Fantastic Metropolis

Maud’s story begins in America in the late nineteenth century and moves on to Albania, where she marries Catherine Wallenstein, the mad and depraved son of Skanderbeg Wallenstein. She leaves behind a son, Nubar, when she flees from Catherine’s murderous dementia. Her life crosses that of Sivi, the charming and kind bon vivant of Smyrna, and eventually she comes to Jerusalem, where she falls in love with Joe. Maud’s story continues through the first three volumes of the quartet, and her life intersects those of several of the other characters—Stern and Munk Szondi, as well as Joe and Sivi.

As in Quin’s Shanghai Circus, complex relationships and coincidences pepper the ongoing narrative. The following from Sinai Tapestry seems curiously appropriate to Whittemore’s storytelling style:

Occasionally he chanted about mighty wars and migrations and who begat whom, and although he sometimes presented the solemn side of life he also included the sensuous and sacrificing, all the while enlivening his chants with anecdotes and sayings and reports, curious inventions, every manner of adventure and experience that might come to mind.

Sinai Tapestry is a marvelous story in the true sense of the word “marvelous,” full of astonishing and extremely improbable happenings. Yet so engaging are the characters, so beguiling are the scenes conjured up by the skill of Whittemore’s writing, and so exotic are the locations, that the reader willingly suspends disbelief. Central to it all is Jerusalem, the city on the hill, which is described in detail by one obviously familiar with its byways and history. This is not surprising, as Whittemore wrote most of the quartet while living in the city itself.

The Jerusalem Quartet II: Jerusalem Poker

Jerusalem Poker is the second novel of the sequence and several new characters make an appearance, most notably Cairo Martyr and Munk Szondi, who, along with Joe O’Sullivan Beare, run the great Jerusalem poker game, a game begun on a rainy night in 1921 and ending 12 years later. The three players represent the main religious factions within the old city—Muslim, Jew, and Christian.

The stakes in the game are no less than control of the city of Jerusalem. The book was first published in 1978 and is probably the most fantastically imagined of the entire quartet. As in the previous novels, each character has a remarkable history, and once again consists of “stories within stories,” creating a series of intricate relationships that hark back to Sinai Tapestry and even Quin’s Shanghai Circus. Each character has a signature motif: Cairo carries an albino monkey on his shoulder and smokes mummy dust; Munk eats mounds of garlic and carries a remarkable watch that can tell three different times; Joe wears the uniform of an officer from the Crimean War and consumes potatoes, washed down with poteen swigged from an antique bottle from Crusader times.

The action of Jerusalem Poker overlays that of Sinai Tapestry and expands on events touched upon in the earlier book. Central to Cairo Martyr’s story is that of Menelik Ziwar, the greatest Egyptologist of the nineteenth century, longtime friend to Strongbow with whom he has enjoyed a forty year conversation. More of Menelik’s story is divulged in Nile Shadows. Also a part of Cairo’s background is the remarkable Johann Luigi Szondi, a “highly gifted linguist with a passion for details,” who, during the course of a walking tour of the Levant in the early nineteenth century, passed some time with Cairo’s maternal great grandmother. Curiously enough he is also the common ancestor of Skanderbeg Wallenstein (father), Nubar Wallenstein (great grandfather), and Munk Szondi (great grandfather).

Munk’s background is every bit as bizarre as Cairo’s, what with the exploits of Johann Luigi Szondi and the establishment of the banking empire of the Sarahs. Munk’s path also crosses those of two characters from Quin’s Shanghai Circus, the twin Kikuchi brothers, General Kikuchi and his older twin Rabbi Lotmann (the former Baron Kikuchi, who converted to Judaism and became a fervent Zionist).

The great Jerusalem poker game is presented as a running commentary throughout the novel—and is more than just a game of cards. Mysterious and powerful forces are at work, from the sundial chimes striking the time in anachronous strokes, to the game play itself. The three main players—Joe, Cairo, and Munk—maintain a status quo within the game, overall neither winning or losing; other players come and go, losing or winning according to their just desserts. A moral principle is involved, and losers are required to make appropriate amends when condemned by the fall of the cards.