In any case the birthmark drew attention to Haj Harun early in his career. By the time of the first Isaiah he was a well-known figure in Jerusalem, variously respected or held in awe by men of many races and creeds.
But during the Persian occupation a change set in.
He was no longer considered totally reliable by either natives or foreigners, and when Alexander stopped off on his way to India, Haj Harun was already viewed as an obscure oddity, despite the fact that he had lived in the city much longer than anyone else. Certain disreputable soothsayers still sought his advice in private, but even they had to be mindful of public opinion and ignore him in the street.
Once begun the erosion was rapid. Haj Harun's confidence in himself steadily declined. He lost his forthright habits of speech and with them his fearless presentations. Well before the Roman era no one in Jerusalem took him seriously. By then he had already seen too many peoples come and go and witnessed too many eras erupting and ending. He had a muddled way of lumping all events together as if they had occurred yesterday, and when strangers happened to make the mistake of listening to him they were sent reeling in all directions, reality changing before their eyes as swiftly as the borders of the purple landscape that curled around his frail body.
Therefore from about the time of Christ there was a total eclipse in Haj Harun's credibility. The inhabitants of Jerusalem were forever piling new walls and gates and temples and churches and mosques on the ruins of the past, forever covering the old rubble with new bazaars and gardens and courtyards, forever massing and rearing new structures.
They were busy and they simply didn't have time to believe a man who had been born a thousand years before Christ. Whose mind, moreover, teemed with facts no one else had ever heard.
-10-
The Scarab
An Egyptian stone beetle and great secret scarab stuffed with the first arms for the future Jewish underground army.
Nearly three thousand years later in 1920, young O'Sullivan Beare was far from being ready to retire. As soon as he entered the Home for Crimean War Heroes he began to scheme, looking for ways to make money, hinting in various Arab coffee shops that he had extensive experience in illegal affairs. Before long a man of indeterminate nationality approached him.
Smuggling arms? He nodded. He described his four years on the run in southern Ireland and the man seemed impressed. From where to where? Constantinople to here. For whom? The Haganah. What's that? The future Jewish underground army. Who's it going to fight, the English? If necessary. Good, bloody English.
You'll have the honor of bringing them their first weapons, added the man. If the money is right, thought Joe.
Money. He remembered Haj Harun's lost treasure map, which he was sure existed. The old Arab had referred to it only in passing as the story of my life, but Joe had been too intrigued to let the matter rest there.
You wrote it down? he'd asked Haj Harun.
The old Arab had waved his arms in circles. He couldn't remember whether he had or not but to Joe the implication was that he had and later lost or misplaced it, this real or secret history of the riches he'd discovered in the caverns beneath Jerusalem, in the Old Cities he'd explored down there and then mixed up in his mind with tales from the Thousand and One Nights and the other fancies that obsessed him, a detailed guide to the incalculable wealth brought to Jerusalem over the millennia by conquerors and pious fanatics.
He'd pressed Haj Harun about it.
Are you sure you don't have any idea what you could have done with it?
With what?
The story of your life.
Haj Harun had shrugged helplessly and wrung his hands, certainly wanting to please his new friend by recalling this or anything else yet simply unable to, his memory slipping as he said and the years all sliding together, pumping his arms in circles and sadly admitting he just couldn't be sure, just couldn't say, the past was too confusing.
Was he forgiven? Were he and Prester John still friends?
That they were, Joe had answered, nothing changed that. But the treasure map had never left his mind and now he wondered whether to mention it to his new employer, who seemed to know a good deal about Jerusalem. Why not chance it? Carefully, without enthusiasm, he asked the man if he had ever heard of a document that supposedly included three thousand years of Jerusalem's history, written by a madman and worthless, thought to have disappeared not too long ago.
The man studied him curiously. Was he referring to the myth of an original Sinai Bible? An original version totally unlike the forgery later bought by the czar?
The czar. Even the czar had been after it. So eager to get his hands on the map he'd been going around snapping up forgeries.
That's it. What do they say happened to it?
Supposedly it was buried. But no one has ever seen it and of course it's all nonsense, the fabrication of a demented mind.
Demented certainly, nonsense of course, buried assuredly. Haj Harun unlocking his antique safe one evening and putting a foot on the ladder, a short time later padding steathily away down a tunnel fifty feet below the ground for a long private night in the caverns.
What do they say was in it exactly?
The man smiled. That's the point. Supposedly everything is in it Everything. Persian palaces and Babylonian tiaras and Crusader caches, Mameluke plunder and Seleucid gold. A map so valuable the czar had been willing to trade his empire for it When do they say it was buried?
In the last century.
Yes that would be right, Haj Harun would still have had his wits about him then. He'd have written it and hidden it and then forgotten where he'd hidden it when he was seized by the idea of his holy mission. He saw the old man stumbling around the walls of his empty shop staring into corners. Mission to where?
The moon. Residence? Lunacy. Occupation? Lunatic.
Jaysus that was his Haj Harun all right. Explorer of secret caverns and discoverer of two dozen Old Cities, mapmaker of the centuries, the former King of Jerusalem now reduced to peering at blank walls and absentmindedly adjusting his helmet, which released a shower of rust to fill his eyes with tears and blur the figure he'd hoped to see in his nonexistent mirror.
The man on the other side of the table was talking about routes from Constantinople. Trails, roads, paths, English border posts and sentries, defiles to be crossed at night. Joe held up his hand.
Here now, aren't we talking about the first arms ever to be smuggled to the Haganah? What's an everyday wagon with a false bottom doing on such an occasion? Figs for cover? I have a better idea.
There's a giant stone scarab I happen to know about, hollow inside so that it could hold a lot. A scarab, I said. A giant Egyptian stone scarab.
The man gazed at him. Joe lowered his voice.
Picture it now. From the heart of the enemy's camp a huge beetle inches across an ancient parched homeland one day to be fertile again. A relentless scarab creeping forward, an Egyptian scarab as patient and hard as stone because it is stone as still stone. A scarab as old as the pyramids, as determined as the people who will now escape those pyramids, a giant stone scarab scaling the slopes of the mountain to reach Jerusalem at last in the first light of a new day, an Egyptian stone beetle and great secret scarab stuffed with the first arms for the future Jewish underground army.
O'Sullivan Beare leaned back and smiled, suspecting this man Stern might pay him well.