When those moods came over him Joe left Jerusalem and traveled down to Galilee where he kept his tiny seaplane, a Sopwith Camel.
Joe had won the Camel in a poker game during the great blizzard of ’29. That spring he learned to fly the Camel and had a hangar built for it on the shores of the lake, and his first flight that spring became the pattern for all the subsequent ones.
Late in the evening he taxied out onto the still water. He pushed the engine to full power and the Camel broke free to rise above what had once been Beth Jarah or the Temple of the Moon, sped south above the Jordan down the sinking valley past Naharaim and Bethshean and Jabesh-gilead, past Jabbok and Adam and the Jungle of the Jordan where lions had once roared, above the little flowered house somewhere below that he and Maud had once known near Jericho, whose ancient name also spoke of a lunar god, between the Moabite hills and the Dead Sea along the slopes of Mt Nebo where Moses had seen the promised land that he would never enter, rising to speed above the wastes and reaching Aqaba, tracing the west coast of the gulf until the configuration of a promontory and a mountain told him the Sinai oasis was coming up beneath him.
There Joe landed the Camel and pulled it partway up on the sand. He took ashore a small wicker basket and a bottle marked with the cross of St John, dated A.D. 1122, and sat crosslegged under a palm tree eating fresh figs and drinking raw poteen, waiting for the last hours of night to pass and the sun’s first rays to rise above the mountains of Arabia, to warm the sands and glitter upon the waters where he had long ago spent a month with Maud.
Once he had a strange visitor in that remote spot, and the episode was so curious he wondered later if it might not have been a dream, a vision brought on by poteen and the dark loneliness of his mood.
In the very first light he had seen the figure, small and indistinct, coming out of the Sinai and moving in his direction. The minutes passed and the figure became an Arab, still striding directly toward him. He remembered being puzzled that the Arab had known he was there in the darkness, so complete in that last moonless hour before dawn that even the plane would have been invisible to anyone more than a few hundred yards away. Yet from the time he first saw the Arab, the man’s line of march had never changed. He came walking straight from the night toward Joe, straight from the vast black hills of the desert to the mound where Joe sat on the beach.
A gray light now lay on the sand. The Arab kept coming until he was no more than ten yards away, then stopped and smiled. The stave he carried was that of a shepherd. His cloak was tattered and he was barefoot, his head tied with an old rag, a poor man of indistinct age. Gesturing, smiling, he made friendly signs that Joe was to follow him.
And there was the dream, for Joe got to his feet. Why? He didn’t know, it just seemed there was nothing else to do. There were more reassuring nods from the shepherd and Joe found himself trailing along behind the man, down the shore away from his plane.
After they had walked some distance down the sand the Arab stopped and handed Joe his stave. He smiled and pointed at the water. Joe took off his shoes and shirt and trousers and waded in up to his knees, holding the stave.
A sandbar ran along the coast there and after going fifty yards Joe was still only up to his waist. On the beach the Arab was still smiling and nodding and pointing farther out. Joe smiled and took a few more steps, the water now suddenly up to his chest. He had reached the end of the sandbar and the bottom was dropping sharply away.
An absurd thought came to him. What if the shepherd kept pointing to the east? How far would he have to swim? Across the Gulf of Aqaba to Arabia? Around Arabia to the Indian Ocean? From there to the Pacific?
Why? Where would it end? He might have to go on swimming forever. Swimming for the rest of his life until he finally reached the Aran Islands and died. And what would the bedouin think when they found a Sopwith Camel abandoned on the shores of the Sinai, near it a wicker basket containing fresh figs and a bottle of home-brewed Irish liquor dated A.D. 1122, bearing the cross of St John?
The Arab was suddenly shouting in excitement. Joe heard a frightened whine. He turned, the water now up to his chin.
He hadn’t noticed it before. Off to his left beyond the end of the sandbar there was a small clump of rocks. The shepherd was gesturing wildly for him to swim over to the clump of rocks.
He began to swim. A terrified dog was huddled on the rocks. The shepherd was shouting and waving his arms and Joe understood. He pushed the stave toward the rocks and the dog leapt for it. He started back toward shore with the stave stretched out behind him, the dog swimming after it. When they reached land the Arab was beaming. Joe smiled and returned the stave. He picked up his clothes and together they walked back up the beach with the dog happily prancing at his master’s heels.
Joe offered the shepherd a drink of poteen but the man sniffed it and politely refused. He pointed at the cross on the bottle and laughed. Solemnly, then, he put his hand on his heart and bowed his head before striding off in the direction from which he had come. On the top of the first ridge the shepherd turned and waved his stave in salute and exactly at that moment the new sun rose above the horizon and fell on the barefoot man.
The shepherd was gone. Joe sat down on the sand and watched the sun come up across the gulf, curiously wondering what manner of being could come striding out of the Sinai and have the wordless power, expressed only through smiles and gestures, to cause him to enter the sea without knowing or caring why he did so, even if it meant he might have to go on swimming forever.
The god of dawn? The god of light?
Strange presences, it seemed, on the shores of the Sinai where he and Maud had once known love.
