eyes closed more or opened less? Is that the way it was? No satisfaction ever? Oh help.

That's exactly the way it was. And my third and last task was to do this woman's business unrelentingly for forty days and nights and thereby bring off success.

Not a job for a casual interloper.

By no means, O'Sullivan.

Who?

O'Reilly, I meant. Well I approached the sumptuous couch of this enormous female creature, breathing my withering fumes, and what a creation she was. Her breasts were as vast as sand dunes in the desert, her bellies were a mass of heaving mountains and at the base of these lofty ranges was an immense dripping tangle exuding the steam and the gases and the juices of a primeval jungle. Although to be frank, I've never really seen a jungle.

In short?

In short she was as magnificent a creature as God ever made, and there was no question she would test all my powers.

I'm tired already.

Ha. I went to work and at the end of ten days one of the princess's handmaidens tiptoed in to see how matters were progressing. She whispered into the ear of my female continent, whose eyes now seemed slightly more open, slightly more alert.

Has he tired yet? asked the little girl.

Nooooooooooo, came the rumbling gurgle from deep down in the mountain beneath me.

Is that the truth?

It is, O'Shea. And when the little girl returned again at the end of twenty days, she could see without asking that my continent's eyes were round and bulging, glassy and unfocused.

Oh my God. At the end of thirty days what further developments?

That's when it began. First a muffled groan from the hinterland, then one vast prolonged spasm moving down her central ridge. And so it was to continue for the next ten days, O'Flaherty, ten full days without rest or interruption. Eyes clamped shut, screams and gurgles and hiccups shaking the jungles and mountains and deserts for ten full days. So long had she been waiting for that moment that when it arrived, it arrived with force and duration.

Amazing.

Yes, O'Regan. Then on the fortieth day, spent, she rolled over and began to snore at last.

At last I say, at last I repeat, agreed. What an ordeal. And the princess accepted you after that?

She did.

Lovely.

It was, O'Leary. In fact it was incomparable.

I can believe it.

Joe stood and lit a cigarette. He walked up the bank.

I think it's going to rain, he said.

Haj Harun turned and gazed at him. He smiled.

What do you mean, O'Geraty? It is raining.

Joe shrugged.

You're right. You know maybe it would be better if you called me Prester John after all. Maybe I could keep track of myself better that way.

As you wish.

Yes.

See here, said Haj Harun as he climbed up the bank and looked back at the muddy pool. Do you realize those adventures I had while winning the heart of the princess were the talk of Jerusalem for centuries?

I didn't, no, but I can understand it. Spectacular, that's what they were.

Later on they even wrote them down as stories in books. But do you know they never once mentioned my name? Not once? They always attributed those adventures to others, to people whose names they made up.

Maybe it's that way, said Joe. Maybe we never hear about the real heroes. Maybe that's what being a hero is.

Like the dents in my helmet, you mean?

How's that?

No one knows how they got there except me.

True.

Curious, murmured Haj Harun.

Hold on there, said Joe, I just thought of something. Haven't you always told me that it was during the Persian era when you began to lose your influence in Jerusalem?

That's right.

Well did it have something to do with the princess and your heroic exploits on her behalf? Were you just completely worn out or something like that? Staggering exploits after all.

Haj Harun sighed.

It wasn't my physical condition that caused me trouble during the Persian occupation. It was the fact that as a result of those sexual experiences, I was incoherent for the next hundred years. I was totally preoccupied with visions of sex, which severely limited my vocabulary. When I opened my mouth the only words that came out were things like cunt and lick and fuck and suck. They hadn't been bad words when the princess and I were whispering them to each other, but afterward, with the general public, their connotations seemed to change. They no longer seemed acceptable. To be frank, I could only use about a dozen words in all.

Limited, yes. I see.

And after a hundred years of that no one took me seriously anymore. Especially my speeches in the marketplace. Before then it had been my oratory that swayed people and made me influential in Jerusalem, but during that hundred years when I was using only a dozen words, people got in the habit of laughing at me.

I see.

So by the time I could speak normally again my credibility was gone. Not that I blame my fellow citizens, it was my own fault. After all, if you said good morning to a person and they always answered by shouting cunt, and then you said good afternoon to them and they always shouted lick, and you said good evening to them and they always shouted fuck, and you wished them a nice weekend and they always shouted suck, how would you view them after a while?

Not too optimistically.

And after it had gone on for a hundred years?

Pessimistically.

Of course, said Haj Harun with a sigh, and that's what happened to me. But if I could go back I'd do it all again, I wouldn't change a thing. I'd love the princess just as I did then, even though I knew it would cause my ruin.

True?

Haj Harun smiled shyly. He nodded.

Oh yes, Prester John, absolutely. We're holy men now, you and I, and our concerns are spiritual ones.

But even a single night with the princess is worth a century of incoherency.

Ah, now that's a fine sentiment.

And it's worth the twenty-three centuries of abuse and ridicule and humiliation.

Fine, very fine.

Yes, Prester John. If we were young again, I tell you, the ladies would know it. They'd hear our knock on the door and see the gleam in our eye and know our intent.

We'd be lusty, you say? Not taking no for an answer? Doing a proper passionate job in Jerusalem?

Giving the dear sweet souls God's gift, murmured Haj Harun. Unabashedly giving them love.

Unabashedly, I say. Why not.

But unfortunately we're no longer young, Prester John, and we have our mission before us.

Before us, yes, along with a rainy March day in 1925. Well I do feel like I'm going the other way sometimes, but do you know how old I am according to the calendar?

Younger than I am, certainly.

True. Soon to celebrate my twenty-fifth birthday to be exact.

But of course that's apparent age, which doesn't mean anything here.

I do know it. That information was passed on to me during my first foodless days in the Holy City. By the baking priest who gave me this uniform and awarded me the Victoria Cross and set me up in residence at the Home for Crimean War Heroes. Take the uniform and the medal for bravery, he said, apparent age is no problem in Jerusalem. So said the former MacMael n mBo, baking priest and my first benefactor here.

Haj Harun leaned over and picked up a flat worn stone. He peered into it.

The baking priest, you say?

That's who he is, the very article. And when I ceased to be a Poor Clare nun upon my arrival here and joined the ranks of the Jerusalem unemployed, outcasts on the summit, he was the one who put me on my feet.

I know him, announced Haj Harun, still peering into the flat worn stone.

You do?

He always bakes his loaves of bread in the same four shapes, I believe.

That's him all right.

One in the shape of his homeland and one for his God, a third in the shape of the land where he gave up fruitless strife, and a fourth in the shape of Jerusalem where he found peace.

All true, that's him. Ireland, the Cross, the Crimea and Jerusalem.

And that's all he does. He bakes and bakes his four shapes in the Old City and is content.

Very true. But how do you happen to know him?

I've known him a very long time, ever since he arrived. His role is a traditional one here.

Ah. And when did he arrive?

In the first century. Soon after Christ died.

Ah.

Yes. Baking his bread in the Old City, a cheerful man then as now. Given to little dances in front of his oven as he shovels in his dough and shovels out his bread, sandals clapping on the stones as he does his little dances.

That's him.

Bits of wisdom flying between the loaves, and laughter and merriment and rhymes as well, tales to hum to and a gay glint always in his eye.

By God, for sure.

A cheerful man, our baking priest, we've always relied on him. Of course we have. We couldn't possibly get along without him.

Haj Harun looked up from the stone mirror. He smiled.

Yes. Jerusalem must have its merry baking priest with his leaven and his laughter, his leaven and his dances in front of his oven. He gives us something we in the Holy City must have, something simple yet special that we will never be able to do without. And we're thankful for that I'm ready, whispered Joe. That something is?

Haj Harun nodded gently.

Bread, Prester John. Even here men can't live by spirit alone.

-8-

Joker Wild

Change the view, that's the article. If you're down on the coast, bugger it up to the mountains, bugger it down to the coast. Do you follow me?

Still the Old City, still everybody's Holy City. In the back room of Haj Harun's shop the high round table was heaped with currencies and jewels and precious metals, the Great Jerusalem Poker Game now in its ninth year and notorious throughout the Middle East as the place where fortunes could be quickly made or quickly undone, the game still run by its three founders and only permanent members, an enigmatic African, a clever Hungarian, a wily Irishman.

From the far side of the table Munk Szondi snapped his fingers, signaling to the Druse warrior on mess duty to refill his bowl of garlic bulbs. The warrior took the bowl to the corner where the garlic bunches hung and lopped off a load with his sword, returning the overflowing bowl to the table.

Munk picked up a handful of bulbs, crunched his way through them and yawned. It had been a long evening of seven-card high-low, and business was slow. In front of him lay a meager supply of chits representing Jericho orange futures, Syrian olive-oil futures and not much else. Munk sighed, rippling his cards with garlic fumes, and gazed dully around the table.

To his left, a lean leathery British brigadier on long leave from the Bombay Lancers.

Next to him a limp cringing Libyan rug merchant who had stopped off to pray at the Dome of the Rock after shamelessly and successfully beating his dying cousin with a stick, somewhere to the east, in order to acquire the cousin's valuable collection of Bukharas.

Continuing clockwise, a French dealer in stolen Byzantine ikons, a shifty-eyed pederast who regularly visited Jerusalem on his trips of desecration up and down the Levantine coast.

An elderly Egyptian landowner, cotton-fat, spastic when excited, said to be impotent if his favorite hunting falcon, hooded, wasn't perched on the mirror that ran the length of his bed.

Two enormous Russians with shaved heads, ostentatiously dressed as kulaks and picking their teeth with knives, pretending to be mining technicians interested in sulphur deposits on the shores of the Dead Sea, obviously Bolshevik agents sent to foment atheism in the Holy Land.

A commonplace group, in short, with the players dropping in and out of the game.

Off somewhere to Munk's right was Cairo Martyr hunched beside his hookah, not doing very well either, in front of him a small stack of Maria Theresa crowns which the African fingered from time to time, listlessly polishing the impressive breasts of the former Austrian empress with his smooth thumb.

And also off somewhere to his left, as usual, O'Sullivan Beare, quiet tonight for a change and apparently more interested in his antique cognac bottle than his cards, the bottle actually containing his fiery home-brewed poteen. The Irishman absentmindedly traced with his finger the distinctive cross that appeared on all his bottles, in front of him an insignificant pile of Turkish dinars, backed up by a totally useless reserve of Polish zlotys.

Munk yawned again and gazed down at the cards he held. The betting had come around to him.

Fold, he said, reaching under the table to scratch himself. Joe also folded, as did Cairo.

The servile Libyan rug merchant and the French ikon thief went on to win. But the British brigadier and the spastic Egyptian landowner had been more than holding their own all evening and the two noisy Bolsheviks seemed on the verge of a breakthrough. Luck was running to the strangers at the table.

Hello there Munk, called Joe from across the table. Would you be having the time on this dreadfully dreary evening?

