Sinai Tapestry

by Edward Whittemore

  He turned and saw O’Sullivan Beare grinning, a revolver tucked into his belt. With him was an elderly Arab wearing an antique helmet. The Arab’s face went white but Stern didn’t see that.

  Help me carry him, we’ve got to move him to another house.

  But before Joe could move, the elderly Arab jumped forward, his face radiant.

  If you will, my lord, allow me to help.

  Jaysus, muttered Joe, what next. He can hardly carry himself.

  If you will, my lord, repeated Haj Harun ecstatically, his eyes fixed on Stern.

  Look, said Joe, I’ll do the heavy lifting and you guard us from the rear. We need a reliable warrior back there to make sure some cutthroat of a Crusader doesn’t try to sneak up on us.

  Indeed we do, said Haj Harun, stepping back and proudly straightening his helmet, his eyes still on Stern.

  Between the two of them they managed to carry Sivi up through the alleys away from the harbor. Bodies were everywhere. A girl was hanging from a lemon tree. They went in through the back of a deserted house and laid him out on a couch. A trail of blood ran across the floor to a cupboard. Joe looked inside and quickly closed it. A corpse was stuffed in the cupboard, a naked girl, one of her breasts cut off.

  Theresa worked on the gashes in Sivi’s head. She seemed to see nothing else. Stern turned to O’Sullivan Beare.

  Where did you get the revolver?

  The Black and Tans, where else. As usual they’ve got the goods. An officer he must have been, the troops carry rifles.

  What happened to him?

  A strange occurrence, I don’t deny it. All I did was go up to him and salute and tell him I was reporting in for duty on the Crimean front, and what did he do but take one look at me and do a fast tumble. The medals it must have been, awed by all that brass I guess. Anyway he took such a dive he busted his head on the cobblestones before I could catch him. At least it seemed pretty well busted when I requisitioned his revolver so it wouldn’t fall into the hands of some dangerous bloody belligerent.

  Stern looked at him in disgust.

  Go out front and see if we can reach the harbor. When it gets dark the fires will start.

  That they will, general, that they certainly will. Come along, he added to Haj Harun, who stood rigidly in the doorway unable to take his eyes off Stern. At the front of the hall the old man gripped his arm.

  What is it? whispered Joe.

  But don’t you know who he is? Once just before the war I saw him in the desert.

  Hold it. Which war would we be talking about? The Mameluke invasion? The Babylonian conquest?

  No no, the war that just ended, the one they call the Great War. Of course he doesn’t recognize me.

  Joe was about to answer that he bloody well knew who he was. He was the bloody fake of an idealist who had been trying to play father confessor to him for the last two years while he was smuggling useless rifles to countries that didn’t exist and never would, who had gotten them into this mess in the first place by having them come to Smyrna to meet an ancient Greek queen who was now either deranged or dying. But he couldn’t say any of those things and his face was respectful.

  Saw him did you? Just before 1914 in the desert? In person and all?

  Yes I truly did. I was on my annual haj and he deigned to manifest himself from the skies at dawn and speak to me.

  Speaking you say? From the skies? Manifesting himself? Well that’s an event by any account. And who might he have been then?

  Haj Harun’s lips quivered. Tears trickled down his cheeks.

  God, he whispered in a hushed voice.

  Joe nodded gravely.

  Oh I see, the very article himself. What did he have to say?

  Well I mentioned that I knew God has many names and each one we learn brings us closer to him. So I asked him if he would tell me his name that day and he did. Apparently, although it’s been a total failure, he must have found some virtue in my attempt to defend Jerusalem over the last three thousand years.

  Good, very good. What name did he give then?

  Stern, whispered Haj Harun reverently. It was the moment in my life I will always cherish above all others.

  O’Sullivan Beare staggered against the door and hung there.

  Stern? Out of the sky? Stern?

  Haj Harun nodded dreamily.

  God, he whispered. Our most gracious Lord descending gently from the heavens.

  Joe crossed himself. Jaysus, what’s he talking about now and how did he learn his bloody name really?

