O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [13]
The name Jaffa—or Yafo—seemed to be central to the argument. Working from that clue, I decided that our two guides were proposing to double back and see what they could find out about Yitzak’s “man with the mullah.” Holmes, naturally enough, was objecting to this plan; if I knew him, he would propose instead that he himself return to Jaffa and investigate while Ali and Mahmoud cooled their heels here. Seeing Ali’s expression flare into outrage, I judged that the proposal had just been made, and that perhaps it was a good time for me to step in.
“Holmes,” I called. “Do I understand it aright, that they wish to go into Jaffa and ask questions but that you object?”
“But of course,” he began. “How can I know—”
“Holmes,” I said, addressing my mentor, my senior partner in crime, a man nearly old enough to be my grandfather, a person revered by half the world. “Holmes, don’t be difficult. They’re right, and you’re wasting time. I didn’t argue last night when I was sent away with the rest of the household goods, because it was the sensible thing to do. Now the sensible thing would be to let them get on with it. Painful as it is to admit, I can’t be left alone here during the day—my Arabic wouldn’t stand up to a visitor. Yours would.”
I allowed nothing in my attitude to suggest another reason that he stay where he was instead of haring off for a strenuous day in Jaffa; if he was not going to mention his half-healed back, I was certainly not about to bring it up. He glared suspiciously at me, and Ali looked flabbergasted at my effrontery, but Mahmoud glanced sideways at me with something verging on respect, looked up into the air, and recited in English, “Would they attribute to Allah females who adorn themselves with trinkets and have no power of disputation?” He then arose, taking the argument as settled. Ali followed his example with alacrity lest Holmes change my mind, but before they went, Mahmoud went to one of the packs and dug out a grimy block of notepaper, the stub of a pencil, a wooden ruler, and a tidy skein of string with knots tied all through it. He handed the collection to me, and pointed with his chin to a spot down the dusty road.
“The tall rock with the vine?” he said in Arabic, and waited until I nodded. “One hundred metres, with that as the centre. We need a map.”
“Why?”
It seemed a reasonable enough question on my part, but his answer was not helpful.
“ ‘A subdivision of geometry is surveying,’ ” he pronounced.
“And… ?”
“ ‘One who knows geometry acquires wisdom,’ ” he elucidated, then turned on his heel and walked away, with Ali close behind him. I looked at Holmes, let the crude survey instruments fall to the ground, and went back to my pile of packs to sleep.
However, further sleep was not meant to be, thwarted by (in order of appearance) an old man in a cart, a young boy with a cow, an even younger boy with six goats, three cheerful and extraordinarily filthy charcoal burners gathering fuel, the old man in the cart returning, and a chicken. All including the chicken had to pause and investigate our curious encampment, making conversation with Holmes and eyeing his apparently dumb but not unentertaining companion.
In the end, I threw off my cloak and my attempt at sleep, to storm over to the vine-covered rock and begin my assigned survey. I knew it was a completely pointless bit of make-work, given us by Mahmoud just to see if we would do it, but by God, do it I would, and in a manner so meticulous as to be sarcastic. Taunting, even. So I sweated beneath the sun with that length of tangled string, barking my shins on rocks and disturbing whole communities of scorpions and dung beetles, mapping out a precisely calculated square whose sides ran compass straight, placing in it every bush, boulder, and patch of sand. I measured, Holmes (when we were alone) noted down the measurements, and then I took a seat in the shade of a scruffy tree and rendered up drawings that would have made an engineer proud. Four drawings, in fact: the map; a topographical diagram; an elevation