What passed for hostels, called khans, were considerably less appealing: little more than walled courts that served chiefly as corrals for fleas. We also encountered bands of tough-looking horsemen who on four different occasions demanded a toll for passing. Each time I was expected by my companions to contribute more than what seemed my fair share. These parasites looked like simple robbers to t h e
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me, but Mohammad insisted they were local village toughs who kept even worse bandits away, and each village had a right to a portion of this toll, called a ghafar. He was probably telling the truth, since being taxed for protection against robbers is something all governments do, isn’t it? These armed louts were a cross between private extortionists and the police.
When I wasn’t grumbling about the unceasing drain upon my purse, however, Israel had its charm. If Palestine didn’t quite carry the atmosphere of antiquity that Egypt had, it still seemed well-trodden, as if we could hear the echoes of long-past Hebrew heroes, Christian saints, and Muslim conquerors. Olive trees had the girth of a wine cask, the wood twisted by countless centuries. Odd bits of historic rubble jutted from the prow of every hill. When we paused for water, the ledges leading down to spring or well were concave and smooth from all the sandals and boots that had gone before us. As in Egypt, there was a clarity to the light, very different from foggy Europe.
The air had a dusty taste as well, as if it had been breathed too many times.
It was at one of these khans that I was reminded that I hadn’t left the world of the medallion entirely behind. A geezer of indeterminate faith and age was given meager sustenance by the innkeeper for doing the odd chore about the place, and he was so meek and unassuming that none of us paid him much mind except to ask for a cup of water or an extra sheepskin to sprawl on. I would have had eyes for a serving wench, but a raggedy man pushing a twig broom did not capture my attention, so when I was undressing in the wee hours and had my golden seraphim momentarily exposed, I backed into him and jumped before I knew he was there. He was staring goggle-eyed at my little angels, wings outstretched, and at first I thought the old beggar had spied something he longed to steal. But instead he stepped back in consternation and fear.
I flipped my linen over the seraphim, the brightness vanishing as if light had gone out.
“The compass,” he whispered in Arabic.
“What?”
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“Satan’s fingers. Allah’s mercy be upon you.” He was clearly as addled as a loon. Still, his look of dismay made me uneasy. “They’re personal relics. Not a word of this, now.”
“My imam whispered of these. From the den.”
“The den?” They’d come from under the Great Pyramid.
“Apophis.” And with that, he turned and fled.
Well, I hadn’t been so flabbergasted since the danged medallion had actually worked. Apophis! That was the name of a snake god, or demon, that Astiza had claimed was down in the bowels of Egypt.
I didn’t take her seriously—I am a Franklin man, after all, a man of reason, of the West—but something had been down in a smoky pit I’d had no desire to get closer to, and I thought I’d left it and its name long behind in Egypt. . . . Yet here it had been spoken again!
By the snout of Anubis, I’d had quite enough of stray gods and goddesses, mucking up my life like unwanted relatives tracking the floor with mud on their boots. Now a senescent handyman had brought the name up again. Surely it made no sense, but the coincidence was unnerving.
I hurriedly redressed, secreting the seraphim again in my clothing, and hurried outside my cubicle to seek the old man out and ask him what the name meant.
But he was nowhere to be found. The next morning, the innkeeper said the servant had apparently packed his meager belongings and fled.
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And then at last we came to fabled Jerusalem. I’ll admit it was a striking sight. The city is perched on a hill set amid hills, and on three sides the ground falls steeply to narrow valleys. It is on the fourth side, the north, from which invaders always come. Olives, vineyards, and orchards clothe the hillsides, and gardens provide clusters of green within. Formidable walls two miles long, built by a Muslim sultan called Suleiman the Magnificent, entirely enclose the city’s inhabitants. Fewer than nine thousand people lived there when t h e
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I arrived, subsisting economically on pilgrims and a desultory pottery and soap industry. I’d learn soon enough that about four thousand were Muslims, three thousand Christians, and two thousand Jews.
What picked the place out were its buildings. The primary Muslim mosque, the Dome of the Rock, has a golden cupola that glows like a lighthouse in the setting sun. Closer to where we stood, the Jaffa Gate was the old military citadel, its crenellated ramparts topped by a round tower like a lighthouse. Stones as colossal as the ones I’d seen in Egypt made up the citadel’s base. I’d find similar rocks at the Temple Mount, the old Jewish temple plateau that now served as the base of the city’s great mosque. Apparently, Jerusalem’s foundations had been laid by Titans.
The skyline was punctuated everywhere by domes, minarets, and church towers bequeathed by this crusader or that conqueror, each trying to leave a holy building to make up for his own national brand of slaughter. The effect was as competitive as rival vegetable stalls at a Saturday market, Christian bells tolling as muzzeins wailed and Jews chanted their prayers. Vines, flowers, and shrubs erupted from the ill-maintained wall, and palms marked squares and gardens. Outside, ranks of olive trees marched down to twisting, rocky valleys that were smoky from burning garbage. From this terrestrial hell-dump one lifted the eye to heaven, birds wheeling in front of celestial cloud palaces, everything sharp and detailed. Jerusalem, like Jaffa, was the color of honey in the low sun, its limestone fermenting in the yellow rays.
“Most men come here looking for something,” Mohammad remarked as we gazed across the Citadel Valley toward the ancient capital. “What do you seek, my friend?”
“Wisdom,” I said, which was true enough. That’s what the Book of Thoth was supposed to contain, and by Franklin’s spectacles I could use some. “And news of one I love, I hope.”
“Ah. Many men search their entire lives without finding wisdom or love, so it is well you come here, where prayers for both might be answered.”
“Let’s hope so.” I knew that Jerusalem, precisely because it was 2 8
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reputed to be so holy, had been attacked, burned, sacked, and pillaged more times than any place on earth. “I’ll pay you now and seek out the man I’m to stay with.” I tried not to jingle my purse too much as I counted out the rest of his fee.
He took his pay eagerly and then reacted with practiced shock.
“Not a gift for sharing my expertise about the Holy Land? No rec-ompense for the safety or your arrival? No affirmation of this glorious view?”
“I suppose you want credit for the weather, as well.” He looked hurt. “I have tried to be your servant, effendi.” So, twisting in my saddle so he couldn’t see how little was left, I gave him a tip I could ill afford. He bowed and gave effusive thanks.
“Allah smiles on your generosity!”
I wasn’t able to keep the grumpiness from my “Godspeed.”
“And peace be upon you!”