Cairo laughed. He uncorked another bottle of champagne and the pigeons took flight. The two of them watched the pigeons fly away and slowly return, swooping in ever narrower circles.
By God they're getting little enough rest today with all these champagne shots going off. But it's nice to see them circling overhead all the same, knowing their home and coming back to it.
Who's going to feed them after you leave?
Don't know, but I'll find some unemployed beggar or pious fanatic to do the trick, no shortage of hands like that in Jerusalem. Say Cairo, I was just thinking. Why'd you really suggest we let Munk win all our money?
Why not? Isn't it appropriate? The three of us began the game and we're dropping out, so he should be the winner.
That's fine with me as I said, but I still have this feeling.
What feeling?
That there's something more. Another reason. Let's admit it, Cairo lad, you're shamelessly sentimental.
So what's the other reason?
Cairo tipped his head. He smiled.
Family. That's the other reason.
Joe nodded. He cracked a lobster tail. Juice squirted over his face and he dabbed at it, licking his finger.
Do you tell me that?
Yes. Munk and I are cousins.
Joe waved the lobster tail toward the city.
Hear that, Jerusalem? You just see how it goes around here?
He turned to Cairo and grinned.
Now hold on there, go slow with me today. I'm feasting on a Christmas banquet and not thinking too clearly. Not making a little joke are you?
No.
Cousins, you say? You and the Munk are cousins?
Yes.
Well you wouldn't look to be cousins, that much I'm sure of. But if you say you are, you are. Some years ago I learned it's best not to disbelieve anything you hear around here. So all right then. How do you and Munk come to be cousins?
We had the same great-grandfather.
Joe whistled softly.
And why not, I say. I've always wondered why you had blue eyes. Well he must have been a wandering man. A fair-skinned Sudanese then? Or a dark-skinned Hungarian?
Cairo laughed.
Neither. He was Swiss.
Ah, of course he was, I should have guessed. Traditional neutrality and so forth, not wanting either of you to think he was favored over the other. Clever man he must have been too, keeping his options open in the manner he did, not about to limit his familial future by way of race or continent either. But who was this wandering ancestor with tendencies to father sons in lands as disparate as Hungary and the Sudan?
Albania was another.
Also a son in Albania, you say? I don't think I like that. The only Albanians I've ever heard of are the Wallensteins. Now you're not going to be telling me that nasty little Nubar Wallenstein is also kin to the two of you. Not so much, are you? Tell me it's not the case.
Cairo smiled.
I'm afraid it is.
It is? Then I'm afraid I just went overboard at sea in rough weather with nothing to hold on to. Or maybe what's worse, lost my bearings in a vast bog with the evening light sinking and me having no idea which way is out. Take pity, Cairo, which way is out? Who was this wandering Swiss?
His name was Johann Luigi Szondi. Born in Basle in 1784.
Why do you mention Basle?
Because that's where Strongbow's study was published and burned nearly a century later.
Stop it, Cairo, we'll just leave Strongbow out of this. Go back to this Luigi fellow. Who was he?
A highly gifted linguist with a passion for details.
Details? I believe it. He left enough of them scattered around. So he's born highly gifted, what next?
In 1802, as a student, Johann Luigi made a walking tour to the Levant and asked for lodging one night in an
Albanian castle. The master of the castle was away at war, the master's young wife was alone and friendly. Check an Albanian cousin. Later Johann Luigi became a doctor in Budapest and married Munk's great-grandmother, Sarah the First. Check a Hungarian cousin. Later still he traveled through the Middle East and Africa in disguise, and met my great-grandmother in a village on the fringe of the Nubian desert. Check a Sudanese cousin.
Check, said Joe, I'm suddenly tired. All this moving around and fathering sons at the beginning of the last century is exhausting. Before you tell me any more, can't we just sit still for a moment and contemplate the view?
Of course we can. In fact that's exactly what I was going to suggest.
You were?
Yes. Now let's allow about a hundred years to go by and position ourselves in front of a villa beside the Bosporus.
Why would we want to do that?
To contemplate the view, and also to consider a remarkable event. Tell me, how do you imagine it's known that young Johann Luigi made a walking tour to the Levant in 1802?
I think Luigi might have told his wife about it later when he married her, Sarah the First. She could have passed the information on down and thus Munk would have the fact tucked away today.
Correct. And the night on that walking tour when Johann Luigi stayed in an Albanian castle? Entertained by a young and friendly wife whose husband was away at war?
I think maybe Luigi didn't bother to mention that one to Sarah the First. No reason to alarm her after the fact, marriage being sacred and all. Merely an indiscretion in his youth, and only one night of it at that.
Cairo gazed out over the city.
Hey wait, said Joe, sitting up. Only one night in the Wallenstein castle and then on his way? How did Luigi know he'd made the wife in the castle pregnant?
Cairo flashed his smile.
That's right. How indeed?
Well he couldn't have known. So there's no way he could have passed on that information to anyone.
That information could only have come from the young and friendly wife in the Wallenstein castle.
Correct.
So where are we?
As I said, we're standing in front of a villa beside the Bosporus about a century later, contemplating the view. The year is 1911, to be exact. As we gaze at the last of the sunset over Europe we notice that a carriage is approaching the villa, its curtains drawn.
Which curtains? Carriage or villa?
Both.
Ah.
Now. The gate to the villa is situated in such a way that visitors can draw up to the entrance without being seen by observers such as us, who are seemingly standing beside the Bosphorus gazing at sunsets.
Naturally, considering the nature of the business often conducted by the person or persons unknown who reside in this villa.
Nefarious business, said Joe, that's what. I can see it coming. All manner of pranks, did you say, going on in this villa?
Perhaps. Now the two of us aren't everyday observers, we both know that, and with our superior vision we're able to see this particular visitor who has just alighted from the curtained carriage to enter the curtained villa. And we do so even though the sun has set and the villa is cloaked in impenetrable shadows.
Shadows, muttered Joe, pouring more champagne. I sense a rendezvous in the works that can't bear the light of day. Definitely a clandestine affair. Of course I already suspected that when I took careful note of the curtains over all and sundry.
Correct, said Cairo. Now can you make out the visitor who is emerging from the carriage in the shadows?
I'm peering. I honestly am. My eyes are sharply narrowed and I'm using my best night vision.