Haj Harun lowered his head. He was weeping quietly.
Thank you, Prester John. I know I’ve always failed but it still means a great deal to me to have someone know I’ve tried.
Not tried man, said Joe, you did it. Now get ahold of yourself and let’s forget this nonsense.
Haj Harun wiped his eyes. As he did his helmet tipped and released a new shower of rust in his face. The tears began to flow again.
Thank you, he whispered. But you see it’s going to take me time to get used to having friends again. To be able to trust people again. After so much ridicule and humiliation, and the slaps and the kicks and the punches that go with it, you can’t help but be afraid. When we met and you believed what I said rather than beating me when I said it, that was wonderful, the best thing that had happened to me in two thousand years, ever since I lost my credibility in Jerusalem. But I don’t want to rush things with Munk and Cairo, I have to have some confidence in myself again. I’m so afraid they might think I was mad and it’s terrible when people think that, it hurts much more than the slaps and the kicks and the punches. You can understand that, can’t you? Please? A little?
Of course I can, all of it. Now then, let’s both of us stand up straight. It’s a March morning and spring is coming and we’re walking through the streets of your city. Let’s smile too.
Haj Harun tried to smile and a shy little twisted grin flickered across his face. Two well-dressed young men were going by and he tentatively held up one of his newly laundered dishcloths to show them. With a single glance they took in the dishcloth and the old man’s faded yellow cloak, his spindly legs and bare feet, his rusty Crusader’s helmet with the two green ribbons tied under his chin.
As if on command the two young men noisily coughed up phlegm and spat into the gutter. They both turned their heads away as they went striding by, one holding his nose and the other making an obscene gesture.
Haj Harun dropped the dishcloth to his side and shrank back against the wall, cringing pathetically. An enormous sigh escaped his lips.
You see? he whispered sadly. The younger generation doesn’t believe in me at all. They think I’m just a useless old man.
What? said Joe. Those fat werewolves from the merchant class? Who cares about them? They’ve already taken a turn on their morning hookahs and they’re so dazed they couldn’t believe in anything. The hell with them, we were talking about Munk and Cairo, two very fine gents. I mean I don’t think you have to worry with the likes of a Munk or a Cairo.
Maybe I don’t, but I still feel shy around them. Anyway a time will come, Prester John, and I’d rather wait until I feel easy about it. I do like them though. Isn’t that enough for now?
It is, certainly, so let’s be on our way. Say, did I ever tell you I used to have a regular name before I came to Jerusalem five years ago?
Everyone always has other names before they come here.
I believe it. But how would you like to call me by this other name once in a while?
Haj Harun looked puzzled.
Why?
Just so I won’t be confused, just because it was the name I was born with. Sometimes I do get confused when we’re together. You know, time and all, it can be a jumble.
Time is, murmured Haj Harun.
By God I know it, but just occasionally. O’Sullivan Beare’s the name. Or just O’Sullivan if that seems too long.
That’s Irish.
That’s what it is all right. Now can you use it now and then so I can keep myself straight?
If you wish.
Yes, that would be nice.
They walked into the garden in front of St Ann’s and sat down on a bench. Haj Harun untied the two green ribbons under his chin, removed his rusty helmet and held it out to Joe.
Do you see these parallel dents on each side, O’Rourke? I got them one day five or six hundred years ago when I was on my way out of the grotto in this church.
A fight to the finish, was it? You were emerging from the caverns and the Crusaders had the exits blocked?
Oh no. That is, I was emerging from the caverns but there was no one around at all, unfortunately for me. You remember how low the ceiling is on the stairway up from the grotto? Well my torch had gone out and it was night and I kept banging my head with every step I took. Finally I became so angry I butted the ceiling and got stuck.
Stuck?
My helmet did, O’Banion, in a cleft between two rocks in the ceiling. And then I lost my footing and there I was hanging in mid-air by my helmet. It felt like the top of my head was coming off.
Awful, I know the feeling. I have it some mornings myself. How did you escape?
I didn’t. I had to hang there the rest of the night. The next day a group of pilgrims came along at last and freed me by pulling on my legs, which was terrible. Then I really felt as if the top of my head was coming off.
Haj Harun stirred uneasily.
O’Donnell?
Yes?
O’Driscoll?
Still here as best I can be.
You know all at once my mind seems to be a perfect blank.
Why?
I can’t imagine. I’ll have to think about it.
Good.
But that won’t help, will it, if my mind’s a perfect blank to begin with? Oh dear, I just seem to be going around in circles today.
Suddenly Haj Harun laughed.
I know why it is. It’s because we’re here. This is a very special place to me.
The old man chuckled and put his helmet back on his head. He drifted over to the church where a part of the Wall attracted his attention. He examined himself carefully in a small nonexistent mirror, then stepped back to examine himself again in a full-length, nonexistent mirror. All the while he was humming and smiling and raising and lowering his eyebrows.
Seems unusually concerned with his appearance, thought Joe.
O’Brien?
Yes?
