See that shop that sells loquats? yelled Haj Harun. A very grand place in its day, the best cabaret in Jerusalem. Run by a former grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire who introduced the cabaret acts and led the applause at the end. Curious how a man of his former importance could be reduced to such a shabby role in life.
Curious, yes.
What?
Always thought so, shouted Joe.
And this corner here was where I was fined for public cheiromania in Hellenistic times.
What’s that?
The man on the corner now? It’s hard to say. Either he’s had too much hashish or he’s gone into a religious ecstasy.
No, I mean that offense the Greeks pinned on you.
Oh that, shouted Haj Harun with a laugh. An obsession with the hand but not what you’re thinking. Palmistry without a license was the problem, I used to be quite a good palmist. See that old building there? I was in jail there once.
They stepped up off the cobblestones into a fruit juice stand and Joe ordered two large glasses. Together they stood sipping their pomegranate juice and gazing at the building, Haj Harun beaming and laughing as he reminisced.
That was during the great evil eye epidemic we had here. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of it?
It strikes me that I haven’t. When was that?
Early in the Assyrian era. For some reason everyone in the city was suddenly terrified of the evil eye. People imagined they saw it everywhere and no one dared go outside. The streets were empty, the shops closed, all commerce stopped. Jerusalem without commerce? Impossible. The city was dying and I knew I had to act.
Joe wiped the sweat off his face and tried to dry his hands on his wet shirt.
Of course you did. What acts then?
Well first I tried baking bread.
Good, always useful, bread.
Yes I thought that would do it. Sexual organs are known to be one of the best defenses against the evil eye because they fascinate it and divert its attention, thereby keeping it from doing harm. Well I reasoned that if bread were baked in the shape of a phallus and eaten plentifully throughout the city, that would provide a sound internal safeguard people could have confidence in.
Joe wiped his face again. It was terribly hot. In the blur of the cloudless sky he caught a glimpse of himself sneaking around Jerusalem one dark night painting evil eyes on doors. The next morning there would be an Assyrian panic and he would suddenly appear with the miraculous loaves of bread, sell them at an enormous profit and make a fortune. But how was he going to get the baking priest to bake the special shape? Tell him it was the arm and fist of God? No good, the arm of Allah was too common an expression here. The ancient Franciscan would think he had succumbed to the heathens and refuse to fire his oven.
A total failure, laughed Haj Harun. Bread was too subtle. People needed a visible safeguard, not a digestible one, so I went around painting phalluses on walls. That helped a little, at least people began coming outside again. When they did I harangued them, urging them to paint phalluses of their own to reassure themselves and they did that, covering lamps and bowls and every other article they owned, even weaving them into their cloaks and wearing specially carved rings and bracelets and necklaces and pendants. Soon Jerusalem was a city of ten million phalluses. Of course you have to remember all this happened back in the days when I still had influence here and people not only listened to me but believed what I said.
Joe tried to pull his shirt away from his chest and let a little air in but he couldn’t, it was glued there.
Are you remembering? asked Haj Harun.
I am. Keenly.
Yes. Well for the next stage of my plan I needed the assistance of menstruating women.
I see. Why this unusual convolution?
Because at that time menstruation was a very powerful agent. It was effective against hail and bad weather in general and could destroy vermin in crops, not to mention withering cucumbers and cracking nutshells.
Very good.
I thought so but then it turned out I couldn’t persuade any women to expose their private parts on the street when they were menstruating. Home on their farms at night to help their own crops, of course they’d do it then, but not in Jerusalem in public even though it could have assured the safety of the city. I argued and argued with them in the squares but they remained adamant, claiming it would damage their reputations. Can you imagine? People being as vain as that when the whole city was endangered by a crisis? I tell you, people can be selfish.
True.
And ignore the public welfare.
Very true.
Even to the point of thinking only about themselves while everything around them is going to ruin.
Very very true.
Haj Harun laughed.
Well that was the case then, so obviously there was only one thing to do. One final dramatic act was needed to break the impasse, to enlist the entire citizenry in the fight against the danger we were facing. Unquestionably I had to take an extreme religious position against the evil eye, no matter how unpopular and flamboyant it might appear to be, and through personal example show the people what was necessary to save us. There was simply no alternative. I had to do it and I did.
Of course you did. What was it?
Haj Harun grinned at the building across the way.
I took off my loincloth and went striding boldly through the streets and every time I came upon an evil eye I whipped up my cloak and gave it a flash. Ha. I flashed and I flashed and each time I did the evil eye’s hold over us was weakened and Jerusalem was that much closer to total recovery.
Joe reeled back against the counter of the fruit juice stand and quickly ordered two more glasses of pomegranate juice. His head was spinning and the centuries were making him thirsty, Assyrian centuries, the sight of Haj Harun as a vigorous young man still confident and influential, still respected for his credibility in those far-off days, boldly striding through Jerusalem in 700 B.C. whipping up his cloak to defeat the evil eye at each dramatic new encounter, striking out alone through the streets to do battle with the epidemic that was threatening to lay waste to his Holy City, flamboyant and selfless, shunning vanity and undeterred by any possible damage to his reputation, marching on and doing his duty as he saw it, Haj Harun the fearless religious flasher of antiquity.
I got caught, said the old man with a chuckle.
Do you tell me that.
Yes, the Assyrian police picked me up for lascivious behavior or indecent exposure or some other indefensible charge. Anyway they locked me up in that jail over there and said I’d have to stay locked up until I promised to change my ways. But my campaign had been largely successful by then and the great evil eye epidemic was nearly over. They freed me before long.
A personal triumph, said Joe.
I thought so but of course I didn’t get any particular credit for it.
Why?
Commerce. As soon as they got their commerce back they forgot about my religious sacrifice. That happens around here.
I see.
They left the fruit juice stand and once more began pushing their way through the din of the bazaar.
You know, shouted Haj Harun, sometimes it seems I was an old man early in life and had little later to unlearn. When I walk here there are memories and more memories on every side. Did you know Caesar used geese as watchdogs?
Quack, I did not, shouted Joe, but the bustling and shoving may be loosening my brains.
Or that when the Egyptians held the city they had a custom of shaving off their eyebrows when a pet cat died? The cats were then embalmed and sent home to be buried in Bubastis.
Cat city you say? Bubbling my brains quite possibly, it must be this infernal heat. I seem to feel the need for some powerful sobering tonic. Or as you said once, Time is.