  They moved from house to house making their way toward the harbor. At last they came out in a side street beside it, or rather Joe did. Haj Harun seemed to have fallen behind. He waited and after a while the old man came creeping around the corner carrying a heavy sword.

  What’s that?

  A Crusader’s sword.

  It looked like it might be. Just turn up did it?

  It was on a wall in one of those houses we went through.

  And what will you be doing with it then?

  Haj Harun sighed.

  Bloodshed is wrong, I detest it. But I remember how the Babylonians and the Romans were and I’ve been assigned to guard our party, so now as then I’ll do my best to defend the innocent.

  The fires didn’t wait for darkness. Long before sunset whole streets were ablaze. When they got back to the house in the Armenian Quarter smoke already hung heavily over the city.

  Well? said Stern.

  We can get there, general commandant sir, but why we should want to I don’t know. The Black and Tans have half the Irish nation down there beating the shit out of them. A bad lot they are, better not to mix with them unless you’re standing at the right end of a cannon loaded with rusty nails. Now I grew up on the sea but I cast the vote of the Aran Islands this time for going straight overland.

  We can’t with him, whispered Stern, nodding at Sivi.

  No problem there, said Joe, smiling and patting his revolver. I’ll just find a mule and a cart that happen to be going our way.

  But he’s Greek, you fool.

  So we’ll cover him with a blanket. Or are you afraid they might take you for an Armenian? They might do that you know and then where’d you be? No place I guess, as bad off as the Irish nation. Ever seen the Black and Tans working themselves up for a session before? No I imagine you haven’t, but I’ll tell you this is just the beginning. Wait until night comes, that brings out the best in armed men working over an unarmed populace. Night, that’s the item, not afraid of it are you? Couldn’t be so could it? Not our very own general in charge of building Middle Eastern empires?

  O’Sullivan Beare grinned and Stern took a step forward. Boots slapped in the corridor. The door banged open.

  Two Turkish soldiers were pointing rifles at them. Their eyes went to Theresa kneeling beside the couch. One of the soldiers pushed Stern and O’Sullivan Beare against the wall with his bayonet. The other soldier grabbed Theresa by the hair and forced her down over Sivi’s unconscious body.

  Don’t move, she said coolly. They’ll leave when they’ve done what they want.

  The soldier by the couch planted a knee in her back and pulled open his trousers. Suddenly there was an angry roar. The soldier with the bayonet slumped, his head nearly severed. The soldier by the couch tried to stand but Haj Harun was upon him just as quickly. The sword sliced through his shoulder into his chest.

  Something had happened to Haj Harun’s birthmark. In the gloom it had turned a richer and deeper purple, much darker than O’Sullivan Beare had ever seen it. Gone were the fainter patches, the varying shades, the nearly invisible hues. His cloak had fallen to the floor and he stood in the middle of the room naked save for his loincloth, the long bloody sword by his side, his head bowed.

  For the Lord Himself, he murmured, shall descend from heaven with the voice of His archangel Gabriel.

  Stern and O’Sullivan Beare were still pressed against the wall. Sivi lay unconscious on the couch. Theresa was sp
rawled across him on her stomach, her skirt ripped up the back to her waist. All at once she shuddered and her eyes widened.

  What’s he talking about?

  The two men by the wall came to life.

  He thinks he’s Gabriel now, whispered Joe. Gabriel revealed the Koran to the Prophet, he added for no reason.

  Theresa turned from the Arab to the Irishman and it was as if she were seeing him for the first time, as if she hadn’t seen any of them before or the horror around her until that moment. Somewhere inside her a blow shattered the strange calmness Stern had noticed from the beginning. She stared at the Irishman’s thin face and long hair and dark searching eyes, especially his beard. The beard from the paintings in the convent of her childhood.

  She was on her knees shaking, her arms over her head to protect herself. Her body jerked violently.

  Who is that? she screamed and pitched forward on the floor, banging her head up and down on the boards. Stern seized her and she caught sight of Joe standing over her.

  Who is that? she screamed again, choking from the blood streaming down her face. Stern slapped her and she fell in a heap, tearing at her chest. He pulled away her hands and held them.

