Where are the rest of your brothers?
America mostly, scattered around something called the Bronx. I'll have to look them up someday. But you and Munk and little Nubar all second cousins a century after the fact. That was some job for one great-grandfather, this tireless young Luigi. Whatever became of him?
He died of dysentery at St Catherine's monastery in 1817. Do you know anything about St Catherine's?
Just that it's quiet and remote. I tramped in there once to have a turn around and climb the mountain.
Wanted to know what it felt like to stand up there, but of course no one spoke to me or gave me any tablets.
A lobster tail cracked in Joe's hands.
Oh my God, wait, you're not going to tell me that's where Skanderbeg Wallenstein found the Sinai Bible?
Of course.
Where else, of course, naturally that was the place. Anything more?
That's also where he did his forgery. In a cave just below the summit.
Joe whistled softly.
Full circle, no stop. St Catherine's it is on all counts, all points touched and none left out, the miracle of the mountain and why not. Luigi fathers everyone and then dies there, having been a Christian and a Jew and a Moslem at one time or another, and then one of his sons finds the original Bible there and forges a new original there. And then one of his great-grandsons, our very own Munk of course, finds his cause there, through the intervention of a Japanese baron of course, just as you'd expect, and soon this said Munk will proceed to win the Great Jerusalem Poker Game, of course and of course. It's the nature of the game assuredly and it's all clear to me now, now that it's behind me. That rogue Luigi has brought it all together, and nicely so. But he must have been a mischievous one, that's what he must have been, carrying on and about the way he did and ordering and disordering things a century later. Ah yes. And tell me, Cairo, speaking of nasty little Nubar, what do you hear about him these days?
He's in Venice and doesn't seem to be faring too well. There could be drastic news soon.
Can't say I wouldn't be ready for that. Never did like the way he tried to tinker with our game. To my mind you either sit down and play or you don't.
And lastly, said Cairo, there's the name Johann Luigi used when he was traveling in disguise.
Do you tell me that? I was just hoping there might be one last tiny item tucked away somewhere. What name could it have been?
Sheik Ibrahim ibn Harun.
Was it now. Well well well. I think he deserves a toast for that as well as everything else. Let's hoist a glass to Sheik Luigi and his particular names. I like the idea of him calling himself Abraham, the son of Harun. Who's to say after all? On his way down from Aleppo, when he began his wanderings, he just might have stopped in Jerusalem and met a remarkable gent by the name of Harun, and decided that if he was going to wander in these parts it would be best to become the adopted son of that remarkable elderly gent, honoring the old man too that way and also maybe picking up a little of the old sorcerer's magic by association, just in case a miracle became necessary, which it seems to me his wanderings certainly were. Yes indeed, a striking possibility and worth a toast to cap our Christmas celebration.
They got to their feet beside the table heaped with lobster shells and bottles. Joe was wearing mittens, Cairo had put on his gloves. The weather had grown colder as the afternoon wore on. The sky was dark and it looked like snow again. They stood with mufflers wrapped around their ears, gazing out over the Old City.
To Sheik Luigi, said Joe. Without him there never would have been the longest poker game in the back room of Haj Harun's former antiquities shop.
They drank, then went inside the little hut and threw their glasses into the small grate where a turf fire was slumbering.
A Christmas and was it not, Cairo?
A time, Joe. A good time for all of us.
Joe lowered his eyes. He looked down at the floor.
Ah God willing, for some of us anyway. Peace to seek.
— 16-
Venice 1933
And it was here beneath the Grand Canal that he would secretly plan the destruction of the Great Jerusalem Poker Swindle and decree the ruin of its three criminal founders.
On a cold December day in 1933, Nubar lay shivering in bed watching the thick winter fog roll up against the windows of his palazzo in Venice. Sophia was now sending him cables almost every day inquiring about his health, asking him what his plans were, wondering how his short holiday in Venice had inexplicably stretched into a stay of nearly a year.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE, NUBAR?
It was terrible. He couldn't possibly tell Sophia what he was doing.
