Jericho Mosaic

because Moses always believes anything I tell him and I always believe anything he tells me. It was Bell who asked questions and straightened us out.

Abu Musa wiped his face with his sleeve. The sweat was still pouring off him.

It must be hot work beating a drum in Jericho today, whispered Tajar.

Today or any day, agreed Abu Musa. But when you live in the lowest and oldest village on earth, you have to expect some heat. You don't look so young yourself. Do you understand dreams?

A bit. What kind are we referring to?

The ones that come during sleep, whispered Abu Musa, bending down more to get his mouth closer to the ear of the little man on crutches. Once more Abu Musa mopped his face.

This heat, whispered Tajar. But dreams, you say?

Yes. You see I had one the day Bell died.

Ah.

During my siesta that afternoon. I was on my way here, hurrying over to tell Bell and Moses about the dream, when I found him. He was sitting right where you now see his hat, sitting and smiling with a glass of arak in his hand and gazing out at the orange grove, at just about the spot where we're standing now. It was uncanny. He looked exactly the way he always looked.

Ah.

A thin man, Bell, and he always sat very erect. I could never understand why he was so thin when he ate so much. Those immense curry dinners, for example. You know about them. He served them to you, he served them to me and Moses, he served them to Assaf and to others in the past.

Others?

There was his Syrian friend some years back, the man from Damascus. Bell also made curry dinners for him.

And after that, almost every week it seemed, there was the Indian trader passing through. Before you turned up in Bell's life, of course, and took the trader's place.

He once told me about an Indian trader, whispered Tajar, but I thought the trader was imaginary. I also thought he was speaking about something that might have happened two thousand years ago. Was there really an Indian trader?

Abu Musa nodded thoughtfully and wiped his face with his sleeve, still bending down to keep his head close to Tajar, who craned upward. The buzz of their whispering voices was easily hidden by the incessant beat of the drum and Moses's powerful chant, by the hum of insects in the orange grove and the gentle snores rising from the spectators asleep under the trees.

Assuredly the Indian trader did exist, whispered Abu Musa. Not for us to see him but in Bell's mind. Once a week Bell would announce that the Indian trader was due that night and excuse himself early from the social hour, to go into his kitchen to make preparations.

Ah, I see.

Thump-thump boom.

To make curries, in other words, which he would then eat alone, in the company of the Indian trader who existed in his mind. And you know how he ate when one of his curry dinners was in front of him: like a camel that had been lost in the wilderness for forty years. So I always asked myself, why did he remain thin?

And the answer?

A mystery to the end, whispered Abu Musa. One of God's mysterious gifts to a holy man. And there were other mysteries. My dream the day he died, for example. The very afternoon he died. It might even have been no more than a few moments before he died. There is a rumor that we sometimes have a vision before we die and in this vision our entire life passes before us in an instant, which is perhaps the instant it took us to live it. For one moment, in other words, we are given to see everything, all we are and were and have done and have been. Are you familiar with this rumor?

Yes.

Well that's what happened to me, whispered Abu Musa. I had that kind of utterly comprehensive dream and hurried over to tell Bell and Moses about it, to enlist their help in explaining it to me — not realizing at the time that it was a dream to sum up a life — and what did I find? I found Bell smiling as if a pleasant thought had just come to him . . . smiling and dead, so I closed his eye. Only later, after reconsidering it, did I realize the dream was his, not mine. It was his life I had seen in its entirety, not my own, which was why so much of the dream had seemed mysterious to me and slightly askew. So that's a more important mystery. Death came to him but the dream came to me. Nor is that all. The day after Bell's death I told Moses about my curious dream, and it turned out that exactly the same thing had happened to him.

Thump-thump boom.

What? You mean Moses also dreamed Bell's life? whispered Tajar.

Abu Musa smiled and mopped his face. So Moses claims, he whispered, but he might just be following my lead. In spiritual matters our monkish Moses has always been notoriously susceptible to suggestion, including his own. Just look at this service he's putting on for Bell. Wouldn't any serious Christian be scandalized by it?

I'm not so sure anyone would find it amiss, whispered Tajar. And in any case I like it. I like the drum and Moses's chants, and I like the people dozing under the trees. Everyone seems to be enjoying himself and that's a fine tribute to Bell. In fact, I feel nothing but elation.

Abu Musa's eyes flashed. An immense warm smile burst over his dripping, sweaty face.

But that's wonderful, he whispered. I like it too and elation is just the right word. And we feel this way, you and I, because we have both had the vast good fortune to have known this compassionate, genuine, hard-drinking holy man whom we are here to honor. Surely God has never fashioned finer handiwork, don't you agree? But come now, at once.

Where?

Abu Musa had seized Tajar by the shoulder and was propelling him out of the shade and into the clearing.

The dazed youth on the drum had been relieved by another dazed youth who thumped on. Moses also droned on and most of the friends and neighbors in the orange grove were now definitely asleep. Tajar looked over his shoulder and saw Anna sitting with Abigail and Assaf under a tree near the gate, watching him with startled eyes. Abu Musa dragged him right up beside Moses.

Welcome him, he's one of us, whispered Abu Musa, tugging Moses's robes.

Moses broke off his chant and turned and smiled. He reached down and put his hands under Tajar's arms and lifted him up off the ground as if he were a child, raising him up in the air to his own eye level. Tajar's crutches dangled at the ends of his arms. Moses pulled Tajar in and hugged him and noisily placed a kiss on each side of his face.

Welcome, said Moses, beaming. Then he lowered Tajar down to the ground and turned back to face the porch and the tattered chair and Bell's old straw hat, resuming his chant. Abu Musa nodded happily and sat down at Moses's feet, once more taking his place at the drum. Tajar hobbled out of the clearing and through the shade of the orange grove toward Anna and Abigail and Assaf, who were all silently clapping. Anna held his hand when he sat down beside her.

Bravo, she whispered. But what did all that mean? It looked like some special little ceremony. Have you joined something?

Tajar nodded, smiling.

It seems I've become the third partner of a shesh-besh game, he said. I watch and they play. I also comment on what they say. Now and then I turn up here and sit on the porch with them.

Is that all?

All? But the game has no end, Anna. Don't you see? I've been invited to become part of Jericho time.

***

Later Abu Musa came to join them where they sat under the trees near the gate. He was happy they were all there and especially thankful that Anna had come. After chatting for a while he gestured toward the clearing and the front porch.