Edward Whittemore - Sinai Tapestry

What else would I be doing? Do you recognize this uniform?

No, I’ve never been too good with uniforms.

Well it’s genuine Her Majesty’s Forces, 1854, and I’m only twenty years old but I’m a hero of that war, here you behold the medals. And this special one was given to me by Victoria R herself although I was only a year old when she died. So there we are and that’s Jerusalem for you in 1920, me back from the Crimea and you back from the Crusades, and as one veteran of the wars to another I thought I’d look you up.

The Arab studied the Victoria Cross. He smiled.

You’re Prester John, aren’t you. I was sure you’d get to Jerusalem sooner or later and I’ve been waiting for you. Please come right in so we can talk.

He disappeared through the doorway. For a moment Joe lingered in the alley undecided, but the sun was hot and his uniform heavy, so he followed. The first thing he saw was what appeared to be a bronze sundial set into the wall, a large ornately-cast piece. Attached to it near the ceiling was a set of chimes.

From Baghdad, said Haj Harun, noticing him eyeing the sundial. The fifth Abbasid caliphate. I used to deal in antiquities before I dedicated myself to defending the Holy City and lost everything I owned.

I see.

It was a portable sundial once.

I see.

Monstrously heavy but somehow it didn’t seem to bother him. He wore it on his hip.

Did he now. And who might that have been?

I can’t remember his name. He rented my back room one afternoon to do some writing and gave me that in appreciation.

Rented it for just one afternoon?

I think that’s all it was but he got a good deal done anyway. Then he packed up all his papers and sent them by camel caravan down to Jaffa where there was a ship waiting to transport the caravan to Venice.

And why not, I say. In good weather Venice would be a natural destination for a camel caravan.

Suddenly the chimes began to strike. They pealed twenty-four times, paused, pealed twenty-four times again and once more. Joe fingered his Victoria Cross uneasily.

Jaysus they shouldn’t be doing that now.

Doing what?

Striking off three days just like that.

Why not?

They just shouldn’t that’s all, time’s time.

Time is, said Haj Harun airily. But the sun doesn’t fall on the dial every day, sometimes it’s cloudy and then the dial has to make up.

Haj Harun went over and sat in a decrepit barber’s chair. Near the door was a small press for squeezing fruit with a rotting pomegranate beside it. Next to the barber’s chair was a stand holding a bottle of murky water, a pan for spitting in, an old toothbrush with flattened bristles and an empty tube of Czech toothpaste. He picked at the moldy chair as he gloomily surveyed the room.

I went into the toothbrushing business at exactly the wrong time. Very few people find their way to the end of this alley and anyway, brushing teeth hasn’t been the same since the war. Before the war you might have done well in it, the Turkish soldiers had awful teeth. But since they left and the English soldiers came it’s been hopeless. Their teeth are certainly just as bad but they won’t let an Arab brush them.

Bloody imperialists.

They also won’t have them brushed in public. The Turks never minded but the English aren’t the same.

Bloody hypocrites.

A wail rose down the alley. Haj Harun pulled his helmet down and braced himself. A moment later a crowd of shrieking men and women burst into the shop and raced back and forth clawing at the air. The Arab stared fixedly over their heads trying to maintain his dignity, and in a few seconds the looters had snatched up every movable object in the room and swept out the door. Gone were the pomegranate and press and barber’s chair with its equipment, even the empty tube of Czech toothpaste. Haj Harun moaned softly and shrank back against the wall, yellow and emaciated and half dead from hunger.

Jaysus, who was that mob?

The Arab shuddered. He managed to wave his hand in resignation.

Mercantile elements of the citizenry, it’s better to take no notice of them. They come to raid me sometimes. They want things to sell.

Bloody outrage.

There are worse. Look here.

He opened his mouth. Most of his teeth were gone and those that were left were broken off near the gums.

Rocks. They throw them at me.

Bloody shameful.

And these scars from their fingernails. They have very sharp fingernails.

Bloody terrible.

All true, but I suppose we have to accept certain troubles when going from Ceca to Mecca. All the women I ever married were dreadful.

Do you tell me that. Why did you marry them then?

That’s so, but of course they didn’t have an easy time of it either. You know that don’t you?

O’Sullivan Beare nodded and walked into the back room of the shop. After the assault by the mob of Jerusalem mercantilists only two objects were left there, both far too heavy to move. He gazed at them thoughtfully.

An antique Turkish safe about four feet high, narrow, shaped like a filing cabinet or an impregnable sentry box.

A giant stone scarab about four feet long, a sly smile carved into its flat face.

You know that don’t you?

So much rust had fallen into Haj Harun’s eyes his cheeks were running with tears.

I mean of course they didn’t have an easy time of it. Take my wife who was a Bulgarian Greek. The Greeks up there were educated and they also had to serve as moneylenders because there were no banks. The Bulgars could only sign their names with Xs, so every now and then they came around and massacred the Greeks to cancel their debts and cheer themselves up. My wife’s family escaped during the massacre of 1910 and when they finally arrived in Jerusalem they were destitute, so you can’t blame her for taking all my plates and cups and pots when she left me.

Joe studied the iron safe more closely. Why was it so tall and thin?

Then another of my wives was born in the deserted city of Golconda which used to be famous for its diamond trade, but it’s been deserted since the seventeenth century and that’s not a pleasant memory to have either, to come from a totally deserted city I mean. So look here, no wonder she wanted to have the security of some furniture and carpets and took all of mine when she left. You can see that can’t you?

Joe rapped the antique safe. The muffled echoes were out of all proportion to the size of the safe. Haj Harun was roaming around and around the bare walls.

Still another wife was the daughter of a twelfth-century Persian poet whose song told of a pilgrimage made by a flock of birds in search of their king. Since the pilgrimage was over water most of the birds died, and when the survivors finally reached the palace behind the seven seas what did they discover but that each of them was actually the king. So see here, given a father who saw things that way it’s not surprising she took all my vases and lamps. Naturally she wanted to surround herself with flowers and light.

Joe got down on his knees and rapped the safe more loudly. The reverberations were uncanny. Deep hollow echoes boomed up into the room. Something was going on here that he didn’t understand.

Why do you wear a yellow cloak?

It was bright yellow when it was new but that was seven hundred years ago and since then it’s faded.

Do you tell me so. But why yellow?

There must have been a reason but. I can’t recall it at the moment. Can you?

Joe shook his head. He still needed time to think.

What’s that cord in the corner?

I had an electric light once but a dog was always sneaking in behind my back and biting the wire. He liked the shocks. Finally it was so full of holes I had to go back to using a candle. Did you know I discovered a comet no one else has ever heard of?