Sinai Tapestry

by Edward Whittemore

  Are you still dreaming of finding your stupid treasure map?

  It’s no dream, Maud. I’m going to find it someday.

  No you won’t, you never will because what you’re looking for doesn’t exist. What exists is chaos seen through a blind man’s eyes and an imbecile’s brain.

  You’ll see, Maud, Haj Harun is going to help me look and someday I’ll find it.

  Someday. Look at yourself right now in that absurd uniform that’s big enough for two of you. Well why don’t you leave if you’re going to, they must be jumping up and down in the Crimea waiting for you to get there and win the war.

  Before he left he brought a present to her down by the river and she threw it in the water. She screamed at him to go away, he disgusted her, she never wanted to see him again. Two weeks later when he came back she wouldn’t look at him. She wouldn’t speak to him. No matter what he said she ignored him.

  At night he sat drinking alone in the garden behind the little house, drinking until he fell asleep, drinking until it was time to make another trip for Stern, not understanding any of it, having no way of knowing that Maud’s fear of being left again by someone she loved was so desperate it was driving her to leave him instead.

  He was away when their son was born toward the end of winter, away in Constantinople smuggling more arms for Stern and Stern’s cause. He had to go to the midwife to find out it was a boy. Maud hadn’t even left a note.

  Joe sat down on the floor and cried. Less than a year had passed since their month together on the shores of the Gulf of Aqaba.

  Someday, he promised himself, I will find it.

  PART THREE

  14 Stern

  Pillars and fountains and waterways, a place where myrrh grew three thousand years ago and forever.

  THE TENT WHERE HE was born in the Yemen stood not far from the ruins of Marib, the ancient capital of the Queendom of Sheba which had once sent apes and gold and peacocks, silver and ivory up the Incense Road to Aqaba, whence they could be transported farther north to the heights of Jerusalem. As a boy he played in the ruins of the Temple of the Moon at Marib among the former pillars and fountains and waterways where myrrh grew.

  One morning he found nothing but sand where the temple had been. He ran back across the hills to their tent.

  It’s gone, he whispered breathlessly to his immensely tall father and his short round grandfather who were roaming back and forth as usual, talking and talking as they pretended to watch over their sheep, the one a former English aristocrat turned bedouin hakïm who had been the greatest explorer of his age, the other an unlettered Yemeni Jew and shepherd who had never left the hillside that was his birthplace.

  The temple’s gone, repeated the boy. Where did it go?

  Gone? said his towering father.

  Where? said his short grandfather.

  A mystery, murmured the one. And not only gone but why?

  And not only where, added the other, but when?

  Right now, answered the little boy. Right where it’s supposed to be. It disappeared overnight.

  The two old men shook their heads thoughtfully. The sun was already high enough to be felt so they sought the shade of an almond tree to consider the problem. While they took turns asking him questions the boy hopped from one foot to the other.

  We must solve this mystery. What’s there in place of the temple?

  Sand. Nothing.

  Ah, nothing but sand, mysterious indeed. Did you stay there overnight?

  No.

  Were you there at dawn?

  No.

  Ah. Could it be then it’s only happening now?

  They both looked at him. He was barely four years old and the question confused him.

  What’s happening now? he asked.

  His father tugged the sleeve of his grandfather.

  Is there really a Temple of the Moon, Ya’qub?

  There is certainly. Yes yes, I’ve seen it as long as I can remember.

  But not today? asked his father.

  No not today but I’ll see it again, answered his grandfather.

  When? In a week, Ya’qub? Two months from now?

  More or less then, o former hakïm. Yes assuredly.

  And yesterday?

  No.

  Six months ago?

  Yes and no. But in any case one of those times without any doubt whatsoever.

  But what are these yesterdays and next weeks of yours, Ya’qub? These two months from now and six months ago? This strange way you have of discussing time? More or less, you say, running days and dates past and future all together as if they were the same.

  His father smiled. His grandfather laughed and clasped the small bewildered boy to his chest.

  Do I? Yes I do. It must be simply that the Temple of the Moon is always there for me because I know it in every detail, exactly as I’ve seen it before and will see it again. And as for the sand that may cover it from time to time, well sand is no matter. We live in the desert and sand simply comes and goes.

  His father turned to him.

  Do you know it in every detail the way your grandfather does?

  Yes, whispered the boy.

  And you can see it all in your mind’s eye even now?

  Yes.

  His father nodded solemnly, his grandfather smiled happily.

  Then it must be as your grandfather says. Above the sands or beneath them is no matter. For you, as for him, the temple is always there.

  The boy thought he understood and went on to another question.

  Well if it’s always there now, how long has it always been there? Who built it?

  His grandfather pretended to frown. Again he clasped the boy in his arms.

  That’s history, he said, and I know nothing of such things, how could I? But fortunately for us your father’s a learned man who has traveled everywhere and gathered all the knowledge in the world, so probably he has already read the inscriptions on the pillars and can answer those questions precisely. Well, o former hakïm? Who built the Temple of the Moon in Marib and how long ago would you say? Precisely one thousand years ago and forever? Two thousand years ago and forever?

