Edward Whittemore - Jerusalem Poker

What's a Poor Clare?

A nun, lad, a nun from the strictest of orders. That's why the pilgrimage was so shocking. Because normally Poor Clares can't even leave their convents, not ever, let alone travel to a place like Jerusalem with its unlimited sights and sounds and smells. Anyway, I went to the Holy Land as a nun.

But a man can't be a nun, can he?

That's right, he can't. He simply cannot. But apparently Himself decided to make an exception that year so I could escape from the city of Cork and be transported to the Holy Land in order to fulfill a prophecy made by my father.

Who's himself?

God. Chose to intervene, He did, the baking priest told me all about it when he made me a hero of the Crimean War and awarded me the first Victoria Cross ever given, which until then had been his own.

Here you see it. A Victoria Cross for defending Ireland against the English.

So you're a great rich man now?

Not at all, none of it. I'm just a poor fisherman's son from the Aran Islands who's been adrift and afloat in our Holy City for fourteen long years. Just one O'Sullivan Beare who found himself in Jerusalem by chance, although it's also true we're known as the O'Sullivan Foxes on occasion, for what reason I can't imagine. But with a name like Bernini now, with a fine name like that, you'll be going on someday to build fountains and stairways to heaven and beautiful colonnades for the pope. Good lad. If it had been up to me I might have called you Donal Cam, and that's not half so ringing.

Who was Donal Cam?

The famous bear and fox among your ancestors on my side, known in his time as the O'Sullivan Beare.

Some centuries ago he walked a thousand of his people out of the south of Ireland to the north, in the dead of winter and fighting all the way, escaping, the English and starving too, just as I was doing three hundred years later as a nun. Well he limped and he fought and he led his people, and after two weeks they arrived where they were going. And they were safe now, the thirty-five who had survived out of the thousand. So he was a hero because of what he did. But for all that, I still like Bernini better as a name.

Your name's Joe.

That's what it is, that's mine, as simple as can be. And after that the names of half a dozen other saints, same as my father who had the gift.

What gift?

Prophecy. To see the world as it was and shall be. He was the seventh son of a seventh son, you see, and when you are you have the gift. While me, I was just the thirty-third son and last.

Bernini's eyes shined when he heard the numbers. Joe gazed into them and saw something. A shadow flickered across Joe's face.

Good with figures are you, lad? Quick, what's five plus eight?

Eleven or twelve, said Bernini.

Is it now. And how's that? How can it be both?

Because some days I scale a stone eleven times and some days twelve. I know Mother says that's not the way you're supposed to do arithmetic, but that's the way I do it. At different times, to me, different numbers answer better. When I have a feeling about one, I use it. But then if I don't have a special feeling, a number turns up anyway. Do you know what I mean?

Joe gazed at his son and his frown slowly changed to a smile.

Do you tell me so. Is it always that way with you? In other things besides arithmetic?

Yes, I'm afraid it is. Does it make you angry?

Nothing of the sort, lad. I'm here to love you and accept you as you are. And it strikes me you just might be a poet, did you ever think of that? In poetry all things slip and slide, just as they do when you're hearing the whispers of the little people, and knowing they're there behind the wall all right, but not seeing them.

Well I don't think I'm a poet, most of the time I don't seem to be anything. Do you know? Most of the time I'm just here by the sea. And even when I'm not, I still am really, down here looking at the sea and listening. Do you know where it goes?

Sometimes. And sometimes I'm also just like you. I just sit and look at it and listen. I used to do that a lot down on the coast of the Sinai, in a little oasis on the Gulf of Aqaba. I used to fly my Camel down there and sit for days listening and watching, just keeping watch through the hours of light and dark.

Bernini laughed.

You flew a camel? The same way they have flying carpets in the stories?

Does sound strange, doesn't it. But that's also the name of an airplane, you see, a Sopwith Camel it's properly called. Now tell me, do you like that looking and listening more than anything else?

Yes.

Joe knelt on the sand and put his arms around Bernini's waist.

Well lad, then I'm surely glad I found you here. Right here on this very spot by the sea.

Bernini put his fingers in his father's beard.

I'm glad too, for a special reason. I knew you'd be coming soon but not just today, and that's a wonderful surprise. Today I mean. It's my birthday.

I know it is, lad, that's why I'm here. Thirteen years ago you were born on this very day in Jericho, a place of sunshine and flowers near the River Jordan, another kind of oasis it is. And our little house was near the Jordan, on a path to it, we weren't far away from it at all. So close it was then, that river of miracles, so close it seemed, nearly at our feet it seemed. Ah it's true what the old man says. The years slip away and slide together.

Why are you crying, Father?

Not crying really. Just happy to have found you, here by the sea. Just happy. That's all.

Who were you talking about who says that?

The old man? Someone like no other. A friend I had in Jerusalem. He showed me the world and showed me what it's all about. Haj Harun is his name. So gentle and frail, you wonder how he's ever done it.

Done what?

Lived three thousand years in Jerusalem. He has done that, you see. It may be hard to imagine over here, away from that holy mountain, but it's true. Do you believe me when I tell you so?

Yes. Haj Harun. The man who's lived for three thousand years in Jerusalem.

Joe smiled. Bernini smiled.

Maybe when you grow up, lad, you'll be like him. What do you think?

I don't know. Maybe I will.

Joe sighed.

A wonder, that's what.

Father?

Yes.

Are you going to stay here with us now?

Well as it happens, lad, I'm not. When a time comes it comes, you see, and that's what it's done for me.

So I'm off to look at new places, the New World probably, which is to say America. I'm going to find out about it and then when I do, you and I will discuss it. In the meantime you've got your mum and she's a wonderful woman. God never made better.

I love her.

I know you do, and in my way, so do I.

Then why are you leaving?

Ah you are a clever little piece of goods, on the foxy side of the O'Sullivans, I'd say. But the answer is straightforward. It's that I must. Haying been born a fisherman's son, I'm bound for the desert. You may not understand that now, but someday you will.

Oh no, I understand it now.

You do? How's that?

A man named Stern told me. He's a new friend of Mother's.

Did he now? What'd he say?

Well he was leaving here once and I asked him the same thing, and he said that sometimes a man has travels to make.

Well well, it's true I guess. Not that your mother doesn't have her own to make, she does. But aren't you a smart one to be knowing all that at your age.

Bernini hung his head.

I'm not smart, he whispered.

Why do you say that?

Because I'm not.

Bernini hesitated, staring at the sand.

What is it? said Joe quickly. You mean your not being able to read? I already know about that.

Bernini nodded.

That and the other things, he whispered. Not being able to do arithmetic the way you're supposed to.