The man, understandably enough, seemed mildly taken aback at my question. “You are interested in building, or in archaeology, Miss—?”
“Russell. Oh, archaeology, definitely. I think had I been a man I should have liked nothing better than to spend my life grubbing about underground, excavating the lives of our ancestors and discovering tombs and tunnels and things.”
I had hooked him with my first cast. He reached out to shift a candlestick to one side so as to see me more clearly. “Not buried treasure, Miss Russell? That’s a much more usual interest among amateur archaeologists. Some of whom, may I say, are women.”
“Oh, yes? How interesting. But I’m not particularly concerned with gold and such. I much prefer the objects of daily life, bead necklaces and pots and carved stone kitchen gods and such. I found a tiny Roman perfume phial in the soil the other day—broken, of course, but so much more real than the jewels of the aristocracy.”
Everyone in Jerusalem, it soon became apparent, is passionate about the artefacts of the past, and we quickly had an active little discussion group going over the soup and the fish. Our hostess glanced down at us, relieved if a bit puzzled. Holmes, seated to General Allenby’s left, threw the occasional brooding look down to our end of the table. The subject flew south with a remark about the excavation of tombs in Egypt, but I ruthlessly dragged it home again.
“Tombs are so jolly, don’t you think?” I asked brightly. “I do so love dark and closed-in places. I should think there must be plenty of them hereabouts, come to think of it.”
“Well,” said the man to the left of the dark man, “you’ve certainly asked the right man about that. Jacob, tell her about your discovery of Hezekiah’s Tunnel.”
I hadn’t just caught a fish with my random cast; I’d struck gold. “You’re not that boy?”
“It was a very long time ago.”
“But you were that boy. You and your friend waded through the tunnel.”
“Swam through, more like. And I’m afraid Sampson was a broken reed—he became frightened of the darkness in the tunnel and ran back home. We were supposed to meet halfway, but he never appeared, and in the end I emerged down at the Pool of Siloam, completely terrifying the poor women doing their laundry there when I came out of the hole. They thought I was an afreet; I was fortunate to get away with a few bruises.‘’
“I was just saying to—a friend the other day how I should love to go through Hezekiah’s Tunnel.”
“I wouldn’t have thought it appealing to a young lady, Miss Russell. It’s an extremely dirty and uncomfortable sort of adventure. Just the thing for a young boy.” The people near us who were listening chuckled, and I wondered briefly how he, and they, might react were I to describe how I had spent my day; however, I merely returned his smile. He added, “I found out later it’s actually a rather dangerous sort of stunt. The water at the Virgin’s Pool has a nasty habit of rising without warning and filling the tunnel to the top.”
“Are there many such tunnels in Jerusalem?”
“Tunnels like that, no. Most of the tunnels in the Old City are either much newer subterranean aqueducts, or buried chambers.”
“Aqueducts.”
“Such as the one Herod built to bring water from the reservoir at Bethlehem. Now, that’s quite an interesting engineering feat. Not as impressive as the Siloam tunnel, perhaps, but good solid work. Of course, most of it’s redundant now, with the new British pipes. What a godsend that has been. Why, last summer—”
“Are they empty?” I interrupted.
“Sorry?”
“The old underground aqueducts. Are they still flowing, or empty?”
He sat back and pursed his lips. “Do you know, I haven’t the faintest idea. We all used to be so interested in that sort of thing, the whole town would come to see when something exciting was dug up, but somehow after the last few years, we just haven’t gotten back to it yet. It’s a bit like a hobby, you know, with the tourists looking on, but there just hasn’t been the time or the energy. It was very bad here, you know, towards the end.”
“So I understand.”
“Of course, we didn’t have bombs raining down on us as you had in London.” I had spent very little time in the city during the war, but I did not disabuse him of the picture.
“No, just monomaniacal pashas, uncontrollable troops, disease, drought, and starvation,” I said, stabbing a piece of succulent roast beef on my fork and conveying it to my mouth.
“Yes. Still, that’s over, isn’t it? The Brits are here, there’s water and food. They’ve even taken over the care of the sick and wounded. Perhaps we can carve a few hours out of the week again for leisure.”
“Well, if you plan an underground outing in the near future, do keep me in mind.”
“I shall indeed. In fact, why not next week? We could organise a family picnic into Solomon’s Quarries. Some of the younger children have never been in there. It might take a few days to clear the entrance of débris and check the roof for rocks that have worked their way loose, but it would be great fun. Do you know, I can’t remember the last time we did anything just for the pleasure of it.” His sallow cheeks had taken on a degree of colour, and he looked younger than he had before.
“What are Solomon’s Quarries?”
“An enormous cave directly beneath the city—its entrance is near the Damascus Gate. It was actually once a quarry, one can still see the chisel marks and a few half-separated blocks, but it’s probably not, as tradition has it, the source of the Temple blocks. As I remember, the stone is too soft.”
It would have to be a very large cave indeed to stretch to the Cotton Bazaar, thus undermining half the city, but it was underground, and underground was where my interests lay.
“I should be very interested to see it. How far back does it reach?”
“I don’t remember the exact measurement, offhand. Perhaps one hundred fifty, even two hundred yards.” My interest increased. Five or six hundred feet was a goodly distance in the tiny city.
“How does one enter it?”
“There used to be an iron gate, just east of the Damascus Gate. In fact, our store here at the Colony used to sell tickets for a franc. Not since the war, though. Just let me ask—O’Brien! Say, have you noticed any tourists going into the Cotton Grotto lately? No? I didn’t think so. We were just thinking of getting up a picnic down there. Miss Russell here—”
“What did you call it?” I interrupted urgently.
“Call what?” The intensity of my voice confused him. Several of our neighbours glanced over at me, but I paid them no mind.
“The cave. What did you just call it?”
“The grotto? Yes, that’s the other name for it. Less grand than Solomon’s Quarries, which is the name the tour books use. Locals go by the Arabic name. The Cotton Grotto.”
TWENTY-THREE
ل
The arts are well established in a city only after sedentary culture has a long duration there.
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THE