Munk took out his three-layer pocket watch and began flipping through the faces. Eventually he came to one that satisfied him and glared at it. A heavy garlic belch erupted from deep inside him.

Hello there Munk, called Cairo from his side of the table. How's it read?

Slow, answered the Hungarian.

Right, said the African.

Figures, muttered Joe.

All three men nodded vaguely at each other and went back to their diversions, garlic cloves and poteen and the breasts of the former Austrian empress. While the cards were being shuffled, Joe recited some lines in Gaelic.

Know that one, Munk? Cairo? It's a pome I used to be telling myself back when I was doing my jig around the Black and Tans. Roughly speaking, it says a man should never sit still when he has a dose of the slows. Change the view, that's the article. If you're down on the coast, bugger it up to the mountains.

If you're up in the mountains, bugger it down to the coast. Do you follow me? You have to get yourself to where you were or might have been, then there's a chance of something happening. And that, gents, is the meaning of the pome in all its brevity.

Both Munk and Cairo nodded sleepily, although it was only eleven o'clock. Munk yawned and pushed back his chair, gathering up his few remaining chits of orange and olive-oil futures. As he did so the chimes attached to the sundial in the front room began to strike, rolling twelve times in all.

An early midnight and bedtime for me, said Munk. I trust no one cares if a loser leaves the table?

No one did. Munk drifted out the door as the new hand was being dealt. The Libyan went high and won, the Frenchman went low and won. Cairo folded on the next hand and pocketed the only two breasts of Maria Theresa still in his possession.

That it, sport? mumbled the British brigadier. Not your night either?

Cairo shrugged and swayed out the door in his stately robes, trailing the sweetish smoke from his final puff on the hookah. The chimes in the front room creaked and inexplicably tolled midnight for the second time, although it was only eleven-fifteen. The Russians took a hand, then the Egyptian and the brigadier.

The French pederast and the limp Libyan shared another pot, the rug thief going low and the ikon thief high.

Joe had only three Polish zlotys left when the Druse warrior on duty in the alley entered the room and stood at attention behind Joe's chair.

I believe your batman wants you, mumbled the British brigadier.

Joe looked up and the Druse warrior handed him a calling card engraved in gold. Joe looked at it and his eyes widened. He sat up very straight, whistling softly.

What is it? someone asked.

Jaysus.

A new player? asked one of the Russians.

Jaysus Joseph and Mary.

Three new players? asked the other Russian.

Rather late, mumbled the brigadier, but of course there's still room if they have money to lose.

Joe whistled very softly and tapped the calling card. He leaned back and licked his lips hungrily.

Now it's just too bad, he murmured, that Munk and Cairo had packed it in and left when they did. I'd just like to see their faces now.

Well? asked someone.

Well you can't blame me for being shocked, said Joe. I mean who'd ever have believed that item would dare show up here again after the bundle he dropped in '24? Not me, I couldn't have imagined such a thing was possible. Sat right where you're sitting, Mr. Brigadier, and just as coolly as you please gambled away three villas in Budapest and two in Vienna with all their treasures included, paintings and statues you could hardly count, regular palaces they were, and if that wasn't enough he threw in a Czech hunting estate and a piece of Bohemian forest and a whole Croatian lake jammed with fish, all over two acres can you imagine. Two acres? That's right, mad arrogant he is. You'd have thought he was the former owner of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, which isn't far from the truth as it happens. And another thing he was big on betting that night was musical instruments.

What? mumbled the brigadier.

That's right, violins and cellos and so forth. You could have equipped a dozen string quartets with the instruments he lost here. Now I wouldn't venture a miserable zloty on two acres in a game like this, but there was just no holding him back. He goes off the deep end, you see, when he spies an ace. By God and he must have collapsed between the ears to be coming back here looking for more of the same.

Joe shook his head in disbelief. Everyone at the table was watching him. He opened a tin of imported Irish butter and snapped his fingers. The Druse warrior on mess duty dragged a heavy lumpy sack out of a corner and over to the table. Joe rummaged through the sack of cold boiled potatoes, looking for one to his liking.

Who is this mad rich man? someone asked.

Joe split a potato down the middle, tested the pulp with his finger and smeared it with butter. He took a bite, decided on more butter and chewed thoughtfully. When he leaned forward at last his voice was conspiratorial, little more than a whisper.

Who is he, you say? Well I don't want to alarm anyone, God knows we see all manner of rogues and cutthroats sitting down at this table. But this great skin is simply something else, and if the cards weren't running against me tonight I'd bet everything I own against the fool. Know what I mean? This item sees an ace and just loses control. Always bets on aces and won't bet on anything else. Discards three kings, he does, in hopes of getting an ace in return, it's that kind of madness. Of course it's criminal to throw money away like that, but he's so bloody rich he doesn't care. Just showers money down on the table like next year's olive crop. I tell you, if this were only my night.

No one moved. There was utter silence in the room. Joe noisily blew his nose and examined his handkerchief. He ripped off another hunk of cold potato and chewed.

What a chance, he muttered, his mouth full of potato. A man who'll put money like that on two lonely aces? I told my friend the baking priest about it and he straightaway hustled me off to mass. That's dangerous, he said, your soul's in mortal danger. Anyone who throws money away like that can only be in league with the devil. Tempting poor souls to leap into the abyss by dumping filthy money all over them, that's what he's doing, now off to a special mass with you to clean things up. So said the baking priest, word for word.

Joe nodded vehemently. The eyes of the other six players never left him. He scooped out the rest of the butter in the tin, loaded it on his stump of potato and closed his eyes to chew.

Delicious, he murmured. Beats all.

But who is he? someone whispered.

Sorry?

My God, the man outside, Who is he?

Ah, that one. The worst villain ever to come out of central Europe, that's who. Not that he was a central European to begin with, there's too much perversity in his black heart for anything as simple as that. No, his people came from farther east, around the Volga they say. Or perhaps as far out as Transcaucasia who knows.

The two Russians narrowed their eyes imperceptibly.

Anyway, he first surfaces in Budapest before the war, and then on to Vienna, where with stealing his way with lies and more lies he somehow manages to get in with the royal family. How? Faith-healing at first, that kind of thing. Then advising on financial investments. And he uses his powers while he's scheming in the shadows don't you see, hinting here and coaxing there, probably a potion or two secretly administered in what looks like a nice harmless cup of tea to ease things along, until finally the royal dukes and duchesses won't make a move without him. I mean if you've ever heard anything about vampires and werewolves lurking in the mists of central Europe, forget it. This fiendish monster was in a class by himself. So he got his teeth in all right and that's when they say he got in touch with Trotsky. Broadening his horizons so to speak, an eye out for every eventuality. Well that's the general picture.

The two Russians seemed to have stopped breathing. Sweat ran down their shaved heads. Joe rummaged in his potato sack and came up with another potato to his liking.

Plots, he whispered. Laying diabolical plans for the future, he was, and what did the future just happen to bring? The Great War, that's what. Now is it true he arranged that war so the Austro-Hungarian Empire would do a tumble and he could pick up what he wanted from the pathetic ruins? Is that why he'd been talking to Trotsky? We'll have a war, Leon old chap, and you take what you want over there and I'll do the same over here? And just to get things started right, Leon old fruit, why don't I see that our archduke over here just happens to get shot dead as dead? By a patriot of course, ha ha.

The British brigadier looked appalled.

Well yes, whispered Joe. There are those who swear that's the truth of the matter but I won't argue it one way or another, not being familiar with the intriguing that went on up there before the war. But the fact stands he got his loot out in plenty of time, to Brazil where it would be safe, then just sat back and cruelly calmly watched the dottery Old Habsburg Empire go down and fall flat and decompose like so much carrion. And do you think he gave a thought to the dukes and duchesses who'd made him what he was?

Not a bit of it. Down you go, he said, with a wicked smile on his face as the old Empire collapsed. Sorry about that, old girl, but you're just carrion now. Do you see what I'm getting at? He had what he'd come for so away he went with his bundle. A regular imperial jackal, that's what. And of course he'd been dealing on all sides, we know that now.

Munitions? whispered the Frenchman in awe.

Cruelly calmly watching the Empire crumble, murmured the Egyptian wistfully, his spastic hand jerkily trying to rearrange the currencies he had won into two separate piles, those that fell within the British Empire and those that didn't.

Play fair at cards, does he? asked the brigadier briskly.

That he does, said Joe, and it's the only time he does play fair. He has a curious habit too of liking to play with the joker wild. Says he likes the idea of having an extra card in the game. Probably because it means he has a chance of getting five aces.

Fair play, said the brigadier, that's the important thing. It's no concern of ours how he happened to make his money.

How important has he become in Brazil since the war? asked one of the Russians.

Important? You couldn't call it that. What it amounts to is he owns half the bloody place outright and runs the rest with an iron fist. But no one knows it because he uses women to front for him, to run all his financial transactions. He calls them the Sarahs, just one name for all of them, and pretends they're his aunts and grandaunts and female cousins, although of course no one would ever dare to be related to a fiend like him. And he always wears disguises, that's another thing. Has his enemies naturally. A blond wig is what I remember, that and a gaudy military uniform. You know, as if he were some bloody Prussian aristocrat or something.

Shit my God, said the Frenchman, who cares about a wig or two?

Runs Brazil with an iron fist, mused one of the Russians.

The Habsburgs paid extraordinary prices for good carpets, murmured the Libyan. Especially Bukharas.

They loved Bukharas.

The biggest country in South America, whispered the second Russian. Someday it could be as rich as America, and he runs it with an iron fist.

I don't like any of it, said Joe. That monocle and that Junker sneer on his face, looking down his nose at you. Treats ordinary people like peasants, that's what.

Joe grumbled and made a face. He reached into the sack and pulled out a potato without looking at it, devouring it noisily in three huge bites. The other players were watching him dumbly, either daydreaming or hypnotized by his gyrating mouth.

All at once the Frenchman exploded. His fists came crashing down on the table.

Shit my God, what are we doing just sitting here? He may have gotten tired of waiting and left. Quick.

Call him in before it's too late.

Everyone nodded eagerly. Joe shrugged.

Suit yourself then. The jackal from central Europe now joins the game, he said, initialing the engraved calling card and handing it back to the Druse warrior on alley duty.

The man who marched haughtily into the room wore a full-dress military uniform, recognizable to the British brigadier as that of a colonel of dragoons in the prewar Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army. Also recognizable to the brigadier was the newcomer's highest decoration, the Order of the Golden Fleece. A ceremonial sword clanked at his side and an ivory and leather riding crop was tucked smartly under his left arm.

He was wearing a blond wig as Joe had mentioned, Germanic in appearance and obviously false, and a closely clipped blond beard, also false. He wore not one monocle but two, both tinted different colors, so his true features were completely hidden. In the middle of the room he snapped to attention and clicked his heels.

My compliments to the Irish peasantry, he said to Joe in thickly accented English. Gentlemen, he added, making a curt bow to the rest of the table.