  Joe backed away until he was in the far corner. He was trembling and soaked with sweat.

  Jaysus, he whispered.

  Yes, said Stern quietly, and may it be your first and last time. Now you and the Arab take him, I’ll take her. You follow and I’ll do the talking.

  Most of the alleys were already blocked by collapsed buildings. O’Sullivan Beare slipped on something soft and crashed into the cobblestones. His elbow cracked. He staggered to his feet, the arm hung slack. He couldn’t move it. Change sides, he said to Haj Harun. They gripped Sivi under the arms and started off once more.

  Did Stern know where he was going? They seemed to be walking in circles, all the alleys looked the same. Stern tried the gate to a walled garden and pushed his way inside. He put Theresa down. The three men were exhausted.

  Five minutes, said Stern.

  The Arab went to stand by the gate. O’Sullivan Beare ripped the sleeve off his shirt to make a sling for his useless arm. From beyond the wall came a high-pitched wail.

  For the love of God kill me before I burn.

  Joe lurched put into the alley, the smoke so thick he could hardly see. The frail cry came again and now he made out the dull yellow of Haj Harun’s cloak moving away from him. He followed, stumbling as best he could. The wail was closer. A decrepit old Armenian was feeling his way along a wall, unknowingly walking into the flames. His nose had been cut off, his eyes torn out. Strands of bloody tissue hung from the empty sockets.

  Tears of blood. Immovable tears. Joe stopped.

  Haj Harun’s sword flashed, the old Armenian sank out of sight. Gently Joe took Haj Harun by the arm and led him back to the garden. The Arab was moaning and weeping in despair, his great sword trailing along behind him.

  The Romans killed five hundred thousand of us, he whispered, but only the fortunate died right away. There were others, so many others.

  Haj Harun wandered around the garden weeping, lost among the ruins. Flames burst overhead, smoke billowed down on them. Joe remembered his numb dangling arm and felt to see if it was still there.

  He lay on his back gazing up at the rolling smoke, at nothing. He couldn’t breathe anymore, he was sinking into a nightmare of shadows and hazy fiery timbers. Dimly Haj Harun’s faded cloak floated across the sky as screams drifted through the nightmare, Sivi screaming he was a Greek from Smyrna, Theresa screaming Who is that? Stern was forcing some medicine down her throat and she was vomiting on him, he tried again but he’d already done that before with Sivi and what good did it do, they went on screaming anyway.

  It didn’t matter, nothing mattered, it must be night now because the smoke was darker and heavier, a thick blanket to sleep under. Already they must have been there for hours, Sivi and Theresa raving and Haj Harun wandering lost through the flowers, fires all around them and all of them strangling in the smoke, even Stern the great general. Stern could go to hell with his dreams, he was no better than anybody else, losing hold like the rest of them.

  Field Marshal Stern? Generalissimo Stern? What rank was he taking in his make-believe empire? Noble shit and bloody ideals, as dazed as anybody else in the garden, you could see he’d never been starving and on the run from the Black and Tans.

  Smuggling arms for what? Why bother? The Black and Tans would only be back again anyway. If you won today they’d be back tomorrow, they always came back and you couldn’t hide forever, not in this world. Better to rest and not worry about it, close your eyes and let it come because it came anyway and there was nothing to stop it, nothing to do about it, coming by itself like the Black and Tans and tomorrow.

  A savage pain. He’d slipped and fallen sideways on his broken elbow.

  And there it was and Stern hadn’t even seen it. Only Haj Harun was awake and guarding them, pathetic in his rusting helmet and tattered yellow cloak, his sword in the air, ready to charge the Turkish soldier who had come in through the gate and was aiming a rifle at his middle.

  Why? He’d be dead before he took a step. For what? In the name of what?

  Jerusalem of course. His beloved myth of a Jerusalem.

