Jerusalem Poker (The Jerusalem Quartet Book 2)

by Edward Whittemore

  Not so farfetched, it seems to me, once you get into the entanglements that are coming.)

  PERIOD covered by information in this report: From 930 B.C. to August 1933.

  WHAT follows initially: Unclassified records (public).

  WHAT follows in the middle: Top Secret speculations (private).

  AND FINALLY WHAT follows in the all-important end. (A note to agents filling out this form. You have now arrived at the meat of your report and you are warned, here above all, to be brief and to the point. Your ability to describe your meat succinctly is the only reason anybody will ever read your report, if anybody ever does, which is in no way guaranteed by the hierarchy of the UIA. So summarize ruthlessly, in one sentence, making your case in plain language accessible to all. Extravagant attitudes may be allowed elsewhere, but not here. And the same goes for dabbling in fanciful notions or toying with idle speculations, with taking side trips down curious byways or pausing to explore obscure corners, all of the above and more, in fact any device whatsoever that may creep into your reports elsewhere. That’s one thing but this is another, and we repeat, it must not happen here. Your meat of the matter, that’s what is wanted now.

  All right then, we’re there, this is it and good luck. State your end product, what valuable contribution you have today to this crazy business we’re all in. Go.):

  True identities of all major figures who have operated clandestinely in

  Jerusalem during the period covered by this report (930 B.C. to August 1933).

  The first records Nubar came to were copies of documents from a Jerusalem tax office, dated from 1921 to 1933. But there was no indication what significance the records might have, or what was being taxed.

  Next there were Jerusalem telephone bills and water bills for the same years, evidently purloined, followed by bills of lading for a cheap but sturdy juice squeezer of Czech origin, the squeezer’s lever and cup and strainer all detachable for packing and cleaning purposes.

  The bills of lading were dated 1921 and traced the juice squeezer from a factory in Prague, by rail, to an outlet on the Black Sea. By Bulgarian lugger, in a load of general cargo, to Constantinople. By cart, overland to Beirut, and by Greek caïque down the coast to Jaffa. Whence by rail up to Jerusalem, the ultimate destination of the juice squeezer.

  Nubar put his finger on the last bill of lading and gazed into the dark corners of his subcellar.

  Jerusalem. A pattern was beginning to emerge.

  He tightened the stockings around his neck against the chill, scratched himself thoughtfully and went back to the report. He had finished with the records.

  The next page showed a floor plan of what appeared to be a tiny room. The walls were irregular. There was a door and one window, a counter and two chairs. At the end of the counter next to the door was the emblem of the UIA, ♂, also the symbol of the planet Uranus. Outside the door in a space marked alley was the number 18 and an arrow with an N at the tip. A scale beside the arrow listed foot and yard.

  Nubar measured the room with his thumb and found it to be about eight feet long and five feet wide, narrowing to only three feet at the back.

  He turned over the diagram. Now the pages began to be numbered for security reasons.

  Page 1 of 407 pages, a report on the Great Jerusalem Poker Swindle.

  1. The preceding diagram shows a fruit juice stand. Mine. I squeeze fresh juice by the glass, on order, and customers generally drink it on the premises. Shops in the Old City are often small and oddly shaped.

  2. N indicates north.

  3. 18 indicates the street number my shop might have if it were on a street and had a number, which it isn’t and doesn’t, being situated in a narrow alley and cul-de-sac near the bazaar in the Moslem Quarter, the rent there being about as cheap as can be found inside the walls built around the Old City by Suleiman I in 1542.

  Good, thought Nubar. Completeness and unerring accuracy was the motto he had adopted for the UIA way back in 1921 when he had first begun hiring literary agents to steal all the known works of the great doctor and master alchemist, Paracelsus, real name Bombastus von Hohenheim.

  4. Trade is reasonably brisk in the summer, almost nonexistent in the winter and more or less half and half at other times.

  5. To the east of my shop at a distance of a dozen yards or less, occupying the end of this dead-end alley, stands the entrance to two vaulted rooms owned by an elderly man who claims he was formerly an antiquities dealer. This elderly man wears a faded yellow cloak and a rusty Crusaders helmet, goes barefoot, and calls himself Haj Harun.