I’ve never seen a helmet with more dents in it than mine, and isn’t that just like history? Always new blows to the head? Inevitable blows it would seem?
Seems so, yes it does.
But there are other moments in life, O’Connor, truly unforgettable moments. Here in this garden, for example, in my youth.
Your youth? A journey, I’d say. How far back are we going?
To the Persian occupation. Oh those were the days, you can’t imagine.
Haj Harun laughed softly.
Such long lazy afternoons, O’Dair. I ate garlic incessantly during the Persian occupation and always wore my leather bracelet, the one with the right testicle of a donkey inside it.
Do you say that. Why these customs?
To increase my sexual powers.
Ah.
Yes. And when it was necessary I induced abortions through the mouth.
By way of, you mean?
No, out of. That could still be done then.
I see.
And I had to do it frequently because I was very active with the ladies. Feverish days, O’Casey, when the Persians were here.
Feverish?
Sex. Just sex and more sex. Rampant sex. I was insatiable.
Groin fever in other words. Couldn’t get enough of it?
No, never. Not until the princess finally accepted me as her lover. I even remember the year. It was 454 B.C.
True? Garlic and a donkey’s right one doing the job in 454 B.C.? That strikes me as uncommonly precise dating for you. Generally an era is as close as we get.
But I’m not in error on this one. My experiences that year were wholly unique. Let me show you where it started.
Joe followed him across the garden. Haj Harun kept stopping to admire flowers, referring to each one as a Solomon’s-seal.
How can that be? asked Joe. They’re all different. Don’t they have different names?
Not here. Here every flower is a Solomon’s-seal. Do you see that pool, O’Nolan?
Oh nullify me, I do.
Well th
at’s where I met her, right there. And she was holding a Solomon’s-seal in her hand.
Who?
The princess.
Where’s the sun gone? said Joe. Why is it looking like rain?
Joe sat beside the pool rolling a cigarette while Haj Harun roamed around the edge of the water, absentmindedly straying into the mud. Every so often he paused and shouted.
Right here, O’Ryan. The pool was also called Bethesda then, did you know that?
O’Ryan am I now, muttered Joe. A constellation prize if that’s any help when Jerusalem time is out of control. Daft heavens above and a daft gathering of the clans below in the Holy City, everybody’s Holy City.
He leaned back against the bank and closed his eyes.
It smelled like rain but it was a good time for a nap all the same. Late game last night persuading a patriarch from Aleppo to see through his watery eyes. And too much poteen for sure so forty winks, why not.
The cigarette fell out of his hand. His head rested on the grass. From far away a faint wail came to him in his sleep.
I’m sinking, O’Meara. Sinking.
And so he is, thought Joe, and so are we all. Hour by hour and day by day, that’s what’s happening to us.
O’Boyle, clay feet, wailed the voice, louder now and much closer.
That’s it all right, thought Joe. That’s what we have and none other.
O’Halloran, please.
A voice of desperation? Joe opened his eyes and saw Haj Harun stranded in the middle of the pool. The old man had wandered in to see his reflection in the water and gotten stuck in a mudhole. He was in up to his knees and unable to move. Joe scrambled around to find a pole and pulled the old man out.
A close call, whispered Haj Harun.
No it wasn’t that bad, said Joe. The water’s not very deep.
Not very deep? Two thousand four hundred years ago is not very deep?
Oh that’s right, I was forgetting. Now just sit down here beside me where you’ll be safe.
Haj Harun smiled and did so.
It’s just as well, he whispered. I shouldn’t have been over there shouting in the first place. It wouldn’t do to have other people overhear. It might excite them too much. I mean sexual exploits like that are unheard of today.
All true.
Well, whispered Haj Harun, where shall I begin?
At the beginning I suppose. Right here by the pool where you met her.
All right, said Haj Harun proudly. And will you keep in mind that I was quite a different person in those days?
I will.
Not at all what you see today? Strong and energetic in my youth? At the peak of my sexual powers?
The very peak, yes.
Well then, I met this Persian princess here and she was so beautiful I immediately fell in love with her. I told her so and she was also taken with me. But first, she said, she wanted to be sure I could truly satisfy her. Of course I already had a great reputation in such matters but still she wanted to be sure, given the fact that she was a princess from Persia while I was just a youth in conquered Jerusalem.
Given. And so?
And so she said she would set three tasks for me to accomplish. The first task was to come to her castle on the next full moon and deflower eighty virgins from her court, in one night, without ejaculating.
Saints preserve us. You were at a peak in those days.
And that was only the first task of three. Are you still with me, O’MacCarthy?
I am in one guise or another, some as unheard of as the sexual adventures of your youth. Now please to proceed. How went this heroic effort?
As required. Fortified by garlic and wearing my leather bracelet and bursting with love for the princess, I did what was necessary.
The donkey’s right one was there on the job, I can see that.
Indeed it was. And then the next morning the princess presented me with my second task. I was to spend one full month standing naked in her court with a full erection, and the ladies of the court were to come and go as they pleased in any state of undress, fondling me as they might as frequently as they might, while I was neither to ejaculate nor go limp in all that time. I was to begin this task, O’Gara, on the next full moon.
