Edward Whittemore: Jerusalem Poker

Little Cairo whispered his name.

Is that a fact? said the mummy. Well you certainly didn't get that from your master, so where did you get it?

From my great-grandmother, sir.

Her last name was Martyr?

No sir. She didn't have a last name, sir. But that's the one she gave me, sir.

Odd. Why?

I don't know, sir.

Never gave you a hint?

No sir.

She raised you?

Yes sir.

Everyone else died before their time?

Yes sir.

Dysentery?

Yes sir.

Hm, that's the paradox isn't it. The Nile gives us the land but takes its toll in return. Good water is also bad water. Now admit it, son. A moment ago I caught you frightened by the past and that's not the way to get ahead when you're black the way we are. And speaking of the past, what do you know about yours?

I know where my great-grandmother came from, sir.

Nubia, I'd say, by the looks of it. Except for those eyes of yours. Where did you get them?

From my great-grandfather, sir. A wandering Circassian, sir.

Is that what he told her? What else do you know about him?

He was an expert in Islamic law, sir.

He told her that too, did he?

Yes sir.

I see. Did he happen to have a name?

Yes sir. His name was Sheik Ibrahim ibn Harun, sir.

The mummy's dry smile crinkled across his face again.

Ah, yes, I do see. That young man was a wanderer, there's no doubt about that. In any case he picked himself up and went on his way and your great-grandmother was subsequently captured and sold into slavery?

Yes sir.

The Mamelukes?

Yes sir.

Oafs, all of them. Dazed pederasts running to fat. She wasn't very fond of them, was she?

No sir.

I daresay. But all this happened at the beginning of the century and that's hardly the past. For all practical purposes the past ends with the destruction of the New Kingdom. Know when that was?

No sir.

The XXX Dynasty. An unfortunate period. Yes, I can see it now.

The mummy closed his eyes. After about ten minutes of silence he stirred and scratched his nose. He raised the huge magnifying glass once more and the eye two inches wide reappeared behind the lens.

Did you say you were looking for work, son?

Yes sir.

Any English?

No sir.

No matter, you'll pick it up. You're Moslem, I take it.

Yes sir.

Of course. Your great-grandmother had a long memory and she wanted to see some scores settled. An extremely proud woman?

Yes sir.

It fits, but that's for the future. Right now you need a trade and I think you should start as a dragoman, as I did. There aren't many trades open to us and that's a good way to begin. You need contacts.

Yes sir.

Right. You'll begin as an apprentice and work your way up. Now listen carefully, here are the rules. Be dignified, never cringe or whine or roll your eyes. Be correct but solicitous with the ladies, correct but slightly less stiff with the gents. When you don't understand something always say, Yes sir, and nod vigorously, pretending you do. Upon receiving a tip bow deeply and murmur how happy you are to have performed this service, ending with an air of undefined suggestion, a momentary hesitation will do it, that even more complex services are available, should you be called upon for them. Above all, smile. Smile and smile and look as if you thoroughly enjoy what you're doing no matter how tedious and silly it is. At the same time be absolutely discreet, going only so far as to hint that European travelers often find the desert air invigorating. And be gentle. Never harm anyone in any way. Did your great-grandmother tell you that?

Yes sir.

I thought so. When it comes to settling scores she had bigger things in mind. Well on your way then. The attendant outside will give you an address. Tell them I sent you and return in a week to give me a progress report. In fact return every week until further notice.

Yes sir.

And you ought to know I wasn't asleep when you came in, nor a few minutes ago either. People think I'm sleeping when actually I'm just taking a trip. You can't understand a particular dynasty without spending time in it. Do you see?

Yes sir.

Nod vigorously when you say that.

Yes sir.

Good. Come around next week.

Yes sir, whispered little Cairo, tiptoeing away from the massive block of stone.

He became an apprentice dragoman and to his surprise he found the profession had little to do with guiding tourists or haggling for them in the bazaars. Instead his duties were largely sexual.

Most Europeans who wintered in Egypt, it seemed, seldom left the spacious verandas of their hotels, where they moved graciously in circles favorably remarking on the weather and unfavorably deploring the slack manner and slovenly appearance of the natives. The minority who hired dragomen to venture into back streets were those seeking the sexual license associated with the East, an anonymous debauchery far from home, exactly what a dragoman could provide.

In this stolid atmosphere of overt Victorian gentility and covert imperial vice, young Cairo learned his trade without particular ambition. Each day at noon he went to the office of the Clerk of the Acts, the senior dragoman in the city and the head of their benevolent association, whose job it was to advise apprentices and distribute assignments. The appointments were spaced well apart, in keeping with the leisurely pace of life pursued by the English in Egypt. And in any case a dragoman's clients spent a considerable amount of time sleeping, both because they found the heat enervating and because of the opium they took.

So there were many quiet hours in which young Cairo could dream of the future during those first lonely months in the city, while listening to a man or a woman snore, and inevitably his dreams turned to the astonishing event so often recalled by Menelik, the forty-year conversation the old man had once held with his dearest friend, an English lord and legendary explorer, Plantagenet Strongbow.

Menelik had first met Strongbow in the summer of 1838, a few weeks after the explorer returned from one of his mysterious early excursions, this time to outer Persia.

With his seven-foot, seven-inch frame topped by a massive greasy black turban, and his lean torso wrapped in a shaggy short black coat made from unwashed and uncombed goats' hair, both said to be gifts from a remote hill tribe in Persia, the haughty young English duke was a preposterous figure striding through the dusty native quarters of Cairo. His face was already deeply scarred,from his travels and his body, in addition, was severely wasted from a recent encounter with cholera which had nearly been fatal.

But perhaps it was the portable sundial strapped to Strongbow's hip that most amazed Menelik, a monstrously heavy bronze piece inscribed with Arab aphorisms and a legend noting that it had been cast in Baghdad during the fifth Abbasid caliphate.

Menelik had never seen a European dressed in such a manner, let alone an English duke, and never anyone wearing such an outrageous costume in the stifling heat of an Egyptian summer. Immediately he was intrigued.

The young English duke was known to disdain his countrymen but was said to enjoy the company of genuine Levantines, particularly the poor and the devious who made their living as conjurers and gossips and refuse carters. On the basis of this rumor Menelik approached Strongbow in the bazaar one sultry day and introduced himself. Strongbow was on guard as always, carrying under his arm a short heavy club, a kind of polished twisted root which he raised menacingly whenever someone said something irrelevant to his needs.

At the time Menelik was twenty, a year older than Strongbow. He was still a slave and a common dragoman, but he did speak Coptic and clearly possessed the keen powers of observation that would one day decipher the secrets of so many tombs. In fact there were probably very few Cairenes who could have described the lowlife of their city with as much accuracy and gusto as Menelik.