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capital, where his expertise could be put to work in some other aspect of the overall operation.
In only three years Cairo Martyr's secret balm network was smoothly functioning throughout the Levant,
assuring him a large income for life. The time then came for him to launch the second phase of his master
plan, the series of deadly steps that would ultimately lead to the theft of the black meteorite from the
Kaaba in Mecca.
With typical patience Martyr intended to approach his goal by degrees. First he would gain clandestine
control of Jerusalem, the third holy city of Islam. When that was accomplished he would move on to
Islam's second city, Medina. And only then, with all flanks secure, would he take his campaign to Mecca
for his final triumph.
But when Martyr arrived in Jerusalem in the autumn of 1921, he found he wasn't alone in seeking secret
control of the city. Other clandestine operators were at work in the confusion that had followed the war,
in particular a Khasarian Jew from Budapest, Munk Szondi by name, who seemed to have immense
resources of his own.
If he had been faced with just this one competitor, Martyr was confident he could have made a deal with
the man for an equable division of spoils. In fact he had worked out most of the details for a compromise
proposal when he accidentally met Szondi for the first time in a Jerusalem coffee shop where they had
both chanced to seek shelter on a cold December afternoon when snow was definitely in the air.
But he couldn't make an offer to Szondi then because a third man happened to be sitting with them in the
crowded shop, a young Irishman who also agreed to the game of poker Szondi had suggested as a
diversion against the gloomy weather.
A game of poker. A diversion. The wind outside whipping through the alleys. Snow definitely in the air.
And somehow a strange design descending upon the three of them that night after they moved the game
to the curiously empty shop of Haj Harun, where Martyr soon made another discovery. For some reason
as yet unknown, the Irishman was also seeking secret control of Jerusalem.
Chance had apparently brought them together on the last day of 1921, but now none of them seemed
able to leave the game, to escape the mysterious spell that had suddenly locked them in around a poker
table.
Why? What was the spell? Did it have something to do with Haj Harun?
Cairo Martyr shrugged. He smiled.
There were complications he didn't yet understand but he was as patient as ever, as patient as his
great-grandmother and Menelik Ziwar had been. So patient he never looked at his cards before he bet
on them, because he knew in the end he wouldn't win out of luck.
In the end he would win because he had to.
Because his cause was just. Because no one could have a cause more just than his.
Even if it meant facing a siege in the Holy City more arduous than any since the First Crusade.
By the closing days of January 1922, with a month of steady play behind them, the three gamblers had
begun to realize they were involved in more than ordinary chronic poker. And it had also become
apparent they would have to bring outsiders into the game if they were to make any money, the three of
them being too evenly matched to win from each other.
It was Munk Szondi who made the suggestion one night when he had the deal.
What about it, Joe?
Suits me.
Cairo?
An excellent idea.
As Munk shuffled the cards he gazed at the tall antique Turkish safe in the corner.
I've been wondering about that, he said.
Have you now, murmured Joe. Well I recall some wondering about it myself when I walked in here the
first time and saw it standing there so tall and thin. That doesn't look to be a safe, I said to myself. It
looks more like an impregnable sentry box on local guard duty.
Joe nodded to himself. He smiled, recalling that afternoon nearly two years ago when he had rapped on
the safe and heard the echoes from deep in the ground. Haj Harun had then told him the truth.
The safe was bottomless. Inside it was a ladder that led down to the caverns of the past, the ruins of a
dozen Old Cities, two dozen Old Cities. Because Jerusalem was on a mountaintop, as Haj Harun
explained it, and since it had been endlessly destroyed and rebuilt over the millennia, no one had ever
bothered to dig away what was left from before. Instead they had built over the ruins, raising the holy
mountain ever higher. And only Haj Harun knew the caverns existed, because he alone had lived in all
those former Jerusalems.
But he had shared the secret with Joe because Joe had not only befriended him but even believed the
things he said, the first person to have done so in two thousand years, which had mystified Haj Harun in
the beginning.
Why do you believe what I say, he had asked, instead of beating me when I say it? That's what everyone
else does. They call me an old fool and beat me.
No reason not to believe you, Joe had answered. I haven't been long in our Holy City, everybody's Holy
City, but I've learned enough to know you have to accept twists here the way you might not elsewhere.
Different kind of place, that's all. Eternal city and so forth, daft time spinning out of control for sure on top
of the holy mountain. Now you say you've lived here three thousand years and who am I to say you
haven't? No one, that's who. A man has to be in charge of his own memories all right, otherwise nothing
would work. So if you say it I'll believe it and that's the shape of things.
There had been tears in Haj Harun's eyes then, and ever since he had been eager to reveal all he knew to
his new young friend. The only problem was that Haj Harun was so old the years seemed to slip and
slide together for him, and he could seldom remember what he knew.
Munk Szondi was still gazing at the tall antique Turkish safe in the corner.
What does the old man keep in it? he asked.
Now there's an item for you, said Joe, and would you believe me if I told you? The past. Yes that's right.
He keeps the past, no less, in that tall and narrow safe.
Munk smiled.
Is that so?
It is indeed. What he's got in there is three thousand years of history, the Holy City's history, and what do
you think of that? You see he's by way of considering himself the custodian of Jerusalem, the one and
only legitimate article. And me myself, I'm by way of thinking he's right.
Munk shuffled the cards.
Who appointed him to this exalted position?
Self-appointed he was. Had to be. No one else had been around long enough to do the honors. Not that
he wasn't voted into the job too, he was. By general acclamation of the citizenry, accompanied by great
applause.
When was that? asked Munk.
Well let's see, it must have been a little before 700 B.C. Seems about that time the accursed Assyrians
were ready to make their move in their monstrous chariots, accosting the lands to the north on their way
down to a-conquer Jerusalem and everyone in the city was a-scared and agog at the danger. Commerce
and the assorted religions were coming to a standstill, don't you see, so maybe soon there would be no
Holy City at all here, nothing but gnashing of teeth and lamentations. Do you follow me, Munk?
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