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time to move on. Thinking that what I've been telling myself I wanted for the last dozen years, well maybe
it's not what I want at all.
Joe waved his arm toward the city.
The things that happen here, what can you say about them? They happen, that's all. Have you ever heard
of something called the Sinai Bible?
What is it?
Well it's supposed to be the original Bible. Supposedly it was written three thousand years ago, more or
less.
Cairo smiled.
And how's that possible?
Who knows? Who knows what's possible around here? Not me, I don't, I'm just a poor fisherman's son
from the Aran Islands, a windswept place and barren and nowhere, so poor that God didn't even put any
soil on them. We had to make it out of seaweed and manure. Well the point is the Sinai Bible is buried
near here.
How did you learn about this Sinai Bible?
Oh I've been hearing about it since I arrived in Jerusalem. It's the kind of thing that will fascinate me every
time. And you can pick up clues when you're looking for them.
Joe laughed.
Ah and I was innocent when I first got here. I actually believed then that this Bible was something Haj
Harun had written. I heard about it and got it wrong, and Haj Harun confused me more, and off I was
just spinning like a top around the idea of a Sinai Bible. You know what Haj Harun likes to call it when
he's mixing up the ages? The story of my life. But of course it could be, depending on your point of
view. It could be that as well as anything else. After all that's about how long he's lived, three thousand
years or so. So why shouldn't he think the original Bible is the story of his life?
It's a nice way to look at it, said Cairo.
Yes. Anyway, after a time I learned that such a Bible actually had been found in the last century, in the
Sinai I guess, that's why it has that name. A Trappist monk found it, but that's all I know about him, and
he was so appalled by its chaos he decided to forge a new original and let it be found, then buried the
real original here in Jerusalem, the Holy City don't you see. Well he did that and the fake original was
acquired by the czar in the last century, and just this year the Bolsheviks sold it to the British Museum for
a hundred thousand pounds. So how's that for a saga and a half? But the real one, the real one's still here.
Where?
Right here, somewhere in the Armenian Quarter. Buried in a basement hole.
And that's why you wanted to live here? You moved in to be close to it because you wanted to find it?
I did, I mightily did, but now I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure I really want to see what's in it. Something
along those lines, I just don't know anymore. Maybe it'd be better to leave it alone. Better to think of it as
the story of Haj Harun's life, and remind myself that I've been fortunate enough to have been able to keep
the old man company these dozen and one years, better just to let it go at that. There are more than
enough mysteries in his life to think about, certainly more than enough for me, so why go on looking?
Why? asked Cairo.
Joe smiled.
Well there you are. I don't think I will. I think it's time for me to give up the seeking and the search for
lost treasure and go take my ease in the west, Holy City West, wherever that might be. It's time to
become Chief Sipping Bear at home in the setting sun.
Are we to be treated to a Zuni sun dance now?
Go on with you, Cairo. We're hours away from sunup and any dance of that nature could only be a
failure at this hour. No, there are other matters before us. Now that it's midnight and a little more we have
to hear from a very important spokesman who goes by the name of Finn MacCool.
Joe cupped his hands around his mouth and pretended to shout out over the rooftops.
Hey Finnnnn, he whispered, we're right here in Jerusalem. Lend us a hand if you will.
Do you think he heard me? whispered Joe. I was aiming in a generally western direction but I don't know
how well my voice is carrying tonight. What do you think?
Cairo laughed.
He heard you, definitely. And I take it he's some tribal god native to the bogs of Ireland?
Now why would you be guessing as wildly as that? Well as a matter of fact that's just what he is, a great
strong giant of a man whose favorite pastime on nights like these is telling stories. In fact he's got so many
stories to tell, most of them about himself, that he never runs out of them. He's been doing it for ages
already and it looks like he just might go on doing it to the end of time. Now back home when you want
Finn to tell you a story you say, Please relate. Will you do so?
What?
What you're doing, Cairo. I've noticed you might be getting tired of the game yourself. The signs are
there and of course with my keen eye, I wouldn't be missing them would I. Why the poker game for you
originally? Why did you want control of Jerusalem? Please relate.
It is true that I will not.
Joe laughed.
Ah Cairo, there you go using my very homespun English, bad as it is and getting no better. But with that
accent of yours you'll never be taken for an Irishman, not even in Africa. Your tone is too aristocratic by
half. Well then, will you relate?
I'll compromise with you, Joe. I'll go so far as to tell the tale the way your Finn MacCool might
Which is to say?
Stretched and distorted and made outrageous.
Fine, very fine. That's tale-telling for sure and nothing could be more accurate anyway. So please to
begin. And as you do I think I'll just be taking a shade more of this drink that looks like water but
definitely isn't, is definitely not.
That won't help at this hour of night.
You're right, Cairo, it won't, it surely will not. Makes a good man old before his time and a bad man
young before he's ready, a curse on the race and that's a fact. But if it's any help to you I have some of
that other stuff here for a smoke, and maybe you'll be wanting a puff or two before the night's out. Well
maybe you will so I'll just lay the pipe and the mixings beside you in case you feel the urge sneaking up in
the darkness, a late evening in the Holy City being no time to exert yourself unduly. Now, you're the
African Finn MacCool you say?
I wasn't aware of saying that.
Ah come on, Cairo. After all these years of us playing poker together, how could you possibly mislay
your name? I've always known you weren't in the game for money, something else has been up. What's
the deed?
It was going to be Jerusalem first, then Mecca.
Has a ring to it all right. What in Mecca?
The Holy of Holies.
Ah.
The black meteorite.
Ah.
You may not know it, but that black meteorite is the most sacred object in Islam. It's in the Kaaba. I was
going to steal it and take it to Africa and bury it in good rich African soil. Black soil. Where no one would
ever find it
Why?
Cairo grew somber then. He described Jidda, for centuries the great depot of the slave trade, and how
many of the African children who arrived there had already walked more than twelve hundred miles to
reach the Arab ferries on the other side of the Red Sea.
He described the small wells he had seen across the Sahara, surrounded for miles with dry bleached [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]