Edward Whittemore - Sinai Tapestry

After the middle of the century there was a period of a dozen years when nothing was heard from Strongbow, the time he spent producing his study, not in a remote corner of the desert as was generally assumed but rather in the very heart of Jerusalem, where he both lived and worked in the back room of an antiquities dealer’s shop.

For Strongbow those were peaceful years. The sturdy tea chests filled with his notebooks lined the walls. He used several tea chests as his desk and a giant Egyptian stone scarab, cushioned with pillows, was his seat. An antique Turkish safe was his filing cabinet and a rusting Crusader’s helmet served as an object of contemplation, much as a skull might have rested in front of a medieval alchemist.

With its heavy masonry the vault was snug in the winter, cool in the summer and nearly soundproof. When he was at his desk small cups of thick coffee were sent in every twenty minutes from a shop down the alley along with a fresh handful of strong cigarettes. During that period of concentration he seldom spoke with anyone but the antiquities dealer who was his landlord, and, less frequently, with a fat oily Arab in the bazaar from whom he bought his writing paper on the first Saturday of every month.

A cognac with your coffee? asked the stationer as Strong-bow settled himself on the cushion indicated, at the front of the shop.

Excellent.

The usual order of fifteen reams?

If you please.

The man shouted instructions to his clerks and then arranged his robes on the cushion opposite Strongbow, where he had a clear view of the narrow street outside. He patted his glistening hair and puffed lazily on his hookah while they waited for the order to be counted out.

The composition goes well?

It seems to be on schedule.

And it still concerns the same subject? Only sex?

Yes.

The sleek Arab listlessly applied a fresh coat of olive oil to his face and gazed at the passing crowds. Occasionally he exchanged a nod or a smile with someone in the alley.

In all truth, he said, it seems extraordinary to me that seven thousand sheets of paper a month could be required to write about such an ordinary matter. How can that be?

Indeed, said Strongbow, sometimes I don’t understand it myself. Do you have a wife?

Four, Allah be praised.

Of all ages?

From a matronly housekeeper down to a mere feather of a girl who giggles life away in brainless inactivity, praise Him again.

Yet you are often not home in the evenings?

Work demands it.

And in the evening who are those young women I see parading near Damascus Gate?

The barefaced ones who gesture obscenely and sell themselves? It’s true, Jerusalem’s appalling.

And the young men there in equal numbers?

Painted no less? Winking as they curtsy? Shameless.

And the little girls in the shadows so young they only reach a man’s waist?

Yet who make all manner of suggestive signs? Yes it’s shocking for a holy city.

And the swarms of little boys no taller, also in the shadows?

Yet who are so lascivious they will hardly let a man pass? Disgraceful.

Who was that old crone who passed the shop just now wagging her toothless smile in this direction?

An elderly slattern who runs a private establishment near here.

She comes to visit you on occasion?

In the slack periods of the afternoon.

To barter?

Allah be praised.

Offering to arrange spectacles and diversions?

Quite so, praise Him again.

But also in her toothless state to act in confidence on a specific matter?

Quite specific.

Continuing vigorously, this crone, until business revives?

Very vigorously.

And the leering old man in front of her who also threw a secret smile in this direction?

Her brother or cousin, who can remember.

He also comes to barter on occasion?

Work must go on, Allah be praised.

This man has ingenious episodes to recount?

Very ingenious, praise Him again.

Tales offering unheard-of excursions?

Quite unheard of.

Yet he always visits at different times from his sister or cousin?

If acts and tales were to coincide we would be dizzy.

And in addition to all else, both this man and this woman have innumerable orphans of every description at their disposal?

Innumerable. Every. In addition.

A clerk bowed and announced that Strongbow’s order was ready. He rose to leave. The sleek stationer smiled through half-closed eyes.

Won’t you have just a puff or two of opium before you go? The quality is excellent this month.

Thank you but I think not. It tends to cloud my work.

Are you sure? It’s only ten o’clock and you have the whole day ahead of you, a whole night too. Ah well, perhaps next month.

Strongbow nodded pleasantly and stepped down onto the cobblestones, leaving the fat man languidly massaging olive oil into his face as a clerk refilled his hookah.

The owner of the antiquities shop whose back room he rented was quite a different sort of man. Meek, thin and otherworldly, he seemed to live more in the past than in nineteenth-century Jerusalem. With objects that dated back to l000 B.C. he had a phenomenal familiarity, but when a piece was older than that he was always confused and had to ask Strongbow’s opinion.

When Strongbow returned, the dealer, Haj Harun, was examining some of his better jewelry, transferring the stones and rings from one tray to another. Strongbow bent his long frame over the counter to admire the splendid gems sprinkling light to all sides, dazzling him with their colors.

Would you mind? asked Haj Harun timidly, holding up a ring. I just acquired it from an Egyptian and I’m not sure at all. What do you think? More or less the middle of the New Kingdom?

Strongbow pretended to study the ring with his magnifying glass.

Did you make a haj twenty-one years ago?

Haj Harun looked startled.

Yes.

But not in a caravan? Not following the regular routes? Keeping by yourself to remote tracks that weren’t tracks at all?

Yes.

Strongbow smiled. He remembered the dealer although of course the man couldn’t remember him since he had been disguised as a dervish at the time. The man had stumbled across him one afternoon near the great divide of the wadis of northern Arabia and remarked that the sky seemed strangely dark for that hour, which indeed it was, because a comet happened to be passing overhead.

In fact Strongbow had been in that particular spot precisely for that reason, to take measurements with a sextant and chronometer and prove to himself that the unknown comet actually existed, Strongbow before then only having deduced its cycle of six hundred and sixteen years from certain celestial evidence to be found in the lives of Moses and Nebuchadnezzar and Christ and Mohammed, in the Zohar and the Thousand and One Nights. That afternoon he had explained this to the frightened Arab, who had then nodded vaguely and gone dreamily on his way.

Strongbow’s Comet. He hadn’t thought about it in years. For a moment he considered the possibility of writing it up in an astronomical monograph, but no, it would be an idle indulgence. His method for dating the comet was difficult, he already had enough to do and couldn’t afford to be deterred by heavenly matters.

Strongbow licked the ring. Older, he announced.

Really?

Yes.

The Arab sighed.

I can’t see it. The very oldest I might venture would be early New Kingdom.

No. Older still. End of the XVII Dynasty to be exact.

Ah the Hyksos, an obscure people. How did you know?

Taste.

What?

Metal content.

Haj Harun thanked him profusely. Strongbow smiled and disappeared into his vault. To him it seemed appropriate and comfortable here. Out front the Arab dealer was trading baubles from the past while in back he was cataloguing the evidence for the present on a mountaintop called Jerusalem.