Sinai Tapestry (40 page)

More precisely, Whittemore didn’t soar so much as tunnel. He tunneled under the surface of Jerusalem, following the three-thousand-year-old antiquities dealer Haj Harun in his tattered yellow cape and dented Crusader helmet down through the physical layers of the place—one era’s stones laid on top of the previous one’s to create a vertical history—and into the existential city, the one we really inhabited if we could only escape daily reality long enough to see it.

Funny, scabrous, magical, cynical, romantic, clear-eyed—Whittemore was all these and more. Reading him, we felt as though finally someone had come along who could grasp the madness in which we lived. Who could take it and run with it, celebrating its delirious complexity, its fantastic twists and turns, its ramifications though the centuries and across the globe.

Later, when he moved to Jerusalem and lived right by the domed Ethiopian church, a hidden compound where black-robed monks swayed and chanted as they had for centuries, it seemed as though Whittemore were the Pied Piper of the city, playing the hidden tune that would make it dance. He wrote out of an immense affection for the place, its inhabitants and their foibles. Out of pity for the bloodshed yet with calm, Zen-like insight into the passions that led to it. His Jerusalem quartet, now nearly complete, had become a symphony of time and history, innocence and experience.

By then, he could himself have been a character from the Quartet: the ex-CIA agent secluded in the peaceful oasis of the Ethiopian compound, speaking Geez with the monks, juggling the story of Jerusalem at his desk by the arched stone window. There was always something pixie-like about him, but now it seemed he had become a master conjuror who could take your mind and stretch it through time and space, then bring it back again in an arcing circularity, wiser and sadder and yet at the same time happier.

And then he disappeared. And later resurfaced in New York. And in terribly short order, died. Perhaps he knew of the cancer when he walked away from Jerusalem literally in the middle of the night, leaving behind this lovely, wild, time- and mind-bending series of novels.

I was the first in that Friday group to discover Whittemore, quite by the kind of chance he loved. On a break from a year’s wandering round the Sinai in research for a book, I strayed into Jerusalem’s main bookstore and found, in the remainder bin, a paperback titled
Sinai Tapestry.
The cover was luridly sci-fi—the publisher had served him ill—but nevertheless I read the first few pages and knew I had to read them all.

Determined to make the book last, I allowed myself no more than twenty pages an evening. And each day, I’d tell friends what I’d read the night before.

They accused me of making it up.

I wish I’d been able to.

I went back to the store, bought every copy, and handed them out. We became a kind of Whittemore cult, tracing shades of Vonnegut and Borges, Pynchon and Lawrence Durrell in the man who’d been called “America’s best least-known writer.”

And then a year or so later, passing by the same store, I saw
Jerusalem Poker
in the window. In hardback—a major investment at the time for a struggling wordsmith. But I had no choice: I walked right in and bought it. And knew instantly that this would be my favorite of the planned Quartet.

If you had to describe the novel in one line, you could say it’s about a twelve-year poker game for control of the holy city. But that, of course, is only the top layer, as you realize if you take just the three main players in the Great Jerusalem Poker Game: Moslem, Christian, and Jew.

First, Cairo Martyr, the Nubian dragoman with pale blue eyes who has made a fortune selling mummy dust cut with quinine as an aphrodisiac. Then Joe O’Sullivan Beare, an Irish patriot who now smuggles arms for the Haganah inside giant hollow scarabs, and trades in sacred phallic amulets. And then Munk Szondi, the scion of a powerful Budapest-based banking house run by a matriarchal directorate known as The Sarahs, who trades in futures—any and all futures.

“Mummy dust. Trading in futures. Religious symbols. With that kind of backing, the three men seemed unbeatable. Year after year, they stripped visitors to Jerusalem of all they owned, bewildered emirs and European smugglers and feuding sheikhs, devout priests and assorted commercial agents and pious fanatics, every manner of pilgrim in that vast dreaming army from many lands that had always been scaling the heights of the Holy City in search of spiritual gold, Martyr and Szondi and O’Sullivan Beare implacably dealing and shuffling and dealing again, relentlessly plunging Jerusalem into its greatest turmoil since the First Crusade.”