The Libyan was already on his feet with an oily smile, making a place for the colonel beside himself. The man adjusted his blond wig and accepted the chair with a look of complete disdain for the Libyan. The British brigadier, meanwhile, was studying the numerous decorations on the colonel's chest. He cleared his throat with authority.

A most impressive display of medals, colonel. But you must excuse my ignorance when it comes to obsolete decorations from empires that no longer exist. What is that small black ribbon, for example?

Meritorious behavior in the Balkans, said the colonel. With special reference to Bosnia, the crisis of 1908.

Ah yes. And the purple and black ribbons?

The Balkans again, still Bosnia. For the crisis of 1911.

And the orange and purple and black ribbon?

Once more Bosnia. This time for the crisis of 1912.

Very interesting, colonel. You seem to have had a specialized career.

The colonel's heels clicked under the table.

Minor local affairs, sir. Of no possible interest outside of the Habsburg Empire, now defunct.

Yes, I daresay the Balkans with their tiresome crises did seem a bore to most of us at the time. But then when your archduke was assassinated in Bosnia a few years later, we all had quite a different show on our hands, didn't we? Or at least a good many of us did.

The colonel's heels again clicked under the table.

So it would seem, sir. But I have to say Bosnia was unstable from the beginning. The very concept of a Bosnia is ridiculous and untenable. As I should know, my decorations testify to that. And now to matters more of the present.

The colonel removed a thick packet from his tunic and placed it on the table. He turned to Joe who was sullenly munching another potato.

You will recall from my visit a few years ago, young man, that I do not favor large sums of money on the person. But see here, I'm addressing you. Take that disgusting lump of vegetable matter away from your mouth this instant or I shall leave immediately.

Joe put his potato down on the table as the other players glared at him. Slovenly Irish peasant, muttered the colonel under his breath. Joe rubbed his beard around his mouth, knocking off bits of potato that fell into his lap.

Now to begin again, said the colonel. What I have here are deeds to gold mines on the South American continent, mostly in Brazil. Acceptable as wagers? Yes?

Joe was about to say something when voices erupted around the table.

Shit my God, shouted the Frenchman, of course.

An exquisite pleasure, shrieked the Egyptian.

But shouldn't we play with the joker wild? screamed the Libyan. Just to enliven our little game of high-low?

High-low Brazilian gold mines, thundered the two Russians, jumping up from the table in their excitement and nearly knocking each other down.

Good show, said the brigadier. On with the game while there's still time.

Reluctantly Joe pushed aside his potato. He wiped his hands on his shirt and began to deal. The colonel lost heavily on a single ace, king-high, to the Egyptian and the first Russian. On the next hand he lost just as heavily with another single ace, jack-high, to the Frenchman and the Libyan. The third time it was the British brigadier's turn to share the winnings with the second Russian.

No one was really sure whether the colonel was trying to go high or low with his single aces. But they were all suddenly winning so much, except for Joe, they didn't care. Nor did they care that the colonel had discovered the bowl of garlic bulbs left behind by Munk Szondi and was now sneaking handfuls of them to munch. Nothing mattered with that land of wealth on the table.

The game was moving quickly now, cards and gold mines flying around the table. Joe had just turned in his last Polish zloty, in exchange for one hundred perfectly worthless Polish groszy, when the Druse warrior on alley duty reappeared with another calling card.

Your batman again, mumbled the British brigadier.

Joe peered at the card and read the name out loud.

Evelyn Baring? Is that a him or a her? Anybody know?

Isn't it all the same where it counts? giggled the Egyptian, spastically prodding Joe in his ribs.

Shit my God, let it in whatever it is, screamed the Frenchman gaily, his fingers stroking a long thick deed in his pocket.

I seem to recall having heard that name somewhere, mumbled the British brigadier.

More, roared the Russians, who had broken out a bottle of vodka and were rapidly emptying it.

We have to have unanimous agreement, said Joe glumly, rules of the game. You only play with those you want to play with. What's the view from Libya?

Rugs, answered the Libyan with a gurgle.

Vote recorded. Colonel?

I couldn't care less.

Well all right then. Evelyn is admitted by popular consent.

Joe put his initials on the calling card and the Druse warrior withdrew. A tall, dignified black man entered the room wearing dark glasses. He was dressed in a long black robe and a formal white wig, not unlike those worn by English judges presiding at the bench. On his shoulder a little animal was curled up asleep, its fur pure white, its head and tail tucked away out of sight.

The black judge placed a large pile of English banknotes on the table and sat down beside the Frenchman, his expression contemptuous and even insolent. But no one took any particular notice of him.

They were all too busy reading the deeds to the gold mines they had just won.

Or pretending to read them. By now the Europeans at the table were drunk. The Libyan and the Egyptian had fired up Cairo Martyr's hookah and were lazily passing the tube back and forth, their eyes glassy. The Russian comrades patted each other on the head and hummed the Third Internationale.

Joe lost his hundred groszy and got up from the table. He rubbed his eyes and took a last potato from the sack on the floor. The brigadier was grinning at him crookedly.

That it for you too, sport? Don't tell me the famous high-low Harrigan of Jerusalem poker has lost for a change?

Afraid he has. Looks like one more poor Irish bogman is down and out in front of the mighty British lion.

Want your hundred groszy back? asked the brigadier. You could always give them to a beggar if he didn't know what they were.

Joe shook his head. He looked exhausted and dejected.

No thanks, I'll just shuffle along home now. Play as long as you like, the man at the door will lock up.

As he left the chimes attached to the sundial in the front room inexplicably struck midnight for the third time that evening.

During the next half-hour the haughty black judge wearing the white wig joined the reckless colonel wearing the blond wig in betting more and more heavily and losing hand after hand. It must have been at least an hour after midnight when the Druse warrior from the alley entered once more to announce a prospective player. The Frenchman, who was stroking the hairs in one of his nostrils with a fingertip, read the card and giggled.

Why are you doing that to your nose, sir? demanded the colonel.

It's very sensual, murmured the Frenchman.

Well stop it this instant, ordered the colonel, or I'll close down all the gold mines you've won.

The Frenchman reluctantly removed his finger from his nose. He giggled again.

This card is a joke. It must be.

What name, sir?

No name. There's a crude drawing, done in crayon, of a bear holding a bottle. That's all there is.

The colonel reached over and took the card. His voice was grave.

Not crayon, you fool, charcoal. And that bottle is the mark he always uses. Now stop giggling like the empty-headed idiot you are.

What do you mean, he?

I mean I recognize his mark. Most people in the New World would. But I am surprised to find him so far from home.

Home?

The western half of North America. The ancient domain ruled by Chief Sipping Bear and his ancestors since the dawn of time. No native American was ever more powerful. Among other things, he's heir to the Seven Lost Cities of Cibola.

The lost cities of what? mumbled the British brigadier, pouring himself more whiskey.

Indeed sir, said the colonel, undoubtedly you've heard similar tales in India. The Seven Lost Cities of Cibola are legendary cities of gold located somewhere in the deserts of the southwestern United States.

The conquistadores searched for them but were never able to find them because they were outwitted by the Chief Sipping Bears of the time. For my part, as an emigre to the new world, I would welcome such a distinguished player in the game.

And I, said the Egyptian quickly. Lost cities on the Nile have always been a source of treasure throughout history.

Historical treasure, bellowed the Russians, show the oppressed red man in.

The Libyan concurred, suspecting American Indians might well have use for a certain number of rugs if they lived in deserts like the bedouin. The British brigadier admitted he was always curious to see another breed of native. As for the black judge known as Evelyn Baring, he simply rapped the table once, to show his approval.

By unanimous proclamation, screamed the Frenchman, Chief Sipping Bear from the New World is invited to join the game.

But can he outsip an O'Sullivan Beare? whispered the colonel to Evelyn Baring, who for once relaxed his severe expression and flashed a broad smile, brilliant white teeth in a face so black it was almost blue.

The door banged open and the odd figure who stood facing them was certainly neither as noble nor as savage as everyone had been led to expect by the colonel's comments. In fact he looked rather shabby and harmless.

He was a small dark man, his face and chest haphazardly painted with drab vertical streaks of dye, and he wore a loincloth held up by a rope tied around his waist. His moccasins resembled well-worn cheap Arab slippers, the threadbare khaki blanket wrapped around his shoulders looked like some shoddy army issue from the last century, and his ill-fitting feathered headband kept slipping down over one eye, giving him the raffish look of an itinerant entertainer and low-level charlatan. Nor were the feathers eagle, rather some common pigeon variety.

Thrust through his rope belt was a crude tomahawk, a stone tied to a shaft of wood that might have been cut from a broom handle. The long bow he carried in his hand was of the finest workmanship, however, thin and powerful and exquisitely wrought, and the quiver made of red lacquer was equally beautiful. So much so that both seemed out of place.

That gave the white man trouble? giggled the Frenchman.

There's no hope anywhere, murmured the Egyptian.

Stunted, mumbled the brigadier. The need for empire was never clearer.

If that's his idea of a blanket I'd hate to see his taste in rugs, said the Libyan.

Oppressed red man, muttered the Russian darkly.

The colonel groaned and shook his head as if in despair. The black judge sighed and gazed up at the ceiling through his dark glasses as if invoking the immediate intervention of some higher power.

Nevertheless, despite his seedy appearance, the Indian seemed determined to act as fierce and menacing as he could. He scowled and began a slow shuffling dance around the table, lifting his knees high and brandishing his bow, reciting a war chant in some barbaric tongue. It was the quiver that caught the brigadier's attention.

I've seen those, he whispered in astonishment.

You have? said the Libyan.

Yes, in the Orient. It's Japanese. The samurai used them.

Valuable? asked the Frenchman.

I should say so. That one could be at least six or seven hundred years old.

The samurai? muttered one of the Russians. Their time will come.

Do the Japanese live in America? asked the dazed Egyptian.

That's right, said the brigadier. What's he doing with that?

Nonsense, interrupted the colonel, suddenly recovering his composure. Everyone knows the American Indians originally came from Asia, and Chief Sipping Bear's forebears have always been proud warriors in the best samurai tradition. The heritage is altogether natural.

Those slippers, wheezed the Libyan, look like the ones my servants wear.

But before there could be any more comments the chief all at once silenced them with a ferocious whoop. His war dance around the table had come to an end. He shook his bow in the air, whooped again and glared down at them.

Me Sipping Bear, great chief of west. How.

The colonel rapped his riding crop on the table for order. He rose and clicked his heels.

How indeed. Welcome chief. We're playing seven-card stud, high-low, joker wild. Let's see the color of your wampum.

The Indian took a leather pouch out of his quiver and removed a gold nugget the size of a pigeon's egg.

He took out three more nuggets equally large and placed his tomahawk on the table in the middle of them. The Frenchman, although drunk, couldn't help but notice the savage had accidentally made the sign of the cross on the table with his gold nuggets and tomahawk.