I sense a lunar presence in all this too. Next?
The full moon came and I took up my position. It was agony but so great was my love for the princess, I managed it. The month was over at last and the princess was growing more eager, I could see that.
I can too.
Awed even.
And no wonder, I say. The third and last task then?
She was secretive, she wouldn’t tell me what it was going to be. Return at the next full moon, she said, for a deed that will take forty days to perform.
Lunar presence confirmed and a surprise performance surfacing. How to prepare for such a chronic sexual task of unknown nature?
Haj Harun smiled.
Garlic.
Ah, I was forgetting.
I ate garlic.
You did, it’s true.
Whole bowls of garlic.
Of course you did.
Then I ate more.
I see.
And more.
Yes.
More still.
Good.
Yet more.
Fine.
And more and more and more garlic, just on and on and on.
Oh God that’s enough man, my stomach’s on fire already, let’s go to the event. The night finally came, the full moon was overhead. What state of mind?
No mind, whispered Haj Harun. I was too hot inside. Fires raged within me and flames shot from every orifice, I swear it.
You don’t have to, I can see it happening. You were roaring to explode when the princess presented you with your third and final task.
I was, I truly was. Love had overwhelmed me.
Oh Christ man, on with it. Three hundred women? All at once? I can’t stand it.
No, whispered Haj Harun. I was ready for something like that but it turned out I was going to be with only one woman.
One? True? Is that all?
Yes, but that was enough, O’Donoghue. In the princess’s court, it seemed, was a very large woman who was round and thick in every part, with a measureless treasure and an inexhaustible appetite to have it filled. All day she lay with half-closed eyes thinking of nothing else, and why? Because this large and round and thick woman, sadly, had never had her treasure filled and her appetite slaked. Never once. Can you imagine her physical and emotional state?
No I can’t. It was a case of many having tried, yet never had the large round woman’s eyes closed more or opened less? Is that the way it was? No satisfaction ever? Oh help.
That’s exactly the way it was. And my third and last task was to do this woman’s business unrelentingly for forty days and nights and thereby bring off success.
Not a job for a casual interloper.
By no means, O’Sullivan.
Who?
O’Reilly, I meant. Well I approached the sumptuous couch of this enormous female creature, breathing my withering fumes, and what a creation she was. Her breasts were as vast as sand dunes in the desert, her bellies were a mass of heaving mountains and at the base of these lofty ranges was an immense dripping tangle exuding the steam and the gases and the juices of a primeval jungle. Although to be frank, I’ve never really seen a jungle.
In short?
In short she was as magnificent a creature as God ever made, and there was no question she would test all my powers.
I’m tired already.
Ha. I went to work and at the end of ten days one of the princess’s handmaidens tiptoed in to see how matters were progressing. She whispered into the ear of my female continent, whose eyes now seemed slightly more open, slightly more alert.
Has he tired yet? asked the little girl.
Nooooooooooo, came the rumbling gurgle from deep down in the mountain beneath me.
Is that the
truth?
It is, O’Shea. And when the little girl returned again at the end of twenty days, she could see without asking that my continent’s eyes were round and bulging, glassy and unfocused.
Oh my God. At the end of thirty days what further developments?
That’s when it began. First a muffled groan from the hinterland, then one vast prolonged spasm moving down her central ridge. And so it was to continue for the next ten days, O’Flaherty, ten full days without rest or interruption. Eyes clamped shut, screams and gurgles and hiccups shaking the jungles and mountains and deserts for ten full days. So long had she been waiting for that moment that when it arrived, it arrived with force and duration.
Amazing.
Yes, O’Regan. Then on the fortieth day, spent, she rolled over and began to snore at last.
At last I say, at last I repeat, agreed. What an ordeal. And the princess accepted you after that?
She did.
Lovely.
It was, O’Leary. In fact it was incomparable.
I can believe it.
Joe stood and lit a cigarette. He walked up the bank.
I think it’s going to rain, he said.
Haj Harun turned and gazed at him. He smiled.
What do you mean, O’Geraty? It is raining.
Joe shrugged.
You’re right. You know maybe it would be better if you called me Prester John after all. Maybe I could keep track of myself better that way.
As you wish.
Yes.
See here, said Haj Harun as he climbed up the bank and looked back at the muddy pool. Do you realize those adventures I had while winning the heart of the princess were the talk of Jerusalem for centuries?
I didn’t, no, but I can understand it. Spectacular, that’s what they were.
Later on they even wrote them down as stories in books. But do you know they never once mentioned my name? Not once? They always attributed those adventures to others, to people whose names they made up.
Maybe it’s that way, said Joe. Maybe we never hear about the real heroes. Maybe that’s what being a hero is.
Like the dents in my helmet, you mean?
How’s that?
No one knows how they got there except me.
True.
Curious, murmured Haj Harun.
Jerusalem Poker (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 2) Page 17