Familiar and half-familiar characters swirl in and out of the narrative as it arcs from Jericho to Smyrna, Venice to Cairo, the pendulum swinging inexorably back and forth through Jerusalem. There’s the seven-foot-tall Plantagenet Strongbow, an English lord who purchased the whole of the Ottoman Empire and wrote a 33-volume study of Levantine sex. Avraham Stern of the eponymous Stern Gang. A Japanese nobleman who becomes a revered rabbi in seclusion beneath Mount Sinai. King Zog of Albania. Warlords and pederasts, eunuchs and bishops, lovers and thieves and soldiers and spies all dancing to Whittemore’s tune of time infinite and ineffable.

This is a Jerusalem where time expands and contracts. Where it may suddenly, unpredictably, speed up or slow down. “Eternal city and so forth,” says O’Sullivan Beare. Daft time spinning out of control for sure on top of the holy mountain.” But always in the world of Whittemore, time’s swoops and spirals come full circle—as they have now for
Jerusalem Poker
, back in print after the mere eye blink of twenty-odd years.

—Lesley Hazleton

Seattle, 2002

Lesley Hazleton’s books include the award-winning
Jerusalem, Jerusalem
and
Where Mountains Roar.
She lived thirteen years in Jerusalem, reporting on the Middle East for
Time, The New York Times, Esquire, The Nation
and many other publications. In a Whittemoreish move, she now lives and writes on a houseboat in Seattle.

The end had come. Jerusalem lay

on the table. At last it was a

case of winner take all in the

eternal city.

T
HE GREAT JERUSALEM POKER
Game for secret control of the city, the ruin of so many adventurers in the period between the two world wars, continued for twelve years before it finally spent itself.

During that time thousands of gamblers from around the world lost fortunes trying to win the Holy City, but in the end there were only three men at the table, the same three who had been there in the beginning.

Twelve years of ferocious poker for the highest of stakes after an initial hand was dealt by chance one cold December day in 1921—seemingly by chance, to pass the time that gray afternoon in Jerusalem when the sky was heavily overcast and wind whipped through the alleys, snow definitely in the air.

A cheap Arab coffee shop in the Old City where young O’Sullivan Beare sat crouched in a corner over a glass of wretched Arab cognac, a disillusioned Irish patriot who had fought in the Easter Rebellion at the age of sixteen and gone on to be revered as
the biggest of the little people
when he was terrorizing the Black and Tans in the hills of southern Ireland, a fugitive who had escaped to Palestine disguised as a Poor Clare nun on a pilgrimage.

A lonely hero still only twenty-one years old, wearing as an unlikely disguise that day the uniform of an officer of light cavalry in Her Majesty’s expeditionary force to the Crimea, 1854, the medals on his chest showing he had survived a famous suicidal charge and been awarded the Victoria Cross because of it, far from home now huddled over a glass of Arab cognac that helped not at all, finding life bleak and meaningless on that cold December afternoon, simply that.

Dice clattered around the smoky room.

Bloody Arab excuse for a pub, he muttered. Just bloody awful, that’s what. Not an honest pint in the house and no one to drink it with anyway.

A sudden gust of air struck him. The door had opened.

A tall black man in a stately Arab cloak and Arab headgear, so black he was almost blue, stood rubbing his hands after escaping the wind. On his shoulder crouched a small ball of white fluff, some kind of little animal. The man’s eyes roamed the shop looking for empty tables but there were none, only densely packed Arabs sweating over games of backgammon. Then he caught sight of the corner where O’Sullivan Beare slouched alone in the dimness. He made for the table, smiling as he sat down.

Coffee, he said to the waiter.

Dice clattered. O’Sullivan Beare’s head jerked back. The smiling black man had light blue eyes.

Hey what’s this, thought O’Sullivan Beare. Things just aren’t supposed to be like that. Someone’s up to tricks again in the Holy City. And what’s that little white animal curled up on his shoulder? White as white and as furry as can be, head and tail tucked away ever so nicely out of sight.

He nodded at the black Arab.

Cold out, wouldn’t you say?

I would.

Yes, you’re right. And who might this little friendly creature be you’re carrying around to see the sights? A traveling companion, I suppose. Seems to be sleeping soundly enough despite the wind out there. Has a wicked bite, that wind.

He’s a monkey, said the black man.

Oh I see.

An albino monkey.

O’Sullivan Beare nodded again, his face serious.

Sure why not, he thought. A black Arab with a white monkey on his back? Sure, makes as much sense as anything else. Why not, I say.