Here Cibola pebbles, grunted the Indian, thumping his chest, which made him cough. All Cibola made out of this, pick up in streets to use as wampum.

Fine, chief, no problems with that. Tell me, how do you happen to be over in this part of the world?

Come to see Holy City East. Tomorrow journey west again home to wigwam in setting sun. But first play joker wild, Holy City East.

Fair enough. Make yourself comfortable.

The chief spied the bottle of poteen Joe had left behind and grabbed it, taking a long swallow.

Ummm, firewater good, Sipping Bear like firewater. Tonight play poker, win fortune. Tomorrow do sun dance at dawn, go home. Now give cards.

He grunted and reached into his quiver again, this time coming out with an ear of corn.

New World food, he said, baring his teeth and gnawing away at the ear of corn as he glanced suspiciously around the table. He picked up his tomahawk.

No cards for great chief? No cards go on warpath. No play with Indian?

Easy there, sport, said the brigadier. No one here minds playing with an Indian.

That's right, added the colonel. This is a friendly game.

Until now, thundered the black judge, speaking for the first time since he had entered the room, his stern voice so authoritative everyone turned to stare at him. And it was also the first time that anyone had really noticed the furry little white creature curled up on his shoulder, its head and tail tucked away out of sight.

My deal, announced the black judge. Yes it's my turn now and I think it's only appropriate that you meet the spirit who watches over me, my guardian spirit who appears to be slumbering by my ear but isn't, because he never sleeps. Bongo, say hello to these greedy crooks.

Upon hearing his name the little albino monkey instantly leapt to his feet with his bright aquamarine genitals thrust forward, wildly flailing away at himself with both fists, alternating them and not missing a stroke.

This jungle beast, said the black judge ominously, likes to eat cucumbers. And although he's small he can eat a surprising number. The ante for the next hand is a cool three hundred pounds sterling, or its equivalent. I'll see the glint of your money now.

The black judge raised his hand and gave the table a solid rap.

Time, gents. The court is in session. Chief Sipping Bear? Try to keep that bottle from dancing around in front of your face. Colonel? I'm not impressed by Bosnia so blow those garlic fumes in another direction.

As for the rest of you, I suggest you keep a firm grip on your luck. You'll need it.

Mouths fell open, the black judge laughed. And the little albino monkey pounded vigorously away at his lurid parts as the cards began to spin once more in the swirling haze of alcohol fumes and hashish clouds that had come to envelop the tables, causing heads to float and minds to wander in the dark Jerusalem night, the sundial in the front room all at once catching some illusionary ray of light that set its chimes tolling an invisible hour.

Just after three in the morning the dazed Libyan rug merchant slipped out of his chair and slid limply down under the table, in passing clutching the trouser leg of his neighbor, the former colonel of Austro-Hungarian dragoons.

Excuse me a moment, said the colonel to no one in particular, bending over to see what was going on.

He found the Libyan collapsed in a heap, one arm loosely thrown around the colonel's boot.

Here here, whispered the colonel. This is no way to act.

Ruined, wailed the Libyan. Haven't you seen the chits I've been giving him?

Giving whom?

The black man.

No, I've been concentrating on my own game. How much did you lose?

Everything. First the Bukharas went, my precious Bukharas that I've only owned a week. Then all my rugs back in Tripoli, then the shop the rugs are in. Then my villa in town and my other one by the sea.

Then my wives and my children and my servants.

In that order?

Yes.

Your greyhound?

He took that too. Then he took my steamship ticket home so I'd be trapped here at his mercy. Finally there was that last fatal wager.

What was it?

Goats. I indentured myself to serve as a goatherd for the next year. Tomorrow evening I'll be standing on a barren hillside eating yogurt and talking to goats.

The colonel tried to move his foot. The man's slobbering mouth was dulling the polish on his boots.

In other words he wiped you out? Hm, yes. Well that formal white wig and the black robe did seem to indicate he was a judge. Perhaps he held a trial and found you guilty of shameless dishonesty in acquiring those Bukharas from your dying cousin.

He's a judge?

I suspect so. Take another look.

The Libyan crept to his knees and peered over the edge of the table at the black man.

See how severely his lips are pressed together? whispered the colonel. The heavy brooding nose? The stern unwavering eyes?

I can't see his eyes behind those dark glasses he's wearing.

No, but you can certainly imagine them. Cold blue and unrelenting. Merciless even.

Blue eyes? In a face that color?

Yes, blue. I'd bet my life on it. And look at the arrogant way he waves his hand in the air when he deals.

More like a pharaoh wafting his divine wand aloft.

Frightened and confused, the Libyan slipped back under the table. The colonel gave him a sharp rap on the head with his riding crop.

What is it? whispered the Libyan.

This is extraordinary. Take a look at what he's just put on his head.

The Libyan crawled up and peeked over the edge of the table again. The black man had placed a gold cobra headpiece on top of his wig, the mark of a pharaoh.

Evelyn Baring, whispered the colonel, of course. I should have recognized the name. He's better remembered today as the Earl of Cromer.

Who's that?

You don't know? A modern pharaoh, the consul general in Egypt. He ran the country for twenty-five years around the turn of the century. No one was more powerful in this part of the world.

English?

Of course.

An English lord? I didn't know they had any that color.

Oh yes. His is an old line that far predates the Anglo-Saxons.

The who?

The people you're accustomed to thinking of as English, fair-skinned. His line goes back much further to the time when the Phoenicians were sailing to England to buy tin. Along the way they stopped off in North Africa to replenish their water jars and apparently an ancestor of his joined one of these trading ventures.

Is that why he has a white monkey on his back? Because his ancestors were originally from Africa?

It might be. In any case, once in England that ancestor went into tin and became a titled magnate, and thus we find the origins of the black strain in English aristocracy. And he has many other famous ancestors. Merlin, for one, was also in the line.

Who was Merlin?

A wizard and general handyman at magic. King Arthur couldn't have gotten along without him.

Who was King Arthur?

My dear fellow, you're already sounding like a goatherd. Your knowledge of history is appalling.

The Libyan slipped lower down the colonel's boot.

History? How can I think about history when I've just lost everything, even the future.

Ah, futures, I almost forgot. I'm very fond of futures and there seem to be some interesting ones on the table at this very moment.

The colonel raised himself from under the table, glanced at his cards and tapped his riding crop three times to indicate he was tripling the bet.

An hour later the two Russians staggered out the door in each other's arms, weeping noisily. Having squandered not only their funds meant to foster atheism in Jerusalem but sold all their Bolshevik secrets as well, there was nothing left for them to do but return directly to Moscow, sign confessions that they were undercover Trotskyite agents in the pay of Rockefeller and Krupp and Ukrainian nationalism, and be strangled in an OGPU dungeon which had recently been set aside for criminals guilty of that specific offense.

In the alley outside, the black judge in the cobra headpiece had just finished urinating against the wall. He was straightening his robe when the Russians lurched into the alley, tripped, and went crashing down on the cobblestones at his feet, crying on top of one another.

Time, gents?

Ruined, the two Russians blurted out together.

Indeed, I did notice the colonel seemed implacably opposed to you tonight. But then, the Austro-Hungarian army was always concerned about securing its eastern front.

At four-fifteen the spastic Egyptian landowner grabbed the Indian chief's arm with shaking hands.

Can you understand English?

The Indian stopped gnawing on the ear of corn stuck in his mouth and thumped his chest with it.

English bad but since me great chief, understand words from heart. Firewater good, have drink.

Thank you but I'm too dizzy. That black man with the monkey on his back, why did he play so hard against me? Why does he dislike me? He won my cotton crop for the next ten years. I'm finished, it's all over now. Why?

Cotton. Black man think only cotton. You have cotton, he take.

Over, moaned the Egyptian. Somehow he even knew about my falcon and took that.

You old man now, too old for mirrors and hooded falcons. Better retire and watch setting sun over pyramids. How.

What?

Heart. From heart. Sipping Bear knows.

At five-thirty the British brigadier sank forward onto the table, his head in his arms. The colonel nudged him.

What seems to be the trouble, sir?

It's disastrous, I just can't believe it. Do you realize I actually gambled away my regiments on that last hand? That shabby Indian in the loincloth, swilling firewater and wearing an old army blanket, is now in command of the Bombay Lancers.

The colonel thoughtfully stroked his false blond beard.

Disastrous, yes, I see what you mean. Of course I've always known the chief had a reputation for cunning, but even I wouldn't have imagined he'd go so far as to take over an entire English brigade in India.

But what can I do?

Nothing, unless perhaps you can find an Irishman who'll talk the chief into giving you back your regiments. That seems to be the only hope. You'll have to go begging to an Irishman.

An Irishman?

Yes. For some strange reason the chief has always had a weakness for the Irish.

Why, for heaven's sake?

I can't imagine. Maybe it's because he thinks they like firewater as much as he does. After all, his name is Sipping Bear.

At six-twenty the French ikon thief and pederast leapt from the table and began beating his head against the wall. The black judge pulled him away and led him outside.

Steady, boy.

But shit my God, did you see what that seedy savage has done to me while gnawing on his ears of corn?

He's won every ikon I've ever stolen and every one I ever will steal. For the next ten years I have to turn them all over to him and tell him where they came from. Boys too. And in addition to everything else I have to spend time in purgatory.

Where's that?

Someplace here in the Old City. An elderly ecclesiastic known as the baking priest runs it. I'm to come in here tomorrow afternoon and the Irishman who's generally in the game is going to take me there. And every day for as long as the baking priest wants, I'll have to slave in front of a hot oven baking bread in the shape of a cross and saying Hail Marys. This baking priest is going to be my parole officer.

Time in purgatory, mused the black judge, time spent slaving in front of a hot oven. And all because of stolen ikons. It's true the Indian chief seemed to single you out tonight as a special target. Do you think it's possible, despite his primitive brain, that he resented the fact that you traffic in stolen Christian artifacts?

Shit my God, why? He's a savage, I just don't understand it. I wish I'd never come to Jerusalem and gotten mixed up in this poker game.

Yes, said the black judge. There are those who've said that before, and I suspect there'll be others who say it again.

Back in the poker room Chief Sipping Bear was doing a final jig around the table. The black judge came in, picked up the tube to the hookah and sat down beside the colonel of dragoons, who was contentedly crunching garlic cloves. He took a puff on the tube. Only the three of them were still left in the room.

Joker Holy City East, chanted the chief. Day coming night ending, time now make water and rest head, snooze happy dreams in happy hunting ground, happy sleep for Chief Sipping Dancing Chanting Bear, Chief O'Truly O'Sullivan Beare.

With a whoop he went spinning out the door. The black judge removed his cobra headpiece and straightened his white wig.

Going my way, colonel?

The colonel nodded and tucked his riding crop under his arm. Together they strolled down the alley away from Haj Harun's shop. Dawn had come to the city.

