Edward Whittemore - Jericho Mosaic

My God, what's this? Tajar asked in amazement.

The finest curries in Jericho, said Bell, quietly pleased with his handiwork. Also the only curries in Jericho. In the past they flourished here but the secret was apparently lost. Dig in.

Tajar did so and ate with gusto, helping himself to everything again and especially to the chutneys. How could he have known he was so hungry? Bell ate right along with him, scooping up mounds of food.

Delicious, said Tajar between mouthfuls. But is it possible Jericho was known for curries in other eras?

It must have been, replied Bell, heaping more rice on his plate. Two thousand years ago, say. Picture an adventurous Indian trader following the ancient spice route along the coasts of Arabia and up the Red Sea. He lands at Aqaba and joins one of the camel caravans making its way north to Damascus, through deserts and more deserts and finally through the desolation along the shores of the Dead Sea. Then one evening the caravan comes swaying into Jericho and all at once the trader raises his eyes and looks around and thinks: Isn't this it? This has to be it. Why go any farther in life?

Tajar laughed. Oh I see, he said. Of course that does make sense. I'm sure a trader or two did turn up here from India and found it to his liking and decided to stay on. Do you like to recall such a thing?

I do and I do so all the time, replied Bell. But just imagine how distant, how remote Jericho was then for a man from India. Much farther away than the moon is for men today. It was more like another galaxy, another corner of the unknown and unimaginable universe. Yet here he sat, this traveler in time, perhaps right here where we're sitting now. The oasis has always been small because there's only a limited amount of water.

And the shade is the same and the desert roundabout is unchanged, as are the sun and the moon and the stars at night. So then, what thoughts filled the long evenings for him?

I suppose you know this imaginary traveler quite well, said Tajar.

Bell smiled. It's one of the advantages of living in a small place, he said, which is also the oldest village on earth. When you think of it, an extraordinary variety of people have sat right here where we're sitting in the course of Jericho's ten thousand years. Quite astonishing, really. . . .

***

Halim laughed at Tajar's wonderful description of his first curry dinner in the house in the orange grove. Halim had once enjoyed those grand curry banquets at Bell's, and he also remembered Bell's make-believe Indian trader. Born himself in India and long a man without a country, Bell was very fond of his imaginary story of an Indian traveler who had decided two thousand years ago that Jericho was his place in the world.

So Halim was cheered and his mood lightened by Tajar's account of Bell. But there had also been another part to the encounter which Tajar chose not to mention in the safehouse near Beirut: Bell's ominous prophecy concerning Halim. That had come after the curry feast when Bell and Tajar were sitting out back, sipping coffee in Bell's grape arbor.

Bell brought up Halim. Bell didn't have to mention that he had known Halim once, but he had thought about it and decided he wanted to mention it. Why withhold the truth? That would have been Monastery thinking.

Tajar, for his part, was intensely curious. Several times in the long history of the Runner operation he had spoken to men who knew Halim strictly as Halim, Europeans as well as Arabs. But never to someone like Bell, whose opinion he so greatly admired. Bell went on to describe his friendship with Halim over a decade ago, when the two of them had taken long walks out of Jericho at dawn and at sunset.

A man with an intense inner life, said Bell. I realize that as a Syrian, he's your enemy. Doubly so perhaps, since you both move in secret worlds. And I also realize you may know much more about him than I do, if he is a professional as I suspect. But as I recall we can never know enough in the secret worlds, can we?

There's always more to be gleaned, a new view or a different insight, some odd fact that may reveal a new dimension. . . . Well then, I have to say first of all that you'd like him. He'd appeal to you immensely. He's thoughtful with a wide heart. He has vision and never fools himself. He's not naive or cynical, and yet . . . he may lose himself in the end.

The suddenness of the words startled Tajar. Why? How? he asked.

I don't believe he knows defeat as well as you do, said Bell. Whatever it is he does, I fear one day he'll feel it hasn't been enough — in his own eyes. He'll feel he has failed himself, taken a wrong turn perhaps. The thought will haunt him and eventually it may push him over the edge. I say fear because he's a good man and I'd be sorry to see it come to that. But you realize I'm not talking now about intelligence agencies or Arabs and Israelis. I'm referring to another kind of secret world.

I understand, said Tajar. The world of Jericho time, as your friend Abu Musa likes to call it. But obviously you care for this man Halim and your feelings about him seem very specific. Why do you feel about him the way you do?

Bell pondered the question. I can't really point to any one thing, he said at last. A man like Halim is always a mystery to anyone who hasn't known him day to day for years. Some people are like that, as you discover especially in the intelligence business when you try to put together a coherent dossier on a man. Sometimes the deeper you dig, the more you realize all your informants are recalling a different man. It's strange but Halim makes me think of Stern, that agent in Egypt whom we've talked about.

Abruptly Bell laughed in the shadows of the grape arbor, startling Tajar anew. What is it? asked Tajar.

A Jericho breeze in the brain, said Bell. I was about to follow Abu Musa's example and say . . . Let me tell you a tale. Well why not? I will. One of the places where Halim and I used to go on our walks toward sundown was the Omayyad palace on the outskirts of town. Earlier than sundown really, for the light. Those splendid ruins, you know them of course. It was the mosaic that was our destination. Surely you know that too. . . .

Tajar nodded. He knew it well. The small palace had been built in the eighth century as a winter residence for the Omayyad caliphs of Damascus. But an earthquake had destroyed it only a few years after it was completed, and then the caliphate had moved with the wealth of Islam to Baghdad, so the site had remained quietly in ruins ever since, a dusty jewel lost in the sands of Jericho. Of the magnificent artistic creations which must have adorned the palace in sumptuous detail, only one survived, but this excavated remnant was complete and of pristine beauty, its subtle colors perfectly preserved by the sands of centuries. This treasure was a raised mosaic floor at the end of an oblong room, the polychrome mosaic rounded at the top as if to represent a portal into the earth, a gate to the world as seen from the sky. Perhaps it had served on special occasions as an alcove at the end of the room, a dais where a dignitary could sit when receiving guests.

The mosaic depicted a pomegranate tree as the Tree of Life. The thickly seeded fruit, an ancient symbol of fertility, hung heavy on the branches. On one side beneath the tree two slender gazelles grazed with raised heads, feeding on leaves, while on the other side of the tree trunk a third slender gazelle was caught in the same pose by a huge lunging lion, which had just landed on the gazelle's back and drawn first blood. A motif of pomegranate blossoms circled the entire mosaic. The greens and browns of the tree, shading in and out, and the flowing lines of the softly brown animals were of awesome delicacy, realistic and stylized at once.