  Nubar instantly sucked in what was left of his cigarette, inhaling so forcefully it burned both his fingers and his lips. He licked his lips and gasped.

  Haj Harun’s shop? The actual site of the vicious poker game for the last twelve years? Nubar closed his eyes to concentrate. He took a deep breath, then read on.

  6. My clientele comes almost exclusively from the lower classes, but without regard to race, religion or creed. Members of other classes, however, have patronized my shop on occasion, generally because they were lost in the Old City and seeking a way out, as we shall soon see below.

  Indeed we will, thought Nubar suspiciously.

  7. The constant stream of visitors, many wealthy, who frequent Haj Harun’s murky premises at all hours of the day and night, for purposes of poker, never enter my shop. On their way into Haj Harun’s they often remark disdainfully that my shop is much too dirty for their patronage. But on their way out, penniless and dazed, stripped of all they own, they just as often sag on my counter and beg for credit. Please? A mere glass of juice? Just a sip? Just a lick of the strainer? No, I answer firmly, cash on the counter having always been my policy.

  Excellent, thought Nubar. Sound and businesslike. Why take pity on anyone? It could only lead to disruptions in the social order, and order was all-important.

  In fact Nubar was beginning to like this informer and his thoroughly straightforward approach to a problem. No wonder Dead Sea Control had seen fit to evaluate him as POTENTIAL URINE. He was indeed. Nubar thought of another cable that should be sent as soon as he finished the report.

  FLASH PRIORITY. BRAVO TO ALL HANDS. OUR MAN AT THE FRUIT JUICE STAND IN THE OLD CITY IS THE BEST POTENTIAL URINE WE’VE HAD IN YEARS. YOU ARE HEREBY AUTHORIZED TO PROMOTE HIM IMMEDIATELY TO FULL OFFICER STATUS WITH ALL MEDICAL AND RETIREMENT BENEFITS.

  BY ORDER OF

  NUBAR

  LEADER,

  FIELD MARSHAL,

  SUPREME GENERALISSIMO

  COMMANDING

  Nubar smiled. He liked that. Good. He read on.

  8. I have no phone. The phone-bill records apply to the phone in a nearby coffee shop where I have made all my personal and business calls over the last twelve years, or since I arrived in Jerusalem.

  9. I have paid no taxes over the last twelve years because my cash flow is meager and I have been able to bribe the tax clerk in charge of my alley with free pomegranate juice. Therefore I have included the tax records for this same coffee shop, and also its water bills, because completeness and unerring accuracy are everything to an informer for the UIA.

  Perfect, thought Nubar. Maybe the enormous sums of money consumed by the UIA weren’t being entirely squandered after all.

  10. During the twelve years that I have operated this fruit juice stand, pomegranate juice has outsold orange juice, although not by much. Before coming to Jerusalem I worked briefly in Damascus and for a longer period in Baghdad. In both cities I was a self-employed technician in sputum analysis.

  11. The symbol of the UIA, seen on the counter in the diagram of my shop, marks the exact location of my imported juice squeezer.

  A fine grasp of detail, thought Nubar, reaching the end of the page. He paused to tug his skullcap more tightly around his ears as protection against the cold drafts sweeping fitfully through the cellar. Time to take a break for a little refreshment? Why not?

  He took his
canteen out of his rucksack and drank, feeling new warmth from the mulberry raki, at the same time absentmindedly nibbling off what was left of the wooden spout of the canteen, totally absorbed with the methodical reasoning of this informer. The report was unfolding with undeniable logic, and he could see that the informer was determined to do his duty, to tell the whole truth.

  Nubar chewed and swallowed the wood.

  12. May I just state here that I have always considered it the greatest of honors to serve as an informer for the UIA, which I firmly believe is all that stands between Jerusalem and utter chaos. Without the UIA, Jerusalem today might well be at the mercy of those three notorious villains who call themselves Martyr, Szondi, and O’Sullivan Beare or Fox, depending on his mood and also on how much he’s had to drink, and how long it was since the last drink, and how long it may be to the next.