A long night, said Munk.

They often are, answered Cairo.

As they turned a corner they came face to face with an English policeman. The man stared in amazement at their wigs and costumes. Munk touched his riding crop to his cap.

As you were, officer, we're quite capable of finding our way. This is the Chief Justice of the Sudan and I'm his aide-de-camp, seconded here by the late Emperor Francis Joseph in accordance with security arrangements for the Holy Land. We're out on an early morning pilgrimage to see some of the sights before the crowds gather.

Sah, barked the policeman, stepping back and saluting. Cairo nodded pleasantly, Munk smiled, they strolled on.

You know, said Cairo, the night was worth it if for no other reason than to ruin that Frenchman.

A detestable wretch, I've never cared for him. But you mean he's UIA as well?

Yes. He was recruited by Nubar's Dead Sea Control about a month ago. I have a dealer who sells down there and keeps me informed.

Munk nodded.

It must cost Nubar a great deal to be always sending players into the game to lose his money. You'd think he'd be tired of it by now. Rather desperate, that little Albanian.

Mad is more like it, said Cairo. But no matter. We won't have to put up with him forever.

What's he got?

Syphilis, acquired through the anus about ten years ago. And they tell me it's moving into the tertiary stage.

Who tells you that, Cairo?

The UIA people who inform on him to my dealers, in exchange for a discount. Still, that's not his most serious problem. The other thing will probably get him first. Apparently little Nubar Wallenstein is a hopeless mercury addict.

Munk smiled.

In certain esoteric areas your knowledge is astonishing. What in the world are the symptoms of mercury addiction?

In his case, said Cairo, severe megalomania compounded by hallucinations. Self-starvation will set in at some point. It's an uncommon way to go these days. In fact there haven't really been any European mercury addicts around since the sixteenth century, when a fairly large number turned up among the alchemists. Before that it occurred among the Arab alchemists in the twelfth century. In other words, not an everyday matter.

Munk smiled again.

I see. Speaking of the twelfth century, have you noticed anything strange about the cognac bottles Joe puts his poteen in?

Only that they're hand-blown and old and have dates on the labels in Latin. As I recall the bottle he had with him tonight said A.D. 1122. Why?

Because there's also that mark on all the labels, a white cross on a black background, the arms of the cross shaped like arrowheads with their points not quite touching at the center. Are you familiar with that cross?

No.

Well, said Munk, it was the insignia of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, more commonly known as the Knights Hospitalers because they were founded here after the First Crusade to run a hospital for Christian pilgrims. But they soon grew into the most powerful of all the orders and dominated the Mediterranean for centuries. Their loot was enormous.

And so?

And so how does Joe happen to have cognac bottles with their cross on them?

Cairo suddenly smiled, knowing exactly what it meant. After all, he had extensive experience himself with secret caches of history.

You say the Knights once ran a hospital in Jerusalem?

Merely a sideline, answered Munk, an excuse for getting started. Very soon they were marauders and wealthy oppressors.

The pharaohs were also wealthy oppressors, said Cairo. And they weren't just knights pretending to fight for some god. They were gods.

So?

So now they're just so much mummy dust available in any bazaar in the Middle East. At a high price to be sure, but still available to anyone who can raise the money for a snort.

You're talking about your own game, said Munk.

No, about Joe's bottles. Wouldn't it be reasonable for a hospital to have medicinal cognac on hand?

Cairo smiled more broadly. Munk stopped and stared at him.

You're saying you think the bottles are genuine?

Yes.

Imported into the Holy Land by the Knights Hospitalers early in the twelfth century?

Strictly for medicinal purposes, answered Cairo, laughing.

Munk took out his watch and clicked open the face that showed no time. For a moment he gazed at it.

Then you're also saying Joe has discovered a hidden wine cellar that once belonged to the Knights?

But where?

Cairo raised his patent-leather slipper and gently tapped the cobblestones where they were walking.

Down there? Somewhere beneath the city?

Very far beneath it, I would think. Jerusalem has come and gone several times since then and they've always rebuilt the city over the ruins.

Munk stopped and gazed down at the cobblestones.

Caverns of the past? But how could he have found a way into them? If they were known to exist people would have been looking for them for centuries.

Perhaps there was only one man who knew they existed and Joe learned the secret from him. A man no one else has ever believed or even listened to.

Munk put his watch away. They walked on in silence for a time.

Obviously Haj Harun, said Munk.

It seems likely.

But he's mad.

Of course.

He even claims he's lived three thousand years.

Which is why no one listens to him. But tell me, Munk, would you be interested in the caverns if that's what they are?

Not really. Futures are my specialty, as you know.

Yes, a new Jewish homeland. I know.

And what about you? asked Munk.

Not my line either. In my own way I'm looking to the future too.

For what?

Justice, said Cairo with a smile. He removed a small gold container from under his robe and extracted a pinch of dust. He sniffed and the pupils of his clear blue eyes dilated. The muscles around his mouth relaxed in a familiar manner. The two of them had emerged from an alley near Jaffa Gate.

It's quite extraordinary the effect mummy dust has on you, Munk commented dryly.

Cairo smiled into the distance and nodded gently as they separated to go their different ways.

PART THREE

-9-

Nubar Wallenstein

Nothing less than a vast criminal organization operating throughout the Balkans, its scheming employees chosen by Nubar solely for their abilities in intrigue and intimidation, burglary and embezzlement.

In the tower room of the Albanian castle where his grandfather had memorized Bibles early in the nineteenth century, Nubar Wallenstein sat brooding over a report that suggested the possible existence of yet another obscure treatise written by the most renowned alchemist in history, Bombastus von Hohenheim, more often remembered as Paracelsus.

Nubar's library contained all the works commonly attributed to the great sixteenth-century Swiss master, and in addition thousands of smudged pages that were either forged or illegible. Acquired over the last six years, the collection represented an immense effort by his network of agents in the Balkans.

Paracelsus Bombastus von Hohenheim.

Hohenheim Paracelsus von Bombastus.

To Nubar, those syllables held mystical implications, sonorous suggestions of secret knowledge that had immediately captivated him when first he came across them, in 1921, at the age of fifteen.

Indulged as always by his grandmother, Sophia, he had begun writing to literary dealers and bibliophiles throughout the Balkans, offering huge sums of money for any works by Paracelsus that they could procure. Fortunes had changed drastically in the Great War. Powerful families had sunk into ruin, estates had been broken up. The tracts and treatises flowed in and before the end of the year, due to Sophia's enormous wealth and influence, Nubar had owned the largest collection of Paracelsus in the world.

But for Nubar the largest collection of Paracelsus wasn't enough. While growing up in the ancestral Wallenstein castle in Albania, Nubar had early fallen victim to those traditional suspicions and rampant fears that had plagued the first Wallenstein master of the castle in the seventeenth century, and thereafter all the Skanderbeg Wallensteins save for the last, Nubar's grandfather, a fanatical renegade Trappist monk who had discovered an ancient manuscript in the Sinai that was in fact the oldest Bible in the world. His horrified grandfather had found that Bible untenable in every respect, denying every religious truth ever held by anyone, and out of piety had proceeded to forge an acceptable original that could provide grounds for faith.

Parabastus Hohencelsus von Bombheim.

Fear in the case of the first Albanian Wallenstein that the enemies of his murdered uncle, the once all-powerful Generalissimo of the Holy Roman Empire, were sending out spies to kill him.

Suspicion in the case of subsequent Skanderbegs, those illiterate warriors who had spent their lives away from the castle fighting in any army that would have them, because they were incapable of combining love with sensual pleasure and were therefore impotent with their wives, able to be aroused sexually only by very young girls of eight or nine.

Suspicion feeding on itself and eventually giving birth to its own reality as successive Skanderbegs, who when young had always sensed that their fathers were strangers, grew up and came to know for a fact that their own sons were fathered by strangers, a terrible burden of isolation causing lifelong instability, the sons fatherless and the fathers sonless generation after generation in the family's dark dank castle perched gloomily on a wild Albanian crag, a windy and insecure Balkan outpost in the precarious marches separating Christian Europe from the Moslem realm of the Turks.

Hohenbomb von Celsus Paraheim.

Excessive doubts and traditional fears harrying Nubar as they had harried Wallenstein men for centuries, those unrelated and suspicious warriors who had violently distrusted everyone at home while imagining extravagant plots against them abroad. Vague yet pervasive plots that explained all events on earth. The entire universe, as they saw it, secretly arrayed against these insignificant masters of a remote Albanian castle.

And so too Nubar, even though his grandmother, Sophia, still ran the castle as she had for the last seventy-five years, ever since her common-law husband, Nubar's grandfather, had returned home from his stupendous labors in the Holy Land, broken and insane. Nubar sensed those same plots from the past and he could no more control his fear of them than keep his left eyelid from drooping when he was excited, another affliction of the first Wallenstein master of the castle that had subsequently been visited upon all Wallenstein males.

Inexplicably so. For since none of the Wallenstein males had been related prior to the time of Nubar's grandfather, how could they possibly share such specific characteristics?

The question had never been answered, and with good reason. Because to do so would have been to admit acausal relationships in the Balkans, influences removed from logic which would have been highly confusing in their disorderly ramifications, and had therefore always been thoughtfully ignored as nonexistent.

Hohenbastus von Heim Parabomb.

Or in short, Paracelsus, the master alchemist of all time.

Briefly professor of medicine at the University of Basle early in the sixteenth century. Forced to leave because of his defiance of tradition, which took the form of explaining things that had never been explained, relating things that had never been related, and conversely, unrelating other things that had always been seen as tightly wedded. In general, then, wreaking havoc throughout the entire shadowy terrain that lay between cause and effect.

Brilliant and eccentric and quarrelsome, renaming himself Paracelsus because he felt the name he had been born with was insufficient for his needs. Prodigiously learned, vitriolic in debate and psychotically self-confident, believer in the four Greek elements of earth and air and fire and water, and the three Arab principles, mercury and salt and sulphur. Discoverer of the philosopher's stone which would allow him to live forever. Successively a profound scholar, a miner, a mixer of metals in dim cellar laboratories, a dreaming wanderer, a political radical, a barefoot Christian mystic.

And finally the magus himself, Faust, first modern scientist of the soul. The genius who first used minerals to treat internal diseases, who scorned remedies such as bloodletting and purging and sweating.

Unswerving advocate of opium and mercury compounds in search of the spirit.

Celsusheim Parahohen von Bomb.

Nubar hadn't been satisfied to have the largest collection of the magus's works, he had to have all of them. Because if he didn't it meant that someone, somewhere, would have the power to plot against him, to use an unknown page of the master alchemist's conjectural knowledge to harm him.

Once more Sophia had indulged him, this time providing him with unlimited funds to hire full-time literary agents whose job, as Nubar innocently explained it, would be to track down the lesser known works of Paracelsus and buy them.