  This time it was Ya’qub’s turn to tug his father’s sleeve and his father’s turn to smile.

  The people were called Sabaeans, he said, and they built it three thousand years ago and forever.

  The small boy gasped at the incomprehensible figure.

  Father, will you teach me to read the inscriptions on the pillars?

  Yes, but first Ya’qub must tell us when they will reappear. He must teach us about the sand.

  Will you do that, grandfather?

  Yes yes certainly. When next the wind blows we’ll go out together and sniff it and see if the incense is returning once more to the Temple of the Moon in Marib.

  The short round man snorted, he laughed. His father, grave and dignified, led the way back to the tent where water was set boiling for coffee. And that night as so often the boy sat up by the fire until what seemed a very late hour, drowsily slipping in and out of sleep, never quite sure whether the wondrous words the two old men ceaselessly passed back and forth in the shadows were from the Zohar this time or the Thousand and One Nights, or perhaps written in the stones of the Temple of the Moon where he played, the mysterious myrrh of his childhood, vanishing pillars and fountains and waterways returning with inscriptions to be read one day as surely as gusts in the turning wind, a heady scent never to be forgotten no matter how deeply the strands of incense were buried beneath the sands that night and three thousand years ago and forever, as his father spoke of time in the Temple of the Moon after his long decades of wandering, or that night and the yesterday and next week of forever, as his grandfather described it on that remote hillside beyond ancient Marib which had always been his home.

  His mother’s teachings also flowed when they walked together in the dim cool light of dawn collecting herbs and wild grasses for their salads. Sometimes she made strange sounds ou
t there and gazed at the ground for whole minutes holding her side, her face weary in a way he didn’t understand.

  What could she tell him after all, a boy of four? She was going that’s all, every day the weight was heavier. When she stooped for a blade of grass it pushed her down and when she straightened again she had to press her eyes closed to hold back the pain. The blessing of a child had simply taken more than her body had to give. But he was young and one day he asked her about it when she staggered on the hillside.

  What is it, Mother?

  The memory of that moment would never leave him. The stiff fingers, the strained face, the tired haunted eyes. She sank to her knees and hid her face. She was crying.

  Where does it hurt?

  She took his hand and placed it on her heart.

  Where? I can’t feel anything.

  Here is better, she said, putting one of his tiny fingers on a vein in her wrist.

  That’s your blood. Is that where the pain is?

  No, in my heart where you couldn’t feel it.

  But Father will be able to feel it. Father was a great hakïm. He can cure anyone.

  No. The reason you couldn’t feel it is because sometimes we have pains that belong to us and no one else.

  Now he began to cry and she leaned forward on her knees and kissed his eyes.

  Don’t do that. It’s all right.

  But it’s not. And Father can make it better, I know he can.

  No my son.

  But that’s not fair.

  Oh yes it is, new life for old is always fair.

  Whose life? What do you mean?

  Whose life doesn’t matter. What matters is that if a time ever comes when you have a special pain all your own you must carry it yourself, because other people have theirs too.

  Everyone doesn’t.

  Yes I’m afraid they do.

  Grandfather doesn’t. He’s always laughing.

  So it seems. But underneath there’s something else.

  What?

  Your grandmother. She died long ago and he has never stopped missing her.

  Well Father certainly doesn’t hurt.

  Yes, even him. Now he has a place to rest but for many years that wasn’t so. And once just before he came to our little corner of the world and your grandfather found him alone in the dust and brought him home to us, there was a terrible time when he was lost.

  The little boy shook his head stubbornly.

  But that’s not true, Father was never lost. He walked from Timbuktu to the Hindu Kush and floated down the Tigris to Baghdad and marched through three dawns and two sunsets out of the Sinai without even noticing he had no food or water. No one has ever done the things he did.

  That may be but I didn’t mean he was lost in the desert. He was lost here, in his heart, where my pain is now.

  The little boy looked at the ground. He had always accepted everything his mother said but it seemed impossible that his smiling grandfather could really be sad inside. And it was even more impossible to believe his father had ever been lost.

  And so, she said, we mustn’t tell your father about my pain because he has his own burdens from the past. He came here to find peace, he brought us happiness and he deserves it in return.

  She put her hands on his shoulders.

  Now promise me that.

  He was crying again. I promise, he said, but I also want to help. Isn’t there something I can do?

  Well perhaps one day you can find our home. Your father found a home with us but your grandfather and I don’t really belong here.

  Why?

  Because we’re Jews.

  Where is our home then?

  I don’t know but someday you may find it for us.

  I will. I promise.

  She smiled.

  Come then, we have to pick our grasses for dinner. Those two men of ours talk and talk and never stop and they’ll be hungry after spending another day settling the affairs of heaven.

  When he went to Cairo for Islamic studies he used one of his father’s Arabic names. When he went to Safad to study the cabala he used his grandfather’s Jewish name. So when the time came for him to acquire his Western education he asked what name he should use.