It was late one afternoon in the autumn of 1933 when Cairo made his way through the still streets of the Armenian Quarter and knocked on the door that was Joe’s address in the Old City. An elderly Armenian priest appeared. Cairo looked puzzled.
Were you looking for the Irishman? asked the priest gently.
Yes, said Cairo. I thought he lived here.
He does. You take those outside stairs to the left.
Cairo thanked the priest and the door closed. He started up the winding stone stairs. Apparently the old house had been added to at different times, for the walls jutted out at irregular levels. The stairs twisted steeply around them and led up to a short stone bridge, an arch connecting the main structure with a smaller one behind it. Cairo crossed the bridge above a narrow courtyard, climbed a last flight of stairs and stopped. Now he was even more puzzled.
He had emerged on a roof and save for a small square shed at one end, low and windowless, there was nothing else there. He tried the door to the shed but it was locked. Bewildered, he sat down on the low wall that enclosed the roof and gazed out over the Old City, lost in thought. He didn’t know how many minutes had passed when he suddenly heard the soft familiar voice behind him.
Like the view then?
Cairo turned and broke into laughter at the sight. Joe was wearing the baking priest’s shabby uniform from the Crimean War, flyer’s goggles around his neck and a flyer’s leather helmet. The goggles bounced on his Victoria Cross as he bounded up the last few steps and walked across the roof scratching his beard.
Here now, Cairo, what’s so funny?
That outfit of yours. I never knew they had fighter pilots in the Crimean War.
Didn’t you now. Well I don’t think I did either until I was almost thirty. History can be a mystery when you’re young. Were you looking for me then?
Not at all. Just roaming the roofs of the Old City in my spare time. You can’t see as far up here as you can from the top of Cheops’ pyramid, but there’s more variety certainly. Where do you live by the way?
Here.
No, I believe an elderly Armenian priest lives here.
Ah, you met Father Zeno downstairs. A fine oul article that one, none better.
I’m sure.
Runs the library in the Armenian compound and also makes pottery. Fi
rst a baking priest took me in, then a potting priest. Just seems to be how things go for me in Jerusalem. Care for a drink?
Fine. Where did you say you lived?
Joe shrugged. He walked over to the shed and unlocked the door. Cairo followed him and stood outside the door, gazing down at the narrow iron cot, the battered wooden footlocker, the small cracked mirror above a small table that held a basin and a pitcher, a bar of soap, a comb and a toothbrush and a towel neatly folded over a rack. A kerosene lamp hung on one wall beside a shelf of books. There was a crucifix above the head of the cot. The ceiling of the shed was so low Cairo wouldn’t have been able to stand up inside, but of course he was much taller than Joe.
A cupboard sat on the floor and there was a little fireplace in one corner. Joe took a bottle and two glasses out of the cupboard and poured poteen. They went back to the wall around the roof and sat down.
Well here we go, Cairo lad, home-brewed and the best poteen in the Holy City by far. But don’t go thinking I’m religious just because you saw that crucifix. It’s a habit merely, kind of thing I grew up with. Would you say the view is best to the north? I’m generally of that opinion.
Cairo nodded.
What’s the meaning of that anyway?
Of what?
That peasant’s hut. That monk’s cell.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s where I live, there’s no special meaning to it.
There isn’t? When one of the richest men in Palestine lives like that?
Oh those schemes of mine, Christ they’re nothing really. I was born a peasant you know so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t live like one.
Joe took off his leather helmet and goggles. He lit a cigarette and sipped from his glass. Cairo clasped one knee with both hands and leaned back, silent for a while, his eyes closed.
Do you cook in there too?
That I do. The very best stews to be found east of Ireland. Hearty and nourishing on a winter night.
What do you do for heat on a winter night?
A nice cozy turf fire, nothing like it.
I can imagine how cozy it is up here when there’s a winter gale blowing down from the north.
Anyway, Cairo, aren’t you richer than I am?
Probably.
And Munk too?
He might be if he didn’t give it all away.
Sure and that’s true, Munk’s our very own idealist. Knew another man like that once, a man who had that kind of dream, a homeland for his people. But his people were Jews and Arabs and Christians all together, if you can imagine such a hopeless situation. Hated him at the time I did, but I was young then. Anyway, I’ve nothing but affection for our dear Munk of the revolution and his three-level watch, time as time is at any hour of the day or night, fast or slow or not even there. And he’ll make it too I think, Munk will. Hope so certainly. Be good to see someone who believes in more than money make it. But is that why you came dropping in today? To see if I was properly prepared for winter?
We were worried about you, Joe. Munk thought one of us should look in.
Nothing to worry about. I was just off with the Camel taking in the fine autumn sunsets.
Aqaba?
That’s right.
For three whole weeks?
Was it that long now. Yes I guess it was. I was having a snort or two you see.
Drunk for three weeks, in other words.
Couldn’t have been that long, I’m sure of that.
Yes you’re right. It must have taken at least a sober day or two before you were steady enough to fly back.