Admirable, thought Sophia. For a boy in his sixteenth year, he's already displaying his grandfather's scholarly bent to a remarkable degree.

But in fact Nubar wasn't scholarly at all. His bent was elsewhere and his network of literary agents had soon expanded into a private intelligence service with its own complete hierarchy of control centers and agents and informers, nothing less than a vast criminal organization operating throughout the Balkans, its scheming employees chosen by Nubar solely for their abilities in intrigue and intimidation, burglary and embezzlement.

This had been necessary because the works Nubar now sought were either so rare or so treasured by their owners no amount of money could buy them. They could only be extorted from their owners, or failing that, stolen.

Thus for the last six years, since the closing days of 1921, Nubar had been regularly receiving secret reports in his Albanian headquarters, the tower room of the ancestral Wallenstein castle. These reports he studied suspiciously before issuing the daily directives to his agents that would eventually lead to another illegal acquisition, by blackmail or bludgeoning, from a monastery in Macedonia or a book-dealer in Bulgaria, or perhaps from a private library in Transylvania.

Celsus Heimbomb von Bastus.

When Nubar had founded his criminal organization in 1921, he had decided to name it the Uranist Intelligence Agency, because it pleased him to associate himself with the Greek sky-god Uranus, the personification of heaven and the first ruler of the universe, and the father as well of those deformed creatures of old, the cyclops and the furies.

Hulking mindless shepherds with their single round eyes fixated on the hindquarters of retreating sheep?

Frenzied raving women so grotesque they had snakes for hair?

Yes, the images pleased Nubar. Their implications were close to his heart, and thus he had chosen Uranus for the name of his secret network.

And also because he knew that if any planet guided his destiny it would have to be Uranus, remote and mysterious, its true nature unknown, its astrological sign a variation of the male symbol, twisted, punctuated with a black hole.

Paraho von Bomb von Heim. Eternal Bombastus.

Since the agents of the UIA came from the most disreputable elements in the Balkans, it was inevitable they couldn't all be professional criminals. Naturally there were also clever charlatans lurking in the ranks, along with the outright quacks and impostors, unctuous fabricators whose only talents lay in inventing ever more intricate and fantastic schemes for squandering Nubar's money.

Nubar was aware of this. He knew perfectly well that his network had given rise to a whole new industry in the Balkans in the 1920s, the marketing of fake Paracelsus treatises and tracts by unscrupulous entrepreneurs who pretended they were selling him translations of original works that had been lost.

In order to mislead him these forgeries were often concocted in obscure languages such as Basque and Lettish, occasionally in dead local languages such as Old Church Slavonic, and at least once in a tongue so remote and archaic no one who ever spoke it could possibly have heard of Paracelsus, a ludicrous gibberish from central Asia known to scholars as Tokharian B.

Yet Nubar was so obsessed with Paracelsus he always paid in the end to have these outrageous forgeries checked by experts, this profitable sideline for academics being another whole industry he had created in the Balkans in the postwar period. For Nubar invariably preferred to waste money on a worthless sheaf of nonsense, no matter how illegible, rather than take the chance of letting one authentic remnant of the master slip by him.

Bombast Paraheim von Celsusho.

Nubar turned away from his workbench to gaze at the enormous sword that stood in the corner of his tower room, a replica of the one the great doctor had brought back with him from his mysterious travels in the Middle East, before he had gone to work in some Venetian mercury mines on the Dalmation coast, exact location unspecified, perhaps not that far from the Wallenstein castle.

The great doctor had claimed the sword was given to him by a hangman. In its hollow pommel he had stored a supply of his wonder drug, laudanum, made from a recipe acquired in Constantinople.

Laudanum had been Paracelsus' most valued treasure, and as a result he had never parted from his sword, not even in his sleep.

Nubar also kept laudanum in the hollow pommel of his sword and he also never slept without it, cold and hard and comforting as it was with him in bed at night.

Parabast Celsen von Heimbomb.

On his workbench lay several volumes of the master's Philosophia Sagax, and others of the Arch-wisdom. Nubar owned dozens of copies of both works and all the copies violently disagreed with one another. Paragraphs were misplaced or truncated, changing the meaning entirely. Formulae contradicted each other and proposals cancelled out each other. Whole pages were missing here, entire chapters added there. In short, a maze of discrepancies.

One problem was that the great doctor had never read anything he wrote, preferring to leave that task to others.

Then too, many of the works published under his name were transcripts of his lectures that had been recorded by dazed students, or dictations he had given to inept amanuenses, who hadn't been able to keep up with the master's brilliantly explosive diatribes. So scholars were in complete disagreement over which books should be recognized as genuine.

It was as if this great doctor of the soul, the magus, Faust, after penetrating all the mysteries, had thrown the ingredients of his knowledge into the air to let them reshape themselves in endless variations through the centuries, the indisputable truths he propounded forever as profuse and contradictory as life itself.

In addition, causing yet more confusion, were the code words.

Like all the alchemists of his era, the great Swiss master had disguised his discoveries by using metaphors to describe his successful methods for transforming base metals into gold. Thus soul and chaos could also mean gold. And chaos might mean essence or gas. As sulphur might mean gas. Or chaos used to indicate a certain element he didn't wish to name at the moment. While mercury was the first heaven of the metaphysical heavens to come.

Heimbomb Celsushohen von Para.

Discrepancies, clues, cryptology.

Omitted references in the sixteenth century.

Incomprehensible additions and deletions made by dazed scribes suffering from poor candlelight, weak from unbalanced diets, given to sudden attacks of vertigo as they struggled through the night with pen and paper in vaulted medieval laboratories, hopelessly trying to record the great doctor's mutterings, his whispered arcane wisdom that rose with the fumes spiraling up from his vast array of pelicans and alembics, crucibles and athanors.

Dizzy scribes numbly scribbling in the smoke as the great doctor now loomed up in the shadows, now shrank back in the shadows, now disappeared altogether in the darkness behind his workbench, mumbling as he sank out of sight, only to rear up a minute later in the haze in front of his workbench, bellowing out eternal formulae and startling truths that had never been heard anywhere before that moment. While all the time explaining the secrets of Mercury, both the god of knowledge and of the marketplace, and mercury the cure for syphilis and mercury the mother of metals, to be purified before long up through the seven stages to the gold of the seventh heaven. Gas and chaos and soul.

Gas, the magus. Chaos, the soul. Faust in the fumes peering into his pelicans and alembics, igniting ever new secret solutions in the crucibles and athanors of time.

Hohenbastus von Heim von Ho.

The gas erupted inside Nubar with a roar. A powerful fart lifted him off his chair. He belched loudly, painfully, and fell back in his chair to quiver through the diminishing explosions of thumping farts and fiery belches that were racing from his stomach in all directions, unloading his gas into the air.

Mercury poisoning, and merely one of its symptoms, the result of his chronic alchemical experiments with that metal. Certainly an excessive inhalation of mercury fumes over the years could be harmful, perhaps even dangerous. But Nubar accepted that possibility, knowing it was unavoidable when in pursuit of the great doctor's secrets.

Merely one of the symptoms, there were others. Gastrointestinal inflammation. Excessive saliva and excessive gas. Urinary complications. Tremors. Skin ulcers. Mental depression.

The master, chaos. The soul of secret fumes, a fart, gaseous gold, to be purified up to seventh heaven.

Magus and mystery, in short.

Ho Parabastus von Heimenbomb.

After six years laboring in his tower room, Nubar sometimes gloomily wondered whether he would ever reach his goal. How could he acquire all the great doctor's works when scholars couldn't decide which were genuine? When forging the master had become an entire industry in the Balkans? When analyzing those forgeries had become another entire industry? Both of those industries aimed at Nubar, exclusively supported by him. Whole armies of quacks and scholars living off his obsession.

Sagax, for example. Which was the correct version? Was there a correct version or were they all equally correct? Equally incorrect?

A case of Sagax you are if you think you are? Sagax as you like it?

A pelican of tremors and gas and ulcers? An alembic mixing urinary complications with the soul? A crucible of excessive saliva? An athanor of chaos and mental depression? Arch-wisdom into infinity?

Nubar shook himself. No. He had to be careful, he was drifting again. Slipping into that vague state of confusion that often followed the sour belches and pungent farts produced by a sudden racking attack of mercury poisoning. He had to get back to work, there was still a great deal to be done before lunch. For a young man of twenty-one, the tasks he had set for himself were awesome.

Nubar sat up straight in his chair on that mild December day in 1927. He busied himself rearranging the papers on his workbench. A limp pamphlet bound in pale violet velour, small enough to fit inside a coat pocket and not be seen there by anyone, caught his eye. Not the great doctor, surely? He retrieved it from the pile of documents where it was hiding.

The Wandering Bulgar's Unofficial Guide to Boys' Orphanages in the Balkans, Illustrated, Complete With Diagrams of Fire Escapes and Suggested Crosscountry Itineraries. Anonymous, Mol, 1924.

Nubar smiled and stuffed the pamphlet into a drawer. He couldn't imagine why one of his UIA agents had seen fit to submit that very naughty guidebook as background material for an intelligence report.

Nubar had read the report and it had seemed to have nothing to do with the pamphlet written by the wandering Bulgar. Had the agent made a mistake or was he making some sly comment about Nubar?

Anyway, there would be time to study the diagrams of the fire escapes that evening while he was doing his mercury experiments. Now there was a more immediate problem.

For the third time that morning Nubar read through a perplexing document that had arrived just after breakfast, an appendix to the monthly summary of activities submitted by his control center in the Bulgarian seaport of Varna, which was responsible for monitoring all activities on the Black Sea.

The appendix was purported to be a verbatim record, taken down in shorthand, of a conversation between one of his Bulgarian agents and an underworld informer on the Adriatic island of Brac. The agent had gone to the island to investigate a rumor provided by a confidential source in Varna.

The rumor claimed that an unemployed Croatian peasant on the Adriatic island of Krk, after stealing a well-worn manuscript from a tourist, had gone into hiding on Brac. The stolen manuscript was said to be Paracelsus' Three Chapters on the French Disease, dated 1529, which had appeared in Nuremberg in 1530.

The underworld informer said the Croatian peasant in Brac was drunk most of the time on slivovitz.

Nevertheless, despite his drunken incoherency, he was still stubbornly insisting on a fee of three thousand Bulgarian leva just to let the manuscript be reviewed by an expert.

And the underworld informer, added the agent, although just as drunk as the peasant and also on slivovitz, was being just as stubborn, demanding a fee of three thousand Bulgarian leva for himself before he would reveal the peasant's hiding place in Brac, so the agent could contact the man directly.

The agent concluded by recommending payment of both sums, and his chief in Varna concurred. Routine permission to proceed was requested.

Routine?

Nubar snorted. Was there ever anything routine about a manuscript that just might possibly be a genuine Bombastus? In fact the longer Nubar considered the report the more suspicious he became.