A few minutes later another man entered the shop escaping the wind and the cold, this time a European, his nationality difficult to place. In his hand he carried a longbow of exquisite workmanship.

Now what’s this twist? thought O’Sullivan Beare. What’s going on around here? More confusion and things seem to be spinning out of control already. That item’s not English for sure, not French or German or anything natural. And armed with a bow no less, just in case a spot of archery practice turns up while he’s out for a stroll on a dreadful winter afternoon. Some bloody devious article up to no good in the Holy Land, that’s certain. By God, it’s pranks for sure and somebody’s bent on something.

The man took in the tables at a glance and headed directly toward the corner where O’Sullivan Beare sat with the black Arab. Slung over his shoulder on a cord was a long cylindrical case made of red lacquer. He clicked his heels with a slight nod and sat down. An unmistakable cloud of garlic fumes engulfed the table.

Excuse me for interrupting your meditations, gents, but it seems this is the only table in the room free from backgammon. On the other hand it is a dreary afternoon. Do either of you play poker?

He looked at O’Sullivan Beare, who nodded without interest.

Yes, I daresay you must have picked it up in the army. And you, my friend?

The black Arab smiled pleasantly and spoke with a cultivated English accent.

I used to play before the war, but I’m not sure I recall the rules.

No? Well perhaps we could refresh our memories.

The European brought out a pack of cards, shuffled and dealt five to the black Arab and five to himself. He turned over his cards and set aside what he had, a pair of kings. Then he turned over the black Arab’s cards and set aside what he had, a pair of aces.

You win, it’s as simple as that. Care to try a deal yourself?

The black Arab clumsily put the pack back together, shuffled slowly and dealt. This time when the cards were turned over he had the same two aces as before, plus an additional one. The European had his same two kings and a third to go with them.

The black Arab smiled.

It seems I win again.

Indeed you do, murmured the European thoughtfully. A case of excellent recall. Munk Szondi’s my name. From Budapest.

And that’s the truth, thought O’Sullivan Beare. Devious pranks sneaking out of the mists of central Europe and lurking on every side. Right you are and I could see that mischief coming.

Cairo Martyr, said the black Arab. From Egypt, a pleasure. Tell me, what in the world is that case you’re carrying?

A quiver.

For arrows?

Yes. The Japanese samurai used them in the Middle Ages. And that little creature asleep on your shoulder?

A monkey. An albino monkey.

The two men studied each other for a moment. Then the Hungarian turned back to O’Sullivan Beare who was slumped despondently over his glass, fidgeting with his Victoria Cross. With the eye of a professional military man he took in the rows of medals on the Irishman’s chest.

The Crimean War, if memory holds.

It’s holding all right. That was the one.

My sympathy, a truly appalling disaster. Pure folly, that charge at Balaklava. But you did survive it after all. And since that was the middle of the last century, perhaps the time has come to put aside the memory of your fallen comrades. Sadness can’t bring them back, now can it.

No it can’t, that’s true. But all things considered I’m still feeling glum today. Gloomy and glum and that’s a fact.

How so, my friend?

Don’t know, do I. Just guessing though, I’d say it has something to do with having been through too much for my age. Excessive experience, I mean. It’s worn me down until now I’m worn out. Here I am only twenty-one years old and I’m already a veteran of a war that was fought nearly seventy years ago. And that’s a weight for a man to carry. Do you follow me?

I think so, said Munk Szondi. Are you Irish by any chance?

Not at all, not a bit of it, by no chance whatsoever. By strict calculations at the top, one of those incomprehensible decisions made by Himself and passed on to my long-suffering mother and father, he being a poor fisherman who ate mostly potatoes and had thirty-three sons, me being the youngest and the last. The name’s Joe when said in short, but when proclaimed over a proper pint of stout it runs to Joseph Enda Columbkille Kieran Kevin Brendan O’Sullivan Beare, those being saints who came from my island, which isn’t much of anyplace you’d ever want to be. The barren Aran Islands, they’re called, because they’re so rainy and windswept and so poor God didn’t bother to put any soil on them, instead leaving it up to His believers to make the soil if they wanted it, figuring somebody in His universe should believe that much. Mere slips of rock in the Atlantic, that’s all, outposts against the terrible tides and gales of the Western seas. And now that you know all that, you can see it’s not just because of the weather that I’m sagging today. Although young I’ve had a stormy soilless life, if you catch my meaning.