  A Western name, said his father.

  But what? asked his grandfather. The two old men took his coffee cup and studied it. I see many Jewish and Arabic names, said Ya’qub, but I can’t make out a Western one, perhaps because I don’t know what a Western name is. What do you see, o former hakïm?

  His father raised the small cup far above their heads and peered over the rim. Stern, he announced after a moment. Yes quite clearly.

  That sounds too short, said Ya’qub, isn’t there more to it? Doesn’t it have an ibn or a ben something after it?

  No that’s all there is, said his father.

  Very odd, very curious. What does it mean?

  Resolute, unyielding.

  Unyielding?

  In the face of what can’t be evaded or escaped.

  Ah that’s better, said Ya’qub. Certainly there’s no reason to evade or escape the marvels of life.

  All at once he wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth. He winked at his grandson.

  But then, o former hakïm, do I hear an echo of your own character in the coffee cup of your son?

  Impossible, answered the old explorer with a smile. Coffee grounds are coffee grounds. They speak for themselves.

  Ya’qub laughed happily. Yes yes they do, how could it be otherwise. Well my boy, there you have it. And where do you go now?

  Bologna. Paris.

  What? Unheard-of places. How do they number the year there? What do they call it?

  Nineteen hundred and nine.

  Ya’qub poked his father.

  Is it true what the boy says?

  Of course.

  Ya’qub snorted, he laughed.

  Of course you say to an old man who’s never been anywhere, but it makes no difference you see. These hills will still be here when the boy returns, only the sand will be different. In fact you’ll never leave them. Is that so or not?

  Perhaps, said Stern, smiling.

  The two of you, muttered Ya’qub, you think you can fool me but you can’t. I know what year it is, certainly I do. More coffee, o former hakïm? We can thank God your son is halfway between the two of us and has some of my good shepherd blood in him so he won’t have to be a genie for sixty years, like you were, before he becomes a man.

  The evening before he left his father took him out walking in the twilight. Too excited at first to realize his father had something he wanted to say, he talked and talked about the new century and the new world it would bring, how eager he was to get to Europe and get started, to begin, so many possibilities and so much ahead, so much to do, on and on until at last he noticed his father’s silence and stopped.

  What are you thinking?

  About Europe. I was wondering whether you’ll like it as much as you think you will.

  Of course I will, why wouldn’t I, it’s all new. Imagine how much there is for me to see.

  That’s true yet Ya’qub may be right, it may be that you’ll never leave these hills. That was his way, it wasn’t mine, but then I wasn’t born in the desert with its solitude the way he was, or you. I sought it and perhaps being born to it is different. Surely there’s as much to see in the desert as anywhere else but to some it can also give rise to an abiding loneliness, I have to remind myself of that. Not all men are meant to wander alone for forty years as I did. Father Yakouba for example. He lived quite differently in Timbuktu and was a very wise and happy man with his flocks of little children and their footprints in the sky, his journeys of two thousand miles in an afternoon while sipping Calvados in a dusty courtyard. As he said, a haj isn’t measured in miles.

  I know that, Father.

  Yes of course you do. You have the example of the other Ya’qub, your own grandfather. Well do you know what it is you seek then?<
br />
  To create something.

  Yes certainly, that’s the only way to begin. And what of money, does it play any part in your plans? What you want?

  No none, it means nothing to me, how could it growing up with you and Ya’qub. But that’s a strange question. Why do you ask it when you already know the answer?

  Because there’s a certain matter I should discuss with you and I’ve never talked about it with anyone, not even Ya’qub.

  Stern laughed.

  What could possibly be so mysterious you wouldn’t talk about it with Ya’qub?

  Oh it’s not mysterious, quite mundane as a matter of fact. It’s just that there never seemed any reason to mention it. You see before I left Constantinople I made certain financial arrangements, real estate and so forth. I thought I might have some use for the property someday but then I became a hakïm and then I retired here, so of course as it turned out I’ve never had any use for it whatsoever. And if you don’t think you’ll need the properties, well then I thought I might return them to their former owners. Possessions are a burden and the fewer burdens one has the better when setting out on a haj.

  Stern laughed again.

  You’re not suggesting I begin naked? Strap a bronze sundial to my hip and leap over a garden wall? But you are being mysterious, Father. Could Ya’qub be telling the truth when he says the two of you own most of this part of the world? Two secret co-emperors with me as your only heir? Why do you smile?

  At Ya’qub, at his notion of real estate. To him it’s all in the mind and this hillside is not only this part of the world, it’s the universe as well. You know how fond he is of pointing out he has never been anywhere while it took me sixty years to arrive at the same place. Well he’s right about that of course, about this hillside and what it has always meant to him and what it eventually came to mean to me. Anyway, the Ottoman Empire wouldn’t be much to own these days would it, rather tattered as empires go. Something new will have to replace it soon in this new century you like to talk about.

  Stern smiled.

  And in any case there was that first lesson the two of you ever taught me the day I couldn’t find the Temple of the Moon. That the only real empire is the empire of the mind.