Why hadn't this Adriatic information, for example, come from Belgrade Control? With the whole Black Sea to monitor, what was Varna Control doing conducting an operation all the way over on the other side of the Balkans?

More specifically, how competent was the agent's shorthand? As a Bulgarian, did he speak Croatian that well?

There were other seeming irregularities.

Could there really be any need for an underworld informer on an island as small as Brac? Could there even be any role for an underworld there?

Why was a peasant on Krk stealing well-worn manuscripts from tourists and then fleeing to Brac? How did he happen to be interested in learned sixteenth-century speculations, written in Latin, on the French disease? Would a drunken Croatian peasant know what the French disease was? Or did the peasant have the disease himself, and in that case was it so advanced his mind had already deteriorated to the point of insanity?

Would a tourist be likely to carry such a valuable document with him while taking a holiday on a tiny island like Krk?

Or to approach the problem differently, how did a confidential source in Bulgaria happen to be familiar with rumors on Brac? And how could an unemployed Croatian peasant from Krk, in the first place, afford to stay drunk on imported plum brandy in Brac, in the second place?

The third place being reserved for the fact that the plum brandy everyone was drunk on, curiously enough, just happened to be Bulgarian.

And along that same line of reasoning, why was everybody involved in the case asking to be paid in Bulgarian leva when the two islands in question were both Yugoslavian? What was the matter with good Yugoslavian dinars?

Nubar sat very straight in his chair, his pencil poised, well aware of his role in history. The great doctor had cloaked his discoveries to confuse the unworthy, but Nubar intended to be worthy and he wouldn't be so easily fooled. Could anyone in Krk be trusted? Could anyone in Brac? What were his people over there on the Black Sea really up to with their routine requests to proceed in the Adriatic?

Krk-Brac. In short, what was the truth?

Nubar wrote down an extensive list of questions to be answered before any more money was spent on the Krk-Brac operation. Having done so, he felt much better. He left his workbench to go to the window for a breath of air.

In the distance lay the Adriatic. Nubar looked down on the valleys where peasants were farming the Wallenstein land, at the workers several hundred feet below who were clearing the castle moat so that it could be filled with water again, a little more than a century after his grandfather had disappeared in the Holy Land and caused the castle to fall into ruin.

It had been his idea and Sophia was enthusiastic, but he hadn't suggested it out of devotion to his grandfather's memory. Rather, having turned twenty-one and become legally a man, he wanted the added protection of the moat, a hygienic insulation between himself and the outside world.

As he leaned on the windowsill Nubar noticed that one of the stones in the sill had become loose.

Abruptly his left eyelid drooped in excitement. He worked the stone free and leaned out the window with it, taking aim at a peasant laboring in the moat.

Down and away, down and down. The stone didn't hit the peasant on the head as he had hoped, it struck him on the shoulder. But from that height it was enough to knock the man down. There was a roar of pain far below, then one of anger. When last seen the man was scrambling out of the moat swinging a pickax, heading toward the workmen on top of the embankment. Nubar giggled and pulled in his head.

Order. Alignment. Hygiene.

Nubar spent the rest of the morning straightening his bookshelves, nudging the books forward or backward so the bindings made a perfectly flat surface. To facilitate this daily task, tiny metal conductors had been inserted at the base of the bindings in all his books, the conductors resting on metal contacts in the shelves that led in series to a circuit breaker. Ceramic insulators had been installed at both ends of every shelf. Nubar only had to stretch an electric wire taut down the length of a shelf, and throw a switch, to know whether the alignment was perfect or not.

Buzz.

Nubar nudged the offending book into place and moved to the next shelf.

When he was a little boy he had liked to lean forward on the toilet bowl and peek through his legs to see what was happening. A brown round head appeared and slowly lengthened, longer and longer. He held his breath. Plop. Another. The little brown logs circled peacefully down there. He pulled the chain and waved as they spiraled away.

Good-bye, little friends.

When he was nine he had become fascinated with butterflies and wanted to learn how to embalm them.

Sophia wrote to Venice and soon a slender young Italian lepidopterist arrived at the castle to assume his duties as Nubar's private embalming tutor. The Italian also taught him other things as Nubar, wide-eyed, bent over the trays of butterflies, his lips nestled between their richly colored spread wings.

On Sunday afternoons the Italian tutor took him to band concerts in towns on the Adriatic. Nubar sat sorely but happily on the hard wooden chairs, entranced by the uniforms, especially the conductor's with its cascading loops of gold braid.

Someday, he decided, he too would have a gorgeous uniform.

That winter he found himself attracted to one of the mechanics who maintained the automobiles at the castle, a hairy man who was always covered with grease. By then Nubar knew how to embalm butterflies so the Italian tutor was sent back to Venice. Throughout the chill rainy weather little Nubar's experiences in the grease pit of the garage, his hands pressed against the cold slimy walls for support as the hairy mechanic bucked and grunted behind him, were far more delirious than the languid summer encounters he had known with the slender young Italian over trays of butterflies.

By the end of the Great War, Nubar had grown into a small adolescent with an unusually large head, a narrow sunken chest and a prominent potbelly. His face was small and round and pinched, and his tiny weak eyes were very close together. He wore round glasses, wire-framed in gold, that seemed to push his eyes even closer together. Two of his front teeth were gold.

He had a small nose and a small mouth and lips so thin he couldn't make them whistle. He cultivated a short straight moustache and combed his straight black hair low over his forehead to hide his baldness, his hairline having already begun to recede by the time he was fifteen.

A mild December day in 1927, in the tower room of the ancestral Wallenstein castle.

Nubar finished putting his books in order with a frown on his face, having recalled the dream that was disturbing his sleep lately. In the dream he entered a restaurant carrying a baby and asked the chef to cook it rare. The chef, in a tall white hat, bowed respectfully while three young men sat at a table crunching chicken and grinning up at him with lascivious expressions, their hands and mouths dripping with grease. The unpleasant noise of the chicken bones cracking in their mouths woke him up and he found he had a painful need to urinate.

Mercury poisoning again?

Parabombheim von Ho von Celsus. Immortal Bombastus.

The gong sounded in the courtyard announcing lunch with Sophia. Nubar gathered up his queries on the Krk-Brac operation and started down the long winding stairway.

-10-

Sophia the Black Hand

She put her tiny right fist in the fragile porcelain cup of crude, wiggled it around and brought it out dripping. With a gesture of authority she flattened her hand in the very center of the map.

When Sophia entered the dining room the opening chords of Bach's Mass in B Minor boomed forth from the organ in the balcony at the far end of the room. That piece of music had been the favorite of her common-law husband, Nubar's grandfather, and Sophia always had it played during meals at the castle.

Nubar kissed his grandmother lightly on the lips and went to his chair in the middle of the table. At the far end, nearer the organ and facing Sophia, the usual place had been set for his dead grandfather.

Sophia was then in her eighty-sixth year. She was dressed entirely in black as she had been for half a century, ever since the last of the Skanderbeg Wallensteins had ceased to recognize her upon the birth of their natural son, Catherine, Nubar's insane dead father. She wore a flat black hat and black gloves and a thin veil, raised only at meals. But the firmness of her unlined face made her look much younger than she was.

Her stature gave the same impression. Sophia was a tiny woman who had shrunk with age, and who kept on shrinking, until now she was not much bigger than a large doll. In fact Nubar sometimes wondered what would happen to her if she lived another ten or fifteen years. At the rate she was disappearing, wouldn't she be the size of a baby by then?

Or was that the point. There was no denying Sophia's whimsical eccentricities. Having been grown up for decades, had she now decided to retrace the stages of her extraordinary life back to its origins?

In order to sit at the table, Sophia used a special high chair with a folding stepladder built into it. Except when eating she chain-smoked black Turkish cheroots through a hole in her veil, an extremely mild cigar made to order for her in Istanbul. Nubar's earliest memories were of a soft white face in black lace hovering over his cradle, a mixture of lavender scent and pungent cigar fumes suddenly engulfing him.

Then she had seemed large to Nubar, but of course he hadn't been aware that she was standing on a chair beside his cradle.

Once long ago when she had been rebuilding the Wallenstein fortune lost by his grandfather, and modestly saying very little as she did so, she had become known in the district as Sophia the Unspoken.

The name had lingered into Nubar's youth, but now she was always referred to as Sophia the Black Hand.

Various explanations for the name existed. Among the local peasants it was assumed she was called this because she always wore black gloves. Farther afield in the Balkans it was suspected she must have played some decisive part in the Black Hand terrorist organization that had been active in Serbia before the war. While elsewhere in Europe the name was considered a natural epithet for someone whose manipulations in oil were vast and conclusive.

All of these explanations were true as far as they went. Sophia obviously did wear black gloves and she had assisted the Balkan nationalist movements before the war. And her influence in the Middle East had made her the single most powerful oil merchant in the world.

But none of these facts had given birth to her epithet, which had actually come from an unpublicized meeting that took place on a lemon barge in 1919, an event so ruthlessly suppressed only a few men in the world knew about it.

And with reason, they felt, since it proved that an international oil cartel of scandalous proportions did indeed exist in Europe after the First World War.

The steps that led to that highly secret meeting had begun a decade earlier. For three years after the death of her beloved husband in 1906, Sophia had remained in absolute seclusion in the castle caring for Nubar, who had been born prematurely the day after his grandfather died. But then the resilient powers of her forebears had reexerted themselves.

Although no one in the twentieth century suspected the truth, Sophia wasn't an Albanian but an Armenian, the descendant of a woman who had been brought to the castle two hundred years ago by an illiterate Wallenstein warrior serving in the forces of the Ottoman sultan. That Skanderbeg had helped crush an uprising in Armenia, and for his part in the brutal slaughter he was offered the pick of some captured prisoners. As would any of the Skanderbegs save for the last, he naturally chose only very young girls of eight or nine. With a half-dozen of these little girls roped behind his horse he began the journey back to Albania, looking forward to a lusty military holiday.

But that early Skanderbeg fared poorly. Before he reached the Black Sea a raiding party of Armenian patriots managed to free three of the girls. While waiting for a sailing vessel a fourth girl escaped in a rowboat, and the following night a fifth slipped away while he was getting drunk in order to rape her.

Thus only Sophia's ancestress reached the castle in Albania, still a virgin because the Wallenstein warrior could only rape when thoroughly drunk, and he had been too afraid of losing the last of his spoils to drink on the latter part of the journey.

By the time he sighted his castle, that Wallenstein was desperate with craving. He locked the girl and himself in a tower room and emptied a flagon of arak in a frenzy.

After weeks of abstinence, the drink had an immediate effect. He was insensible and slobbering, the room a blur, his mind a cave of swirling bats. His left eyelid was drooping heavily and an unmistakable tightness was in his groin. On his hands and knees he groped his way ecstatically across the room toward the little girl cowering by a window.