It’s not being unsteady exactly, that’s not the problem, it’s the danger of falling down that alarms you. Who wants to take a terrible tumble? Not me. So you just daren’t get in the plane at a time like that. You just have to sit still as still watching the water and holding on to yourself until things get right inside. Even walking is alarming. Dreadful feeling, the falling-down sickness.
Joe tried to smile but his face was sad and weary. He emptied his glass and lit another cigarette.
There’s a pome, he said, that describes my last three weeks and it goes like this.
When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night—
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.
Like it, Cairo? Has a ring to it I say, a touch of majesty, and it’ll live as long as the tongue is spoken. But since we don’t have any plain on the premises, I think I’ll just help myself to another glass of this most friendly drink that looks like water, yet is far friendlier than that. Care to join me?
No thanks. It’s a little raw for me.
Guess it would be. Guess you have to be born to the stuff. But it can help all right when you’re feeling like last winter’s turf fire, all cold gray lumps and ashes. Well I’ll just be helping myself now.
Cairo squinted at his hands as Joe went inside to fill his glass. Behind him he heard a beating of wings, a pigeon alighting on a little roof just below them. There were two small wooden shelters on the lower roof. A short ladder led to it.
You keep pigeons, Joe?
For company don’t you know. After he eats he’ll sleep, so will the others when they arrive. They’ll be tired certainly.
Where are they coming from?
Joe shrugged.
Aqaba, I suppose.
You take them down there with you?
It’s company, and then when I’m getting ready to leave I give them a wave and tell them they can go anywhere they want. Amazing, isn’t it, how they can fly all the way back from the Sinai to find a little roof like this? One tiny roof in Jerusalem when they’ve got the whole world to choose from? Makes you think about home and wonder where it is.
Joe went down the ladder and put out some grain for the pigeons. Cairo was standing outside the door of the shack, gazing at the crucifix, when Joe came back and sat down.
I just knew you’d be going and thinking I was religious when Christ it’s just not the truth. Why are you thinking that anyway?
Cairo nodded. He put his hand on Joe’s shoulder.
Say, what’s the hand for? Am I in need of support or something? Do I look like the falling-down sickness is on me again?
Joe, why don’t you tell me about her?
Who?
The woman you went to Aqaba with once. It was when you first came to Jerusalem, wasn’t it?
Yes.
Well?
Well I met her here.
Where?
Here. The Old City.
Where exactly?
In a church.
What church?
A church that’s all, what’s it matter.
Say it, Joe.
Oh all right, my God, it was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I’d been in Jerusalem only a few weeks after spending four years on the run in the mountains of Cork never talking to a soul, and before that nothing but the Dublin post office which we held for a couple of days, and before that just a boy in the Aran Islands. Well that’s where we met and she didn’t say a word then, she just did this thing in the crypt of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I mean I’d never done a thing with a woman before, not one thing. Will you understand?
Yes.
All right, so we met, me just out of four years on the run in the bogs fighting the English, cold and wet all the time and sinking up to my knees with every soggy step, and then this woman and I went off to the desert. Haj Harun suggested that. It was spring and Haj Harun said spring was the time for the desert, the flowers were blooming and they only had a couple of weeks before they all died. Well bless his bones, bless the oul article for telling me that because we did go, we went to Aqaba and down the coast of the gulf and we found a tiny deserted oasis and the two of us were alone there, the Sinai red on one side and the gulf blue on the other and the sand so hot and the water so cooling and arak to drink and fresh figs to eat and other than that just n
ights and days that had no end or beginning. Do you see, Cairo? A month we were there and I was just twenty years old and I’d never known there could be sun like that and sky like that and nights and days like that. By God, just never knew it, do you see?
Yes.
Well it turned out I didn’t know her. After we came back here it wasn’t the same and it got worse and worse, me not understanding any of it, and finally she left our little house in Jericho where we’d gone for the winter, taking our baby son with her, I was away and never even saw the lad, had to go to the midwife to find out it was a boy. So that’s all there is and that’s enough. Twelve and a half years ago she left me and that’s how I got into our bloody poker game, by God that’s how. Money and power I wanted after that. What else is there?
Yet you keep going back to Aqaba.
I do, surely I do, and I also go back to the crypt in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Just go back and back for no reason. Makes me tired, going back. Makes me dreadfully tired, Cairo.
Wasn’t there ever another woman after that?
Yes, one only, Theresa’s her name. And it’s strange because Munk knew her before I did. They were together once.
Who was she? Who is she?
Yes, there’s that difference all right. When Munk knew her in Smyrna she was young and carefree, and when I knew her in Smyrna she was still young but she was going mad. And here, well here she’s something else.
Joe looked down at his feet. He tipped his glass.
Now she lives downstairs, he said softly. She lives with Father Zeno. He takes care of her and protects her and keeps anyone from seeing her because of what she has. Good man that he is, he protects her because of that, so the world won’t flock and gape at her and make her miserable.
Because of what?
The stigmata. She has the stigmata. I’ve seen it, and besides him I’m the only person in the world who has.
Jerusalem Poker (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 2) Page 29