One at a time, Cairo slowly turned over his cards.
A king. A queen. A king and a king and a king.
He looked up and smiled at Joe, who sighed.
Well my God I do not take you, do not even begin to. It seems the crown prince can't succeed to the throne after all, because it's still occupied by the incumbent. Bloody outrage, that's what. Regicide would have been in order but it's too late for that now. And I've only myself to blame. I should have suspected just such a scheme on your part, considering how you've been hawking pharaohs for years by the pinch and the snort. Undone, as simple as that. The king keeps his kingdom and the crown prince will have to go begging for a realm. The king also keeps his queen and will allow no ascent on that score either. So then, Munk, it's to you now. Time. Reverse and relate.
Munk stared at the two of them for almost a minute. Finally he turned over his cards and spread them out on the table.
Joe whistled very softly.
Do you tell us that now. It seems, Cairo, there may be higher powers at work in Jerusalem. It seems our Munk has called on them to intervene and they've done just that. It seems even royalty is powerless in the presence of a higher cause such as Munk's. Four aces, would you believe it. Aces, some kind of unit above the human plane. Yet even so Munk puts a queen with them for reproductive purposes, so his aces can take the form of a swan or a bull or a zephyr or God knows what in the Eastern Mediterranean manner, and impregnate the queen with the heroes of future generations. It's just beyond our scope and ability, Cairo, and there we are with our legacies gone, our ambitions dashed, twelve years of honest labor and dishonest endeavor simply finished. It's back to the bazaars for us. Munk takes Jerusalem and we're forced by events to make our way elsewhere.
Cairo nodded pensively. Joe scratched his beard.
Hey Munk, he said, could you take out your special watch for a moment?
Why?
Oh you know, in case we have to find out in a hurry whether time is slow or fast or nonexistent tonight.
Nothing really, that's all.
Munk took out his watch.
Now then, said Joe, shouldn't we hear it officially from the top of the safe? The final judgment on this table where three men have striven mightily in their purposes? Hello up there, Haj Harun?
Yes?
Fate is upon us and must be spoken, and the best cause wins. That was the last hand the three of us will ever play. And so after twelve busy years, if you would, the ultimate pronouncement.
Haj Harun straightened his helmet.
From the top of the safe, he said, I see that the man holding the watch with three levels is the winner.
Just like that, murmured Cairo.
Game of chance, added Joe. Sometimes it comes and sometimes it goes and it seems it's come for our partner here, our own very own Munk. Seems he's just up and taken it all. Ah well, somebody has to win in the end. Isn't it so, Cairo?
Yes.
Munk pushed back his chair. He began walking around the room.
What's this about it being our last hand? The two of you aren't serious, are you?
By God we are, of course we are. Was anybody ever more serious than Cairo and me?
But what's going on? I don't think I see it.
What's to see? Game of chance and you won it.
That's right, Munk. That's all there is.
All the same, said Joe, it's frightening to drop over a million pounds like that. I'll never see that kind of money again but of course it all started with a fraud, fishes in the shape of what? Perfectly dreadful thing to be doing in the Holy City and I don't deny it. The baking priest went along with me out of the kindness of his heart, casting a blessing here and another there, saying there was no harm to it, but I wasn't really representing the early Christians.
Haj Harun stirred and looked down at Joe.
What's this? asked the old man. You're not doubting yourself, are you? Questioning what you've done here?
To be frank, I am.
But you've helped defend Jerusalem.
Joe moved uneasily in his chair.
Don't know that I have. Can't say I've done that particularly.
But it's true, I know you have. You've believed in the miracle of Jerusalem. You've had faith.
Well you're more forgiving than most. But listen, what would you say if I told you I were going on a trip.
And not coming back?
Yes.
The old man shook his head sadly on top of the safe, his spindly legs dangling. His helmet went awry and a shower of rust fell into his eyes. He began to weep quietly.
I'd miss you, Prester John. But I've always known you'd have to leave someday, to return to your lost kingdom in the east.
Ah yes, my lost kingdom, I almost forgot. But if I were to leave, and Cairo here too, wouldn't you still have someone to talk to?
Haj Harun looked down at Munk. He smiled.
Of course, there'd still be Bar Cocheba. He'd understand.
Yes, said Joe, I'm sure he would. So will you do that for us, Munk? Will you?
Munk, stopped circling the table. He stood still, gazing at the two men at the table.
So that's it, that's what you meant. You were serious, this was the last hand. You're both leaving Jerusalem?
Yes we're off, Cairo and me. I've been here long enough. After all I only came by accident because a freighter in Cork happened to be carrying some nuns to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage, and I just happened to be a nun at the time.
And you, Cairo?
After I spend my Sunday afternoon beside the Nile I'm going back to the Sudan. I'll find a village on the edge of the Nubian desert, like the one where Johann Luigi Szondi met my great-grandmother. After all I'm a good deal older than the two of you. I'm fifty-three and if I'm going to have a family, it's time to start.
Joe?
Oh I'll just go ambling one way or another looking for Prester John's lost kingdom. The old country first I think, I'd like to dig up the musketoon I buried long ago in an abandoned churchyard. Then the New World I think, like the Sarahs. Out west maybe, you know how I've always wondered about the Indians. Childish isn't it. Amazing how a man can grow older and still have the child inside him, but there you are. And so too with the Sinai Bible that I wanted to find so much for so long, because of its treasure maps don't you know.
Joe smiled.
Amazing isn't it. Treasure maps? That was the child inside again. But I've got a confession to be making to you now, and it's just this. I know exactly where that Bible is, I've known for some time. And I won't tell you right now how I found out, but I will ask you to keep that information to yourselves. You see I've decided it should stay where it is for a while, until the right moment comes. Then I'll ask Haj Harun to go and get it for me.
And when will be the right moment? asked Cairo.
Ha, said Joe. Can't say, can I. Don't know, do I. Not now I don't, but when that moment comes it may well have to do with family. You're not the only one at this table, Cairo, who's thinking along those lines.
And the treasure maps you wanted so much? asked Munk.
Sure, said Joe, and there are such things, they do exist. But they're not to be found in books, I've learned that. Time it took me, being such a young and innocent one and all, you Munk having ten years on me and you Cairo having twenty, and Haj Harun, well just plain close to three thousand. But I did learn the truth of the matter finally, and it's that the treasure maps around here are to be found in Haj Harun's head, right behind those shining eyes, naturally, so, it's the only safe place for articles so precious, so rare. And they've been there for a long time, ever since way back then when Melchizedek, the primary priest of antiquity, was the first and the last King of Salem, City of Peace, reigning on this mountain long before Abraham journeyed out of the dawn of the east with his flock and came to seek him out and receive his blessing and father the sons called Ishmael and Isaac in this land, long before Arabs and Jews ever existed with their troubles or even had names like that to divide them, long before then Melchizedek had already dreamed his gentle dream here on the mountain, Haj Harun's dream, and in so doing given it life forever, without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.