No, said Stern quickly.
A thunderstorm had broken overhead and lightning suddenly lit the room in a violent burst but Stern seemed unaware of it.
No, he repeated. No.
Maud gazed at the floor. She wanted to believe him but she didn’t. She knew it wasn’t true, there was no way it could be true. And even though she knew the two old men only through Stern, she could picture exactly what had happened. It was as clear to her as if she had been there and seen Ya’qub and Strongbow marching back and forth between their almond trees in one of their interminable rambling discussions.
Ya’qub saying merrily that this was fine, all the things the boy was learning, but then suddenly serious and tugging Strongbow’s sleeve and whispering earnestly that one mystery must be excluded from their teachings, at least that, for the boy’s sake, one for him to discover alone by himself.
The former hakïm pondering the words and nodding solemnly over this piece of wisdom, the two of them sitting up late that night in their tent trying to decide which mystery it should be among the thousands they shared after all their years of tramping from Timbuktu to Persia, of tracing a hillside in the Yemen and going nowhere.
So Stern was lying to himself. He pretended all his days and nights were taken up with his clandestine cause but it just wasn’t so. There was something else more important to him.
Dizzily then she recalled things he had said and all at once it became obvious. For years he too had been secretly in search of the Sinai Bible.
Wallenstein. Strongbow. O’Sullivan Beare and now Stern.
Where would it ever end?
She didn’t want to talk about it but she knew she couldn’t just ignore it, so finally she asked the question.
Stern, what made you begin looking for the Sinai Bible?
It was late afternoon and he was pouring himself a glass of vodka. His shoulders seemed to twitch and he poured more than he usually did.
Well, when I realized what it meant I had to. What was in it I mean. What’s still in it wherever it is.
And what’s that, Stern? For you?
Well everything. All my ideas and hopes, what I was really looking for years ago in Paris when I thought of a new nation here, a homeland for Arabs and Christians and Jews alike, you see what I mean don’t you? That homeland could have been here in the beginning before people were divided into those names, the Sinai original might show that. And if it does I would have proof, or at least I could prove it to myself even if to no one else.
Prove what? What you’ve done? What you work for? Your life? What?
Well yes, all those things, everything.
Maud shook her head.
That damned book.
Why say that? Think what it could mean if it were found.
Maybe, I don’t know anymore. It just makes me angry.
But why does it make you angry? Because of O’Sullivan Beare? Because he wanted to find it so much?
Yes and no. Perhaps it was just that then, now it’s something more.
What?
She shrugged wearily.
I’m not sure. The way it obsesses people. The way it sends lives careening off in all directions. Wallenstein in his cave for seven years going mad while the ants eat his eyeballs, Strongbow marching through the desert for forty years never able to sleep in the same place twice, Joe and his wild search for treasures that don’t exist, you and your impossible nation. Why are there these mirages that pull men and pull them on and on and on? Why does it have to be the same with all of you? You hear about that damn book and you go crazy. You all do.
She stopped. He took her hand.
But it’s not the Sinai Bible that does it, is it?
More vodka?
Maud?
No I know it isn’t, of course it’s not. But all the same I wish that damn fanatic Wallenstein had never had his insane dream. Why couldn’t he have left us alone?
But he hasn’t got anything to do with it either. It was there and all he did was find it and live it, or relive it and bring it back to us, all the things we’ve always wanted. Canaan, just imagine it. The happy land of Canaan three thousand years ago.
It wasn’t happy.
It might have been. No one can say until the original is found.
Yes they can. You know it wasn’t.
He didn’t answer.
Damn it, say you do. Admit it. Say you know.
All right then, I know.
She sighed and began stroking his hand absentmindedly. The anger in her face had drained away.
And yet, she whispered.
Yes that’s right, that’s always it. And yet. And yet.
She picked up the vodka bottle and looked at it.
Christ, she muttered. Oh Christ.
Yes, said Stern with a thin smile. Among others.
Dizzying and more, for although O’Sullivan Beare had the account of the Bible all mixed up, confusing it with the vague stories Haj Harun told him, Stern actually knew where the Sinai original was. He knew it had been buried in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem.
Yet he had never looked for it there.
Why?
Stern laughed and filled his glass.
You know that’s the only part of Sophia’s story I’ve never believed. It would have been too obvious a hiding place for someone as clever and dedicated as Wallenstein. Look at it. He spent twelve years in a basement hole in the Armenian Quarter before he went to the Sinai to do his forgery. Would he have been likely to come back and bury the original in that same basement hole? Ask questions about him and someone would remember, the spot could be found and all of Wallenstein’s efforts would have been for nothing. Would Sophia have allowed that considering how much she loved him? She knew what the forgery had cost him, what it eventually cost her too, so she lied to protect him, to protect herself, to keep their suffering from being meaningless.
Stern went on talking, pacing and puffing cigarettes. He poured himself another drink. Maud looked out the window in embarrassment.
Why was he saying all this? There was no reason for Sophia to lie to protect Wallenstein after he’d already protected himself. When he went to Egypt to find parchment he’d traveled as a wealthy Armenian dealer in antiquities. Who knew what other disguises there had been?
The basement hole could have had a large house over it where he passed himself off as someone else. Or a shop where he actually dealt in antiquities. Or a church where he’d gotten himself ordained as a priest, or a monastery where he was posing as a monk. Anything at all. Obviously the manuscript would never be found by asking questions about Wallenstein and his basement hole.
Stern, a little drunk now, began to describe all the places he had looked for the manuscript. At first he thought it must have been hidden in a large city so he went to Cairo and Damascus and Baghdad, into the back alleys at night.
Did anyone have a very old book to sell? A precious book? He was willing to pay a great deal.
Knowing smiles. Levantine language. He was led through shadowy rooms where every sort of living creature was offered for sale, the body in question guaranteed to be as satisfying as the oldest book in the world.
O venerable scholar, added his guide.
Stern fled to the open air. Perhaps a small cave near the Dead Sea? Wallenstein having chosen this secure place as he was limping home from Mt Sinai?
Stern cranked up his tractor car and sped down wadis and across the dunes chasing stray camels, on the lookout for caves. When he spied a bedouin on the horizon he raced over to him and whipped open the steel hatch. Up popped Stern’s dusty face, his tanker’s goggles staring blankly down at the frightened man.
A very old book? A cave in the vicinity? Even a small one?