Who's that you're talking about now? You or Melchizedek?
Haj Harun smiled shyly.
We're the same person.
Go on with you, you're all mixed up.
Haj Harun laughed.
Do you think so? Come let's go back, she's waiting for us.
They started down the hillside, Joe stumbling and falling in the darkness, Haj Harun floating lightly along the rough path that he had followed innumerable times.
Bloody eternal city, thought Joe, looking up at the walls rising above them. Bloody marvel how he keeps it running, lurking up there on the Mount of Olives at sundown disguised as a broken-down Arab.
Keeping watch he is, guarding the approaches, a former antiquities dealer for sure, old Melchizedek the first and last long spinning his city through the ages with no end in sight. Riots and mayhem to come, fearful of Smyrna but still trying to take the long view, as Stern once said.
Madness all right, that's what this place is, daft time spinning out of control, not meant for a sober Christian who just wants to make do with three squares a day and no heavy lifting and maybe a fortune on the side. But all the same who'd have thought a poor boy from the Aran Islands would one day be consulting in the shadows of Salem with the very same king who was handing out blessings here long before these bloody Arabs and Jews even existed with their bloody troubles?
-19-
Athens
Life rich and full in the wine of faraway places.
When Maud returned to live in Athens, Stern often came to visit her in the small house by the sea. A cable would arrive from somewhere and a few mornings later she would be standing on the pier in Piraeus waiting to meet his ship, Stern all at once leaning over the rail above her shouting and waving, rushing out to hug her in the clamor of travelers and banging gangways, his arms overflowing with the presents he had brought, masses of brightly colored paper tied with dozens of ribbons for Bernini to unravel.
Back at the little house by the sea Bernini sat on the floor working his way through the pile of parcels, holding up each new wonder as he uncovered it, amulets and charms and picture books, an Arab cloak and Arab headgear, a model of the Great Pyramid made of building blocks complete with secret tunnels and a treasure chamber.
Bernini clapped his hands, Maud laughed, Stern bounded into the kitchen reeling off the dishes he was going to make for dinner that night, lamb in Arab pastes and fish in French sauces, delicate pastries and vegetables touched by heady spices and aspics of the rainbow. She helped him find the pots and pans and sat in a corner while he chopped and sniffed and tasted, dashing a drop here and a pinch there and frowning judiciously, all the while carrying on a headlong account of scenes and anecdotes from Damascus and Egypt and Baghdad, exhilarating to Maud in the routine of her otherwise quiet life.
Toward the middle of the afternoon he opened the champagne and caviar and later they lit candles in the narrow garden to be near the sound of the waves as they savored his marvelous dishes, Stern still flooding the table with his stories from everywhere, extravagant costumes and ridiculous gossip and imagined conversations beguiling and raucous by turns, Stern leaping up to act the parts, standing on a chair and swinging his arms and smiling and sneaking along the wall, pointing and making a ludicrous face, tapping his glass, laughing and raising a flower.
Bernini came to say good-night and there was stillness for a while in the spring night of the garden, tender and softly relaxed as they lingered in the silence over their cognac, then gradually the talk swirled again reaching out to embrace forgotten moments, slipping back and forth through the decades in brilliant recollections, spinning its net in ever longer shadows until the whole world seemed to crowd around their circle of candlelight, brought there by Stern.
Sometime after midnight he took out his notebooks to show her his plans neatly arranged and outlined in detail, lists of meetings and supplies and schedules.
By the end of the summer, he said. Unquestionably by the end of the summer. It has to be, that's all.
A point here, another on this page. One two three four.
Orderly in black and white, to be ticked off by his finger from one to twelve. From a hundred to infinity.
Foolproof plans. Yes by the end of the summer.
More cigarettes and more bottles uncorked, more sparkling reminiscences and splendid sentiments in the flickering light as they went on to read poems to each other and quote words that spoke of suffering and grandeur, life rich and full in the wine of faraway places, in time returning through the candlelight under the stars by the sea where they wept and laughed and talked away most of the darkness, holding each other tightly when at the end of the night truly at peace with themselves, the hour so late they couldn't remember blowing out the candles and going inside, Stern snoring lightly on the couch and Maud just as quickly lost in sleep in the bedroom.
The next morning Stern had already left when she awoke but the note said he would be back by late afternoon with the makings of another feast. And so there would be another superb evening under the stars and then the following day they were walking down the pier in Piraeus once more, the brief hectic visit over.
In the summer he came several times and again in the clear mild evenings of autumn, piling the brightly colored packages in front of Bernini and conjuring up the banquets and scenes and memories from everywhere, spinning through the schemes in his notebooks. In his cabin they had a last glass of vodka before the ship sailed, Stern appearing confident and enthusiastic as always, his face flushed with the excitement of a new beginning, perhaps drinking a little more than he had the last time they parted, waving and smiling as the ship pulled away.
This time it was going to happen, whatever it was, by the end of the year. And when he came at Christmas he would say it was going to happen by Easter, and at Easter he would say by the end of the summer.
Always the same with Stern. It was always going to happen but it never did.
She went home and found Bernini playing with his new toys. She asked him if he liked them and he said Yes, very much. She wandered out into the garden thinking of Stern and the presents he brought, the expensive food and champagne.
She knew he had no money. She knew he had probably gone away with almost nothing in his pocket but he always insisted on doing it, on paying for it all himself and everything the best, imported, it was foolish, and taking taxis which was also foolish, she never used them herself.
But Stern did when he was with her, spending his money quickly, all at once, what little he had, he just couldn't be bothered with it because he was too busy living for the poetry of his ideas and the grand schemes that never came to anything. So warmly generous, so impractical and foolish, yet it was also sad in a way for she knew the poverty it represented.
She could never have done that even if she hadn't had the responsibility of Bernini. It just wasn't in her to squander enough for a month in two days and then go without the rest of the time as he did.
She also thought of his notebooks, the pages filled with neat handwriting, always new illusions deep at night when hope burned in the flame of a candle against the darkness. But the candlelight vanished at dawn and for him Easter would never come.
He knew that, yet the beautiful dreams, the unreal promises, were always there. Why? Why did he do it?