Yet somehow the stranger from Syria had made a powerful impression on Abu Musa. Why did he so much want Bell to meet the man? Was it because he felt the Syrian was a visionary, and therefore perhaps a seeker on his way to becoming holy? Was the purpose of their meeting in order for the man to be instructed in some unknown way in the shadowy and undefined vocation Abu Musa had conjured up for Bell?
These thoughts made Bell uneasy as he was always made uneasy by any reference, other than in jest, to Abu Musa's belief that Bell actually was a holy man. Abu Musa's faith in Bell wounded him because he knew he wasn't worthy of it. But at the same time he couldn't ignore Abu Musa's request, no matter how much it discomforted him. They were too close for that and the old Arab's friendship was too precious.
Bell spoke directly. And why must I meet this Halim? he asked.
Above all because he wants it so much, replied Abu Musa. He's heard about you and feels he must meet you. He needs that, he says. And why? Ah, but the why is not for me to know and perhaps not even for you to know. What is true is that a holy man sometimes has special obligations, to others even more than to himself.
Bell nodded. So it was as he had suspected, he thought. The meeting did have to do with Abu Musa's belief that Bell was a holy man.
Abruptly Abu Musa leaned forward, his face grave as he gazed at Bell My friend, murmured Abu Musa. We leave only one thing behind in the world and that is love. This Halim is a serious man and he says he needs to meet you, so just meet him once for my sake. Then, if you don't care for him . . . but of course you will. No one can help but like Halim. A rare man, like you.
Perhaps a secret leader, Abu Musa had said. Halim was a generation younger than Bell in appearance. Abu Musa obviously knew nothing about it but Bell suspected from the beginning that the Syrian was involved in espionage, an easy assumption for Bell given Halim's self-assurance and knowledge and his frequent trips from Damascus to the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. What Bell couldn't understand was why a Syrian agent had sought him out. What use could he be to Halim? What could Halim possibly need from a recluse who saw almost no one?
Still, he enjoyed Halim's company every bit as much as Abu Musa said he would. When Halim was in Jericho he took to joining Bell on Bell's long walks in the desert at dawn or at twilight. At dawn they walked east, down through the wastes to the Jordan River and back. At twilight they were apt to go in the other direction, over to the western foothills where the wadis began winding up through the Judean wilderness toward the heights of Jerusalem. The ruins of Herod's winter palace lay at the foot of one of the wadis, and Bell often went there to watch the last of the day's light linger on the Moabite hills across the valley. Or they might find their way to the ruins of the other winter palace to be found on the outskirts of Jericho, the one built by the Omayyad caliphs of Damascus some seven centuries after Herod's time. Bell had long been in the habit of wandering among these ruins at sunset and finding a perch where he could watch the darkness descend over the plains of Jericho and the Dead Sea in the distance.
Why in these ruins? asked Halim.
Because they suggest humility, replied Bell in answer to the question about his feelings.
And so it went for much of the time when they were together. Halim asked questions about why Bell did what he did, even the simplest things, much as if he were a disciple who had come to learn. That was the impression Bell had and it was close to the truth, as Bell discovered one night when they were sitting together in the ruins of the Omayyad palace. Halim was smoking and Bell was sipping from the small flask he always carried on his walks, when Halim happened to observe that old Abu Musa actually did believe Bell was a holy man. Bell laughed harshly, mocking himself. With a gesture of despair, he held up his flask in the moonlight.
Oh I know nothing's that simple, said Halim. I know because I once met a man in Damascus, a man about your age, dead now, who was in the Monastery in Egypt during the world war.
And so? murmured Bell, suddenly alert at this unexpected reference to long-dead, secret information.
Well that's all, replied Halim. But naturally I'm curious about what happens to a man after he gives up the monastic life. How he goes on, if he does.
Oh I see, said Bell. Well I suppose what often happens is that such a man merely adds more vows to those he has already made.
Halim smiled at the cryptic answer and they both fell silent as if a great deal had already been said, which of course it had. The Monastery in Egypt during the world war and Bell a part of it? How could Halim have learned about that?
Bell was intrigued and more. He put away his flask and got to his feet. It was time to return to the village but someday, he suspected, he would come to know much more about this visionary from Damascus with his mysteriously appealing manner.
NINE
When Anna looked back over the years when her son was growing up, it was easy to see how much time she had squandered dreaming of worlds that didn't exist. It was a habit that had been with her since childhood, a will to find comfort in the shadowy echoes of imaginary worlds where time was kindly and took nothing, only gave, and there was no need to face the losses of life, that stark Egyptian sun of regret whose glare never wavered.
Echoes, time passing, years gone. . . . It terrified her how life crept by for whole months and years in meaningless routines, only to be cut short by some pitiless insight which shattered the rhythms and revealed them to be no more than a pathetic escape from lost moments. Season after season, day after day, there was always so much to do. Yet suddenly Assaf was five, suddenly Yossi was dead, suddenly she was forty and more and Assaf at thirteen was reading the words from the books of Moses that announced the symbolic coming of his manhood, his turning away from her. So quickly they came, these abrupt moments that pierced her heart and wrenched her out of a kind of time that she preferred to think was everlasting, much as she had felt life's echoes on the narrow street in Cairo — in her childhood — would be everlasting.
She had always thought she would remarry someday, at least vaguely she had thought so. Certainly she had nothing against the idea, and it seemed a natural thing for a woman her age with a young son. Her friends had assumed she would remarry and Tajar, ever loyal, had brought along suitable men on his visits from time to time, or contrived to have them turn up when he and Anna were meeting somewhere. She had affairs with some of them and others became friends, but somehow it never got around to marriage. For a while her memory of Yossi was the reason she gave herself, and later of course there was Assaf and his upbringing and her busy life as a teacher and mother. But Tajar in his blunt way would have none of these excuses.
Although committed to living alone himself — I've always been a misplaced bedouin tracker, he liked to say
— he didn't feel it was a life for Anna, and every so often he put his hand on hers and spoke his heart.
My lovely Anna, he said, time is passing and I fear God is sad. Don't you sense it?
Anna smiled. And why is that? she asked.
For the simplest of reasons, said Tajar. God has a very big heart, but there is one thing that gnaws even at Him and that is when a woman withholds her beauty from the world. I know because a wise old Arab told me.
Not only is it a waste of God's bounty, it leads to disharmony. Men go crazy when there is a beautiful widow around, women go crazy too. Everyone is uneasy and has to stop beside the road to see what might happen next. Nothing can get done and there's turmoil everywhere and God is sad and even I am sad. Shouldn't there be just a hint of a permanent man in your life by now?