TO BE FRANK, I'M IN HIDING. I HAD TO ESCAPE FROM ALBANIA BECAUSE OF AN
INCIDENT IN A FISHING VILLAGE AND I CAN'T COME BACK RIGHT NOW BECAUSE
OF THE LIES THAT MIGHT BE TOLD ABOUT ME. PEOPLE WILL DO THAT, JUST LIE AND
LIE. BUT NO MATTER HOW OUTRAGEOUSLY I'M SLANDERED, BUBBA, I'LL TRIUMPH
IN THE END, I PROMISE YOU.
And he could even imagine exactly what her response would be.
PROMISES, NUBAR? SPARE ME, DON'T PROMISE ME ANYTHING. JUST TELL ME HOW
YOU SPEND YOUR DAYS. ARE YOU GETTING OUT OF THE HOUSE ENOUGH AND ARE
YOU DRESSING WARMLY?
And another statement of fact.
WELL TO BE FRANK AGAIN, BUBBA, I DON'T DRESS AT ALL DURING THE DAY
BECAUSE I NEVER GET OUT OF BED. DAYLIGHT FRIGHTENS ME. SO I LIE IN BED ALL
DAY SWILLING MULBERRY RAKI, WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY FOUL, THE WORST THING
IN THE WORLD FOR A STOMACH AS GASEOUS AS MINE. BUT YOU SEE I FEEL A NEED
TO DRINK AND A COMPULSIVE NEED TO DRINK ONLY THAT. AND WHILE SPENDING
THESE LISTLESS DAYS IN BED, AS I'VE DONE FOR MONTHS, I CONTINUE TO WORK
ON MY JOURNALS, WHICH ARE TITLED THE BOY.
And another imagined response.
SPARE ME, NUBAR, I KNOW HOW YOU ATE WHEN YOU WERE A BOY. POORLY. NOW
PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME DRAG EVERYTHING OUT OF YOU. ARE YOU EATING
PROPERLY OR NOT?
And a statement of fact again, and a response, and on and on.
I'M EATING A SINGLE BAKED CHICKEN WING TWICE A DAY, BUBBA, ONE AROUND
NOON AND ANOTHER IN THE EVENING, AND THAT'S ALL I EAT. I ADMIT IT DOESN'T
SOUND LIKE MUCH, BUT AGAIN I SEEM TO HAVE A COMPULSIVE NEED TO EAT NO
MORE THAN THAT, AND TO EAT ONLY THAT. IT'S ODD, I AGREE. OBVIOUSLY I'M
STARVING MYSELF TO DEATH.
* * *
PLEASE, NUBAR, SPARE ME YOUR LURID FANTASIES AND TELL ME HOW YOU SPEND
YOUR EVENINGS. ARE YOU WRITING POETRY AGAIN?
* * *
NO, BUBBA, I'D HARDLY CALL MY EVENINGS POETRY. I CONTINUE SWILLING
MULBERRY RAKI AFTER SUNDOWN, BUT THEN I DO SO FROM A WOODEN CANTEEN
THAT I CARRY WITH ME TO THE PIAZZA IN FRONT OF SAN MARCO'S, WHERE, IN THE
RAIN AND THE DRIZZLE, I HAUNT THE VAST FOG-BOUND EXPANSES SEARCHING IN
VAIN FOR SOMEONE, ANYONE, TO GIVE ONE OF MY JOURNALS TO.
* * *
DO YOU WEAR A HAT, NUBAR? AND PLEASE REMEMBER TO TAKE ALONG A SCARF
EVEN IF YOU KEEP IT IN YOUR POCKET.
* * *
OR NOT EVEN THAT, BUBBA, THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE TO TAKE ONE OF THE
JOURNALS. I'D SETTLE FOR VERY LITTLE NOW. IN FACT I'D BE QUITE HAPPY IF
SOMEONE, ANYONE, JUST ALLOWED ME TO READ A BRIEF EXCERPT FROM ONE OF
THE JOURNALS TO HIM OR HER.
* * *
GOOD, NUBAR. I'M GLAD YOU'RE TAKING A SCARF WITH YOU WHEN YOU GO OUT
IN THE EVENING.
* * *
AND IS THAT TOO MUCH TO EXPECT, BUBBA? TO ASK SOMEONE TO STOP FOR JUST