Joe whistled softly.
Facts, gents, they're just dropping all over the place. And is that a proper lunar evaluation from the top of the safe or not? Fate on target again as usual, there's nothing like it. But hold on now. I think I can hear a less distant moment in time preparing to announce itself.
The chimes attached to the sundial in the front room creaked and began to strike at four o'clock on that rainy afternoon. In all they chimed twelve times.
Midnight, said Joe. I think we better be adjourning in about an hour. Is the time limit agreed?
That's a good idea, said Munk. I'm rather tired tonight.
So am I, added Cairo, suppressing a yawn.
The other players, who had been heavy losers in the three hours since the session began, were on their feet protesting. A wealthy French merchant from Beirut was particularly angry.
Fraud, he shrieked, shaking his fists. How do you know it's midnight? It could just as well be twelve o'clock noon.
Could be but it isn't, said Joe, smiling. The chimes struck off noon an hour before you arrived. What time did you think you got here?
I know when I got here, shrieked the Frenchman. It was at one o'clock.
Well there you are. The chimes have to be striking midnight, couldn't be anything else. Bets now anyone?
We've still got a good hour of fast playing ahead before closing time. Munk, isn't the bet to you?
I believe it is. And since Haj Harun has found lunar evidence for my success in this game, I'm going to take advantage of it by tripling this wager our princely guest from Baghdad had just ventured. Gentlemen, the stakes rise in the cause of lunacy.
Fine, said Joe, very fine. We're off again. No reason to hold back just because there are only three hours between noon and midnight on a rainy day in February. That happens all the time in bad weather. But spring will be coming soon and then we can make up for it.
— 6-
St Catherine's Monastery
Choice is the arrow.
Early in 1913, Munk arrived back in the Middle East and traveled widely on his mission for the Sarahs.
Before the end of the year he was able to report to them that although there was evidence someone might have owned the Ottoman Empire once, it was equally obvious no one owned it now, least of all the Ottomans.
The old jade is tottering to her grave, he wrote in a letter to Budapest. Once stately, now exhausted, she laments in the twilight, abused and humiliated on every side. Soon night must take her.
Munk sensed he was also describing the approaching collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, although he couldn't possibly have guessed how quickly that would happen. Yet in the next few years not only did the Empire of the Sarahs disappear but with it the once powerful House of Szondi, both swept away in the First World War.
Young Munk watched it all from afar, no longer interested in soldiering yet still searching as always for a role in life and pondering the question that had been with him since childhood, the mysterious force that had driven his great-grandfather, Johann Luigi, a century ago.
Munk traveled alone during the war years, trading throughout the Middle East and sharing his confidences with only one man, an unlikely friend yet also his closest during that period, a wealthy old Greek satyr who lived in Smyrna.
Unlikely on the surface of it, for Sivi was then a man already in his sixties, nearly forty years older than Munk. But he seemed to have known everyone in his time, having long been intimate with every manner of Levantine intrigue, and despite his notorious sexual excesses he was a wise and gentle friend, who adopted Munk as easily as if that had been his purpose in life.
So Munk found himself returning again and again to Sivi's beautiful seaside villa in Smyrna, an exile now from a European era that would soon cease to exist.
It's almost over, he said to Sivi one afternoon in the spring of 1918. My family has lived in Budapest since the ninth century, but with this war a whole way of life will disappear.
They were sitting in Sivi's garden and Sivi was pouring tea, elegant as always in one of the long red dressing gowns that he habitually wore until after sunset, when he dressed for the theater or the opera.
He paused to admire the large ruby rings on his fingers. As usual a smile hovered around his eyes and there was a touch of mischief in his voice.
How's this, young Munk? You're not surrendering to melancholy, are you? If I were you I'd look at the matter quite differently. Ten centuries locked in the rain and mist of central Europe? Time to make an escape, I should think, and what better season for it than this one? Ah yes, spring and the sea and a distant shore. Exactly what's needed to stir unexpected juices. But you always said you wanted to get away, and now you have. For good, certainly. Still, a touch of nostalgia perhaps?
Munk shrugged.
I guess so.
Of course, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if I may say so, this twinge of nostalgia you feel has nothing to do with a place really, with a sudden longing for Budapest. It has to do with time, I suspect, with having been a child there, innocent and protected. That rare condition can cause nostalgia in all of us. Am I right?
I suppose. It's true I feel I'm getting old.
Sivi laughed wickedly.
As indeed you are, young Munk. Late twenties? An absolutely ancient age. I had a friend once who felt the same way as he drew near thirty. His youth was behind him and suicide seemed the only answer. He asked me to find him the necessary pills and I said I would, but it might take a few hours. In the meantime I suggested he go out and buy himself a new dress and hat, I mean a quite extravagant dress, and position himself in one of the better cafés on the harbor and wait for me there. I told him if he was going to die he ought to look his best when he went.
So he bought the dress?
He did. But by the time I arrived at the café he was no longer there. It seems a handsome young Greek sailor had come strolling by and winked at him, and they had an aperitif together and one thing led to another, and I couldn't find him anywhere for three days. When I did I told him I had the pills. What pills?
he said, I'm in love. And that was that, although of course this occurred around 1880 when gowns were much more lavish than today, and had bustles as well that could give a man an immediate lift.
Munk laughed.
Was this friend a tall man?
He was.
Large and bulky?
More or less.
With an impressive moustache he twirled on occasion?
Indeed, it was probably just such an action that caught the eye of the handsome young Greek sailor as he went strolling by.
How long did the love affair last?
Until the young sailor's ship sailed, a week or so. And my friend was heartbroken when it was over.
Did you consider pills again?
Certainly not. I'd learned what to do. I went out and bought another extravagant gown and positioned myself once more in one of the better cafés. Within the hour events had taken a turn as they will, and a whole new adventure had begun to unfold. You see there's a moral to this tale, although of course it doesn't apply to everyone. I contemplated suicide because I felt my youth was behind me, but the solution was much simpler. All I had to do was put another youth behind me.
Munk laughed again as Sivi happily wagged his head.
That's terrible, Sivi. You're unspeakable.
True. But I've continued to follow this wisdom and it's kept me going quite well.
Sivi delicately raised his teacup and sipped.
And what news do you have from the Sarahs, Munk? Have they been making any plans for after the war?