  13. Jerusalem must be saved from the barbarians.

  14. Only the UIA, and its Supreme Leader, can do it.

  15. Despair and defeat to our enemies.

  16. I pledge myself anew to selfless service for the UIA, and above all for its-Supreme Leader.

  17. Conclusion of the foregoing.

  18. The narrative form is herewith adopted for purposes of clarity.

  Nubar read on, thoroughly captivated.

  The informer was Persian, he said, and an adherent of the Zoroastrian faith, which he admitted one didn’t seem to hear much about anymore. He had grown up in a remote hill tribe in Persia and he considered himself lucky to have been born at all, since the tribe had almost been wiped out by a cholera epidemic in the first half of the nineteenth century.

  Living in those remote hills at the time was a young foreign lord who had fallen in love with a girl from the tribe. The epidemic had broken out only a few weeks after he met her and the girl had abruptly died. Thereafter the young man had patiently nursed the sick without regard to his own welfare.

  This legendary foreign lord was said to have been seven and a half feet tall. He had used a huge magnifying glass to examine his patients, so large his unblinking eye had been two inches wide behind it. After making a diagnosis he would then prescribe medicine according to the hours he read on his portable sundial, a monstrously heavy bronze piece which he wore on his hip. The foreign lord’s knowledge of herbal remedies was unsurpassed, and without him no one in the tribe would have survived.

  Nubar stirred uneasily. He had the sensation of being here, or somewhere, before.

  When the epidemic subsided, continued the informer, the young foreign lord took his leave, never to be seen in those remote hills of Persia again. Quite naturally the thankful survivors in the tribe had come to revere this gentle and merciful giant as Ahura Mazda, chief of the gods of goodness in the ancient Zoroastrian pantheon, who had seen fit to sojourn in their hills in order to deliver them from the forces of darkness and death.

  As a result, ever since, everyone in the tribe had been a profound believer in Zoroastrianism.

  The informer was including this information, he said, to explain his unusual religious beliefs, which might otherwise be viewed as anachronistic and suspect in this day and age, and thereby bring into question his suitability as an officer-in-training for the UIA, said training to be concluded at the end of this report when he would qualify as a professional UIA officer on duty in a danger zone, Jerusalem, which would entitle him to receive special hazardous-duty pay, in addition to an officer’s regular salary and full medical and retirement benefits.

  Nubar grinned. He shook his head.

  What was this brazenly self-serving attitude? Did this nonentity, this Zoroastrian squeezer of juice, really think he could promote himself in one short paragraph from a petty informer to a full-fledged officer’s position in the UIA? Did he really imagine Nubar could be fooled so easily, even here in a cold damp cellar beneath the Grand Canal?

  Nubar snorted. No, it hadn’t quite come to that yet. Routinely, in his head, he dashed off another cable to Dead Sea Control.

  ARE YOU MAD? HAS THE SUN DOWN THERE IN THAT DRIED CUNT OF THE WORLD BEEN GETTING TO YOUR BRAINS? NO, REPEAT NO, PROMOTION FOR THIS ZOROASTRIAN CHARLATAN. MEDICAL AND RETIREMENT BENEFITS OUT OF THE QUESTION AND NO HAZARDOUS-DUTY PAY FOR THIS SHIRKER. FOR ALL I CARE HE CAN GO THE WAY OF THE LOST GREEK AND THE TWO OF THEM CAN RELIVE THE PERSIAN CAMPAIGNS AGAINST GREECE AND THE GREEK CAMPAIGNS AGAINST PERSIA. I ABSOLUTELY REFUSE TO BE DUPED.

  NUBAR

  SUPREME LEADER AND

  FIELD MARSHAL, GENERALISSIMO

  COMMANDING

  EVERYTHING

  That was better. Much better. He knew he couldn’t be too careful. His control had to be absolute, discipline simply couldn’t be relaxed for a moment. One instance of even the lowliest lackey promoting himself and everyone in the organization would see it as a sign of weakness on his part, at the top. Then all of them would begin promoting themselves and plucking grandiose new titles out of the air.

  This dangerous tendency had to be stopped before it gathered momentum. A follow-up cable to Dead Sea Control was in order.

