Strongbow’s Comet. He hadn’t thought about it in years. For a moment he considered the possibility of writing it up in an astronomical monograph, but no, it would be an idle indulgence. His method for dating the comet was difficult, he already had enough to do and couldn’t afford to be deterred by heavenly matters.
Strongbow licked the ring. Older, he announced.
Really?
Yes.
The Arab sighed.
I can’t see it. The very oldest I might venture would be early New Kingdom.
No. Older still. End of the XVII Dynasty to be exact.
Ah the Hyksos, an obscure people. How did you know?
Taste.
What?
Metal content.
Haj Harun thanked him profusely. Strongbow smiled and disappeared into his vault. To him it seemed appropriate and comfortable here. Out front the Arab dealer was trading baubles from the past while in back he was cataloguing the evidence for the present on a mountaintop called Jerusalem.
And more than once as he sat down at his desk he recalled a conversation between a mole and a hermit in the moonlight on another mountain. Who had he been, that recluse? What had driven him to undertake such an incredible task?
Of course he would never know. There was no way to know.
Saturday morning. Another fifteen reams of paper for the month ahead. He drew a file from the antique safe and drank a cup of thick coffee and lit a strong cigarette. Briefly he gazed at his rusting Crusader’s helmet, then patted the nose of his giant stone scarab and went back to work.
Only once did Strongbow falter in the course of those dozen years of work in Jerusalem, but the consequences were so significant it caused his study to be almost three times longer than he had planned originally.
The episode occurred one hot summer Sunday afternoon in his vaulted room at the back of the antiquities dealer’s shop. Toward midnight the night before he had finished a chapter as usual, and the next morning at six o’clock, also as usual, he had arranged himself on the giant stone scarab and gazed at the rusting Crusader’s helmet before picking up his pen.
Sometime later he found himself still gazing at the Crusader’s helmet. The pen was in his hand but the two hundred and thirty sheets of paper scheduled to be covered with handwriting that day still stood untouched in a neat pile. With his sundial strapped to his hip Strongbow marched outside to see what time it was. He brought the bronze piece up to the level and gasped.
Three o’clock in the afternoon? He couldn’t believe it. Frowning deeply, he wandered back inside.
Haj Harun was stretched out in a corner of the front room perusing old manuscripts, as he often did on Sunday afternoons. Although he was always respectful of his tenant’s privacy, the man’s face looked so troubled at that moment he decided to venture a few words.
Is something the matter? he asked in a voice so low the question could have been ignored. But Strongbow abruptly interrupted his stride and stopped, causing the sundial to swing into the wall and noisily knock loose a shower of plaster.
Yes. Time is. It seems I’ve done nothing for the last nine hours and I don’t know what to make of it. It’s unheard of for me to do nothing.
And you were doing nothing at all?
Evidently. It seems I was just sitting at my desk staring at my Crusader’s helmet. Nine hours? It’s incomprehensible.
Haj Harun’s face brightened with hope.
But that’s not nothing. That’s daydreaming.
He waved his arms enthusiastically at the shelves which were crowded with artifacts.
Look at all these memories from the past around us. I spend most of my time daydreaming about them. Who owned that and why? What was he doing then? What became of it after that and what became of it later? It’s enchanting. You meet people from every era and have long conversations with them.
But I don’t daydream, said Strongbow emphatically.
Not even today?
Well it seems I did but I can’t imagine it, nor can I imagine why, it’s simply not my way. If I’m walking to Timbuktu I walk there. If I’m floating down the Tigris to Baghdad I don’t get out of the water before Baghdad. And if I’m writing a study I write it.
Well perhaps you’re leaving something out of your study that should be included. Perhaps that’s why you were daydreaming.
Strongbow looked puzzled.
But how could I be leaving something out? That’s not my way either. I don’t do that.
The old Arab smiled and disappeared into the back room. A moment later he stuck his head out and Strongbow burst into laughter at the ludicrous sight. Haj Harun had put on the Crusader’s helmet, which was so big on him it floated around on his head.
Here, he said happily, a regular thinking cap, this will help us. When I want to daydream I gaze at one of my antiquities and pretty soon I’m slipping back in time and seeing Romans and Babylonians in the streets of Jerusalem. Now let’s see what you see. What’s your study about?
Sex.
Then it must be a woman you’ve left out. Who was she? Look deeply.
Strongbow stared at the old man in the helmet and it worked, suddenly he saw her again as clearly as if she were standing in Haj Harun’s place. He clasped his hands and lowered his eyes.
A Persian girl, he whispered.
And you were young?
Only nineteen.
A gentle Persian girl, mused Haj Harun softly.
Yes, said Strongbow, so very gentle. There was a stream in the hills far from any city, where I chanced to pause in a glen one day to rest, and singing to herself she came upon me there. She wasn’t frightened, not at all, it was as if she had expected the meeting. We talked for hours and laughed and splashed in the water, played in the water like two little children, and when darkness fell we were lying in the shadows promising each other we’d never leave that beautiful place we had found together. The days and nights that followed were boundless in their minutes of love, they seemed to stretch on forever, but then one day she returned briefly to her village and soon after she came back she collapsed on the grass, cholera, and I could only whisper to her and hold her helplessly in my arms as the life ran out of her and all at once she was gone, simply that. I buried her in the glen. A few weeks we had, no more, yet I remember every blade of glass there, every spot of sun and every sound made by the water on the rocks. A memory by a stream, the most rapturous and wretched moments I have ever known in life.
Strongbow sighed. Haj Harun came over and rested a frail hand on his shoulder.
Yes, he said, a gentle Persian girl. Yes, you certainly must include her.
Strongbow got to his feet and shook himself out of the mood.
No it’s not that kind of book. And anyway, that was all too long ago.
Too long ago? said Haj Harun dreamily. Nothing is ever too long ago. Once I had a Persian wife myself. She was Attar’s daughter.
Who do you mean? The Sufi poet?
Yes.
But he lived in the twelfth century.
Of course, said Haj Harun.
Strongbow studied him for a moment. There was something startling and transforming about the old Arab shyly smiling out from under the large Crusader’s helmet. Haj Harun was rubbing his hands and nodding encouragement.
Won’t you do it? Please? At least a few pages? Just to prove to yourself that nothing is ever too long ago?