They're moving, said Lotmann, but very slowly. Depending on the temperature and tides and your mood, it takes the second hand two or three hours to make a full traversal.
He snorted and laughed.
You'll also keep this for me, Munk? I've always been fond of it and it would make me happy to know it's here waiting for me. For my return.
The ship's whistle blew. Kikuchi went on board and stood by the railing. As the ropes fell and the ship drew away from the pier, Munk thrust the samurai bow in the air in salute. For a long time he stood there watching the ship become smaller, the tiny gold watch clicking all but inaudibly next to his ear, rendering time slow and fast and nonexistent.
An antique shop in Basle.
One of the masterpieces of miniature clockwork constructed long ago by the father of Johann Luigi Szondi?
That summer Lotmann wrote that he had been diagnosed as a diabetic and confined to his home in Kamakura. There he lived for the next quarter of a century, translating the Talmud into Japanese and eagerly awaiting Munk's monthly reports on Zionist progress in Palestine.
But the gentle Kikuchi twins seemed destined for violent ends. In 1938 Munk learned that General Kikuchi had been grotesquely murdered on the night his army occupied Nanking. And then late in 1945
the general's widow wrote that Rabbi Lotmann had died in an American fire-bomb raid toward the end of the war, a mysterious passing that consumed him and all his translations in a sudden ball of fire while leaving his house and the garden where he was working untouched.
To Munk, Lotmann's death was inevitably reminiscent of the chariot fire that had carried the rabbi's favorite prophet, Elijah, to heaven in a whirlwind.
The wind was whistling through the alleys of the Old City early one March morning in 1925 when the Patriarch of the Syrian Greek Church in Aleppo rose from the poker table. The other three visitors to the game, a wealthy Sumatran slaver and two Belgian embezzlers of food relief funds from Flanders, had dropped out shortly before dawn. The session had begun at noon the previous day and everyone was exhausted. Both Cairo and Munk were slumped in their chairs with their eyes half closed.
Most curious, murmured the Patriarch, a large man with a massive gray beard and watery eyes. Joe had risen respectfully with the Patriarch and now stood with his head cocked, sipping from his glass and listening attentively.
How's that, Father?
The symmetry of it. Those three men who left all lost a great deal of money, but by amounts differing as much as several thousand pounds. Yet the three of you here have come out winning almost exactly equal amounts, while I've ended exactly even. How strange it was. I admit it seemed to be heading that way some time ago, but I just couldn't believe it.
Game of chance, Father. No way of foreseeing how the cards are going to account for themselves.
Divine intervention in my case, mused the Patriarch. The neutrality of providence. It was uncanny.
It may be so, Father. Me, I wouldn't be knowing about such higher designs and all.
A veritable heavenly design, mused the Patriarch. God's very hand at work, showing me the futility of this way of life. Telling me to put this affliction behind me.
Affliction, Father?
Gambling. Throwing away the Church's money on cards. At a wicked table like this, using the contributions meant for the poor to pursue my own evil gratification. For years I've sinned in this manner but I never will again.
Oh I don't know, Father. As far as I can see cards just come and go like that wind outside. Pure chance in the alleys of Jerusalem is all I see.
The Patriarch smiled dreamily through his watery eyes.
Perhaps it's that way for you, my son, but no longer for me. This night, through His mercy, I have been freed from my vice forever. Divine intervention was at work here. The Almighty's hand was upon me.
Too lofty for me, Father. But this is certainly a blustery March morning on the heights of the Holy City.
Sign of a new season, I suppose.
A new season for the soul, mused the Patriarch. My soul.
Cairo scratched himself. He seemed to have been growing increasingly restless during the conversation.
Curled up on his shoulder, as so often, was a furry white little creature apparently asleep, its head and tail tucked away out of sight. A loud fart suddenly cracked against Cairo's chair when the Patriarch said my soul. Cairo looked up and grinned.
You know what I think, Father? I think some people's souls must resemble monkeys. Yours, for example. Ridiculous.
The startled Patriarch, in his new state of grace, recovered from the insult almost immediately. He smiled benignly in answer and made the sign of the cross over Cairo's head.
No thanks, Father. And speaking of monkeys, I own one. He helps remind me what people are up to when they're sounding high-minded. Bongo, say hello to this pious crooked freak who calls himself a patriarch.
Upon hearing its name the ball of white fluff on Cairo's shoulder erupted. Instantly the little albino monkey leapt to its feet, its bright aquamarine genitals thrust forward, and began masturbating itself vigorously with one fist and then the other, alternating hands every few seconds to maintain speed, not missing a single furious stroke.
The Patriarch reared back in horror. Munk laughed. Joe took the Patriarch by the arm and quickly steered him toward the door.
May God have mercy on that man, murmured the Patriarch.
Never mind, Father, said Joe, you can never tell what sort of horrid elements are going to turn up at a poker game. You're best out of it and that's for sure. There are people who've missed the path, that's all, I mean hopeless cases. A crazed Arab with a white monkey on his back? Obviously he's got troubles, both of them have, or they wouldn't be carrying on like that. Forget about it, I say, you can't save them all. Some have to drop by the wayside and that's the truth. Lost cases, hopeless. There are a lot of wrecks like that around here, especially here, Jerusalem seems to attract wrecks. They're looking for the cure of course, deathly ill in their heads and in need of a fast miracle in the Holy City. Depraved, that's all, better to forget it. Back in Aleppo things will be different, better, looking up. Sure.
Joe eased the Patriarch out into the alley and came back and collapsed in a chair. The little albino monkey had curled up again on Cairo's shoulder.
A disgraceful deception, said Munk, smiling. His merciful hand? As I recall I saw the Almighty's hand hoisting a glass of illegal Irish spirits only a minute ago.
By God and not a bit of it, where's your heart for grace this morning? Are you of the same opinion, Cairo?
It took three hours longer than it should have, muttered Cairo. He should have been out of here before dawn with those other scoundrels.
Well of course, said Joe, I know that and I'm sorry. But that large sneaky article with his watery eyes just refused to see the light before dawn. Staying on here like he did, still hoping his luck was going to go up or down while your local bogman was dumping contrary evidence all over the table. Well he came around in the end, but Christ it's hard maintaining that kind of balancing act.
How much was the difference? asked Munk, rubbing his eyes and yawning.
His money you mean? Twenty hours from arrival to departure and he left two shillings ahead. But that's what he paid for mineral water, so your man came out exactly on the line. Not a ha'penny above or below.
Marvelous, Joe.
But was it worth those three extra hours? asked Cairo, also yawning.
My God it seems to me it was. Seems to me that any bloody Church situated in a thieves' den like Aleppo, and finding itself both Syrian and Greek in the bargain, needs all the honest help it can get, and especially at the top which is where we started. Seems to me the devious machinations going on in such an enterprise must be staggering. Syrian tricks and Greek tricks and God as a front for the two of them?