  PRIORITY FROM THE VERY TOP. FREEZE, DOWN THERE. ALL PROMOTIONS BARRED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU WERE GOING TO GET AWAY WITH SOMETHING? WELL YOU’RE NOT. SIT RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE UNTIL YOU HEAR FROM ME. IT MAY BE A HARDSHIP POST BUT IT’S THE ONLY ONE ANY OF YOU ARE GOING TO SEE FOR A WHILE AND YOU CAN COUNT ON THAT. NO ANSWER NECESSARY AND NO EXCUSES TOLERATED.

  NUBAR

  LEADER AT

  THE VERY TOP

  AND CHIEF OF

  ALL FORCES.

  Suddenly Nubar frowned. Something the informer had said was troubling him, working at the back of his brain.

  Yes, he remembered it now. He pursed his lips to whistle in surprise but of course he couldn’t whistle. It was all coming back from those early historical reports, the background material on the poker game that had been sent to him when the UIA first began to operate in the Middle East.

  A huge magnifying glass with an unblinking eye two inches wide behind it?

  Menelik Ziwar, the unknown black Copt and foster father of Cairo Martyr, had allegedly used just such a glass when he was lying on his back in retirement in the sarcophagus of Cheops’ mother.

  But the magnifying glass hadn’t originally belonged to Ziwar. It had been a gift from his dearest friend, an unnamed giant of a man who had worn a massive greasy black turban and a shaggy short black coat made from unwashed and uncombed goats’ hair, both said to have been gifts from a remote hill tribe in Persia. This friend, mysteriously, had appeared from nowhere on Sunday afternoons to continue a forty-year conversation he was having with Ziwar over drunken lunches in a filthy Arab restaurant beside the Nile, the lunches ending toward sundown when both men jumped over the railing into the river for a swim.

  A portable bronze sundial, monstrously heavy?

  The one the giant explorer Strongbow had worn on his hip in the nineteenth century? The same sundial that was now on the wall of the former antiquities shop in Jerusalem where the poker game was being played? Chimes attached to it that sounded erratically, confusing time?

  A giant in both cases. A giant. An elusive figure who may have secretly owned the entire Middle East at the turn of the century.

  Nubar gripped his throat. He was having difficulty breathing. Being so small, he couldn’t help but be terrified by the specter of a man seven and a half feet tall.

  Or was he a man? Perhaps much more? Did that explain his height and his odd behavior, the sudden appearances and disappearances in a filthy restaurant beside the Nile? In a remote hill tribe in Persia in time of need?

  Ahura Mazda, chief of the gods of goodness?

  Nubar fell back limply on his paper couch. His unfocused eyes roamed the ceiling.

  He had now arrived at the main body of the juice squeezer’s report. The direction of the narrative was vague, a tortuous route through the Old City with no hint of its destination. To Nubar under the Grand Canal, mythical
Jerusalem seemed to be growing ever more indistinct on its faraway mountaintop.

  The informer’s account began with the anonymous pilgrim, mentioned at the very beginning, whose name and race and nationality were all unknown.

  One hot afternoon in August this pilgrim had lost his way in Jerusalem. He was trying to find a gate out of the Old City, any gate would do, but the maze of alleys had confused him. He wandered into the cul-de-sac where the informer’s fruit juice stand was located and collapsed in the doorway. After numerous glasses of pomegranate juice the pilgrim eventually revived. As he did he began to talk about the cause of his near-total disorientation.

  The first stop on the pilgrim’s itinerary that morning had also been his last, St Savior’s Convent, the Franciscan enclave in the Old City that was practically a city in itself. He had arrived in time to join a scheduled tour, but soon after the tour started he became enamored with a statue in an alcove and found himself detached from the group.

  The pilgrim opened the nearest door and discovered he had chanced upon the convent bakery, his first serious mistake of the day.

  At this point in the narrative, wrote the informer, the pilgrim had begun to twitch violently. He laughed loudly until tears came to his eyes, then all at once stopped laughing and moaned as if in great pain. The informer thought the man was suffering from sunstroke or perhaps some hysterical disorder. In any case it was only after gulping down several more glasses of pomegranate juice, newly squeezed, that the pilgrim was able to resume his account.

  Somberly Nubar chewed his lip. A cable had come to mind. Imprecise language could be dangerous, because it might very quickly lead people to make false conclusions.