Jerusalem Poker by Edward Whittemore

Author:Edward Whittemore [Whittemore, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: BA
Publisher: Edward Whittemore
Published: 2011-10-16T00:07:56+00:00

* * *

MY MIND AND CONSCIENCE ARE PERFECTLY CLEAR, BUBBA. FURTHERMORE, I'M

OUTSIDE A GREAT DEAL. I SPEND MANY HOURS IN THE PIAZZA IN FRONT OF SAN

MARCO'S.

* * *

LOVELY. NOTHING COULD BE BETTER FOR YOU. IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL THERE. DRINK

PLENTY OF MINERAL WATER FOR YOUR GAS, GET A LOT OF SLEEP AND HAVE A GOOD TIME.

* * *

THANKS. GAS UNDER CONTROL. HAVING WONDERFUL TIME IN THE MYSTERIOUS

WINTER MISTS THAT CLOAK THE CITY. PERFECTLY ENCHANTING.

If only she knew, thought Nubar, setting out again in the cold fog at sundown, heading for San Marco's with his stack of thick journals, the rambling testimonials to himself that he spent all day, every day, writing.

The journals contained passages describing his sadness for the fate of the peasant boy convicted of murder in Gronk, who had originally been his lover, not Mahmud's, although no mention was made of that. But most of the pages were devoted to long incoherent attacks on every conceivable aspect of Mahmud's character and behavior.

In addition the journals contained lengthy spurious histories of the AA, which proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the organization had been founded and run solely by Mahmud, while he, Nubar, hadn't really known of its existence. In fact, he had never even suspected that it existed. He simply had no idea there could ever have been such a monstrous group as the AA operating secretly in sleepy little Gronk.

Furthermore, the correct name of that foul organization, spelled out in large letters at the top of every page in the journals so no one could mistake it, was the All-Afghanistan Sacred Band, proof of the utterly foreign nature of the conspiracy which had always been completely alien to the Albanian way of life and the Albanian national character, not to mention Albanian ideals and the Albanian work ethic, and in its lazy decadence, even contrary to Albanian efficiency. As Nubar made perfectly clear in the journals, the AA could only have been the product of a filthy foreigner's diseased and totally aberrant mind.

The entire affair, in short, was a frightening case of Afghan mountain madness let loose in a small, quiet, civilized, respectable, law-abiding Albanian fishing community.

And lastly, there were numerous eulogies to the Albanian prison system in the journals, particularly to its agricultural prisons, along with arguments that showed a few years in one of them, growing tomatoes, couldn't help but be a healthy experience for a peasant boy who had previously known only the confines of a small seaside village.

The Boy.

The letters appeared on the covers of each of Nubar's journals. All day long he scribbled illegibly in his journals, sipping mulberry raki to steady his nerves, then gathered up the journals at twilight and went off to San Marco's where he moved from café to café, accosting strangers to read them passages aloud from the journals, or thrusting the journals into the hands of astonished tourists and trying to run away, so they would be trapped with them and perhaps read a page or two.

Spring passed into summer and summer into autumn.

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