  There he was again facing the Babylonians and the Romans and all the other innumerable conquering armies, and conquer they would but he’d still be there defending his Holy City in the flames and smoke, an old man weak from hunger in a ridiculous helmet and threadbare cloak, limping on spindly legs, tottering on visions of Prester John and Sinbad, humiliated and insulted and hopelessly confused, ready to charge once more. As he’d said the first time they ever met, When you’re defending Jerusalem you’re always on the losing side.

  The Turkish soldier was laughing. O’Sullivan Beare shot him in the head.

  Then Haj Harun was moving meekly among them calling them children, gathering them up and saying this wasn’t the garden where they should rest.

  The harbor, chaos. The waterfront two miles long, one hundred feet deep. On one side the Turks, on the other the water.

  Five hundred thousand people there and the city burning.

  Turks working the peripheries robbing and killing and taking girls. Horses’ halters catching fire, the beasts charging through the crowds trampling bodies. The crowds so dense in places the dead remained standing, held up by the living.

  Sivi and Theresa delirious, rising to scream, Haj Harun moving back and forth tying bandages and comforting the dying, holding old women and closing the eyes of rigid children in their arms. Stern leaving and returning, searching for an escape.

  Now it was night, Sunday night. Flames in the blackness, shrieks in the blackness, hacked arms and legs in the blackness, baggage and old shoes.

  A little girl lay beside Joe and he kept turning away from her. Long dark hair and white skin, a black silk dress, her face ripped open. He could see the small white teeth through the hole in her cheek. Eyes shut and lips shut, a wet stain on her chest where she had been stabbed and another below the waist, a black pool between her legs.

  The moan was low but every time he turned away it fell on his back with a dreadful weight. How could he even hear it out here? He couldn’t, it wasn’t there.

  A shoe on the cobblestones a yard away. Cheap, worn, the sole rubbed down to nothing, one stiff twisted shoe. How many hundreds of miles had it walked to get here? How many times had it been patched through the years to get here? How many years was that? How many hundreds of miles?

  It was pressing on his back, he turned around. The eyes were still shut, the lips still shut. Small white teeth, stains, a black pool between her legs. Eight or nine years old and no one taking care of her. Alone here next to him. Why?

  He looked at her shoes. Smooth black leather and new, not worn at all but caked with mud, especially the heels. Mud caked up the heels to her ankles where she had ground them into the earth when the soldiers were on top
of her. How many soldiers? How long had it gone on?

  Too many, too long. There was nothing anyone could do for her now. She’d be gone in a moment, gone in her black silk dress for Sunday. Sunday? Yes still Sunday.

  Can’t you hear what she’s saying?

  Stern’s voice. He looked up. Stern was standing over him with a desperate face, exhausted, streaked with grime and blood. The eyes were hollow, he looked at the shoes. Old and not wearing well, he was surprised. Why a cheap pair like that for the great general? Old and not wearing well, Stern’s shoes.

  What?

  Goddamn it, can’t you hear what she’s saying?

  She wasn’t saying anything, he knew that. She was just moaning, a soft heavy moan beside him that wouldn’t go away. No, not beside him, around him. All around him and louder than the cries and shrieks. Stern was yelling at him again and he yelled back.

  Answer me goddamn it.

  No I can’t hear it, I don’t speak bloody Armenian.

  Please. That’s what she’s saying. Where’s your revolver?

  Lost in the garden.

  Take this then.

  Stern dropped a knife in front of him and leaned over Theresa, over Sivi. He was fixing something under Sivi’s head, a coat probably, it looked like a coat. He was forcing Theresa’s mouth open and clamping a piece of wood between her jaws so she wouldn’t swallow her tongue or bite it off. Always busy, Stern, always thinking of things to do. Busy bastard.

  Where was Haj Harun? Had to keep an eye on the old man or he’d get lost. Always forgetting where he was and wandering off.

  Over there, the yellow cloak kneeling beside a shadow. Was that where the new scream was coming from? What was the music? It sounded like music. And who was that man dancing up and down? No shoes at all, that one. Why was he dancing and where was his hair? Dancing and laughing up and down just like that, gone, laughing and dead, no shoes.

  Where was the other shoe, the one that had walked hundreds of miles? It was right there a minute ago and now it was gone too. A body had fallen on it.