Edward Whittemore - Jerusalem Poker

His abrupt disappearance caused the priests in the compound to ponder the significance of this enigmatic man who had lived near the cathedral for twelve years. Now they spoke of Brother Zeno with awe, rather than mild humor. Where had he gone and why? What new role had he sought for himself?

In the course of the nineteenth century the account gradually acquired the dimensions of a fable around the cathedral of St James. Somehow the priests who later arrived at the Armenian compound found it immensely appealing that an anonymous man of unknown origins, and unknown destiny, had once lived in a basement hole beneath the stones where they walked, oblivious to the strictures of any church yet living the strictest of lives according to the tenets of an unspoken vocation.

The fable was so appealing it became a tradition for the most respected priest in the compound to be assigned as his residence the house that gave access to the basement hole, and to be known thereafter among the other priests as Father Zeno, in memory of that dedicated man who had mysteriously appeared there early in the nineteenth century, and just as mysteriously disappeared a dozen years later.

The present Father Zeno had received this honor in 1914 at the age of seventy-nine.

And I think what most engages our imagination, he had said to Joe, is precisely the puzzle of that man's disappearance. We here have all openly professed the vows of our vocation. Because of them we have taken our respective places in life, and so we continue in orderly lives of service and prayer until our time on earth passes. But him? What was his vocation? What had he sworn to do and where did he go? Are there callings that can never be revealed to others? And then lingering behind the mystery there is always the question of the man's apparent age when he left here, which was Christ's age when He set out on His ministry. Does it have a meaning?

Father Zeno smiled his gentle smile.

A priest may wonder about such things. Here in Jerusalem where we keep watch and bear witness to His sacrifice, we may wonder.

I can understand that, said Joe. It's a strange and haunting tale.

And then putting together everything he had learned about the life of the last of the Skanderbeg Wallensteins, which was more than he had ever admitted to Cairo or anyone else, the dates and disappearances of that pious Albanian Trappist who had left his order and gone into the Sinai to forge the original Bible, Joe leaned forward and asked his question.

What do they say Brother Zeno did in that basement hole for twelve years? Is it known?

It's assumed he was in prayer, but other than that, no. Out of respect for his privacy none of the priests ever visited him down there.

Yes of course. And did he ever have someone from outside the compound visit him?

Father Zeno looked surprised.

Why do you ask that?

No reason really. I just wondered.

Well that's odd because he did, as it happens. A minor fact but recorded, I suppose, because the visits were so rare. About once a year, according to tradition. And also because the priests at that time wondered what could possibly have gone on during those visits, in view of his vow of silence.

Perhaps he and his visitor didn't need words. Is anything remembered about the other man?

The comment's vague. He's described only as very old.

An Arab?

Now Father Zeno looked shocked.

Yes, he whispered.

The man's dress, is anything said about it?

There's one obscure reference that he wore a faded yellow cloak. Why? Does it mean anything? You can't imagine how much this interests all of us here. If we only knew more. If only I knew more.

Father Zeno clasped his hands. He lowered his eyes.

Forgive me, that was uncalled for. I didn't mean to act like a child with his first puzzle. There's much we don't know in this world and much we can never know, and it's the same for all of us. For you, for me, for all of us.

Thus Father Zeno had lowered his eyes in humility, and in humility he had laid aside the questions whose answers seemed unknowable. And Joe had learned that among the people Haj Harun visited on his yearly rounds in the Holy City, along with the nameless cobbler near Damascus Gate whose cubbyhole Haj Harun could never find, along with the nameless muttering man who ceaselessly paced back and forth on the steps to the crypt in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, along with them there had once been a pious linguistic genius with whom Haj Harun had conversed in Aramaic, the language spoken in Palestine two and three thousand years ago.

The last of the Skanderbeg Wallensteins perfecting his skills for twelve years in a basement hole in Jerusalem, teaching himself to write with both hands because he knew the task facing him in a Sinai cave would otherwise surpass any man's endurance. Preparing himself for the creation to come, the most spectacular forgery in history.

So here beneath the rooftop home where Joe had learned to dream his Jerusalem dreams, right here in a basement hole below, lay buried the original manuscript Wallenstein had brought back from the Sinai after completing his forgery of it, that fabulous creation that had been sought by so many, a document that was unchronicled and circular and calmly contradictory, suggesting infinity, the real Sinai Bible.

Behind him his pigeons were trilling quietly as they fell asleep one after the other. Lying flat on his stomach under the stars, on the little stone bridge that led to his rooftop, Joe held his breath and peeked over the edge of the bridge, down at the narrow courtyard where a single lamp was burning, Father Zeno was at his potter's wheel and in front of him in the soft yellow light, sitting on the ground, watching, was Theresa.

Father, she whispered, it's coming again.

Watch the wheel, my child. Watch it turn.

But I'm frightened. I'm always so frightened when it comes.

Keep your eyes here, my child. We're almost finished and then we'll go in and pray together and all will be well.

Joe rolled silently over on his back and gazed up at the sky, listening to the rub and the squeak of the potter's wheel raising its vessel, the echoless rising whirl of the wheel.

Bless our little Theresa, he thought, little one that she is.

A night seemingly like so many others. Father Zeno tending his wheel and Theresa her sainthood, and above them on rooftops, Joe, a silent witness with his sleeping pigeons, minding the dreams of new stars over Jerusalem.

Signal night, he thought, quiet place for sure. Demanding night up here beneath the murmurs of heaven.

— 14-

Stern

And if God turns out to be a gunrunner crossing the desert in a balloon in 1914?

Christmas Eve, 1933.

Joe sat in a filthy Arab coffee shop near Damascus Gate, slumped over an empty glass of Arab cognac.

Wisps of snow blew across the windows and the wind groaned in the alleys. Only one other customer was there at that hour, an Arab laborer asleep at a front table with a newspaper over his face.

The door opened and a large shapeless man came in. He stood for a moment with his back to the door and then came shuffling heavily across the room. Joe stood up and put out his hand.

Hello, Stern.

The Arab under the newspaper stirred briefly and began to snore again. A clock on the wall clicked in the stillness. The unshaven proprietor, moving unevenly from the effects of hashish, brought the cognacs and coffee Stern had ordered. After greeting each other the two men sat for a time watching the snow dance across the windows. Joe was the first to speak.

Snow. Just like the last time. And the same night and the same place, only now it's twelve years later.

You know way back then, Stern, I was telling you I was going to become the undercover King of Jerusalem. Power, that's what I wanted. And my father made just such a prophecy on a June night in 1914. Just slipped out of him it did. He had no idea what he was saying, or why, but he said it and he was right so far as what could have been. You know that, Stern? I could have been if I'd wanted to be, but I didn't want it enough. That's a funny thing about prophecy. Even when it's infallible you still have to want it to come true.