The girl was frightened but not incapable of thought. She was ready to jump out the window, but first she wanted to see if she could take advantage of his drunkenness as others had done. In particular she noticed how the drooping left eyelid seemed to confuse his movements.

She therefore praised his magnificent virility. She said she had been waiting weeks for this moment and offered him another flagon of arak, hoping, she said, that this would double the time he spent on top of her. The Wallenstein warrior, laughing hysterically at his own prowess, staggered to his feet and drank off the arak.

His left eye snapped shut. He lunged and smashed into the wall, reeled backward blindly and went crashing through the window, landing on his face in the moat several hundred feet below, instantly dead in his sexual frustration.

The little Armenian girl was put to work in the castle stables until she was ten, old enough not to attract the attention of the next Skanderbeg. When she was fifteen she began to sneak down into the villages at night, determined to find an Armenian who could father a child for her and thereby keep alive her Armenian heritage in the barbaric foreign land where fate had brought her. Before long an itinerant Armenian rug dealer chanced to pass through the district and was happy to oblige her. A girl was born and fifteen years later another itinerant Armenian rug dealer spent a pleasurable week with another young Armenian woman in one of the villages.

Thus these mothers and daughters, while cleaning the Wallenstein stables, maintained their pure Armenian blood down to the middle of the nineteenth century, when Sophia broke the tradition by becoming the common-law wife of the last of the Skanderbegs, the forger of the Sinai Bible.

In 1909 Sophia ended her period of formal mourning and emerged from seclusion in the castle.

Agriculture no longer interested her so she turned her attention to the problems of energy, opening several low-quality lignite mines on her estate. Then when the British navy switched from coal to oil in 1911, Sophia decided she should go to Constantinople and learn what little was known about oil in the Middle East. She studied diligently there and became convinced that oil could be found along the Tigris.

In 1914 she executed the second most brilliant maneuver of her career by putting together a syndicate, in Constantinople, of English oil companies and German banks to exploit the oil along the Tigris, obtaining a charter from the Ottoman government for that purpose.

As broker of the agreement, Sophia retained for herself a share of seven per cent of all future profits.

Because of the war the syndicate was inactive for the next five years. Then in 1919 Sophia convened the highly secret meeting of its members.

The English responded eagerly and so did the French, new partners in the syndicate, Sophia having cleverly transferred to them the shares formerly owned by the defeated Germans. England and France now administered the Middle East through various mandates. And the oil companies of the two countries, at her insistence, had successfully persuaded their governments that the syndicate's charter should apply not just to the Tigris valley, but to all the lands that had previously been a part of the Ottoman Empire.

The meeting was to be held on a barge in the middle of Lake Shkodër, on the Albanian-Yugoslav border, thereby allowing members to approach the meeting from different countries for added diplomatic security. Sophia herself spent the night before the meeting in the city of Shkodër.

So as not to arouse suspicion by her presence in the city, she had arranged to dine with the archbishop and formally announce her endowment of a chair of moral metaphysics at the Jesuit college there. But she retired from the banquet early, telling the archbishop that her kidney stones were bothering her.

Well before dawn a fishing boat, with rags tied around its oars, was carrying Sophia across the dark lake toward the barge.

The barge had formerly been used to transport lemons from the lake down to the Adriatic. Its old worn planks were deeply impregnated with a rich lemon smell, and in fact Sophia had sentimentally chosen the barge for that very reason.

For nearly seventy years she had treasured the smell of lemons above all others, ever since that distant afternoon in her youth when she and her Skanderbeg had wandered hand in hand through the lemon groves beneath his castle, smiling and laughing and finally sinking into the grass to become lovers, both of them knowing another for the first time in the heady perfume of that blossoming Mediterranean spring of long ago.

The exterior of the barge had been disguised with earth and bushes and vines to make it look like a small island, but inside it was nothing less than lavishly decorated. Magnificent Oriental rugs and tapestries abounded, giving the chamber an opulent Levantine atmosphere. Instead of a conference table there was a circle of thick satin pillows where the syndicate representatives could lounge comfortably while sipping cups of strong Turkish coffee. The soft flickering light cast by the tapers along the walls, together with the dishes of delicate incense and the sweet all-pervasive smell of lemon trees in bloom, added to the sense of Oriental ease.

Above the circle of pillows a small yet particularly splendid Oriental rug had been cleverly suspended on thin wires, the wires invisible in that dim light, which gave the impression that the rug was a flying carpet from one of the traditional Arab tales of romance. On this Sophia had positioned herself to meet her guests, standing on the flying carpet which had been raised to a height where she could greet the men eye to eye.

The English and French representatives began to arrive, dressed as gentlemen on a fishing holiday, rowed to the barge by Sophia's servants dressed as local fishermen. They presented their credentials to Sophia, who indicated the circle of pillows. When everyone was comfortably stretched out she sat down on her flying carpet and gave a short welcoming speech, emphasizing that the syndicate now owned all the oil reserves in the former Ottoman Empire. She then asked for presentations from the floor.

It was immediately apparent the other members of the syndicate had no idea what the boundaries of the former Ottoman Empire enclosed. Maps were spread out in the middle of the circle and consulted, but none of the maps agreed with one another. The extent of the former Ottoman Empire was utterly confused by its long history of decay.

An hour passed. The English representatives were still mumbling repetitiously, the French still jabbering passionately, but nothing had been jointly discerned. Throughout this time Sophia had remained absolutely silent, sitting on her flying carpet overhead, chain-smoking cheroots and watching the proceedings. At the end of an hour, however, she apparently said something in Tosk or Gheg to her servants, because the flying carpet suddenly began to move.

Everyone in the room stopped talking. The men lounging on the pillows watched in wonder as the flying carpet slowly descended into the middle of the circle, coming to rest a few inches above the floor, Sophia sitting rigidly in her flat black hat and her black gloves, her thin black veil with the cheroot sticking through it. They could now see she was holding something in her left hand, what looked like an exquisite porcelain cup.

Sophia raised the cup in front of her and leaned out over the edge of the flying carpet. She studied the large map laid out on the floor and dipped her right forefinger into the cup. She touched the map.

The men gasped. A heavy black viscous substance spread where her finger had been. Pure crude.

Sophia nodded to herself and blew a smoke ring in the air. She had touched Constantinople, obliterating it with oil. Now the flying carpet moved gracefully around the circle, still hovering inches above the floor, and the steady black line traced by Sophia's finger began to lengthen.

From Constantinople she was floating with conviction down the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The flying carpet paused. Sophia again dipped her finger in the milky white porcelain cup. The spellbound delegates leaned forward on their pillows, holding their breath, as Sophia arrived at the Red Sea and banked to the left, speeding east around the tip of the Arabian peninsula, heading now across the water toward the Persian Gulf, the line of crude advancing with her.

Their eyes narrowed. The flying carpet drifted over Abadan and floated inexorably north in the direction of the Black Sea, the space enclosed by Sophia's black line gradually taking on the shape of an ellipse, an enormous area that would contain all the future oil-producing lands of the Middle East except for Persia.

A final dip in the cup of crude and the ellipse was closed. The line had returned to Constantinople, the former capital of the Ottoman Empire.

Sophia triumphantly raised her veil, the only time the men in the room would ever see her face. She was smiling happily and puffing her cheroot, but perhaps what they would all recall later was the dreamy quality of her eyes. It was true she looked no more than half her age, if that, which was astonishing in itself. But it was the softness of her eyes that held them, not at all what they would have expected at a time like this.

It was almost as if she had created the drama of this momentous occasion with the guileless simplicity of a child.

Yes, they were sure of it. Innocence. That's what they saw.

Sophia smiled shyly, then all at once her face was serious. Another command in Tosk or Gheg and the flying carpet floated to the middle of the circle above the map. She put her tiny right fist in the fragile porcelain cup of crude, wiggled it around and brought it out dripping. With a gesture of authority she flattened her hand in the very center of the map.

An unmistakable black handprint on the heart of the Middle East. Sophia blew a smoke ring. The men on the pillows gasped.

Now the flying carpet gently rose in the air, withdrawing to a position of height just outside the circle.

After fixing each man in the room with her eyes, Sophia lowered her veil. She waved her cheroot commandingly and spoke in a quiet voice.

Yes, gentlemen, there you see it This is the former Ottoman Empire for our purposes, and this is the area covered by our charter. We have the agreement of your governments and I now solemnly declare the syndicate in operation. You will return to your countries and issue the necessary orders. We begin digging, pumping and distributing at once.

Thus the most brilliant moment of her career. Speeding on an exquisite flying carpet, tiny Sophia the Unspoken had silently circled the entire Middle East in minutes and transformed herself into Sophia the Black Hand.

From an opulent Oriental chamber on a lemon-scented barge, a vast international cartel had been launched. And the tiny Armenian woman in black would thereafter be known, among the very few men in the shadowy upper reaches of power who were aware of her true role in the world, as the phenomenal Madame Seven Per Cent of the earth's richest oil fields.

Oil and immense wealth.

Yet within the tiny old woman there still lived a haunting innocence, as witnessed by others on the lemon-scented barge where she had once floated on a flying carpet, the innocent simplicity of an eight-year-old peasant girl who had found a broken man lying at the gate of a ruined castle, the last of the Skanderbeg Wallensteins home from his unparalleled ordeal in the Holy Land, and with the perfect faith of her years fallen in love with him forever.

Indeed, there were still mornings when Sophia rose long before dawn with a strange distant smile on her face, silently to descend the stairways of the castle to a small unused room in its foundations, a servants'

kitchen where she had been born and lived in poverty with her mother during her first years, the room where the two of them had tenderly nursed the last of the Skanderbegs back to life on their bed of straw, while they slept on the stone floor.

Sophia had kept the room exactly as it had been then, with its bare walls and its little hearth, the one or two pots and the bed of straw, the broom by the door.

On those mornings she took the broom and proudly swept the floor of the little kitchen. Went down on her knees in her plain black dress and her flat black hat and her black gloves to scrub and scrub the worn stones. Chopped a few imaginary vegetables and kindled a meager imaginary fire, setting the pot to cook the morning meal for the lord of her ruined castle.

Later she drifted up to the courtyard to gather imaginary firewood and tend the imaginary garden where imaginary vegetables grew, down on her knees once more washing out imaginary rags and hanging them up to dry, humming Armenian nursery rhymes as she did the chores of her childhood.

It's on her, whispered the servants in awe, peeking out the windows.

Sophia had broken her hip and the bones had mended poorly, causing her to totter when she walked, bent forward from the waist with her hands groping in the air for balance. And on those special days the bent old woman wandering in the courtyard, so tiny and frail, seemed at any moment about to grasp some passing breeze that would lift her above the walls and the lemon groves on the soft sunlight of her memories.

It's on her, whispered the servants in awe, peeking out the windows to see whether their tiny mistress was still with them. Or whether she had already taken flight, and the strange distant smile of a child's dreams had finally found its way to heaven.